{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_77108/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_77108","id":"gutenberg_77108","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77108","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Mysticism"],"text":"Occultists & Mystics of All Ages\n\n\n\n\n                    OCCULTISTS & MYSTICS OF ALL AGES\n\n                                   BY\n                             RALPH SHIRLEY\n\n  AUTHOR OF \u201cTHE NEW GOD, AND OTHER ESSAYS,\u201d \u201cA SHORT LIFE OF ABRAHAM\n                             LINCOLN,\u201d ETC.\n\n                       _WITH FOUR ILLUSTRATIONS_\n\n\n                                 LONDON\n                      WILLIAM RIDER & SON, LIMITED\n                       8 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 4\n                                  1920\n\n\n_First Published Autumn 1920._\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n1. APOLLONIUS OF TYANA ... 1\n\n2. PLOTINUS ... 31\n\n3. MICHAEL SCOTT ... 54\n\n4. PARACELSUS ... 76\n\n5. EMANUEL SWEDENBORG ... 91\n\n6. COUNT CAGLIOSTRO ... 120\n\n7. ANNA KINGSFORD ... 145\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\nPARACELSUS ... 78\n\nEMANUEL SWEDENBORG ... 92\n\nCOUNT CAGLIOSTRO ... 122\n\nANNA KINGSFORD ... 146\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n                          APOLLONIUS OF TYANA\n\n\nThe difficulty of treating of such a subject as the life and activities\nof the Philosopher of Tyana lies in the fact that the story of\nApollonius\u2019s career has been overlaid with legends of the miraculous on\nthe one hand, and distorted by religious prejudices on the other; while\nthe only authoritative account of this great religious reformer is\nmarred by the glaring deficiencies of the writer for the task which he\nhad in hand, and his inability to appreciate the life-work of the\nsubject of his biography. Indeed he fills many pages with literary\npadding of the worst kind, while he fails to give us over and over again\nthe very facts which it is of value and importance for us to know.\nPhilostratus, the author of this life, was one of the literary coterie\nthat gathered round the presiding genius of the Empress Julia Domna, the\nwife of Septimus Severus and mother of Caracalla. Julia Domna was a\ngenerous patroness of art and literature, and her husband Severus was\ndevoted to the study of occult science. Gibbon, in his usual sceptical\nvein, observes that \u201che was passionately addicted to the vain studies of\nmagic and divination, deeply versed in the interpretation of dreams and\nomens, and perfectly acquainted with the science of judicial astrology.\u201d\nThe Empress, who was a daughter of the Priest of the Sun at Emesa in\nSyria, was an enthusiastic bibliophile and had collected, among her\nother literary treasures, the note-books of Damis, the companion and\nfellow traveller of Apollonius. These note-books or tablets contained\nthe records of his journeys and other details concerning the life of\nApollonius, who was as great a hero to Damis as ever Johnson was to\nBoswell. If these notes were as full of detail as Philostratus asserts,\none can only regret that the biographer did not turn them to more useful\naccount. Damis was a native of Ninus or Nineveh, and Philostratus speaks\nsomewhat contemptuously of his defective Greek style. But it is probable\nthat with all their grammatical errors the note-books of Damis would\nhave given us a truer portrait of the great philosopher than the more\nfinished phrases and elaborate oratorical devices of Philostratus. The\nbiographer had also access to a book written by Maximus of \u00c6g\u00e6,\ncontaining a record of Apollonius\u2019s doings at that place. It requires an\nacute critic to gauge how much of Philostratus\u2019s narrative is literary\nembellishment and interpolated matter, and how much is actually derived\nfrom the original records. Even the Gospels of the Evangelists hardly\npresent a more difficult task to the critic anxious to discriminate\nbetween the original and the glosses with which it is overlaid.