is to say, that the route that man traverses in time, and that he
modifies by means of the power of his will, he has already traversed
and modified; in the same manner, using a practical illustration, that
the earth describing its annual orbit around the sun, according to the
modern system, traverses the same spaces and sees unfold around it
almost the same aspects: so that, following anew a route that he has
traced for himself, man would be able not only to recognize the
imprints of his steps, but to foresee the objects that he is about to
encounter, since he has already seen them, if his memory preserved the
image, and if this image was not effaced by the necessary consequence
of his nature and the providential laws which rule him. Such is the
doctrine of Pythagoras as I have already revealed.[435] It was that of
the mysteries and of all the sages of antiquity. Origen, who has
opposed it, attributes it to the Egyptians, to the Pythagoreans, and
to the disciples of Plato. It was contained in the sacred books of the
Chaldeans, cited by Syncellus, under the title of _livres
géniques_.[436] Seneca and Synesius have supported it as wholly in
accordance with the spirit of the initiations.[437] What the ancients
called the _great year_, was a consequence of this doctrine; for it
was taught in the mysteries, that the Universe itself traversed, after
a sequence of incalculable centuries, the same revolutions that it had
already traversed, and brought around in the vast unfolding of its
concentric spheres, as much for it as for the worlds which compose it,
the succession of the four ages, the duration of which, relative to
the nature of each being, immense for the Universal Man, is limited in
the individual to what is called infancy, youth, manhood, and old age,
and is represented on the earth by the fleeting seasons of spring,
summer, autumn, and winter. This great year, thus conceived, has been
common to all the peoples of the earth.[438] Cicero has plainly seen
that it constituted the veritable basis of genethlialogy or the
astrological science.[439] Indeed if the future is composed of the
past――that is, a thing already made, upon which the present is
gradually unfolded as upon the circumference of a circle which has
neither beginning nor end, it is evident that one can succeed, up to a
certain point, to recognize it, whether by means of remembrance, by
examining in the past, the picture of the whole revolution; or by
means of prevision carrying the moral sight, more or less far, upon
the route through which the Universe is passing. These two methods
have grave disadvantages. The first appears even impossible. For what
is the duration of the great year? What is the immense period, which,
containing the circle of all possible aspects and of all corresponding
effects, as Cicero supposes, is able, by observations made and set
down in the genethliatic archives, to foresee, at the second
revolution, the return of the events which were already linked there
and which must be reproduced?[440] Plato exacts, for the perfection of
this great year, that the movement of the fixed stars, which
constitutes what we call the precession of the equinoxes, should
coincide with the particular movement of the celestial bodies, so as
to bring back the heavens to the fixed point of its primitive
position.[441] The Brahmans carry the greatest duration of this
immense period, which they name _Kalpa_, to 4,320,000,000 of years,
and its mean duration, which they name _Maha-Youg_, to 4,320,000.[442]
The Chinese appear to restrict it to 432,000 years,[443] and in this
they agree with the Chaldeans; but when one reduces it again to a
twelfth of this number, with the Egyptians, that is, to the sole
revolution of the fixed stars, which they made, according to
Hipparchus, 36,000 years, and which we make no more than 25,867,
according to modern calculations,[444] we feel indeed that we would be
still very far from having a series of observations capable of making
us foresee the return of the same events, and that we could not
conceive even, how men could ever attain to its mastery. As to the
second method, which consists, as I have said, in carrying forward the
moral sight upon the route which one has before him, I have no need to
observe that it can be only very conjectural and very uncertain, since
it depends upon a faculty which man has never possessed except as a
special favour of Providence.
