Book 4 (Part II)

99 The Magician cannot wield the Sword unless the Crown is on his head. Those Magicians, who have attempted to make the Sword the sole or even the principal weapon, have only destroyed themselves, not by the destruction of combination, but by the destruction of division/ Weak- ness overcomes strength. The most stable political edifice of history has been that of China, which was founded principally on politeness; and that of India has proved strong enough to absorb its many conquerors." The Sword has been the great weapon of the last century. Every idea has been attacked by thinkers, and none has withstood attack. Hence civilization crumbles. No settled principles remain. To-day all constructive statesmanship is empiricism or opportunism. It has been doubted whether there is any real relation between Mother and Child, any real distinction between Male and Female. The human mind, in despair, seeing insanity imminent in the breaking ' It should be noted that this ambiguity in the word "destruction" has been the cause of much misunderstanding. Solve is destruction, but so is coagitla. The aim of the Magus is to destroy his partial thought by uniting it with the Universal Thought, not to make a further breach and division in the Whole. ^ The Brahmin caste is not so strict as that of the "heaven-born" (Indian Civil Service).