\n\nThe other difficulty from which the record of Apollonius\u2019s life and\nteachings has suffered is due to the religious disputes which arose\nthrough the rapid growth of Christianity and its conflict with the\npreviously existing religions of the Roman world. We may argue\nlegitimately enough that the power of working miracles is no proof of\nthe truth of the doctrines expounded by any religious teacher. But the\nfact remains that in proselytising for Christianity the fullest use was\nmade of the miracles recorded as accomplished by Jesus in the Gospels,\nin support of the contention in favour of the Divine origin of their\nworker, and of his work. Illogical though this argument may appear to\nthe philosophic mind, it is not surprising that it should have carried\ngreat weight, and indeed it must be admitted that it does so even at the\npresent day. What more natural, then, than that one of the disputants on\nthe other side should have produced a polemical pamphlet in which he\nattempted to show that such an argument was a two-edged weapon, and that\nin fact it was possible to produce better evidence in favour of the\nmiracles attributed to the pagan philosopher Apollonius than for those\nof Jesus of Nazareth, and to argue that, this being the case, even\nassuming the authenticity of the Gospel narrative, there was no more\njustification for regarding the Jewish prophet as a God than the Tyanian\nphilosopher? Such a criticism of the claims of the Christians was in\nfact written by Hierocles, a philosopher of some note and successively\ngovernor of Palmyra, Bithynia, and Alexandria, about the first decade of\nthe fourth century A.D., under the title of _Philalethes_, or _The\nTruth-lover_.\n\nThis pamphlet was not long in provoking a rejoinder from a leading light\nof the Christian community. The reply, the author of which was Eusebius,\nBishop of C\u00e6sarea, is still extant, though Hierocles\u2019s contribution to\nthe controversy was destroyed, like much other evidence hostile to\nChristianity, by the ecclesiastical authorities, when the new religion\nfinally became triumphant. Eusebius was able to show that Philostratus\nwas not a reliable authority, and that his judgment, where the\ncredibility of a narrative was in question, was clearly at fault. Though\nthe criticisms of Eusebius might have been applied with equal force to\nmuch of the Gospel record, it is plain that his retort to Hierocles did\nnot lack point, the veracity of Philostratus being obviously not above\nsuspicion, and some of his narratives urgently calling for evidential\ncorroboration, indeed, in certain cases, being mere legend or romance.\nThis applies in especial to the account given of Apollonius\u2019s journey to\nIndia, which is interspersed with numerous fantastic stories which\nappear to be derived by Philostratus from other sources and interpolated\nin an unscrupulous manner, with the idea, presumably, of giving local\ncolour. There are, however, numerous records given which are clearly\ntaken direct from the narrative of Damis, and the general accuracy of\nwhich there appears to be no adequate reason to call in question. One of\nthese offers a parallel to the various accounts of the raising of the\ndead to life given in the Gospel story, as, for instance, the recalling\nto life of the son of the widow of Nain; the raising from the dead of\nJairus\u2019s daughter, and last but not least, the case of Martha and Mary\u2019s\nbrother Lazarus, which, owing to the circumstances surrounding it, has\ncaught hold of the popular imagination to a greater extent than either\nof the others. The record of the incident referred to is given in\nPhilostratus\u2019s life[1] as follows:\u2014\n\n    Here, too, is a miracle which Apollonius worked: A girl had died\n    just in the hour of her marriage, and the bridegroom was following\n    her bier lamenting, as was natural, his marriage left unfulfilled,\n    and the whole of Rome was mourning with him, for the maiden belonged\n    to a consular family. Apollonius then witnessing their grief, said:\n    \u201cPut down the bier, for I will stay the tears that you are shedding\n    for this maiden.\u201d And withal he asked what was her name. The crowd\n    accordingly thought that he was about to deliver such an oration as\n    is commonly delivered as much to grace the funeral as to stir up\n    lamentation; but he did nothing of the kind, but merely touching her\n    and whispering in secret some spell over her, at once woke up the\n    maiden from her seeming death; and the girl spoke out loud, and\n    returned to her father\u2019s house, just as Alcestis did when she was\n    brought back to life by Hercules. And the relations of the maiden\n    wanted to present him with the sum of 150,000 sesterces, but he said\n    that he would freely present the money to the young lady by way of\n    dowry. Now, whether he detected some spark of life in her, which\n    those who were nursing her had not noticed\u2014for it is said that\n    although it was raining at the time, a vapour went up from her\n    face\u2014or whether life was really extinct, and he restored it by the\n    warmth of his touch, is a mysterious problem which neither I myself\n    nor those who were present could decide.