never exposed to the crudest evils, this can be understood as
Hierocles has understood it, in a simple and natural manner, or in a
more mysterious manner as I stated. It is evident at once, in
following the inferences of the principles which have been given, that
the sage is not, in reality, subject to the severest evils, since, not
aggravating by his emotions those which the necessity of destiny
inflict upon him, and bearing them with resignation, he alleviates
them; living happy, even in the midst of misfortune, in the firm hope
that these evils will no more trouble his days, and certain that the
divine blessings which are reserved for virtue, await him in another
life.[386] Hierocles, after having revealed this first manner of
explaining the verse in question, touches lightly upon the second, in
saying that the Will of man can have an influence on Providence, when,
acting in a lofty soul, it is assisted by succour from heaven and
operates with it.[387] This was a part of the doctrine taught in the
mysteries, whose divulgence to the profane was forbidden. According to
this doctrine, of which sufficiently strong traces can be recognized
in Plato,[388] the Will, exerting itself by faith, was able to
subjugate Necessity itself, to command Nature, and to work miracles.
It was the principle upon which was founded the magic of the disciples
of Zoroaster.[389] Jesus saying parabolically, that by means of faith
one could remove mountains,[390] only spoke according to the
theosophical traditions known to all the sages. “The uprightness of
the heart and faith triumphs over all obstacles,” said Kong-Tse[391];
“all men can render themselves equal to the sages and to the heroes
whose memory the nations revere,” said Meng-Tse; “it is never the
power which is lacking, it is the will; provided one desire, one
succeeds.”[392] These ideas of the Chinese theosophists are found in
the writings of the Indians,[393] and even in those of some Europeans
who, as I have already observed, had not enough erudition to be
imitators. “The greater the will,” said Boehme, “the greater the being
and the more powerfully inspired.”[394] “Will and liberty are the same
thing.”[395] “It is the source of light, the magic which makes
something from nothing.”[396]
“The Will which goes resolutely forward is faith; it models
its own form in spirit and overcomes all things; by it, a
soul receives the power of carrying its influence in another
soul, and of penetrating its most intimate essences. When it
acts with God it can overthrow mountains, break the rocks,
confound the plots of the impious, and breathe upon them
disorder and dismay; it can effect all prodigies, command
the heavens, the sea, and enchain death itself: it
subjugates all. Nothing can be named that cannot be
commanded in the name of the Eternal. The soul which
executes these great things only imitates the prophets and
the saints, Moses, Jesus, and the apostles. All the elect
have a similar power. Evil disappears before them. Nothing
can harm the one in whom God dwells.”[397]
It is in departing from this doctrine, taught as I have said in the
mysteries, that certain gnostics of the Alexandrian school assert that
evils never attended the true sages, if there were found men who might
have been so in reality; for Providence, image of divine justice,
would never allow the innocent to suffer and be punished. Basil, who
was one of those who supported this Platonic opinion,[398] was sharply
reprimanded by the orthodox Christians, who treated him as a heretic,
quoting to him the example of the martyrs. Basil replied that the
martyrs were not entirely innocent, because there is no man exempt
from faults; that God punishes in them, either evil desires, actual
and secret sins, or sins that the soul had committed in a previous
existence; and as they did not fail to oppose him again with the
example of Jesus, who, although fully innocent, had, however, suffered
the torture of the cross, Basil answered without hesitation that God
had been just, in his opinion, and that Jesus, being man, was no more
than another exempt from sin.[399]
13. _Even as Truth, does Error have its lovers;
With prudence the Philosopher approves or blames;
If Error triumph, he departs and waits._
It is sufficiently known that Pythagoras was the first who used the
word Philosopher to designate _a friend of wisdom._[400] Before him,
the word _Sophos_, sage, was used. It is therefore with intention that
I have made it enter into my translation, although it may not be
literally in the text. The portrayal that Lysis gives of the
philosopher represents everything in moderation and in that just mean,
where the celebrated Kong-Tse placed also the perfection of the
sage.[401] He commended to him tolerance for the opinions of others,
instilling in him that, as truth and error have likewise their
followers, one must not be flattered into thinking that one can
enlighten all men, nor bring them to accept the same sentiments and to
profess the same doctrine. Pythagoras had, following his custom,
expressed these same ideas by symbolic phrases: “Exceed not the
balance,” he had said, “stir not the fire with the sword, all
materials are not fitting to make a statue of Mercury.” That is to
say, avoid all excess; depart not from the golden mean which is the
appanage of the philosopher; propagate not your doctrine by violent
means; use not the sword in the cause of God and the truth; confide
not science to a corrupt soul; or as Jesus forcibly said: “Give not
that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before
swine”[402]; for all men are not equally fitted to receive science, to
become models of wisdom, nor to reflect the image of God.
