Uninformed seekers have to learn various lessons before they find their way to this path, to philosophy. They are attracted to ancient ideas and outworked methods of which only a portion really suit today's humanity. What has happened to the races and to the globe on which they dwell has affected their character and mind, their tendencies, capacities, and faculties. Those who look back nostalgically to teachings and texts, lands and names so honoured--and quite worthily too--do not know or understand this. The fact that there are certain basic eternal truths is certainly irrefragable. That Mind always was, is, and will be, is one of them. That the human soul is linked with it (through the World-Mind) is another. But the methods by which this link may be vivified and the men who are to use them and the circumstances under which they live have all been modified.
-- Notebooks Category 20: What Is Philosophy? > Chapter 3 : Its Requirements > # 32