\n\nThe record of this incident is presumably taken direct from the notes of\nDamis, and is not, I think, to be too lightly set aside. Apollonius does\nnot appear to have made any claim to supernatural power in the matter,\nnor need he be necessarily credited with anything beyond an intuitive\ncapacity for divining the fact that life had not finally departed. Nor\nindeed are we bound to assume anything more than this intuitive capacity\nas regards the two first-mentioned miracles in the Gospel records\u2014those\nof the son of the widow of Nain and Jairus\u2019s daughter. The raising of\nLazarus may be held to stand in a different category, but it is\nnoteworthy as regards this, that only one Evangelist records the\nincident and that his Gospel is the latest in date of the four. This has\nnaturally not escaped the attention of the critics, as it is almost\nincredible that neither Matthew, Mark, nor Luke should have alluded to\nso sensational an incident if they had any knowledge of its occurrence.\nOn the other hand, so dramatic an event could hardly have failed to\nexcite the greatest commotion at the time, and must, one would naturally\nhave supposed, inevitably have reached the ears of those who were\nwriting biographies of the performer of the miracle. The incident, in\nshort, is hardly one that could be placed even on the same evidential\nplane as the raising of the consul\u2019s daughter at Rome by Apollonius.\n\nThe problem as to whether life is, or is not, extinct in any specific\ninstance has over and over again proved too difficult of solution for\neven the ablest of modern doctors, and in cases of trance, opinions of\nthe medical profession can be freely cited that there is no apparent\ndifference to be detected between the living and the dead. Numerous\ntests have been applied and failed in cases where the patient has\neventually regained consciousness, and it is legitimate to suppose that\na certain clairvoyant power is in some cases alone capable of\ndetermining the possibility of the spirit returning to reoccupy its\nmortal tenement. According to occult theory, if the chord or magnetic\nlink that unites the astral with the physical body has not been\ndefinitely severed, it is still possible for life to be restored. What\nmore probable than that one gifted with abnormal psychical powers, such\nas either Jesus or Apollonius, might diagnose the presence of this\nconnecting link, which was invisible to all around?\n\nEusebius argues that the stories told of Apollonius\u2019s psychic powers\ndetract from his credit as a philosopher. Such powers, he argues, only\nappertain to a divine being, and therefore while they may be justly\ncredited in the case of Jesus they must be dismissed in that of\nApollonius. Such arguments will hardly appeal to the unbiased critic of\nthe present day. We must recognise, however, that it was Philostratus\u2019s\nmethods of embellishing his narrative with fantastic oriental and other\nlegends which gave a loophole for the attack of Eusebius. There was,\nindeed, a sufficiently serious sequel to this early passage of arms. The\ndiscussion as to whether or not Apollonius\u2019s miracles were entitled to\nbe set in juxtaposition to those of the Prophet of Nazareth, proved in\nthe end to be a veritable red-herring drawn across the track of the\nwhole story of Apollonius\u2019s life and labours. Though there is no\nrecorded reference of Apollonius to Jesus or his teachings, he is made\nto appear in the light of subsequent controversies as the false prophet\n_par excellence_, and worker of pseudo-miracles, sent by the devil,\naccording to one ingenious commentator, to destroy the work of the\nSaviour by an attempt to imitate his miracles, and thus to disprove\ntheir unique character. When the printing press came into vogue and\nclassical literature was widely disseminated by this means, Aldus\nhesitated to print the text of Philostratus\u2019s _Life of Apollonius_, and\nonly did so finally with the text of Eusebius\u2019s treatise added as an\nappendix, so that, as he phrased it, \u201cthe antidote might accompany the\npoison.\u201d Later on, ingenious Continental commentators advanced the\ntheory that the life of Apollonius was a myth, and that it had for its\nobject the defence of classical philosophy as opposed to Christianity.\nThis theory is as ingenious as it is unconvincing, and even the\nauthority of its defenders, Baur and Zeller, has failed to secure it a\nserious hearing at the present day. It is obvious that the supposed\nantagonism between Jesus and Apollonius never really existed at all, and\nthough probably they were born within twenty years of each other, there\nis no evidence to show that there was any connection of any kind between\ntheir respective lives and activities.