Pythagoras, it must be said, had not always entertained these
sentiments. While he was young and while he still burned unconsciously
with the fire of passions, he abandoned himself to a blind and
vehement zeal. An excess of enthusiasm and of divine love had thrown
him into intolerance and perhaps he would have become persecutor, if,
like Mohammed, he had had the weapons at hand. An incident opened his
eyes. As he had contracted the habit of treating his disciples very
severely, and as he generally censured men for their vices with much
asperity, it happened one day that a youth, whose mistakes he had
publicly exposed and whom he had upbraided with bitterest reproaches,
conceived such despair that he killed himself. The philosopher never
thought of this evil of which he had been the cause without violent
grief; he meditated deeply, and made from this incident reflections
which served him the remainder of his life. He realized, as he
energetically expressed it, that one must not stir the fire with the
sword. One can, in this regard, compare him with Kong-Tse and
Socrates. The other theosophists have not always shown the same
moderation. Krishna, the most tolerant among them had nevertheless
said, abandoning himself to thoughtless enthusiasm: “Wisdom consists
in being wholly for Me … in freedom from love of self … in loosening
all bonds of attachment for one’s children, wife, and home … in
rendering to God alone a steadfast cult … disdaining and fleeing from
the society of men”[403]: words remarkable for the connection that
they have with those of Jesus: “If any man come to me and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”[404] Zoroaster
seemed to authorize persecution, saying in an outburst of indignation:
“He who does evil, destroy him; rise up against all those who are
cruel.… Smite with strength the proud Turanian who afflicts and
torments the just.”[405] One knows to what pitch of wrath Moses was
kindled against the Midianites and the other peoples who resisted
him,[406] notwithstanding that he had announced, in a calmer moment,
the God of Israel as a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and
abundant in goodness and truth.[407] Mohammed, as passionate as Moses,
and strongly resembling the legislator of the Hebrews by his ability
and firmness, has fallen into the same excess. He has often depicted,
as cruel and inexorable, this same God whom he invokes at the head of
all of his writings, as very good, very just, and very clement.[408]
This proves how rare a thing it is to remain in the golden mean so
commended by Kong-Tse and Pythagoras, how difficult it is for any
pupil to resist the lure of the passions to stifle utterly their
voice, in order to hear only the voice of the divine inspiration.
Reflecting upon the discrepancies of the great men whom I have just
cited, one cannot refrain from thinking with Basil, that, in effect,
there are no men on earth veritably wise and without sin[409]; above
all when one considers that Jesus expressed himself in the same
details as Krishna, Zoroaster, and Moses; and that he who had exhorted
us in one passage to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate
us, and to pray even for those who persecute and calumniate us,[410]
menaces with fire from heaven the cities that recognize him not,[411]
and elsewhere it is written: “Do not think that I came to send peace
upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword”[412]; “For there
shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two,
and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son,
and the son against the father, the mother against the daughter, and
the daughter against the mother.”[413] “He that is not with me, is
against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth.”[414]
14. _Listen, and in thine heart engrave my words;
Keep closed both eye and ear ’gainst prejudice;
Of others the example fear; think for thyself._
Lysis continues, in the name of Pythagoras, to trace for the
philosopher the course that he must follow in the first part of his
doctrine, which is the Purification. After having commended to him
moderation and prudence in all things, having exhorted him to be as
slow to censure as to approve, he seeks to put him on guard against
prejudices and the routine of example, which are, in reality, the
greatest obstacles that are encountered by science and truth. This is
what Bacon, the regenerator of philosophy in modern Europe, so keenly
felt, as I have already cited with praise at the opening of this work.