The principle by which it is claimed that the future is only a return
of the past, did not therefore suffice to recognize even the plan of
it; a second principle is necessary, and this principle, openly
announced in the Golden Verses, as we shall see farther on, was that
by which it was established that Nature is everywhere alike, and,
consequently, that its action, being uniform in the smallest sphere as
in the greatest, in the highest as in the lowest, can be inferred from
both, and pronounced by analogy. This principle proceeded from the
ancient dogma concerning the animation of the Universe, as much in
general as in particular: a dogma consecrated among all nations, and
following which it was taught that not only the Great All, but the
innumerable worlds which are like its members, the heavens and the
heaven of heavens, the stars and all the beings who people them even
to the plants and metals, are penetrated by the same Soul and moved by
the same Spirit.[445] Stanley attributes this dogma to the
Chaldeans,[446] Kircher to the Egyptians,[447] and the wise Rabbi
Maimonides traces it back to the Sabæans.[448] Saumaise has attributed
to them the origin of astrological science,[449] and he is correct in
one point. But of what use is it to consider the movement of the
heavens and the respective position of the stars belonging to the same
sphere as the earth, in order to form the genethliatical theme of the
empires of nations, cities, and even of simple individuals, and
conclude from the point of departure in the temporal route of
existence, the aim of this route and the fortunate or unfortunate
events with which they should be sown, if one had not established,
primarily, that this route, being only some portion of an existing
sphere and already traversed, it belonged thus to the domain of
Necessity and could be known; and, secondarily, that the analogical
_rapport_ ruling between the sentient sphere that one examined and the
intelligible sphere that one could not perceive, authorized drawing
inferences from both and even deciding from the general to the
particular? For, believing that the stars have an actual and direct
influence upon the destiny of peoples and of men, and that they even
determine this destiny by their good or evil aspects, is an idea as
false as ridiculous, born of the darkness of modern times, and that is
not found among the ancients, even among the most ignorant masses. The
genethliatical science is supported by principles less absurd. These
principles, drawn from the mysteries, were, as I have explained, that
the future is a return of the past and that nature is everywhere the
same.
It is from the union of these two principles that resulted
genethlialogy, or the science by which the point of departure being
known in any sphere whatever, they believed they had discovered, by
the aspect and direction of the stars, the portion of this sphere
which must immediately follow this point. But this union, outside of
the enormous difficulty that it presented, still involved in its
execution very dangerous consequences. This is why they concealed in
the sanctuaries the science which was its object, and made of religion
a secret and state affair. The prevision of the future, supposing it
possible as the ancients did, is not, in effect, a science that one
should abandon to the vulgar, who, being unable to acquire previously
the learning necessary, and having but rarely the wisdom which
regulates its use, risked debasing it, or making use of it wrongfully.
Furthermore, the pontiffs, who were in sole charge, initiated in the
great mysteries and possessing the _ensemble_ of the doctrine, knew
very well that the future, such even as they could hope to understand
it in the perfection of the science, was never aught but a doubtful
future, a sort of canvas upon which the power of the Will might
exercise itself freely, in such a manner that, although the matter
might be determined beforehand, its form was not, and that such an
imminent event could be suspended, evaded, or changed by a coöperation
of the acts of the will, inaccessible to all prevision. This is what
was said with such profoundness by Tiresias, the most famous
hierophant of Greece and whom Homer called the only sage,[450] these
words so often quoted and so little understood: “Whatever I may see
will come to pass, or it will not come to pass”[451]; that is to say,
The event that I see is in the necessity of Destiny and it will come
to pass, unless it is changed by the power of the Will; in which case
it will not come to pass.
17. _That which thou dost not know, pretend not that thou dost.
Instruct thyself: for time and patience favour all._
Lysis has enclosed in these two lines the summary of the doctrine of
Pythagoras regarding science: according to this philosopher, all
science consists of knowing how to distinguish what one does not know
and of desiring to learn that of which one knows nothing.[452]
Socrates had adopted this idea, as simple as profound; and Plato has
consecrated several of his dialogues to its development.[453]
But the distinction between what one does not know and the desire to
learn that of which one is ignorant, is a thing much rarer than one
imagines. It is the golden mean of science, as difficult to possess as
that of virtue, and without which it is, however, impossible to know
oneself. For, without knowledge of oneself, how can one acquire
knowledge of others? How judge them if one cannot be one’s own judge?
