370 ROSICRUCIANCOSMO-CONCEPTION
If we now apply what has been said about music or
sound to the problem of how this inner force is awakened
and strengthened, we may perhaps understand the matter
better.
In the first place, let us particularly note the fact that the
two tuning-forks wereof the same pitch. Had this not been
the case, we might have sounded and sounded one of them
until the crack of doom, but the other one would have
remained mute. Let us understand this thoroughly: Vibration
can be induced in one tuning-fork by one oflike tone only.
Any thing, or any being, can be affected as above stated by
no sound exceptits own key-note.
We know that this force of Altruism exists. We also
know that it is less pronounced among uncivilized people
than among people of higher social attainment, and among
the very lowest races it is almost entirely lacking. The
logical conclusion is that there was a time when it was
altogether absent. Consequent upon this conclusion follows
the natural question: What induced it?
The material personality surely had nothing to do with
it; in fact, that part of man's nature was much more
comfortable without it than it has been at any time since.
Man must have had the force of Altruism latentwithin,
otherwise it could not have been awakened. Still further, it
must have been awakened by a force of the same kind—a
similar force that was already active—as the second tuning-
fork was started into vibration by the firstafter it was struck.
We also saw that the vibrations in the second fork
become stronger and stronger under the continued impacts
of sound from the first, and that a glass case was no
hindrance to the induction of the sound. Under the continued
impacts of a force similar to that within him, the Love of