\n\nThe tradition which credits Apollonius with being a worker of miracles\nand magician is widespread, but there is comparatively little that is\nnarrated of him by Philostratus which is incredible, if assumed to have\nbeen performed by a man who had led a life such as that of the Sage of\nTyana, and who was gifted with such psychic powers as we are familiar\nwith at the present day. We shall probably be right in regarding most of\nthese narratives of psychic incidents as taken direct from the tablets\nof Damis, and therefore in the main authentic, even if the details are\nnot in every case exact. A few instances will serve to illustrate the\npoint of what I have said.\n\nAfter Apollonius\u2019s visit to Athens, in which he was initiated into the\nEleusinian Mysteries, he took ship for Egypt, stopping at Rhodes on the\nway. Arriving at Alexandria he found that his reputation had preceded\nhim, and was met everywhere with reverence and respect. He took\nadvantage of the friendly popular feeling towards him to intervene in a\ncase of miscarriage of justice. A robbery had recently taken place in\nthe town, and twelve men had been condemned in connection with it. An\ninnocent victim of the general sentence was revealed psychically to\nApollonius. He thereupon called the procession to a halt as they were\nbeing led to execution, and instructed the guard to place the innocent\nman last of the twelve. The delay thus secured gave time for a horseman\nto ride up with a reprieve for the man in question, whose innocence had\nbeen established subsequently to the trial. It is not difficult to\nattribute such a case as this to psychic powers, but, on the other hand,\nit is quite open to us to assume that Apollonius had learned something\nby normal means as to the doubt hanging over the condemned man\u2019s\nimplication in the crime.\n\nNever, perhaps, has any possessor of noted psychic powers enjoyed the\nfriendship or the hostility of so many great Emperors as did Apollonius.\nVespasian and Titus were both intimate in their friendship, and sought\nthe advice of the sage of Tyana on various notable occasions. It was, it\nappears, during this same visit to Alexandria that Vespasian arrived at\nthe great Egyptian seaport and requested an interview with the sage.\nVespasian explained to him his schemes, for he was already then aiming\nat the supreme power. Apollonius encouraged him, and to his great\nsurprise informed him that it was his destiny to rebuild the temple of\nJupiter Capitolinus at Rome. As a matter of fact the temple had just\nbeen burned down, but the news did not reach Egypt till some time later.\nWhat we call nowadays a telepathic wave had conveyed the incident to the\nknowledge of the seer. A similar instance of Apollonius\u2019s telepathic\npowers is narrated in connection with the death of Domitian. Apollonius\nhad previously been arrested by this Emperor on the ridiculous charge of\nsacrificing an Arcadian boy, in order, apparently, to discover the\nprospects of the succession of Nerva to the Empire. He was acquitted by\nthe monster who was Nero\u2019s rival in cruelty without Nero\u2019s artistic\ntalents, to the great surprise of all his friends. The story is that he\nvanished mysteriously from the court. We may, however, I think, without\nhesitation attribute this incident to Philostratus\u2019s love of the\ndramatic, especially as it seems clear that he had already been\nacquitted and that there was no apparent reason why he should not walk\nout as a free man like any ordinary mortal in similar circumstances.\nWhat strikes the dispassionate reader as really remarkable is the fact\nthat though Apollonius was twice arrested, once by Nero and again by\nDomitian, and though the philosophers of the day, being supposed to be\nhostile to the tyrants, met almost invariably with short shrift, the\nsage of Tyana was in each case acquitted and left the court, as we say\nto-day, \u201cwithout a stain on his character.\u201d Why, if the Emperors had him\narrested, knowing doubtless the value of the charges against him, did\nthey not take steps to ensure his condemnation? The fact seems to be,\nwithout doubt, that they regarded him with fear. Whether this fear was\ndue merely to his reputation as a worker of wonders, or to his actual\npsychic power exercised at their expense in the courts of justice, is an\nopen question, and clearly admits of two opinions.