My Library

However confident ignorance of the difficulties of the future may allow us to feel now, it is impossible for us to tell at this stage what we shall find ourselves able to do when, after many lives of patient striving, we have earned the right to choose our own future; and indeed, even those who"yield to the temptation to become gods” have a sufficiently glorious career before them, as will presently be seen. Tt> avoid possible misunderstanding it may be mentioned par parertfhese that there is another and entirely evil sense sometimes attached in the books to this phrase of" becoming a god,” but fn that form it certainly could never be any kitid of"temptation” to the developed man, and in ^ny case it is altogether foreign to our present subject. ’ •
In oriental literature the word"deva” is frequently used vaguely to mean almost any kind of non-human entity, so that it would often include great divinities on the one’ hand, and nature-spirits and artificial elementals on the dther. Here, however, its use will be restricted to the magnificent evolution which we are now considering.