CHAPTER II.

A further Analysis of the Initial Principle, and its
Eduction into Light.

Deus, cum solus fuisset in principle-, creavit imam substari-
tiam ; hanc primam materiam nominamus. — Mylius Phil.
Reform, pars vi. lib. 1.

THE philosophy of the Kabalah, as delivered in
the only genuine Hebrew remains and their
commentaries, is eminently comprehensive and
sublime ; and these characteristics are mainly
dependent on its very great simplicity. All things
therein are ps3^chically derived : and, according to
the doctrine of an essential emanation, the whole
physical universe is extended and corporified, as
it were, by a multiplication of the indeficient unit
into its parts, under the intelligible Law of its own
proceeding Light. Into the Method of this philo-
soplry, or the many beautiful particulars arising
out of its material, space does not allow us to enter ;
they who are desirous may conveniently examine
for themselves, either in the Latin editions of
Rosenroth ;x or to begin with, Franck's very excel-
lent history of the Kabalah, which contains,
besides numerous translated passages from the
Hebrew, commentaries and notes, that we have
read with no less instruction than delight.2

The Initial Principle, however, which we have
been discussing, and to which it will be necessary to
confine inquiry for the present, is in the Zohar
designated by the name of Wisdom, or the Supreme
Crown ; that is to say, after it has become into
manifest Being ; but in the Beginning, for reasons
metaphysically explicable, the divine hypostasis

1 Kabbala Denudata, sen Doctrina Hebraeorum Transcend-
entalis et Liber Zohar Restitutus. Francf. 1684.

2 La Kabbale, ou Philosophic Religieuse des Hebreux,
par Ad. Franck. Paris, 1843.

Further Analysis. 325

is distinguished by the epithet of Unknown, and
described according to its negative absoluteness,
in the sum of two or three paragraphs, as follows :

All things before they became manifested were
concealed in the unknown and incomprehensible
Infinite, and this subsistence, whence all proceeded,
was but as an interrogation, an imperceptible
sufficience, having neither mind, nor figure, nor
self-comprehension, or Being, properly so called ;
but when the Unknown would manifest himself, he
begins by producing a point ; but, whilst the point
of Light remains within subjective and inseparate,
he is unknown, and as the Unity of things to be
developed only by the Separation of them in Him-
self : in this sense he is called the Ancient of Days,
the White Head, the Old Man by excellence, the
Mystery of Mysteries, Which is before all things
— whose emanation is All.3 And thus the hypo-
static vision is more prominently delineated. He
is, says the Rabbi Ben Jochai, speaking of the
same, the Mystery of Mysteries, and most un-
known of the unknown ; yet he has a form or
idiom which belongs to him ; but, under this
form by which he is seen, he remains still unknown.
His clothing is white, and his aspect that of a
countenance unveiled. . . . From his head he shakes
a dew which awakens the dead, and brings them to
new life ; wherefore, it is written, Thy dew is the
dew of light. It is this which nourishes the most
exalted saints, the manna which descends into
the field of sacred fruits ; the aspect of this dew
is white, as the diamond is white, the colour which
contains all.4

This white appearance of the primaeval splendour
in the abyss, is very constantly notified ; thus we
read in the Apocalypse, of the White Stone with
the new name written upon it ; and in the vision
of the Son of Man, of the snowy whiteness of his

3 Zohar, part i. Franck's Translation, pp 175, 185, &c„

4 Zohar, pa,rt iii. fol. 12, 8 recto in Franck. p. 170.

326 Laws and Conditions.

glory, whose hair was like wool, and white as snow.5
And I beheld, says the prophet in Enoch, the
Ancient of Days, whose head was like wool, etc.G
But these, and all such like revelations, will be
esteemed fanciful or figurative, perhaps, or arbi-
trary, since they are not commonly conceivable,
and the worldly mind is shut out from the imagina-
tion even, of occult truth They only who have
entered experiment ally within to know themselves,
have been satisfactorily able to recognise the
ground ; and they only who are gifted with an
approximating faith, to discriminate their uni-
versal testimony from amongst so many fanatical
delusions, will be inclined, or able either, to ad-
vance to the contemplation of their proofs.

But to continue. As all colours in their prismatic
unison are white, just so is the Universal Nature,
described as appearing in the evolution of her
Fontal Light ; and Paracelsus gives it as a reason,
that there should be a simple ground of all diver-
sity without confusion whereon to recreate : —
Omnia in Dei manu alba sunt ; is ea tingit ut vult: —
all things in the hand of God are white, says the
Magian, He colours them according to His
pleasure. Agreeably, the author of the Lucerna
Salis writes :— -The matter will become white like
a hoary man, whose aged complexion resembles
ice ; it will also whiten more afterwards, like
silver. Govern your fire with a great deal of care,
and afterwards you shall see that in you?- vessel
your matter will become white as snow. Then is
your elixir perfect as to the white work. — This
agrees with the descriptions of Arnold, Lully,
Artephius, and the rest cited in the Theory, which,
in the original verse, runs thus : —

Acquiret canitiem viri senis,
Albicabitque fere ut argentum,
Summa diligentia ignem rege

5 Revelation of St. John, chap i. v. 14 ; chap. ii. v 17
8 Book of Enoch, chap. xlvi. v. 1, &c.

Further Analysis. 327

Videbisque sequenter materiam in vitro

Albere omnind candore nivali

Et turn confectum est elixir ad album.7

The same Sendivogius, in his New Light, calls
the Water of our Sea, the Water of Life, not wetting
the hands ; and believe me, he says, for I saw it
with my eyes, and felt it — that water was as
white as snow.8 And Eirenaeus, but we will not
enlarge ; for is not this the Matter already defined
so often by the old Alchemists, saying, it is no
common water, but an unctuous mineral vapour,
universally subsisting ? Bodies, therefore, say
they, are to be turned into such a vapour, and this
vapour is the Stone known and proven in the Book
of Life — Sumatur lapis in capitulis notus ; —
Such is the subtle phrase of the Arabian ; and this
is the Matter everywhere alluded to, and so often
denoted in the Mysteries ; which in demoniacal
forms is at first in vision made apparent, nor
known until the eye of mind, regardant and puri-
fying, meets its First source. For are we not all
verily, " such stuff as dreams are made of ?" Yet
the discovery of it is no dream, if we may believe
the experienced ; but, on the contrary, every
phantastic desire and imagination is alienated and
merged in intellectual contact of the Thing itself,
which is our Identity. This is the true Hermetic
material, which is celebrated by all his disciples ;
that recommended by Orpheus to be taken in the
cave of Mercury, and carried in both hands
away ; and this is the power borne by the Centaur
Cheiron, the monster tutor of heroes, cloud-
begotten, sprung from out of the nebulous impure
ether, with a duplicate force, as it were, of a Magnet
armed to magnify and energize and prepare the
way, being the substance real, and promise of a
more perfect life to come. The same in Silenus is
satirically personified the most venerable pre-

7 Lucerna Salis, p. 153. 12mo.

8 Philosophical Parable.

328 Laws and Conditions.

ceptor of the God of Wine ; and this is Pan, and
the foundation of the great Saturnian Monarchy
of the Freed Will, which was once circumscribed
in Intellect, for the manifestation of its Light.

This same, the Arabians call Flos Salis Albi —
the Flower of White Salt, and thus the substant
hypostasis is said very truly to be designated ; and
. this is the white sand, Quellem, which Van Helmont
speaks of as manifesting itself forth in a vivid vital
soil, which spade or mattock never pierced.9 This is
the true magic earth wherein is the recreative fire,
even that " Land of Havilah, where good gold is ;"
and this fire binds the parts thereof spontaneously
to himself, coagulates them, and stops their flux ;
and this salt is the Water that wets not the hands ;
and that identical Magnesia that was exhibited in
the Mysteries ; the W^hite Island of Vishnu ; the
Lord of Radha ; the White Paradise, which the
author of the Round Towers, with an exclusiveness,
pardonable for its enthusiasm, mistook for his
Emerald Home.10

The Platonists have declared true Being to be
white, and all that Plato says, in Phcedo, about
Tartarus is, according to Olympiodorus, to be
understood ethically and physically : ethically, in
that Tartarus is the place of the soul's trial, where
the balance of existence is struck, and imperfec-
tions are made manifest ; physically, in that it is
the wholeness of existence. And what is written
about rivers and seas by Plato, which is ridiculous
in an external sense, is to be psychically under-
stood, as when he says that the taste and colour of
these waters is according to the quality of the earth
through which it flows ; this also indicates, adds
our exponent, that souls, in which reason does
not preside as a charioteer, are changed according
to the subject temperament of the body ; but

9 Oreatrike, chap. ix.

10 See the Round Towers of Ireland ; an estimable work, by
H, O'Brien, chap. xxii. p. 327

Further Analysis. 329

when reason has the dominion, the soul does not
yield, but, contrariwise, assimilates herself to the
Supreme virtue.11 And her first motion towards this
from her ultimate artificial recessure is the true
origin of matter, according to these philosophers,
and the primary cause of all, when the generative
virtue is drawn up into intellectual alliance with
the medial life and light.

In the third book of Reuchlin, De Arte Cabalis-
fica, we read, Nihil est in principio nisi Sapientia.
— Nothing is in the beginning but Wisdom, or
Sapience. — It is this which we are accustomed to
call the Three Persons in Divinity, the which is an
Absolute Essence, that, whilst it is retracted in the
Abyss of darkness, and rests still and quiet, or,
as they say, having respect to nothing, is for this
cause termed by the Hebrews, Ain, i.e. to say,
Nihil quoad nos ; nothing or no entity as respects
us. Because we, being affected with inability in the
conception, do judge and imagine of those things
which do not appear immediately as if they were
not at all. But when it has showed itself forth to
be somewhat indeed, and that it does really in the
human apprehension exist, then, continues the
Kabalist, is dark Aleph converted into light Aleph ;
as it is written, The night shine th as the day, the
darkness and the light are all alike to Him : —
Tenebrae sunt ei sicut ipsa lux.