\n\nHis own observations on this subject, as quoted by Philostratus, seem,\nhowever, to justify our accepting by preference the latter of the two\nviews. Speaking to his friends about his intention to take ship for Rome\nin order to meet openly any charge that might be made against him rather\nthan to lie low in some distant corner of the Empire as his disciples\nwere anxious that he should do, he observed that he would not consider a\nman a coward because he had disappeared out of dread of Nero, but would\nhail as a philosopher any one who rose superior to such a fear. And he\nadded, \u201cLet not any one think it foolish so to venture along a path\nwhich many philosophers are fleeing from, for in the first place I do\nnot esteem any human agency so formidable that a wise man can ever be\nterrified by it, and in the second place I would not urge upon you the\npursuit of bravery unless it were attended with danger.\u201d After dwelling\nupon the ferocity and brutality of Nero, contrasting him with savage\nanimals who could sometimes be tamed, and mollified by coaxing and\nflattery, whereas Nero was only roused to greater cruelty than before by\nthose who stroked him, he continued in the following remarkable strain:\n\n    If, however, any one is disposed to dread Nero for these reasons,\n    and is led abruptly to forsake philosophy, conceiving that it is not\n    safe for him to thwart his evil temper, let him know that the\n    quality of inspiring fear really belongs to those who are devoted to\n    temperance and wisdom, because they are sure of Divine succour. But\n    let him snap his fingers at the threats of the proud and insolent,\n    as he would at those of drunken men, for we regard these surely as\n    daft and senseless, but not as formidable.\n\nWe are accustomed to refer to Apollonius as a philosopher. While we are\nperfectly correct in so doing, it is well to observe what the term\nphilosophy connotes when employed by the Tyanian sage. It is not\nobviously a question merely of adopting a creed or view of life or a\ncertain set of philosophical opinions, but implies in the fullest\nmeasure the life led in accordance with these opinions and inspired by\nthe courage with which the knowledge of their truth endows the man who\nprofesses them. The keynote, indeed, to the whole of Apollonius\u2019s life\nlies in the fact that his so-called philosophy was an active and\ninspiring force which dominated his whole conduct.\n\nI have alluded to the evidence of Apollonius\u2019s telepathic powers in\nconnection with the death of Domitian. His passage of arms with this\ntyrant may have afforded the requisite psychic link. In any case the\nTyanian was made aware of Domitian\u2019s assassination under sufficiently\ndramatic circumstances. He had returned to Ionia after a stay of two\nyears in Greece, and was at the moment speaking at Ephesus. In the midst\nof his discourse he seemed to lose the current of his words, and the\naudience noticed a troubled expression passing over his features.\nSuddenly breaking off any further attempt to continue his speech, he\nstepped forward three or four paces on the platform from which he was\naddressing the assembly, and cried out in loud tones, \u201cStrike the\ntyrant! Strike!\u201d The audience were naturally amazed at this sudden\noutburst, but soon coming to himself, Apollonius explained to them that\nDomitian had been slain at that hour, and that a vision from the gods\nhad been granted to him at the moment of what actually took place. News\narrived in due course confirming his statement. This story is narrated\nby Dion Cassius as well as by Philostratus.\n\nBeyond these records there are several others of a sufficiently\nstartling character, which it is not easy to take too literally. There\nis, for instance, the narrative of the rescue of a young Athenian from\nthe clutches of a vampire. The youth, according to the story, mistook\nthe vampire for a normal living woman, and being infatuated with her,\nwas on the point of marrying her until Apollonius dispelled the\nillusion. Probably this was one of the many romances that had collected\nround the name of Apollonius between his death and the time of\nPhilostratus, though there may possibly have been some small grain of\ntruth at the bottom of it. Another story which may have had some basis\nin fact, has been so embroidered upon as to render it quite incredible\nin the form in which it is presented by the biographer. This relates to\nthe supposed interview of Apollonius with the ghost of Achilles, which\nwas held to haunt the tomb of the Grecian hero. The reputation of\nApollonius was so great and his supposed power as a worker of miracles\nhad obtained so widespread a currency by the second century of our era\nthat all sorts of miraculous happenings were readily credited by the\nignorant public when ascribed to the Tyanian sage. Philostratus appears\nto have made use of certain of these floating stories.