Pursue this reasoning. It is evident that one can know only what one
has learned from others, or what one has found from oneself: in order
to have learned from others, one must have wished to receive lessons;
in order to have found, one must have wished to seek; but one cannot
reasonably desire to learn or to seek only for what one believes one
does not know. If one imposes upon oneself this important point, and
if one imagines oneself knowing that of which one is ignorant, one
must judge it wholly useless to learn or to seek, and then ignorance
is incurable: it is madness to style oneself doctor concerning things
that one has neither learned nor sought after, and of which one can
consequently have no knowledge. It is Plato who has made this
irresistible reasoning, and who has drawn this conclusion: that all
the mistakes that man commits come from that sort of ignorance which
makes him believe that he knows what he does not know.[454]
From time immemorial this sort of ignorance has been quite
considerable; but I believe that it will never again show itself to
the extent it did among us some centuries ago. Men hardly free from
the mire of barbarism, without being given the time either to acquire
or to seek after any true knowledge of antiquity, have offered
themselves boldly as its judges and have declared that the great men
who have made it illustrious were either ignorant, imposters,
fanatics, or fools. Here, I see musicians who seriously assure me that
the Greeks were rustics in the way of music; that all that can be said
of the wonders effected by this art is idle talk, and that we have not
a village fiddler who could not produce as much effect as Orpheus,
Terpander, or Timotheus, if he had similar auditors.[455] There, are
the critics who tell me with the same phlegmatic air that the Greeks
of the time of Homer knew neither how to read nor how to write; that
this poet himself, assuming that he really existed, did not know the
letters of the alphabet[456]; but that his existence is a fancy,[457]
and that the works attributed to him are the crude productions of
certain plagiarist rhapsodists.[458] Further on I see, to complete the
singularity, a research worker who finds, doubtless to the support of
all this, that the first editor of the poems of Homer, the virile
legislator of Sparta, Lycurgus in short, was a man ignorant and
unlettered, knowing neither how to read nor write[459]: quite an
original idea and a comparison wholly bizarre, between the author and
the editor of the _Iliad_! But this is nothing. Here is an archbishop
of Thessalonica, who, animated by a righteous indignation, declared
that Homer may have been an instrument of the devil,[460] and that one
may be damned in reading him. That one shrugs the shoulders at the
allegories of this poet, that one finds them not in the least
interesting, that one falls asleep even, let all that pass; but to be
damned! I have said that Bacon, drawn along unfortunately by that
fatal prejudice which makes one judge without understanding, had
calumniated the philosophy of the Greeks; his numerous disciples have
even surpassed him upon this point. Condillac, the _coryphée_ of
modern empiricism, has seen in Plato only delirious metaphysics
unworthy of occupying his time, and in Zeno only logic deprived of
reasoning and principles. I would that Condillac, so great an amateur
of analysis, had endeavoured to analyse the metaphysics of the one and
the logic of the other, to prove to me that he understood at least
what he found so unworthy of taking up his time; but that was the
thing about which he thought the least. Open whatever book you will;
if the authors are theologians, they will say to you that Socrates,
Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Kong-Tse or Confucius, as they call him, are
pagans,[461] whose damnation is, if not certain, at least very
probable; they will treat their theosophy with the most profound
contempt: if they are physicists, they will assure you that Thales,
Leucippus, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Aristotle,
and the others are miserable dreamers; they will jeer at their
systems: if they are astronomers, they will laugh at their astronomy:
if they are naturalists, chemists, botanists, they will make jest of
their methods, and will take into consideration their credulity, their
stupidity, their bad faith, the numerous wonders that they no longer
understand in Aristotle and in Pliny. None will take the trouble to
prove their assertions; but, like people blinded by passion and
ignorance, they state as fact what is in question, or putting their
own ideas in place of those that they do not understand they will
create phantoms for the sake of fighting them. Never going back to the
principles of anything, stopping only at forms, adopting without
examination the commonest notions, they will commit on all sides the
same mistake that they have committed with respect to the
genethliatical science, the principles of which I have shown in my
last Examination; and confounding this science of the ancients with
the astrology of the moderns, they will consider in the same light
Tiresias and Nostradamus, and will see no difference between the
oracle of Ammon, or of Delphi, and the lucky chance of the most paltry
fortune-teller.
However, I do not pretend to say that all the modern savants indulge,
in this same manner, in presumption and false notions with regard to
antiquity; there have been many honourable exceptions among them: even
those have been found who, drawn beyond the golden mean, by the
necessity of effecting a useful reform or of establishing a new
system, have returned there as soon as their passion or their interest
have no longer commanded them. Such for example is Bacon, to whom
philosophy has owed enough great favours to forget certain incidental
prejudices; for I am, furthermore, far from attributing to him the
errors of his disciples. Bacon, at the risk of contradicting himself,
yielding to the sentiment of truth, although he subjected all to the
light of experience, admitted, however, positive and real universals,
which, by his method are wholly inexplicable.[462] Forgetting what he
had said of Plato in one book, he declared in another: that this
philosopher, endowed with a sublime genius, turning his attention upon
all nature and contemplating all things from a lofty elevation, had
seen very clearly, in his doctrine of ideas, what the veritable
objects of science are.[463] Finally recognizing the principles of
physics and the _ensemble_ of things as the foremost to be considered,
he made astrological science, which he likened to astronomy, depend
upon it, in such a manner as to show that he did not confound it with
vulgar astrology. This philosopher found that before his time,
astronomy, well enough founded upon phenomena, utterly lacked
soundness, and that astrology had lost its true principles. To be sure
he agreed with astronomy presenting the exterior of celestial
phenomena, that is to say, the number, situation, movement, and
periods of the stars; but he accused it of lacking in understanding of
the physical reasons of these phenomena. He believed that a single
theory which contents itself with appearances is a very easy thing,
and that one can imagine an infinity of speculations of this sort;
also he wished that the science of astronomy might be further
advanced.