Si tu, Deus me us, illuminaveris me
Lux fiunt tenebrae meae.

So Paradise was opened in the Seer, and by that
kindling of Divine enthusiasm in conjunction with
its source, the soft lenient Light was created,
which he celebrates, and whence all things are said
to emerge, and whither they return ; but without
our cognizance, who are chained to these exterior
surfaces, content with the bare tradition of a life
to come. But in that Place, whither he was
snatched up, the prophet describes them, and

11 See Taylor's Dissertation on Aristotle, book ii. p. 319.

330 Laws and Conditions.

what he beheld of the Radical Essence, and the
manifold glories of that mystical Adamic Soil. And
this I beheld, says he, the secret of Heaven and
of Paradise according to its divisions, and there my
eyes beheld the secrets of the thunder and lightning,
and the secrets of the winds, how they are distri-
buted as they blow over the earth. The secret of
the winds and of the clouds ; there I perceived the
place whence they issue forth, and I became
saturated with the dust of the earth. There I saw
the wooden receptacles (the vegetable or medial
life), out of which the winds became separated,
and the receptacles of the snow, and the cloud itself
which continued over the earth before the creation
of the world.12

This nebulous apparition of the Catholic
Embryo before its birth, some modern Kabalists
have explained to be an absolute concentration of
Divinity within its proper substance, i.e., of subject
and object, in their original identity ; which, as a
cloud before the falling shower, gives birth to the
primitive Ether, which is the pure attracting
vacuum, or understanding whereb}^ the central
efficient is drawn forth to will and operation.
Dionysius st}des it caligo divina, because, as he
says, it is obscure and humanly incomprehensible,
though visible indeed. The author of the Lumen
de Lumine calls it, from the Kabalists, Tenebrce
activce, and describes it as beneath all degrees of
sense and imagination — a certain horrible, inex-
pressible chasm.13

Non-being, which nor mind can see
Nor speech reveal ; since, as of Being void,
'Tis not the object of the mental eye ;
But there thy intellectual notions check
When in this path exploring.14

12 Book of Enoch, chap. xlvi. and xli.

13 Lumen de Lumine, the chapter on Matter, in init.

14 From the Fragments of Parmenides, given at the end of
Tay^r's Dissertation on Aristotle.

Further Analysis. 331

For its End is infinite ; as the Oracle forewarns,
— Stoop not down, for a precipice lies below in
the earth ; — it is nothing as respects the conscious-
ness before it is conceived ; nothing, as Dionysius
adds, of those things that are, or of those that
are not, in an empty destructive sense ; but it
becomes that only True Thing of which we can
affirm nothing, whose theology is negative ; but
which constitutes the perfect possession of the
most happy life. Thus Bohme also declares — God,
incomparably good and great, out of nothing
created something, and that something was made
one thing in which all things were contained, both
celestial and terrestrial. And this first something
was a certain cloud or darkness, which was con-
densed into water ; and this water is that One
Thing in which all things are contained.15

Now here we do not read either that all things
came of nothing absolutely, but that God of
nothing created something which was made that
one thing in which are all. And this One Thing
appears to be nothing less or more than that Iden-
tity which is made in the regeneration by the
reprocedure into experience out of the dissolute
void of life when artificially induced. As respects
the creature, therefore, it may be considered as
the first divine manifestation out of the abyss, when
the Spirit is brought forth into a new circulatory
confine, displaying its universal properties inter-
nally according to the magnetic virtue, action, and
passion of the Microcosmic Heaven. And there is
in the Celestial Light, continues the same author,
a Substance like water which yet is no water, but
such a spirit or property : but it burns more like
a kindred oil, and is called by many the Tincture.
And this Tincture is the source of the material
world, and gives to all essences virtue to grow :
it is also in all metals and stones ; it causes silver
and gold to grow, and without it nothing could
15 Generation of the Three Principles.

332 Laws and Conditions.

grow, but with it, all things : amongst all the chil-
dren of nature it only is a virgin, and has never
generated anything out of itself ; neither can it
generate, yet it makes all things that are to be
impregnated : it is the most hidden thing, and
also the most manifest ; it is the friend of God
and playfellow of virtue ; it suffers itself to be
detained of nothing and yet it is in all things ;
but if anything be done against the right of nature,
then it readily flies away : it continues in no kind
of decaying of anything, but abides constantly
with life. The way to it is very near, yet no lan-
guage can express it : nevertheless it meets them
that seek it aright in its oivn way. It is powerful,
yet of itself does nothing ; when it goes out of a
thing it comes not into it again naturally, but it
stays in its ether. It is not God, but it is God's
friend ; for it works not of itself. It is in all things
imperceptibly, and yet it may well be overpowered
and used, especially in metals : there it can of
itself, being pure, make gold of iron and copper,
and make a little grow to be a great deal. For it is
the source of universal increase ; its way is as
subtle as the thoughts of man, and his thoughts
do even arise from thence. All things are thence
arisen through the Divine Imagination and do
yet stand in such a birth, station, and government.
The four elements have likewise such a ground or
original ; but the understanding and capacity is
not in nature's own ability without the Light of
God ; but it is very easy to be understood by
those who are in the Light, to them it is easy and
plain™ — I have myself seen this knowledge,
continues our author in another place, with those
eyes wherein life generates in me, for the new
man speculates into the midst of the astral birth
or geniture, and thus, he adds, in explication the
method of his experience. — At last when, after
much Christian seeking and desire, and suffering
16 See Bohme's Works, vol. i. p. 97, 41 fol.

Further Analysis. 333

of much repulse, I resolved, he says, rather to put
my life to utmost hazard than to give over and
leave off ; the gate was opened to me, so that in
one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than
if I had been many years at the University ; at
which I did exceedingly admire, and knew not
how it happened to me ; and, therefore, I turned
my mind to praise God for it. For I saw and knew
the Being of beings, the Bysse, or ground or
original foundation ; and the Abysse, that is
without ground, or fathomless or void ; also the
birth or eternal generation of the Holy Trinity, the
descent and original of this world and of all
creatures through the Divine Wisdom, and I knew
and saw in myself all the Three Worlds : viz.,
first, the divine angelical, or paradisaical ; and
then the dark world, being the original of nature
by the Fire ; and then thirdly, the external and
visible world, being a procreation or extern birth
or, as it were, a substance expressed or spoken forth
from the internal and spiritual worlds. And I saw
and knew the whole Being, and working essence
in the evil and in the good, and the mutual
original and existence of each of them ; and like-
wise how the pregnant genetrix or fruitful bearing
womb of eternity brought forth, so that I did not
only greatly wonder at it, but did also exceedingly
rejoice. Albeit, I could very hardly apprehend the
same in my external man, and express it with my
pen. I saw as in a great deep in the Internal ; for
I had a thorough view of the universe as in a chaos
wherein all things are couched and wrapped up,
but it was impossible then for me to explain the
same. Yet it opened itself in me from time to time,
as a young plant, and came forth into the external
principle of my mind. . . . And thus I have written
not from instruction or knowledge received from
men, nor from the study of books, but I have
written out in my own book which was opened
in me, being the noble similitude, the book of the

334 Laws and Conditions.

most noble and precious image of God : and there-
in I have studied as a child in the house of its
mother, which beholdeth what the father doth.
I have no need of other books, my book hath only
three leaves, the same are the Principles of Eternity.
Therein I can find all whatsoever Moses and the
Prophets, Christ and his Apostles have taught and
spoken. I can find therein the foundation of the
world and mysteries ; and yet not I but the
Spirit of God doeth it according to the measure
as he pleaseth.17

Here we have modern testimony agreeing in all
particulars with the most ancient Kabalah and
profound experimental divinity ; nor this alone,
but other favoured individuals, amongst whom
Van Helmont relates, how by a mysterious hand
he was led along into a perception of the simple
element of nature. — And while I variously wan-
dered that I might view the Tree of Life, says the
physician, at length without the day and beyond
the beginning of the night, I saw, as in a dream,
the whole face of the earth even as it stood for-
saken, and empty or void at the beginning of the
creation ; then afterwards, how it was, while, as
being fresh, it waxed on every side green with its
plants ; again, also, as it lay hidden under the
flood. For I saw all the species of plants to be kept
under the waters : yet presently after the flood,
that they did all enter into the way of inter-
changes enjoined to them, which was to be con-
tinued by their species and seeds, &c. For in the
sky of our Archaeus, aspectual Ideas are deciphered
as well from the depth of the starry heaven of
the soul itself, as those formed by the erring or
implanted spirit of the seven bowels.18

Here in this sphere those mighty wonders are,
Which, as the sporting of the Deity,
Themselves display ; wonders indeed they are
Which do exceed man's comprehending far

17 See Bohme's Works, Turned Eye, in vol. ii.

18 Oreatrike, chap. lx. and xcvi.

Further Analysis. 335

Here 'tis that God himself V himself displays,
From whence the sense arises up in joys,
A thousand things for aye arise,
Eternal waters and eternal skies.19

Basil Valentine also, before proceeding to a

description of the Philosophic Matter, opens his

discourse in effect as follows : — When at a certain

time an abundance of thoughts, which my internal

fervent prayer to God suggested, had set me loose

and wholly free from terrene business, I purposed

in myself to attend to those spiritual inspirations

of wThich we have need for the more accurate

scrutiny of nature. Therefore I resolved to make

myself wings, that I might ascend on high and

inspect the stars themselves, as Icarus and hi&

father Dsedalus did in times past. But when I

soared too near the sun, my feathers with its

vehement heat were consumed, and I fell headlong

into the depths of the sea. Yet to me, in this my

extreme necessity, invoking God, help was sent

from heaven which freed me from all peril and

present destruction. For one hastened to my

assistance who commanded the waters should be

still ; and instantly in that deep abyss appeared a

most high mountain upon which at length I

ascended ; that I might examine whether, as men

affirmed, there was indeed any friendship and

familiarity between inferiors and superiors, and

whether the superior stars [i.e. Idea? Divina?