This excellent observer, to whom we owe our freedom from scholastic
leading-strings whose ignorance had stifled for us the name of
Aristotle, having formed the difficult enterprise of disencumbering
and, as it were, clearing the air belonging to the human
understanding, in order to put it in a condition to receive an edifice
less barbarous, remarked, that one would never attain to establishing
there the foundation of true science, if one did not first labour to
set aside prejudices.[415] He displayed all his forces against these
formidable enemies of human perfectibility, and if he did not
overthrow them all, at least he indicated them in such a manner as to
make it easier to recognize and destroy them. The prejudices which
obsess the human understanding and which he calls idols, are,
according to him, of four kinds: these are the idols of the tribe; the
idols of the den; the idols of society; and the idols of theories. The
first are inherent in human nature; the second are those of each
individual; the third result from the equivocal definitions attached
to words; the fourth and the most numerous are those that man receives
from his teachers and from the doctrines which are current.[416] The
last are the most tenacious and the most difficult to conquer. It
seems even impossible wholly to resist them. The man who aspires to
the perilous glory of improving the human mind, finds himself placed
between two formidable dangers, which, like those of Sylla and
Charybdis, threaten alternately to break his frail bark: upon one is
irresistible routine, upon the other proud innovation. There is danger
alike from both sides. He can save himself only by favour of the
golden mean, so commended by all the sages and so rarely followed even
by them.
This golden mean must needs be very difficult to hold in the course of
life, since Kong-Tse himself, who has made it all his study, has
lacked it in the most important part of his doctrine, in that
concerning human perfectibility. Imbued unknowingly with the
prejudices of his nation, he has seen nothing beyond the doctrine of
the ancients and has not believed that anything might be added
thereunto.[417] Instead of pushing the mind of the Chinese forward
toward the goal where nature unceasingly tends, which is the
perfection of all things, he has, on the contrary, thrown it backward
and, inspiring it with a fanatical respect for works of the past, has
prevented it from meditating upon anything great for the future.[418]
Filial piety itself, pushed, to excess changed to a blind imitation,
has also augmented the evil. So that the greatest people of the world,
the richest in principles of all kinds, not daring to draw from these
same principles any development, through fear of profaning them,
continually on their knees before a sterile antiquity, have remained
stationary, whereas all around is progression; and for nearly four
thousand years have really not advanced a step more towards the
civilization and perfection of the arts and sciences.
The side on which Bacon has departed from the _juste milieu_ has been
precisely the opposite from that which prevented Kong-Tse from
remaining there. The Chinese theosophist had been led astray by his
excessive veneration for antiquity and the English philosopher, by his
profound disdain for it. Warned against the doctrine of Aristotle,
Bacon has extended his prejudice to everything that came from the
ancients. Rejecting in a moment the labour of thirty centuries and the
fruit of the meditation of the greatest geniuses, he has wished to
admit nothing beyond what experience could confirm in his eyes.[419]
Logic to him has seemed useless for the invention of the
sciences.[420] He has abandoned the syllogism, as an instrument too
gross to penetrate the depths of nature.[421] He has thought that it
could be of no avail either in expression of words or in the ideas
which flow from it.[422] He has believed the abstract principles
deprived of all foundation; and with the same hand with which he
fights these false ideas he has fought the results of these
principles, in which he has unfortunately found much less
resistance.[423] Filled with contempt for the philosophy of the
Greeks, he has denied that it had produced anything either useful or
good[424]; so that after having banished the natural philosophy of
Aristotle, which he called a jumble of dialectic terms,[425] he has
seen in the metaphysics of Plato only a dangerous and depraved
philosophy, and in the theosophy of Pythagoras only a gross and
shocking superstition.[426] Here indeed is a case of returning again
to the idea of Basil, and of exclaiming with him, that no man is
without sin. Kong-Tse has been unquestionably one of the greatest men
who has honoured the earth, and Bacon one of the most judicious
philosophers of Europe; both have, however, committed grave mistakes
whose effect is more or less felt by posterity: the former, filling
the Chinese _literati_ with an exaggerated respect for antiquity, has
made of it an immobile and almost inert mass, that Providence, in
order to obtain certain necessary movements, has had to strike many
times with the terrible scourge of revolutions; the latter, inspiring,
on the contrary, a thoughtless contempt for everything that came from
the ancients, demanding the proof of their principles, the reason for
their dogmas, subjecting all to the light of experience, has broken
the scientific body, has deprived it of unity, and has transformed the
assemblage of thinkers into a tumultuous anarchy from whose irregular
movement has sprung enough violent storms. If Bacon had been able to
effect in Europe the same influence that Kong-Tse had effected in
China, he would have drawn philosophy into materialism and absolute
empiricism. Happily the remedy is born of the evil itself. The lack of
unity has taken away all force from the anarchical colossus. Each
supposing to be in the right, no one was. A hundred systems raised one
upon the other clashed and were broken in turn. Experience, invoked by
all parties, has taken all colours and its opposed judgments were
self-destructive.