\n\nThat the name of Apollonius was regarded with the greatest veneration\nduring the centuries following his death is abundantly evident.\nCaracalla (Roman Emperor 211-216 A.D.) honoured his memory with a chapel\nor monument (_heroum_). Alexander Severus (Emperor 225-235 A.D.) placed\nhis statue in his _lararium_ along with those of Christ, Abraham, and\nOrpheus. Aurelius is stated to have vowed a temple to the sage of Tyana,\nof whom he had seen a vision. Vopiscus at the end of the third century\nspeaks of him as \u201ca sage of the most widespread renown and authority, an\nancient philosopher and a true friend of the gods.\u201d \u201cHe it was,\u201d says\nVopiscus, \u201cwho gave life to the dead. He it was who did and said so many\nthings beyond the power of men.\u201d In the work entitled _Quaestiones et\nResponsiones ad Orthodoxos_, attributed (though apparently in error) to\nJustin Martyr, occurs among other of these \u201cquestions\u201d the following:\n\u201cIf God is the maker and master of creation how do the _telesmata_ of\nApollonius have power in the orders of that creation? For as we see,\nthey check the fury of the waves and the power of the winds, and the\ninroads of vermin and attacks of wild beasts.\u201d These _telesmata_ or\ntalismans were articles that had been, or were supposed to have been,\nconsecrated or magnetised, with some religious ceremony, by\nApollonius.[2]\n\nWe see, then, that around the name of this philosopher gathered, as time\nwent on, a mass of more or less incredible miraculous tradition. And, as\nhappens too often in such cases, the real work of this great religious\nreformer was lost sight of amid this accumulation of legend that\nimpressed the popular eye, which was too dull to appreciate or\nunderstand the deeper significance of the life-work and esoteric\nteaching of the sage. Orthodox religion in the Roman Empire had indeed\nat this time fallen into very much the same sort of discredit as\northodox Christianity has among ourselves to-day. Two definite attempts\nwere made to resuscitate these old religions of Greece and Rome by\nreviving the understanding of the essential spiritual truths which they\nenshrined; the first by Apollonius of Tyana, who was above all else a\nreformer of the ancient Greek religion from within, and the other, an\nabortive one three hundred years later, by Julian the so-called\nApostate. These classical faiths were, however, too much overlaid with\nmythological stories of an unedifying character ever again to recover\ntheir ascendancy over the popular imagination, and the ascetic life and\nesoteric interpretation which appealed to the isolated religious\ncommunities which Apollonius visited in his extensive travels throughout\nthe countries bordering the Mediterranean, and as far east as Persia and\nIndia, could not in their very nature make a popular appeal to the\naverage man. We see now that the triumph of Christianity was due to the\nuniversality of its appeal, and that however uncertain the issue of the\nstruggle of the contending faiths appeared at the time, that issue was\nnever really in doubt. The ascetic philosopher worked for the little\npublic to whom the life of self-denial and esoteric truth are all in\nall, and to whom the world and the pursuits of the ordinary citizen take\na place of minor importance. The \u201cfriend of publicans and sinners,\u201d \u201cwho\nwas in all things tempted like as we are,\u201d was able to \u201cdraw all men\nunto him\u201d by a compelling force such as the austere discipline and\nprofound philosophy of Apollonius could never command. Jesus of\nNazareth, in short, triumphed\u2014and there is a profound significance in\nthis fact\u2014because mankind in the realisation of his true humanity forgot\nthat he was accounted a God. The life of Apollonius was so far removed\nfrom anything the average man could comprehend that the world lost sight\nof the wisdom and deep spirituality of his teaching, in amazement at a\nworker of miracles so far beyond human ken that he came to be reckoned\neven a manifestation of Deity.\n\nWe are not, however, justified in supposing that it was primarily to his\nmiracle-working powers that Apollonius owed his reputation among his\ncontemporaries. It was rather as the wise man who had more knowledge and\nexperience of the world than those around him, whose judgment was\nsounder and more unbiased by personal considerations than other men\u2019s,\nand whose high spirituality kept him aloof from all considerations of\nprivate gain or private interest, that Apollonius was regarded by the\nmen of his own day. Later tradition which invested him with all kinds of\nmiraculous achievements served to dim the halo round a great name. The\nforemost men of his time in thought and action, the Emperors Vespasian,\nTitus, and many others, did not come to consult Apollonius because he\nwas some master magician. We do not in effect ask advice of a man in our\nhour of need because he can do the vanishing trick in a court of law, or\npull rabbits out of his hat when there are no rabbits to pull, or do any\nof the marvellous performances which strike the vulgar with amazement.