Mentis] have acquired strength and power from

God, their Creator, to produce any one thing like

to themselves on earth. And having searched into

things, I found [viz. in the metaphysico-chemical

analysis] that whatsoever the ancient masters

had so many ages committed to writing and

delivered to their disciples, was true as truth itself.

In very deed, that I may expound the matter in a

few words, I found all things which are generated

in the bowels of the mountains to be infused from

19

Pordage, Mundorum Explicatio, p. 320.

336 Laws and Conditions.

the superior stars as light, and to take their
beginning from them in the form of an aqueous cloud,
fume, or vapour : which, for a long time fed and
nourished, is at length educted into a tangible form
hy the elements. Moreover this vapour is dried,
that the wateriness may lose its dominion, and the
fire next by help of the air retain the ruling power
— of water, fire ; and of fire, air and earth are
produced ; which notwithstanding are found in
all things consisting of body before the separation
of them : but this water therefore containing all,
which by the dryness of its fire and air is formed
into earth, is the first matter of all things.20

In this allegory the whole metaphysico-chemical
analysis of the Universal Subject is displayed —
the separation, introspection and reunion of the
vital elements in their ethereal accord. And for
this reason adepts have concluded this Identic Salt
to be the true grain, since it cannot be annihilated,
but survives the wreck of the whole dissolute
Being throughout — the seed not only of this
world but of the next. For all things, whether
organized or otherwise, decay and pass away into
other elements ; but this mystical substance, this
root of the world, returning immediately upon the
dissolution of its parts, renews them ; nor will
then be quiet, but Proteus-like runs from one
complexion of light into another, from this colour
to that, transmuting himself before the regardant
eye into a strange variety of forms and appear-
ances, exhibiting the universal phenomenon of
nature in recreant display as he runs forth from
green to red and from red to black, receding
thenceforth into a million of colours and trans-
migrating species.

Verum, ubi correptum manibus, vinclisque tenebis ;
Turn varice illudent species, atque ora ferarum ;
Fiet enim subito sus horridus, atraque tigris,
Squamosusque draco, et fulva cervice leaena :

20 B. Valentine, Stone of Fire, in init.

Further Analysis. 337

Aut aerem fiammse sonitum dabit, atque ita vinclis
Excidet, aut in aquas tenues dilapsus abibit.
Sed quanto ille magis formas se vertet in omnes,
Tanto, gnate, magis contende tenacia vincla.21.

And when he has departed from the fragile laby-
rinth through which he was dispersed, says the
adept, and is moreover purified from every im-
purity, he raises himself likewise into an infinity
of forms : one while into a vegetable, and then
into a stone or into some strange animal ; now
he transmutes himself into the sea, becoming to be
a pearl, or a gem or a metal, beautifully shining
with red flames, and iridescent with myriads of
colours ; and thus he lives perpetually the worker
of miracles, an indefatigable magian, by no means
wearying in his labour but growing young ever-
more and increasing daily in vigorous display and
strength.22 And these miraculous alterations will
not cease, as Democritus hints, until the Matter
has worked out its own restitution and is brought
by Art into the supernatural fixity of its Final
Cause ; and that mode of binding is said to be
best which makes use of manacles and fetters ; as
Hermes also says — The philosophers chain up their
matter with a strong chain or band when they
make it to contend with fire.23

Nam sine vi non ulla dabit prtecepta, neque ilium
Orando flectes : vim duram et vincula capto
Tende. Doli circum haec demum frangentur inanes.24

To arrest this imaginative flux of freed vitality,
we may well conceive that it needs the whole
voluntary force of the central magnet ; and that
this alone, which is its proper reason, can compel
it to repose. Reuchlin, concerning the two catholic
natures contained in the mirific Word, alludes to

21 Georgie, lib. iv. 405.

22 Fama et Confessionis, R.C. Preface. Ubi vero spiritus
excessit, &c.

23 Tract. Aur. cap. iv.

24 Georsic. lib. iv. 397.

338 Laws and Conditions.

this, saying — One nature is such that it may be
seen with the eyes, felt with the hands, and is
subject to alteration almost at every moment :
you must pardon, as Apuleius says, the strange
expression, because it makes for the obscurity of
the thing. This very nature, since she may not
continue one and the same, is accordingly appre-
hended of the mind under such her qualification
more rightly as she is not than as she is ; namely,
as the thing is in truth, that is, changeable ; the
other nature or principiating substance is incor-
ruptible, immutable, and always subsistent.25

And this, adds an ancient and much esteemed
Adeptus,26 is the work which I have sometimes
seen with a singular and most dear friend ; who
showed me certain large furnaces, and those
crowned with cornues of glass. The vessels were
several ; having, besides their tripods, their sedi-
ments or caskets ; and within was a holy oblation
or present, dedicated to the Ternary. But why
should I any longer conceal so divine a thing ?
Within this fabric, (i.e., the consecrated vessel),
was a certain mass moving circularly, or driven
round about, and representing the very figure of
the great world. For here the earth was to be seen
standing of itself in the middest of all, compassed
about with most clear ivaters, rising up to several
hillocks and craggy rocks, and bearing many sorts
of fruit, as if it had been watered with showers from
the moist air. It seemed also to be very fruitful
of wine, oil, and milk, with all kinds of precious
stones and metals. The waters themselves, like
those of the sea, were full of a certain transparent
salt — now white, now red, then yellow and purpled,
and, as it were, chamletted with various colours,
which swelled up to the face of the waters. All
things were actuated with their own appropriate

25 Reuchlin de Verbo Mirifico. And in the Coelum Terrse
of Vaughan.

26 Grasseus. Theat. Chem. vi. 294.

Further Analysis. 339

fire ; but in very truth imperceptible as yet, and
ethereal. But one thing above the rest forced me
to an incredible admiration, namely, that so many
things, and diverse in kind, and of such "perfect
particulars, should proceed from one only thing ;
and that, with very small assistance : which being
strengthened and furthered by degrees, the artist
faithfully affirmed to me that all those diversities
would settle at last into one body. Here I observed
that fusil kind of salt to be not different from
pumice stone, and that quicksilver, which authors
call mercury, to be the same with Lully's Lunaria,
whose water gets up against the fire of nature, and
shines by night, but by day has a glutinous,
viscous faculty.27

Here we have the whole Hermetic laboratory —
furnace, fire, matter, and vessels, with their
mysterious germinations, subtly depicted and set
apart. For this clarified hypostasis, (shall we not
believe in it ?) is the stage of all Forms, and here
they are spontaneously produced, not in mere
imagination, or as we might conceive imagina-
tively, or, as in a dream, shadowly ; but as the
true Genesis of Light.

Hsec dedit Argenti Rivos, Aerisque metalla
Ostendit venis, atque auro plurima fluxit
Haec genus aere virum ; Marsos Pubemque Sabella
Assuetumque ; Malo Ligurem volcosque verutos
Extulit ; Haec Decios Marios, magnosque Camillos ;
Salve Magna Parens frugum Saturnia Tellus
Magna virum !

And though these images, with the rest, may
appear extravagant, and Virgil refers all the com-
pliment to his native soil ; yet the truth, gathering
strength by detail, may plead through the whole

27 See, in Lumen de Lumine, the Extract, p. 69. Also, the
Parable of Sendivogius, and Paracelsus's account of the magical
separation of the Elements, and vision, in their native place.
Helmont's Imago Mentis, in the beginning ; and his Tree of
Life. Genesis ii., Deut. viii., xi., &c. ; and, in Exodus, Moses's
Description of the Promised Land. Job xxviii., &c.

340 Laws and Conditions.

accord. Such are a few only of the remarkable
declarations of individuals who, by an experi-
mental ingress, as they acknowledge, to the Vital
Radix, have discovered the catholic original of
nature, intellectual and material, with the ground
of every phenomenon, through the arising spectacle
of the Creative Majesty within themselves. Many
might be added of good repute and accordant ;
but numbers would not ensure more credence for
them, who ought, on their own authority, to be
believed ; and have been and will be always by
those who are able to glance freely, without
imaginative hindrance, into the capability of
mind ; and, by analogy of their own clear reason,
can judge of that fontal revelation which, when
entertained in consciousness, becomes efficient,
and, in its simultaneous energy, divine. Hence,
they will perceive that from no idle dreaming the
conviction of those sublimated souls arose, who
were not alone superior to the dictation of folly,
but were freed moreover from the liability to error
which besets ordina^ minds : for they had passed
the turbulent delusions, not of sense only but of
the selfhood, and having combated even^ sinister
disguise in opposition, were proved and reproved,
previous to being admitted to the apperceptive
vision of the Causal Truth which they describe,
when Light meeting Light, apprehends itself alone ;
and develops the triple mystery of its creative
Law throughout, from the infernal motive wheel
which is the origin of the mineral kingdom, through
the whole intermediate paradisiacal vegetable
growth, up to the final concord of the Divine
Image in man. For as Life passes through the
philosophic fermentation, its substance is entirely
transmuted, and the threefold property is devel-
oped, with a dividing of the heterogeneous parts,
by an extinguishing of the forms and properties
of the Medial Spirit. And not only is it resolved
into these three principles, which Van Helmont

Further Analysis. 341

also calls Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, but there
is a procedure towards a radical destruction,
almost annihilating the components of the former
life, which at length, in its extreme exigence,
draws a new seed to begin a New Generation.—
And this is the way of the recedure to the Night
of Hippocrates, leading thenceforth into the Day
of Orpheus.

It is not a little remarkable that the same ideas,
even to their expression, are to be found in the
metaphysics of modern Germany as in the Kabal-
istic commentators and mystics of the middle ages.
Yet the surprise which this might otherwise awake
is diminished, when we consider the universal
characteristic of Reason ; whence it happens
accountably that that truth which common logic
arrives at by abstraction as an inferential necessity,
is the same which the Rabbis, ontologically
experimenting, and guided by the same Law, affirm
out of their own more proving observation and
experience. And thus we may illustrate the point.