Instead of revealing the reasons of celestial phenomena [he
said], one is occupied only with observations and
mathematical demonstrations; for these observations and
these demonstrations can indeed furnish certain ingenious
hypotheses to settle all that in one’s mind, and to make an
idea of this assemblage, but not to know precisely how and
why all this is actually in nature: they indicate, at the
most, the apparent movements, the artificial assemblage, the
arbitrary combination of all these phenomena, but not the
veritable causes and the reality of things: and as to this
subject [he continues], it is with very little judgment that
astronomy is ranked among the mathematical sciences; this
classification derogates from its dignity.[464]
Regarding astrological science, Bacon wished that it might be
regenerated completely by bringing it back to its real principles,
that is to say, that one should reject all that the vulgar had added
thereto, both narrow and superstitious, preserving only the grand
revolutions of the ancients. These ideas, as is quite obvious, are not
at all in accord with those that his disciples have adopted since;
also the greater part of them refrain from citing similar passages.
18. _Neglect not thy health …_
I had at first the intention of making here some allusion to the
manner in which Pythagoras and the ancient sages considered medicine;
and I had wished to reveal their principles, quite different from
those of the moderns; but I have realized that an object so important
requires developments that this work would not allow and I have left
them for a time more opportune, and for a work more suitable. Moreover
the line of Lysis has no need of explanation; it is clear. This
philosopher commends each one to guard his health, to keep it by
temperance and moderation, and if it becomes impaired, to put himself
in condition of not confiding to another the care of its
re-establishment. This precept was sufficiently understood by the
ancients for it to have become a sort of proverb.
The Emperor Tiberius, who made it a rule of conduct, said that a man
of thirty years or more who called or even consulted a physician was
an ignoramus.[465] It is true that Tiberius did not add to the precept
the exercise of the temperance that Lysis did not forget to commend in
the following lines, also he lived only seventy-eight years,
notwithstanding the strength of his constitution promised him a much
longer life. Hippocrates of Cos, the father of medicine in Greece and
strongly attached to the doctrine of Pythagoras, lived one hundred and
four years; Xenophile, Apollonius, Tyanæus, Demonax, and many other
Pythagorean philosophers lived to one hundred and six and one-hundred
and ten years; and Pythagoras himself, although violently persecuted
towards the end of his life, attained to nearly ninety-nine years
according to some and even to the century mark according to
others.[466]
19. … _Dispense with moderation,
Food to the body, and to the mind repose_,
The body, being the instrument of the soul, Pythagoras desired that
one should take reasonable and necessary care of it in order to hold
it always in condition to execute the behests of the soul. He regarded
its preservation as a part of the purgative virtue.[467]
20. _Too much attention or too little shun; for envy
Thus, to either excess is alike attached._
The philosopher, firm in his principle of _juste milieu_, wished that
his disciples should avoid excess in all things, and that they should
not draw attention to themselves by an unusual way of living. It was a
widespread opinion among the ancients, that envy, shameful for the one
who felt it and dangerous for the one who inspired it, had fatal
consequences for both.[468] For envy is attached to all that tends to
distinguish men too ostensibly. Thus, notwithstanding all that has
been published of the extraordinary rules and severe abstinences that
Pythagoras imposed upon his disciples and that he made them observe,
it appears indubitable that they were only established after his
death, and that his interpreters, being deceived regarding the
mysterious meaning of these symbols, take in the literal sense, what
he had said in the figurative. The philosopher blamed only the excess,
and permitted besides, a moderate usage of all the foods to which men
were accustomed. Even the beans, for which his disciples later
conceived so much abhorrence, were eaten frequently.[469] He did not
forbid absolutely either wine, or meat, or even fish, whatever may
have been asserted at different times[470]; though, indeed, those of
his disciples who aspired to the highest perfection abstained from
them[471]; he represented drunkenness and intemperance only as odious
vices that should be avoided.[472] He had no scruples about drinking a
little wine himself, and of tasting the meats set before him at
table,[473] in order to show that he did not regard them as impure,
notwithstanding he preferred the vegetable _régime_ to all others and
that, for the most part, he restricted himself to it from choice.[474]
Further on I will return to the mystic meaning of the symbols, by
which he had the appearance of forbidding the use of certain foods and
above all beans.