\nWe seek rather the advice of one whose judgment is saner and whose\nknowledge of the world is greater than that of his fellows. It was for\nthis reason that the wisest of the Roman Emperors came to consult\nApollonius by preference with regard to the great task with which they\nwere entrusted, when they had all the highest intellects in the Roman\nEmpire from which to choose.\n\nThe account of Titus\u2019s first meeting with the Tyanian sage is of some\ninterest, and not without its humorous side. Apollonius, who was already\nacquainted with his father, sent greetings to Titus, after the\nsuppression of the Jewish insurrection, saying in characteristic manner,\n\u201cWhereas you have refused to be proclaimed for success in war and for\nshedding the blood of your enemies, I myself assign to you the crown of\ntemperance and moderation because you thoroughly understand what deeds\nreally merit a crown.\u201d Titus thoroughly appreciated the compliment, and\nwas not to be outdone by the other\u2019s courtesy. \u201cOn my own behalf,\u201d he\nreplied, \u201cI thank you no less than on behalf of my father, and I will\nnot forget your kindness. For although I have captured Jerusalem, you\nhave captured me.\u201d\n\nAfter Titus had been appointed to share his father\u2019s responsibilities in\nthe government of the Empire he did not forget Apollonius, and when he\nwas in Tarsus wrote to the sage begging him to come and see him.\n\n    When he had arrived [says the narrative], Titus embraced him,\n    saying, \u201cMy father has told me by letter everything in respect of\n    which he consulted you; and lo! here is his letter, in which you are\n    described as his benefactor and the being to whom we owe all that we\n    are. Now though I am only just thirty years of age, I am held worthy\n    of the same privileges to which my father only attained at the age\n    of sixty. I am called to the throne to rule, perhaps before I have\n    learnt myself to obey, and I therefore dread lest I am undertaking a\n    task beyond my powers.\u201d Thereupon Apollonius, after stroking his\n    neck, said (for he had as stout a neck as any athlete in training),\n    \u201cAnd who will force so sturdy a bull-neck as yours under the yoke?\u201d\n    \u201cHe that from my youth up reared me as a calf,\u201d answered Titus,\n    meaning his own father, and implying that he could only be\n    controlled by the latter, who had accustomed him from childhood to\n    obey himself. \u201cI am delighted then,\u201d said Apollonius, \u201cin the first\n    place, to see you prepared to subordinate yourself to your father,\n    whom without being his natural children so many are delighted to\n    obey, and next to see you rendering to his court homage in which\n    others will associate yourself. When youth and age are paired in\n    authority, is there any lyre or any flute that will produce so sweet\n    a harmony and so nicely blended? For the qualities of old age will\n    be associated with those of youth, with the result that old age will\n    gain in strength and youth in discipline.\u201d\n\nThe records of Apollonius\u2019s pithy sayings are very numerous and give a\nbetter insight into the man\u2019s character than the startling achievements\nwith which he is so commonly credited. Once, when staying at Smyrna, he\ncomplimented the inhabitants on their zeal for letters and philosophy\nand their numerous activities, urging them to take pride rather in\nthemselves than in the beauty of their city, for \u201calthough they had the\nmost beautiful of cities under the sun, and although they had a friendly\nsea at their doors, nevertheless it was more pleasing for the city to be\ncrowned with men than with porticoes and pictures, or even with gold in\nexcess of what they needed.\u201d \u201cFor,\u201d he said, \u201cpublic edifices remain\nwhere they are and are nowhere seen except in that particular part of\nthe earth where they exist, but good men are conspicuous everywhere and\neverywhere talked about, and so they can magnify the city the more to\nwhich they belong in proportion to the numbers in which they are able to\nvisit any part of the earth.