All things, says the German philosopher (Hegel),
have their commencement in pure Being, which is
merely an indeterminate thought, simple and imme-
diate ; for the true commencement can be nothing
else : but this pure Being is no other than a pure
abstraction, it is a term absolutely negative, which
may also in its immediate conception be called
non-Being.28

Such is the conclusion rationally arrived at by
sensible abstraction ; Kant, Fichte, but more
especially Schelling whose intellectual penetration

28 Das reine Seyn macht den Anfang, weil es so wohl reiner
gedanke, als das unbestimmte einfache unmittelbare ist, der
erste Anfang. Aber nichts vermitteltes und weiter bestimmtes
seyn kann. Dieses reine seyn ist nun die reine abstraction,
damit das absolut negative welches gleichfalls unmittelbar
genommen das nichts ist. — Encyclopedic des Sciences Phil.
86 et 87. See M Franck's observations on this point, and
La Kabbale, p. 187, &c.

342 Laws and Conditions.

appears to have passed beyond these two, carried
metaphysics into the same void non-entity at last.
Hence the sceptical result of their transcendental
labours, which, too far surpassing sense and its
phenomena to accept their proof, stopped short
nevertheless of objective realization on their own
ground ; there being arrested, faithful and as it
were in view, without a means of passage to the
promised shore. Yet so it is, that very hypostasis
which bounds reason in transcendental abstraction,
when met by contact of the inquiring light within,
is that Absolute Identity which it seeks after,
which, before all duality of consciousness, is the
fortitude and life of all. But let us revert to the
learned Rabbi's advice concerning the true nature
of Divine Inversion ; for Ben Jochai and his
disciples also affirm that God created all things
out of nothing, and this not dubiously, sed quasi
auctoritatem habens ; but in what sense this nothing
is to be understood, we are thus, differently than
by the German, informed.

When the Kabalists affirm that all things are
drawn forth from nothing, they do not intend, says
the Rabbi, from nothing in the common-sense
acceptation of that word ; for Being could never
be produced from non Being (deficiently under-
stood), but by non Being they mean that which is
neither conceivable as cause nor as essence, but
yet is in fact the Cause of causes : it is that which
we call the primitive non Being ; because it is
anterior to the universe : and by it we do not
signify corporeity either, but that Principle or
Wisdom on which it is founded. Now if any one
should ask what is the essence of Wisdom, and in
what manner she is contained in non Being, no
one can reply to this question : because in non
Being, there is no distinction (as of subject and
object in the consciousness by which it can be
trulv said to be known), no mode of true existence ;

Further Analysis. 343

neither can we, therefore, comprehend, so to say,
how Wisdom becomes united to life.29

Now this doctrine is precisely in accordance
with the Hermetic philosophy, and these definitions
of the primitive non-being, perfectly correspond
with the Platonic theology, and Aristotle's dis-
courses concerning the origin of things and incom-
prehensible nature of the objective contact in
Identity. And as to the dogmas of the rest, as of
Thales, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Parmenides,
Empedocles, and others, which men have been
accustomed neglectiully to run over ; it may not
be amiss, as Lord Bacon advises, to cast our eyes
with more reverence upon them.30 For, although
Aristotle, after the manner of the Ottomans,
thought he could not well reign unless he made
away with all his brethren ; yet, to those who
seriously propose to themselves the inquiry after
truth, it may not be displeasing to regard the
positions of those various sages, touching the
nature of things and their foundation. Nor ought
we, in this our state of inconceptive ignorance, to
conclude, as many have done, that these men
spoke ill, or arbitrarily, imagining causes whereof
to make a world, for it was not so : their elements,
atoms, numbers, mathematics, physics, and meta-
physics, or by whatever names their principiating
ideas were distinguished — all their philosophy, in
short, was confessedly established, and belonged
to an experience and method of observation, to the
profane multitude unknown. For they discovered,
and have asserted, without arrogance or sophisti-
cation, that there are methods by which an ascent
may be effected from the oblivious bondage of this
existence, and, through a gradual assimilation, to
a survey more or less immediate of the Causal
Source.

29 See La Kabbale, p. 214. Comment. Abram den Dior on
the Zephir Jezirah, p. 67, &c.

30 Adv. of Learning lib. iii. sec. 5.

344 Laws and Conditions.

And thus, neglectful though it has seemed in
general of facts, and common-sense observation,
these Greeks too derived nature mediately from a
certain Intellect in energy, but without distinction,
fixing her true Being in the Law of Universals.
Those even who appear to differ, as for example,
Thales, and the physiologist Empedocles — substi-
tuting elements as principles, do so in the choice
of expression chiefly, and in the manner of regard-
ing ; for the substance alluded to b}^ them all is the
same ; as we may judge by their definitions, which
agree not with any material of elements, or intei-'
lect, or atoms, that we discern or understand at all ;
but they speak, as before said, out of another
perception of things, exhibiting the phenomena
of the substantial world. It may not be improper
here to delay a short time, in order to point out
to the more studious, how it happens, that so
many mistakes have arisen about their doctrine,
and that language apparently divergent, may,
nevertheless, harmonize at its source.

For that these philosophers have discoursed
variously, is very certain ; some saying indeed
of the Initial Principle, that it is one and finite,
others infinite ; some, as Heraclitus, according to
essence, have denominated it to be fire ; another,
as Thales, looking to the first material manifesta-
tion, teaches that all beings have their beginning
from water ; whilst Timaeus, with no less reason or
authority, mentions a certain earth as antecedent,
and the most ancient element ; but Anaxogoras,
rather regarding the perfection and origin of the
One Thing in consciousness, calls it Intellect ; as
Plato likewise, in the Parmenides, derives all
things transcendentally, proving the perpetuity
of Being in itself. But whilst these celebrate Mind
as precedential, and those desire to indicate the
subsistence of Matter, in either case it is the same ;
for the mind is not without the matter (the univer-
sal element we mean), nor that matter without the

Further Analysis. 345

mind ; but all things, however various in manifest-
ation, are consubstantial in their Cause.

And with respect to the number of principles and
elementary transmutations, we may plainly per-
ceive that it is not the common elements, or
abstracts either, they contend about ; but their
investigation concerned the prior Elements of Life ;
which some, openly distinguishing, call the Celes-
tial Elements ; as Plato, in Pkcedo, speaking of
earth, for instance, calls it the most ancient element
within the heaven ; and Proclus informs us what we
are to understand by the heaven ; — Heaven, he
says, is the intellectual contact with the intelligible,
for there is an intelligible which may be conjoined
to intellect, and is its true end.31 But this is in
allusion to the highest sphere of ethereality, which
Aristotle triply distinguishes, first, as the essence
of the ultimate circulation of the universe ; second,
as that which is in continuity with it ; and third,
as that body which is comprehended by the last
circulation. For, says he, we are accustomed like-
wise to call that heaven, which is composed from
every natural and sensible body.32 That is the
arising Spirit of the Universal Nature which, per-
sisting separately, bounds as it were, by an invisi-
ble summit, every corporeal subsistence, and in the
conscious alliance only becomes known. The same
is called by Hermes, a Quintessence ; and the
Hermetic philosophers, speaking of their earth,
locate it even as Plato does, within their heaven ;
and in order to distinguish from the feculent dead
soil, call it magical, the Earth of the Wise, Olym-
pus, Our Earth, &c, and of the other elements
the same, as we have shown already in our Exoteric
Theory, and elsewhere. Which the initiated poet,
in his Metamorphoses, neither unaptly signalizes in
the arising circulation of Nature from the four
concentering winds.

31 On the Theology of Plato, pp. 236, 240, &c.

32 See his Treatise on the Heavens, book i.

346 Laws and Conditions.

Haec super imposuit liquidam et gravitate carentem,
iEthera, non quicquam terrenae fa3cis habentem.33

But Plato yet more plainly alluding to the
Ethereal Quintessence, in Timceus, says, that of
jour elements the Demiurgus assumed One Whole
from each, and that, by a reasoning process,
he constituted the World One Whole from wholes,
in all things perfect and free from old age and
disease.™ As Aristotle again, where he says,
that the world, being composed from all sensible
"matter, is one alone and perfect ; cannot mean this
world, which is neither uniform nor free from age
or disease, or perfect in any way ; what other,
therefore, should they either mean but the ethereal;
which art once taught them to segregate, and
establish upon the ruins of this mortal and dis-
located existence ?

That Empedocles likewise taught a twofold
order of natural procedure — the one intelligible,
and the other sensible ; — deriving the latter as
an image from the former as an exemplar, is
evident, from the whole tenor of his Physics. For
he identifies all things in respect of their source ;
making elements there to subsist as qualitative
virtues, which, multiplying into being, become
distributive powers, of which the sensible elements
and this world are the remote subjects and emana-
tion ; contrariwise, also, receding from effect to
cause, he shows how the universal frame is borne
along in perpetual interchange.

How many things to one their being owe,
Fire, water, earth and air immensely high,
And each with equal power is found endued,
And friendship equalised in length and breadth.
All things in union now thro' love conspire,
And now thro' strife divulsed are borne along,
Hence, when again emerging into light,
The One is seen, 't is from the many formed.