21. _Luxury and avarice have similar results.
One must choose in all things a mean just and good._
Lysis terminates the purgative part of the doctrine of Pythagoras with
the trait which characterizes it in general and in particular; he has
shown the golden mean in virtue and in science; he has commended it in
conduct, he states in full and says openly that extremes meet; that
luxury and avarice differ not in their effects, and that philosophy
consists in avoiding excess in everything. Hierocles adds that, to be
happy, one must know how, where, when, and how much to take; and that
he who is ignorant of these just limits is always unhappy and he
proves it as follows:
Voluptuousness [he said] is necessarily the effect of an
action: now, if the action is good the voluptuousness
remains; if it is evil the voluptuousness passes and is
corrupted. When one does a shameful thing with pleasure, the
pleasure passes and the shame remains. When one does an
excellent thing with great trouble and labour the pain
passes and the excellence alone remains. Whence it follows
necessarily, that the evil life is also bitter and produces
as much sorrow and chagrin as the good life is sweet and
procures joy and contentment.[475]
“As the flame of a torch tends always upward whichever way one turns
it,” said the Indian sages, “thus the man whose heart is afire with
virtue, whatever accident befalls him, directs himself always toward
the end that wisdom indicates.”[476]
“Misfortune follows vice, and happiness virtue,” said the Chinese, “as
the echo follows the voice and the shadow him who moves.”[477]
O virtue! divine virtue! [exclaims Kong-Tse[478]] a
celestial power presents thee to us, an interior force
conducts us toward thee; happy the mortal in whom thou
dwellest! he strikes the goal without effort, a single
glance suffices for him to penetrate the truth. His heart
becomes the sanctuary of peace and his very inclinations
protect his innocence. It is granted to the sage only, to
attain to so desirable a state. He who aspires to this must
resolve upon the good and attach himself strongly to it; he
must apply himself to the study of himself, interrogate
nature, examine all things carefully, meditate upon them and
allow nothing to pass unfathomed. Let him develop the
faculties of his soul, let him think with force, let him put
energy and firmness into his actions. Alas! how many men
there are who seek virtue and science, and who stop in the
middle of their course, because the goal keeps them waiting!
My studies, they say, leave me with all my ignorance, all my
doubts; my efforts, my labours enlarge neither my views nor
my sagacity; the same clouds hover over my understanding and
obscure it; I feel my forces abandoning me and my will
giving way beneath the weight of the obstacle. No matter;
guard yourself against discouragement; that which others
have been able to attain at the first attempt, you may be
able at the hundredth; that which they have done at the
hundredth, you will do at the thousandth.[479]
PERFECTION
22. _Let not sleep e’er close thy tired eyes,
Without thou ask thyself; What have I omitted, and what
done?_
Lysis, after having indicated the route by which Pythagoras conducted
his disciples to virtue, goes on to teach them the use that this
philosopher wished them to make of this celestial gift, once they had
mastered it. Up to this point it is confined in the purgative part of
the doctrine of his teacher; he now passes to the unitive part, that
is to say, to that which has as object the uniting of man to the
Divinity, by rendering him more and more like unto the model of all
perfection and of all wisdom, which is God. The sole instrument
capable of operating this union has been placed at his disposition by
means of the good usage that he has made of his will: it is virtue
which must serve him at present to attain truth. Now, Truth is the
ultimate goal of perfection: there is nothing beyond it and nothing
this side of it but error; light springs from it; it is the soul of
God, according to Pythagoras,[480] and God himself, according to the
legislator of the Indians.[481]
The first precept that Pythagoras gave to his disciples on entering
the course of perfection tended to turn their thoughts upon
themselves, to bring them to interrogate their actions, their
thoughts, their discourse, to question the motives, to reflect in
short upon their exterior movements and seek thus to know themselves.
Knowledge of self was the most important knowledge of all, that which
must conduct them to all others. I will not weary my readers by adding
anything to what I have already said pertaining to the importance of
this knowledge, and the extreme value set upon it by the ancients.
They know unquestionably that the morals of Socrates and the
philosophy of Plato were only the development of it and that an
inscription in the temple of Greece, that of Delphi, commended it,
after that of the golden mean, as the very teaching of the God whom
they worshipped there[482]: _Nothing in excess, and know Thyself_,
contained in few words the doctrine of the sages, and presented for
their meditation the principles upon which reposed virtue and wisdom
which is its consequence. Nothing further was necessary to electrify
the soul of Heraclitus and to develop the germs of genius, which until
the moment when he read these two sentences were buried in a cold
inertia.