If, after having called attention to the mistakes of these great men,
I dared to hazard my opinion upon the point where both of them have
failed, I would say that they have confused the principles of the
sciences with their developments; it must be so, by drawing the
principles from the past, as Kong-Tse; by allowing the developments to
act throughout the future, as Bacon. Principles hold to the Necessity
of things; they are immutable in themselves; finite, inaccessible to
the senses, they are proved by reason: their developments proceed from
the power of the Will; these developments are free, indefinite; they
affect the senses and are demonstrated by experience. Never is the
development of a principle finished in the past, as Kong-Tse believed;
never is a principle created in the future, as Bacon imagined. The
development of a principle produces another principle, but always in
the past; and as soon as this new principle is laid down, it is
universal and beyond the reach of experience. Man knows that this
principle exists, but he knows not how. If he knew, he would be able
to create it at his pleasure; which does not belong to his nature.
Man develops, perfects, or depraves, but he creates nothing. The
scientific golden mean commended by Pythagoras, consists therefore, in
seizing the principles of the sciences where they are and developing
them freely without being constrained or driven by any false ideas. As
to that which concerns morals, it is forcibly enough expressed by all
that has preceded.
The man who recognizes his dignity, says Hierocles, is incapable of
being prejudiced or seduced by anything.[427] Temperance and force are
the two incorruptible guardians of the soul: they prevent it from
yielding to the allurements of things pleasing and being frightened by
the horrors of things dreadful. Death suffered in a good cause is
illustrious and glorious.
15. _Consult, deliberate, and freely choose._
In explaining this line from a moral standpoint as Hierocles has done,
one readily feels that to deliberate and choose in that which relates
to moral conduct, consists in seeking for what is good or evil in an
action, and in attaching oneself to it or fleeing from it, without
letting oneself be drawn along by the lure of pleasure or the fear of
pain.[428] But if one penetrates still deeper into the meaning of this
line, it is seen that it proceeds from principles previously laid down
regarding the necessity of Destiny and the power of the Will; and that
Pythagoras neglected no opportunity for making his disciples feel
that, although forced by Destiny to find themselves in such or such a
condition, they remained free to weigh the consequences of their
action, and to decide themselves upon the part that they ought to
take. The following lines are, as it were, the corollary of his
counsel.
16. _Let fools act aimlessly and without cause,
Thou shouldst, in the present, contemplate the future._
That is to say, thou shouldst consider what will be the results of
such or such action and think that these results, dependent upon thy
will (while the action remains in suspense and free, while they are
yet to be born), will become the domain of Necessity the very instant
when the action will be executed, and increasing in the past, once
they shall have had birth, will coöperate in forming the plan of a new
future.
I beg the reader, interested in these sorts of comparisons, to reflect
a moment upon the idea of Pythagoras. He will find here the veritable
source of the astrological science of the ancients. Doubtless he is
not ignorant of what an extended influence this science exercised
already upon the face of the globe. The Egyptians, Chaldeans,
Phœnicians, did not separate it from that which regulated the cult of
the gods.[429] Their temples were but an abridged image of the
Universe, and the tower which served as an observatory was raised at
the side of the sacrificial altar. The Peruvians followed, in this
respect, the same usages as the Greeks and Romans.[430] Everywhere the
grand Pontiff united the science of genethlialogy or astrology with
the priesthood, and concealed with care the principles of this science
within the precincts of the sanctuary.[431] It was a Secret of State
among the Etruscans and at Rome,[432] as it still is in China and
Japan.[433] The Brahmans did not confide its elements except to those
whom they deemed worthy to be initiated.[434] For one need only lay
aside an instant the bandage of prejudice to see that an Universal
science, linked throughout to what men recognize as the most holy, can
not be the product of folly and stupidity, as has been reiterated a
hundred times by a host of moralists. All antiquity is certainly
neither foolish nor stupid, and the sciences it cultivated were
supported by principles which, for us today, being wholly unknown,
have none the less existed. Pythagoras, if we give attention here,
revealed to us those of genethlialogy and of all the sciences of
divination which relate thereunto.