33 Ovidii Metam. lib. i. 67.

34 Proclus on the Theology of Plato, book v. p. 365.

Further Analysis. 347

All mortals, too, so far as they are born,
Of 'permanent duration are deprived ;
But, as diversified with endless change,
Thro' this unmoved for ever they remain,
Like a sphere rolling round its centre firm.35

Anaxagoras, and certain others of the early Greek
school, alluding to this absolute subsistence of
things, assert, that matter likewise is the progeny of
mind ; and the Alexandrians go so far as to explain
the manner of its descent and efflux ; as if they too
in alliance had known these things, and by analogy,
through their own, the structure of the universe ;
observing so many fine distinctions and such a
subtlety of ontological operation as was extremely
difficult to delineate by words, or consistently in
writing to unfold. Many, therefore, adopted fables,
symbols, similitudes, enigmas, and the licence of
poetry they also called in aid, as well on this
account, as to veil their meaning from vulgar
misprision and debate. But Aristotle preferred an
abstruse style of diction to every other disguise,
that he might be comprehensible to the profound
only ; as, when writing to Alexander about the
publication of his Acraomatic Ethics, he avows
that none but his own pupils would be able to
understand them.36

And with respect to those strictures on the writ-
ings of his predecessors, we are disposed to take
them in a particular application only ; his most
erudite translator, Thomas Taylor, having also
shown that their reference has been alienated and
widely misunderstood. The Aristotelian philo-
sophy is built on similar grounds, and arrives at
the same conclusions as those whom it rebukes ;
but the method is different, and herein the Stagy-
rite lays claim to superiority, rather than by
professing any new basis of argument or superior

35 Empedocles, Physics, cap. i.

36 See the Commentary of Simplicius in Plutarch's Life of
Aristotle, and the note, p. 4, to Taylor's Dissertation.

348 Laws and Conditions.

knowledge. The differences that arose in philo-
sophy owing to men regarding the same nature
from diverse points of view, and the contradictions
that occur in language, offended his accurate
genius ; and he was desirous that they should
harmonize in the expression of that truth in which
they, by co-knowledge, were agreed. That
whereas, for instance, Pythagoras would explain
essence in number and define it by mathematical
reasons, as Plato by Ideas, mingling these with
geometric symbols ; Parmenides and others, by
atoms, elements, and by so many various ways ;
he complains that they deliver nothing clearly, nor
carry their principles duly and comprehensively
through their whole system ; but shift from one
assertion to another, that is apparently, varying
their speech. Thus, in the beginning of his Meta-
physics;— There are some, he says, who have dis-
coursed about the universe as if it were indeed one
nature ; yet all of them have not discoursed after
the same manner, neither of that which subsists
beautifully {i.e., intelligibly), nor of that which
subsists according to nature. By no means there-
fore does their discourse harmonize in the specu-
lation of causes. For they do not speak like certain
physiologists who, supposing Being to be one, at
the same time generate the One from matter : but
their assertions are of a different nature ; for the
physiologists who contend that Being is one, when
they generate the universe, at the same time add
motion ; but these men assert that the universe is
immovable. Thus, Parmenides appears to have
touched upon the One according to Reason ; but
Melissus, according to Matter ; hence the former
asserts that the universe is finite ; but the latter
that it is infinite. But Xenophanes, who was the
first that introduced this doctrine, did not assert
anything clearly, nor does he appear to have
apprehended the nature of either of these ; but
looking to the whole heaven, he says, the One is

Further Analysis. 349

God. These men therefore are to be dismissed,
two of them indeed as being a little too rustic, —
viz., Xenophanes and Melissus, but Parmenides
appears to have seen more than these where to
speak.37

Such like defect of method and incorrectness of
diction does the Stagyrite complain of, sparing
none of his predecessors ; but his opposition is
uniformly directed to the letter rather than to the
spirit of their doctrine ; for he was strenuous in
asserting the causality of mind, and praises those
as in the highest degree gifted who perceived this ;
in his Metaphysics throughout, evincing a magnifi-
cent appreciation of the Intellectual ground. But
he was desirous, as we have said, to methodize
philosophy ; and accordingly undertook, by estab-
lishing a system of universal logic, to correct the
imperfection of common thought and speech. The
design was noble, and carried out to the original
intention and on its own intimate basis, was no
doubt valuable to fix experiment and assist in
defining and unfolding, by means of the cate-
gories, as by a congenial channel, the birth of the
Divine Intellect into life and manifestation.

That was the syllogism so important to be sought
after, which also is according to Aristotle the true
object of philosophy ; in the universal terms of
which every other science is implicated, and with-
out which nothing permanent is said to be endued.
When, losing this substantial ground and aim
therefore, the Organon began to work upon itself,
it grew weak and wore out gradually, as Bacon
observed it in his day becoming worse than useless,
since it occupied an intellect that might have been
better employed, and substituted for truth the
least salutanr kind of satisfaction in the display of
scholastic subtlet}^ and aimless dispute.

The same has happened with the Pythagoric
numbers, and those mathematics which had all
37 Metaplrysics, sub. init.

350 Laws and Conditions.

their original keystone in the Arch of Heaven ;
or how else should numbers have been established
as the causes of things if they had not been allied
in idea to something better than themselves ? All
things naturally produce their similars, numbers
beget numbers, letters and words constitute
phrases, and lines superficial forms only. They
may, by composition, be made, in their way, to
represent the degrees and kinds of things ; but
this is the utmost of their abstract capability.
They cannot produce themselves, or anything
else, into substantive appearance. We may exhaust
all their combinations, divide, add up, and multi-
ply figures to infinity, we shall have figures and
nothing more ; nothing solid, long, short, or
square, not the smallest grain of sand without the
Efficient which is in all.

This being obvious therefore, we judge that when
the ancients established numbers as the causes of
things and derived from them the gods themselves,
with all their hosts of power and material depen-
dencies, they had some very different idea attached
from that which modern theorems or their pro-
bations supply. Or shall it be believed that
Pythagoras was so wanton and vain-glorious as to
sacrifice a hecatomb, when he discovered that the
subtendent of a right-angled triangle is equivalent
to those parts which contain it ; or that Thales,
when, as is related, he did something of the same
kind about the inscription of the circle, gained
nothing more than a flat demonstration for his
pains ? Or are not rather the hecatomb, and the
theorem separately symbolical, and alike relating
to the discovery of that miraculous Psychical
Quintessence, known to the wise as the Tincture
of the Sapphiric Mine which, being in its own
threefold segregated essentiality equal to the whole
dissolute compound whence it arises, casts off the
superfluity, sacrificing the old nature to begin
anew ? Charon does not ply the Stygian Lake

Further Analysis. 351

without a recompense, neither are the secrets of
the highest causes approached without a mean
of expiation ; but the vicarious dedication of huge
beasts will not avail whilst their Prototypes remain
feeding and fattening in the Philosophic Field.

The habit of exhibiting points of abstruse philo-
sophy by mathematical reasons has been general in
every age ; but in order to derive from them or
from numbers anything substantive, it is necessary
that the point or unit should be established as
something absolute ; that every dependent par-
taking, whether multiplied, added, or divided
amongst each other, may be essentialized in the
same. Hence Zeno said (of Elea, not the Stoic)
that if any one should undertake to demonstrate the
philosopher's Unit, he would unfold Being. For the
One of these philosophers is the Fountain of all
Being ; and just as there is a descent from unity
into multitude, and all that multitude is implied
in the One ; and this furthermore fills all and each
of its dependent multitude — as one is in two, and
two in three, and three in four, and four in five —
and still that unit, which is in the beginning, is
implied in all and is in all ideally ; so is each Being
said to be implied in all and all in each, and every
part of each in all, from the equilibriate eternal
centre to its infinite extremes. And as the smallest
fragment of the loadstone remains perfect in two
poles, and each particular spark of fire contains
the principle and developing force of the entire
kindred element, so may we not conceive every
portion of existence to be continent and compre-
hended proportionally of the Great Whole ?

All those amongst the Greeks who have written
concerning this Whole, and who appear to have
arrived at an experimental conception of its
reality in the self-knowledge, unanimously assert
that it is simple, and not so much therefore an
object of reason as of contact and intuition. They
contend moreover, with the Alchemist, that there

352 Laws and Conditions.

is a certain pure matter subsisting about Intelli-
gibles which is universal, and the proved origin
of every vital and corporeal existence ; that
though occult in nature, it can be made manifest
to sense even, and exhibited in divine and practical
effects. But it was forbidden by the, mandate of
the Mysteries that their revelation should be
communicated to the profane ; and the modern
Alchemists are, with few exceptions, silent respect-
ing the metaphysics of their Art ; the Neo-
platonists were, however, more communicative,
since, forbearing direct allusion to the Practice,
they feared less to speak of Principles and the
procedure of mind. Their writings appear indeed
as so many auxiliaries to the perception of onto-
logical causes, and their reasonings and images are
admirably adapted to stimulate that faith which,
dormant as we now are in the corporeal darkness,
glows notwithstanding responsive to the truth
within.

If we desire to investigate principles and the
highest causes, let us inquire now therefore of them
briefly, how we may begin to learn ; and concern-
ing this pure Matter whether it is, what it is, and
after what manner it ought to be conceived of,
what the perception of it resembles, and what rela-
tion it bears in general to the reasoning power, and
finally how it comes forth out of the Causal
fountain to be in effect ? The following summary
gathered from the scientific conduct of Plotinus
and Porphyry may not be unacceptable to the
philosophically inquisitive reader.

That it is necessary there should be a certain
Subject of bodies which is different from them, is
sufficiently evinced by the continual mutation of
corporeal quantities ; for nothing that is trans-
muted is entirely destroyed ; since if such were
the case there would be a certain essence dissolved
into nonentity ; and this persisting, there would
be no remaining ground of generation. But change

Further Analysis. 353

arises, indeed, from the departure of one quality
and the accession of another ; the subject-matter
however — that which receives the forms and
reflects them — always remaining the same and
proceeding and receding continually into itself.

