The Exoteric and the Isoterical

There are heights of the soul from which tragedy itself no longer appears to operate tragically. That which serves the higher class of men for nourishment or refreshment must be almost poisoned to an entirely different and lower order of human beings. The virtues of the common man would perhaps mean vice and weakness in a philosopher. It might be possible for a highly developed man, supposing him to degenerate and go to ruin, to acquire qualities thereby alone. He would have to be honoured as a saint in the lower world into which he had sunk. In the former case they are dangerous, disturbing, unsettling books. There are books which have an inverse value for the soul and the health, according as the