This therefore Corruption manifests (especially the
artificial), for corruption is of that which is com-
posite, and so each sensible thing is made to con-
sist of matter and form and their union in corpore-
ity. This too Induction testifies, demonstrating
that the thing which is corruptible is composite.
Analysis likewise evinces the same thing, as if for
example an iron pot should be resolved into gold,
but gold into water ; and the water, being incor-
ruptible, will require no analogous process.38

But the elements, continues Plotinus, are neither
form, nor matter, but composite and therefore
corruptible ; and since everything manifest is
corruptible, and yet a certain subsistence remains,

38 Here Plotinus doubtless makes an allusion to the mystical
analysis ; drawing his comparison also from thence. For by no
other analysis either is a pot resolved into gold, or gold into a
water which is indissoluble. But what he says is perfectly con-
formable to the Hermetic doctrine, both in an internal and in
an external sense ; for, by a reducation of the iron spirit in the
blood, it becomes cleansed from its foreign oxide and aurified —
that is, illuminated by contrariation of its Form. The radical
moisture of the metal likewise, obeying the fermentive virtue
of such a test when applied, may be made to pass away, as
the tradition runs, from its own Form into that which is more
integral and perfect. All things may be reduced to gold
according to this doctrine, as Albertus Magnus in his book
De Mineralibus asserts, and where also he is cited by Becher
in his Physica Subterra?iea, p. 319 : — Non dari rem elmentatum
in cujus ultima substantione non reperiatur aurum. That is
(if we may interpret), Light, which is the formal essence of all
things, and most abundant in gold, is found in the ultimate
alchemical analysis of every existing thing.— That all metals,
likewise, may be reduced into water, that is, into their first
pure matter, is the doctrine of Plato and Aristotle. See
Taylor's Translation of the Timseus of the former, and the
Meteors of the latter, and the Select Works of Plotinus, p. 38,
note.

354 Laws and Conditions.

it is necessary there should be a Nature primarily
vital which is also formless, indestructible and
immortal, as being the principle of other things.
Form indeed subsists according to quality and
body in manifestation ; but matter according to
the subject which is indefinite, because it is not
form. This Indefinite is not therefore everywhere
to be despised, not that which in the conception of
it is formless, if it applies itself to things prior, i.e.,
to the divine exemplaries, and the most excellent
life. Neither should it be considered by any one
as incredible that there is a certain pure and divine
Matter mediately subsisting between primary and
secondary causes and their gross effects ; but it
is rather requisite to be persuaded by philosophical
assertion that such is the case, and that by means
of the Theurgic Art it is made manifest and im-
parted through arcane and blessed visions. So far
do the ancients likewise extend matter even to the
gods themselves ; and no otherwise according to
them can a participation of superior Being be
effected by men who dwell on earth, unless a
foundation of this kind be first established. For
this Matter, as Iamblicus relates, being connascent
with the gods by whom it is imparted, will doubt-
less be an entire and fit receptacle for the manifesta-
tion of Divinity. He moreover adds, that an
exuberance of power is always present with the
highest causes ; and at the same time that this
power transcends all things, it is nevertheless
present with all in unimpeded energy. Hence, the
first illuminate the last of things, and immaterial
are present with material natures immanifestly.39
Since then, it becomes necessary simply to refer
Being to all things, and all things sympathize
thereby internally with each other ; but conscious-
ness in this natural life of ours is separated off from

39 Iamblicus on the Mysteries, chap, xxiii. sect, v., and
Plotinus' Select Works — of Matter, and of the Impassivity of
Incorporeal Natures.

Further Analysis. 355

the antecedent essentiality, so that we perceive
in reality nothing of our true selves ; hence the
ancients have declared this life to be little better
than a diminution of existence ; for by no ordinary
process of rational contemplation is the mind able
to conceive this nature or the infinitude of true
Being. But if any one wish to discover the One
Principle he must become first assimilated to it,,
as Proclus in the sixth book, on the Parmenides
of Plato directs — he must raise himself to that
which is most united in nature, and to its flower
and that through which it is Deity ; by which it is
suspended from its proper fountain and connects
and unites and causes the universe to have a
sympathetic consent with itself. — I have also,
says Plotinus, investigated myself, as one among
the order of beings, and the reality is testified by
reminiscence ; for no one of real being subsists out
of intellect nor as sensibles in place ; but they
always abide in themselves, neither receiving
mutation nor corruption.30 And again in his
treatise concerning the Descent of the Soul, the
same author relates, — Often when by an intellec-
tual energy, I am roused from body and converted
to myself, and being separated from externals,
retire into the depths of my essence, I then per-
ceive an admirable beauty, and am then vehe-
mently confident that I am of a more excellent
condition than of a life merely animal and terrene.
For then especially, I energize according to the best
life and become the same with a nature truly
Divine ; being established in this nature I arrive
at that transcendent energy by which I am elevated
beyond every other intelligible, and fix myself in
this sublime eminence as in an ineffable harbour
of repose. But after this blessed abiding in a
Divine Nature, falling off from Intellect into the
discursive energy of reason, I am led to doubt how
formerly and at present my soul became inti-
40 Select Works, p. 294.

356 Laws and Conditions.

mately connected with a corporeal nature ; since
in this deific state she appears such as she is herself,
although invested with the dark and everfl owing
vestiment of body. And since there is a twofold
nature, one intelligible and the other sensible, it is
better indeed for the soul to abide in the intelligible
world ; but necessary from its condition that it
should participate of a sensible nature ; nor ought
it to suffer any molestation because it obtains
only a middle order in the universality of things ;
since it possesses indeed a divine condition, though
it is placed even as in the last gradation of an
intelligible essence, bordering, as it were on the
regions of sense. For our souls are able alternately
to rise from hence, carrying back with them an
experience of what they have known and suffered
in their fallen state ; from whence they will learn
how blessed it is to abide in the Intelligible World ;
and by a comparison, as it were of contraries, will
more plainly perceive the excellence of a superior
state. For the experience of evil produces a clearer
knowledge of good, especially where the power of
judgment is so imbecile that it cannot without
such experience obtain the science of that which
is best.41

These things supposed then, we proceed to a
more intimate consideration of the Material
Principle which, according to these philosophers,
the Divine experience imparts ; that we may
judge how far they agree or whether they differ
at all in their definitions from those of the fore-
going Hermetic philosophers and adepts.

These Greeks wishing indeed to exhibit, as well
as words might enable, the peculiarities of this
Matter when they assert that it is one, immediately
add that it is all things, by which they signify that
it is not some one of the things with which sense
brings us acquainted ; and in order that we may

41 See Plotinus on the Descent of the Soul, last of the five
Treatises rendered by T. Taylor.

Further Analysis. 357

understand that the Identity in every Being is
something uncompounded, and that the mind
should not fall into the error of coacervation, they
say it is one so far as one ; depriving the idea of
multitude and dual, i.e. reflective, contemplation.
When likewise they assert that it is everywhere,
they add incontinently that it is nowhere; so on
endeavouring by means of contrary peculiarities to
gather the mind up into a neutrality about itself ;
at one and the same time exhibiting these in order
to exterminate from the apprehension those
notions which are externally derived, and such
ordinary reasoning as tends to obscure rather than
elucidate the essential characteristics of real Being.
Neither is there any absurdity in their conduct of
the understanding so far, or even in an external
sense considering one thing to be many, since
every centre bears a circumference of radii, and
each dependent number differs from the One.

But since the ethereal element is described by so
many ablative characteristics, since they assert
it is neither form, nor quality, nor corporeal, nor
reason, nor bound ; but a certain Infinity ; how
therefore ought we to conceive, asks Plotinus, of
that which is infinite ? What is its idiom in the
intellection, or how is such an image to be enter-
tained by the reasoning power ? Shall we say it
is indefiniteness ? For if the similar is perceived
by the similar, the Indefinite also will be appre-
hended by the Indefinite : Reason however in such
an apprehension, will become bounded about the
Indefinite, that is to say, will pass out from itself
into an undefined void of thought. But if every-
thing is known by reason and intelligence, and no
otherwise, and here reason is bounded so that it
cannot be said to have intelligence ; but, as it
were, a deprivation of intellect is implied, how
shall we conceive such a state of being to be
genuine, or believe it even to be at all ? Yet
Plato, in Timceus, informs us that Matter is indeed

358 Laws and Conditions.

to be apprehended, and that by a sort of defective
or ablative reasoning ; and Aristotle has been
at some pains in his Metaphysics to explain the
conceptive idiom of Materiality. I mean, he says,
by Matter, that which of itself is neither essence
nor quantity, nor any one of those things, by which
Being is defined. For there is something of which
each of these is predicated, and from which Being
and each of its predications are different ; but
Matter, being the last of things (extant without
identity), has neither essence nor quantity nor
anything else in the perception, at least of those
things which subsist according to accident. Or if
any one from this suppose Matter to be essence,
he will err ; for a separate subsistence as this or
that particular thing especially belongs to what we
call essence, (that is to say, composition of subject
and object is necessarily implied in the idea of
true intelligence), which is both posterior and
anterior to the subject sought ; which therefore is
in a certain respect manifest only, being one and
void in respect of other things ; Matter, therefore,
concludes the logician, is made veritably manifest
only by negation and in defect of true Being ; so
that, to pass into contact with it, is to be in a
certain respect ignorant.42

Since, then, they assert this subject-matter to be
somewhat ; and real, notwithstanding all its
inverse and irrational characteristics ; ought we
not to analyze yet more profoundly therefore, not
slighting reason indeed, but passing through it,
beyond every bound and finite probability in order
to conceive that kind of ultimate ignorance, which
is the Infinity of Life ? Whether shall we conceive
it to be an all-perfect oblivion, or such an ignorance
as in the absence of every knowledge is present ?
or does the Indefinite consist in negation simply,
or in conjunction with a certain interrogative

42Aristotle's Metaph. book ix. p. 221 ; book x. p. 237, 154, &c.

Further Analysis. 359

affirmation ? Or shall we suppose it to be like
darkness to the eye, obscurity being the ground
of every visible colour ? For to this, also, the wise
ancients have compared the estate of Being verging
to annihilation : and as the sensual eye without
light sees nothing but darkness, becoming in a
certain respect and for the period one with it ; so
the mental eye, observant of no attracting object,
thought, reflection, and all that in sensibles
resembles light being submerged, and not being-
able or having the motive to bound that which
remains, is said to become wholly into that
obscure oblivion which is the Original of Life : a
crass, obscure vacuity — as in the Descent Virgil
describes it — vast, endless, horrible — and Parmen-
ides and the rest cited to prove the same initial
nonentity of all ; having the same relation to true
Being, indeed, as silence to sound, as night to day,
or as body rude or misshapen bears to any artificial
form with which it may afterwards become endued.
And as that which is above all degrees of intelli-
gence is a certain infinite and pure light, so is this
darkness, therefore, to be conceived at the opposite
extreme of the magnetic chain, which is extended
a non gradu ad non gradum : and this is that ladder
of Celsus and of Zoroaster which reaches from
Tartarus to the highest Heaven. Just as in the
ascending series of causes, it is necessary to arrive
at something which is the Final Cause of all ; so in
descending analytically it is equally necessary to
stop at the contrary conclusion, which is thus
proved, in the experience, to be the last and lowest
effect, in which all the attributes of the First
Cause are not only deficient but reversed.

When therefore the mind is in the Night of
Matter, shall we suppose that she is affected in
such a manner as if she understood nothing ? By
no means, says the philosopher — but when she
beholds Matter she suffers such a passion as when
she receives the Being of that which is formless ; and

360 Laws and Conditions.

her perception of the Formless Subject is obscure,
and vast, and infinite, as we have shown, where
descending into the bosom of the Mysteries,
Intellect, having already analyzed and separated
the component parts of Being, becomes dismayed
about the sensation of her extreme life. Then in-
deed she understands obscurely, and sinking into
the Abyssal Subject, feels, but understands not her
intellection any more ; until, pained with the void
of the retreating infinitude, (such being the divine
decree), and as if afraid of being placed out of the
order of things, the soul retracts, rallying about
her last deserted Unit, and not enduring any longer
to stop at nonentity, becomes into true Being.
So true is it, that Death is the way of Life, and
that the fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom.
For Self-knowledge is impossible unless every
other knowledge is deprived ; as this selfhood like-
wise is obliterated in the overwhelming attraction,
which raises it into the First Cause. And thus
extremes are said to be present at the new birth,
when Light springs forth to manifestation out of
the abyssal Darkness, which is then alone before
its Creator ; and is brought forth by Him for a
First Matter to give contrasting substance to His
revelation, and understanding to His Act. — As the
motto simply expresses it — Detjs, cum solus

FUISSET IN PRINCIPIO, CREAVIT UNAM SUBSTANTIAM,
HANC PRIMAM MATERIAM NOMINAMUS.

And since it is given us in theory to understand
that such an hypostasis is in the beginning without
all affirmation, being neither life, nor intellect, nor
reason, nor bound, for it is infinite ; nor power
from itself, but falls off from the consciousness of
all these ; so ought we therefore to conceive of the
First Matter, which cannot either receive the
appellation of Being, since it is not known in
energy, but flies from him, indeed, who wishes
intently to behold ; for the thought, as circum-
scribing boundary, eludes the Infinite, and thus

Further Analysis. 361

the desire is, in this instance, diametrically
opposed to the presence of the thing desired. When
therefore, as the Platonist and the Kabalist teach,
it is unknown, or known as nothing ; it is rather
probably present, but is not perceived by him
who strives self-actively to comprehend it. And
this the poets signify in the story of Actaeon, who
for his presumptuous intrusion was disgraced by
the goddess and hunted thereafter by his own
distracted thoughts ; but to the sleeping Endymion
she vouchsafed her willing presence, and the vast
benefits of her love.

Quaeres multum et non invenies ;
Fortasse invenies cum non quaeres.

When you have assumed to yourself an Eternal
Essence, says Porphyry, infinite in itself according
to power ; and begin to perceive intellectually an
hypostasis unwearied, untamed, and never failing,
but transcending in the most pure and genuine life,
and full from itself ; and which, likewise, is estab-
lished in itself, satisfied with and seeking nothing
but itself ; to this essence, if you add a subsistence
in place, or a relation to a certain thing, at the
same time you diminish this essence, or rather
appear to diminish it, by ascribing to it an
indigence of place or a relative condition of being ;
you do not, however, in reality diminish this
essence, but you separate yourself from the per-
ception of it, by receiving as a veil the phantasy
which runs under your conjectural apprehension
of it. For you cannot pass beyond, or stop, or
render more perfect, or effect the least change in a
thing of this kind, because it is impossible for it
to be in the smallest degree deficient. For it is
much more sufficient than any perpetually flowing
fountain can be conceived to be.43 If, however,

43 The Mind of Divinity, says Trismegistus, which becomes
known by the Divine Intention in the understanding, is most
like unto a torrent running with a violent and swift stream
from a high rock, whereby it glides away also from the under-

362 Laws and Conditions.

you are unable to keep pace with it, and to become
assimilated to the whole Intelligible Nature, you
should not investigate anything pertaining to real
Being ; or if you do, you will deviate from the path
that leads to it, and will look at something else ;
but if you investigate nothing else, being estab-
lished in yourself and in your own Essence, you will
be assimilated to the Intelligible Universe, and will
not adhere to anything posterior to it. Neither
therefore should you say, I am of a great magni-
tude ; for omitting this idea of greatness, you will
become universal, as you were universal prior to
this. But when, together with the universe, some-
thing was present with you, you became less by
the addition ; because the addition was not from
truly subsisting Being, for to that you cannot add
anything. When, therefore, anything is added
from non-being (i.e. from the subjective selfhood)

standing of such as are either hearers or dealers in it. — Ascle-
pius, cap. i. end. See also Vaughan, Lumen de Lumine, where,
discoursing with Nature in her mineral region, the artist
describes the same Matter as if he had been an eye-witness of
the whole supernal procedure from its source. — A fat mineral
nature it was, he says, bright like pearls, and transparent like
crystal ; when I had viewed it and searched it well, then it
appeared somewhat spermatic ; and hereupon I became informed
that it was the First Matter and very natural true sperm of
the greater world. It is invisible in nature and therefore there
are few that find it ; many believe that it is not to be found :
(for the world is made up of many divers dark and particular
and contrary qualities, and the first unity is occultated in its
generation and does not appear). But that stream was more
large than any river in her full channel ; and notwithstanding
the height and violence of the fall, it descended without any
noise, the waters were dashed and their current distracted by
the saltish rocks, but for all this they came down with a dead
silence like the still soft air. Some of the liquor, for it ran by me,
I took up to judge what strange woollen substance it was that
did steal down like snow. When I had it in my hand, it was no
common water but a certain kind of oil of a watery complexion.
— Lumen de Lumine, pp. 7, 8, &c. This same, Sendivogius in
his New Light, calls the water of our sea, the water of life,
not wetting the hands ; and believe me, he says, for I saw it
with my eyes and felt it, that water was as white as snow, &c.

Further Analysis. 363

a place is afforded to poverty as an associate,
accompanied by an indigence of all things. Hence,
dismissing non-being, you will then become suffi-
cient ; for when any one is present with that
which is present in himself, then he is present with
true Being, which is everywhere ; but when you
withdraw from yourself, then likewise you recede
from real Being : of such great consequence is it
for a man to be present with that which is present
with himself, that is to say, with his rational "part,
and to be absent from that which is external to
him.44

Add to this, that contraries are always consub-
sistent in the Divine Original — the small, the great,
the deficient, and the exceeding ; for as a mirror is,
to external images, passive, neither able of itself to
withhold, nor yet to pass away, so is this ethereal
glass to intellect, subsisting according to processure
and in defect of all imagination. Hence, every
imagination concerning it will be false, either that
it should appear in the conception as any particular
thing, or contrariwise as nothing ; for it is both ;
and the subsistence, which is the reality of it,
may be felt indeed, not known — but as an escape
of consciousness into its primal source without
ideal limitation. Thus is it said to be formless,
variable, incorporeal, infinite ; neither mere power,
nor perfect action, but a weak superstantial prolific
nature, as it were nothing in the Idea yet in Being
all things — whence every form of life, increase, and
materialitv also are derived. And Ideas, as thev
enter into and depart from it, are seen as images
which pervade without dividing, like shadows in
water, or more exactly as in a dream ; or as if we
should conceive imaginations sent into a reper-
cussive mirror or reflective vacuum on the under-
standing.

And the Passive Nature ought indeed to be a
thing of this kind, pure and indeterminate ; that
44 Porphyry's Auxil. to the Perception of Intelligibles, sect. iii.

364 Laws and Conditions.

it may reflect, without self-hinderance or refraction,
the Divine Light throughout ; that there may be
no falsehood or commixture of images, but the
Truth only, and alone, and by itself should be
made manifest in life. Such was the Matter so
often celebrated by the Alchemists, the Quintes-
sence of Plato, the Water of Thales, the Non-Being
of Parmenides, and that Abyss of the Kabalists,
styled also by them Unknown, Void, Nothing,
Infinite, until, returning by its Rational Boundary
in the Freed Will to consciousness, it makes
manifest the Life, Wisdom, Plenitude, and Supreme
Cause of all. And concerning this Matter ecclesi-
astics of different orders are happily agreed :
Pierce the Black Monk, with the Benedict Valen-
tine ; the experimentalist Friar Bacon, with the
Greek Divine ; Synesius, with the Canon Ripley,
Morien, Lully, and Albertus Magnus ; the
Mahomedan princes Calid, Geber, and Avicenna,
with Paracelsus and the Christian brotherhood
of the Rosy Cross, who, having searched into
Nature by their proper Reason experimentally,
found Her's ; and used it ; giving thanks, and
adoring the perfection of the Almighty Creator
in his discovered Light.

For in the natural world there is no such Matter
to be found ; but the purest is defiled with the
imagination of Forms externally introduced. No-
thing therefore is generated truly, i.e. we mean,
simply so as to represent the Formal Agent alone ;
or can be ; for Nature is bound magically, nor is
she able of herself to loosen the bond of coagulation
by which her Inner Light and principle of perfec-
tion is everywhere shut up. She cannot enter into
the True Light ; for, as the adept says, she has no
hands,45 nor intellect sufficient, nor a will free to
vindicate her final purpose in life. It is therefore she
proceeds to generate in monotonous retrogression,
always circulating into herself. If indeed things
45 Filum Ariadne, page 61.

Further Analysis. 365

beheld in Nature were such as the Archetypes,
whence they are derived, it might be said that
matter is passive to their reception ; but that
which is seen as that which sees is falsified, and
nothing possesses a true similitude ; all is mixture
and an adulterous manifestation, so far as the
phenomenon of the external Nature is concerned.
Without the magical solution and human aid to
fortify, the Spirit is not able to forsake her extra-
neous forms even, much less can she conceive
herself singly in the Universal anew. Wherefore
she reads this important lesson to Madathan, who
thinking, in his ignorance, to make the Philo-
sopher's Stone without dissolution, receives this
check : — An tu nunc cochleas vel cancros cum
testis devor are niteris ? An non prius a vetustissimo
planetarum coquo maturari et preparari illos
oportet ? Dost thou think, says she, to eat the
oysters, crabs, shells and all ? Ought they not
first to be opened and prepared by the most ancient
cook of the planets ?

If any one now, therefore, by hazard should
lightly propose to himself to probe this Matter ; yet
without risking anything, or devoting his life, as
philosophers did formerly, to the pursuit ; but
thinks the times are altered, and that his mind,
being on the alert, will discover it, or that some
entranced sleep waker will reveal the truth to him,
if there be any, without delay ; let him be advised
by these monitions ; since Life and nothing but
Life, and no other Fire but that of Intellect,
sublimed and fortified in its efficient source, dis-
covers the True Matter of the adepts ; and this, as
we are abundantly instructed, by a dissolution of
the Vital Spirit and alienation of its natural bond.
— -Flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom
of heaven, neither doth corruption inherit incor-
ruption ; the sting of death is sin, but the strength
of sin is in the Law of dual generation.

366 Laws and Conditions.

Debito modo ergo Lapidem solvas,

Et nequaquam sophistico,
Sed potius secundum mentem sapientiim,

Nullo corrosivo adhibito ;
Nusquam enim aqua aliqua est,

Quse solvere possit lapidem nostrum,
Prseter unicum fonticulum purissimum et limpidissimum ,

Sponte scaturientem, qui latex ille est,
Ad solutionem idoneus,

Sed omnibus fere absconsus,
Incalescens quoque per se,

In causa est, ut lapis sudet lachrymas* ;
Lentus calor externus ei expedit,

Id quod memoriae probe mandabis.
Adhuc unum tibi aperire libet,

Quod nisi videris fumum nigrum
Inferius, swperiusque albedinem existere,

Opus tuum sinistre peractum est,
Et lapidem errone solvisti,

Ex hoc signo potes statim cernere,
Si vero recte procedis,

Apparet tibi atra nebula,
Qua? fundum sine mora petet,

Spiritu albedinem assumente**

All that is performed in the Proto-chemic artifice
may be comprehended in three terms — solution,
sublimation, and fixation. Solution dissolves and
liquifies the included Spirit ; sublimation volatil-
izes and washes it ; and after calcination there is a
reunion into a more permanent form of Being.
And these processes are reiterated many times, and
many labours of body and mind have to be under-
gone, as in the Practice will be demonstrated ; and
as Hermes himself assures, that to obtain the
blessed Lunar}^ of Diana, he had suffered much,
and toiled incessantly. For the spirit is in the
beginning, even in the best disposed subjects,
terrestrial, heavy, fantastic, and proves rebellious
everywhere at its Source. And, as in the Sphinx's
fables, we read that when vanquished, she was
carried within the temple upon the back of an ass,
this is to signify the simple estate of Being to which

46 Lucerna, Salis Phil. p. 36. cap. iii.

Further Analysis. 367

such a nature is to be reduced by deprivation of all
passion, will, imagination, purpose, or reflective
thought. Xeither, perhaps, is the patient suffering
that has afterwards to be endured, in bearing and
bringing forth the burden of the divine mystery,
unaptly represented under this same guise of an
ass ; for it is not until the conquered elements
return under the humiliating cross of dissolution
that the catholic Wisdom is made manifest, and
brought to hand. Agrippa, in his Vanity of the
Sciences, has written many things in favour of this
asinine condition, which is very necessary, he
says, for a disciple of Wisdom to undergo ; for
this beast is an example of fortitude, patience, and
clemency, and his influence occultly depends on
Sephiroth, i.e., Hochma. He liveth on little forage,
is contented with whatsoever it be ; is readv to endure
penury, hunger, labour, stripes, and persecution : is
of a very simple, indifferent understanding, yet
withal has an innocent, clean heart ; without
choler, and peaceful, bearing all things without
offence ; as a reward for which virtues, he wanteth
lice, is seldom sick, and liveth longer than any
other beast. — So runs the parallel according to the
magician's mind ; and the ass, he goes on further
to observe, does also many labours above his part ;
for he breaketh the earth with the plough, draweth
many heavy carts and water in mills, grinds corn, d-c:
and these things willingly, for against his will he
does not go. All which qualifications are, in their
similitude, very applicable and necessary to be
found in the Philosophic Subject ; and without
which it does not serve to carry out into operation
the Divine behests. But many wonderful stories
are related of this allegorical ass in former times,
and of his qualifications, which the familiar quad-
ruped is no more known to exhibit ; nor is he even
treated with that kind of consideration which
tradition has secured in certain instances for things
less celebrated and as unworthy. For did not the

368 Laws and Conditions.

Saviour signalize this beast above every other,
making choice of it on the occasion of his greatest
earthly triumph ? Of Abraham, too, the Father
of the Faithful, we read that he constantly
travelled with his asses ; and that one, ridden by
the prophet Balaam, was notoriously clear-sighted
and, more discerning than his master, intelligibly
spoke. A story, little less astonishing, is related
of Ammonius, the philosopher, that he admitted
an ass daily to be the auditor of his lectures, and
join in fellow scholarship with Origen and the
Greek Porphyry. Who would believe it ? Yet
this same ass has been accounted a worthy com-
panion of the wise in all ages, and has borne the
burden of the Mysteries from time immemorial.
Jews, Ethnics, Christians, have in turn, identifying,
honoured him ; neither, perchance, had Apuleius
of Megara been admitted to the mysteries of Isis,
if he had not first of an inquisitive philosopher been
turned into an ass. There is no creature, concludes
the panegyrist, that is so able to receive divinity
as an ass, into whom if ye be not at length turned,
ye shall in no wise be able to carry the divine
mysteries.47 For nothing that is defiled by informa-
tion, or inconstant, or impassive, or selfish, or
impure can attract Divinity. All mixed unguents
are hateful to Minerva.

The goddess scorns
All mixture of her pure and simple oil.48

And, as in the mysteries, the Aspirant entering
into the interior to behold the Adytum, leaves
behind him all the statues in the temple ; so must
the mind be prepared to depart from all images and
intellections, whether self-originating or impressed,
before it can entertain the simple Unity of Light
within. The wise hierophants indeed appear to
have signified by these illustrations the order in

37 Vanity of the Sciences, chapter next in conclusion.
Apuleius, Metamorphoses, or Golden Ass.
48 Callimachus's Hymn to Minerva.

Further Analysis. 369

which Divinity is perceived. For, as when return-
ing after the association within, which was not
with a statue or mere mental image (but with the
reality which these images represent), the statues
again present themselves as secondary objects to
view ; so likewise, subsequent to the Divine Union,
there recurs That also which was in the mind prior
to the union, exalted and multiplied. And That
tvhich thus remains to him who passes beyond all
things, is That which is prior to all things, and the
First Hatter. For the soul does not willingly accede
to that which is entirely non-being, but running
back from thence in a contrary direction, it arrives
not at another thing but at itself. And as in the
Divine conjunction, whilst it lasts, there are not
two things as of subject and object in the con-
sciousness, but the life understanding and the light
understood are one ; whoever thus becomes One
by mingling with the Efficient, will have a remnant
of it with himself ; according to the eloquent
tradition of Plotinus, where, discussing this union,
he treats it as no mere spectacle or theoretical
figment, but as a true experimental ingress of the
understanding essence to its source. And the light
and energy which are there, he says, are of the
First Light shining primarily in itself, which at
one and the same time illuminates and is illum-
inated. But if any one should inquire what the
nature is of this First Light, which is the founda-
tion of every intellect and primarily knows itself,
such a one should first become established in
Intellect, when he will be able through it, as an
image, to behold the Archetype. And this, con-
tinues the philosopher, may be effected if you
first separate body from the man and its
. defilements ; and That ivhich becomes generated
of intelligence, after everything foreign is removed,
is the original of all. For this primary motion of
the ebbing life from its ultimate recessure recreates,
and so the Generative Virtue, which was alienated,
becomes re-united to Mind.

370 Laws and Conditions.

And here we observe the rule of thought to be
invariable, whether theoretic or in actual opera-
tion ; whether, according to strict analysis, reason
becomes bounded about its own inversion, as with
common logic is the case ; or, experimentally
proving, it effects that inversion, strictly followed
either way, it arrives at the same Truth, though in
different relations, the one in light, the other in
life, the one by inference, the other in Absolute
Identity, proving the First Source. The differences
and inconsistencies that occur in the ancient writers
and those faults which now to verbal critics are
most apparent, vanish for the most part in their
right understanding, and might cease to be re-
garded as such, could we but for an interval only
enter into their original light. The proud spirit of
modern science might then be taught to venerate
the Wisdom it has so long in ignorance despised ;
even to honour the very contradictions, which not
from levity or indistinctness of thought arose,
but from such an excessive subtlety and refine-
ment of reason rather, as, seeking to find utter-
ance, was blurred by inadequate reception, and
the duplicity of common speech.

371