\u201d And again, when visiting the monument to\nLeonidas, the hero of Thermopyl\u00e6, he was enthusiastic in admiration for\nthe Greek leader, and on coming to the mound where the Lacedemonians\nwere said to have been overwhelmed by the arrows which the enemy rained\nupon them, he heard his companions discussing with one another which was\nthe loftiest peak in Hellas, the topic being suggested, apparently, by\nthe sight of Mount Oeta which rose before their eyes. Accordingly\nascending the mound, he said, \u201cI consider this the loftiest of all, for\nthose who fell here in defence of freedom raised it to a level with Oeta\nand carried it to a height surpassing many mountains like Olympus.\u201d On\nanother occasion when, on arriving at Athens, and meeting with an\nenthusiastic reception at the hands of the people, he proposed to be\ninitiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, the hierophant showed jealousy\nof Apollonius\u2019s great reputation, which he felt put his own into the\nshade, and was reluctant, accordingly, to admit so formidable a rival.\nHe therefore made the excuse that Apollonius was a wizard and had\ndabbled in impure rites, and that he could not in consequence consent to\ninitiate him. Apollonius, however, was fully equal to the occasion, and\nretorted, \u201cYou have not yet mentioned the chief head of my offending,\nwhich is that knowing as I do more about the initiatory rite than you do\nyourself, I have nevertheless come for initiation to you as if you were\nwiser than I am.\u201d The attitude of the crowd was so hostile to the\nhierophant, on discovering his rejection of their honoured guest, that\nhe found it advisable to change his tone. But Apollonius preferred to\npostpone his initiation till a later occasion, and, it is said, foretold\nthe name of the successor who was destined to initiate him four years\nafter.\n\nOf many men who have led a deeply spiritual life and sacrificed\neverything for the sake of the pursuit of a spiritual ideal, it is\nrecorded that they were wild and profligate in youth. Such was the case\nwith St Francis of Assisi, and Apollonius\u2019s contemporary, the zealous\nSaul of Tarsus, led a changed life from the moment of his conversion.\nIndeed it has been said, referring doubtless to such instances, that\n\u201cthe greater the sinner the greater the saint.\u201d This saying, however, is\nby no means applicable to Apollonius. From his earliest days his choice\nwas made clear. He came of a family which was at once wealthy and\nwell-connected, and in addition to this he was endowed by nature with\nexceptional abilities and a remarkable memory, while the beauty of his\nperson excited universal admiration. Every temptation, therefore, which\nfortune could offer, might, one would have thought, have led him to\nchoose the path of worldly success. From the age of fourteen, however,\nhe abandoned all idea of the pursuit of pleasure and devoted himself to\ndiscovering among the numerous Greek philosophies of the day some school\nof thought which would enable him to live up to his own ideals. Finally\nhe adopted the system of Pythagoras, but was not content to receive it\nin the sense of accepting its doctrines and not living the life, after\nthe manner of his teacher, Euxenus. Accordingly when Euxenus asked him\nhow he would begin his new mode of life, he replied, \u201cAs doctors purge\ntheir patients.\u201d \u201cHence\u201d (says G. R. S. Mead, in his Biography), \u201che\nrefused to touch anything that had animal life in it, on the ground that\nit densified the mind and rendered it impure. He considered that the\nonly pure form of food was what the earth produced, fruits and\nvegetables. He also abstained from wine, for, though it was made from\nfruit, it rendered turbid the ether in the soul, and destroyed the\ncomposure of the mind.\u201d In addition to this, he went barefoot, let his\nhair grow long, and wore nothing but linen.\n\nOn the death of his father, when he was twenty years of age, he\ninherited a considerable fortune, which was left to him to share with\nhis elder brother, a dissolute young man of three-and-twenty. When his\nbrother had run through his share of the patrimony, he endeavoured\n(successfully as it appears) to rescue him from his vicious life, and\nmade over to him half his own share of the inheritance. Having\ndistributed the major part of the remainder among his relatives, he\nmerely retained for himself a bare pittance.\n\nBefore starting on his missionary activities\u2014he was probably by far the\ngreatest traveller of his time\u2014he took the vow of silence for five\nyears. After this, he travelled from place to place making the\nacquaintance of temple priests and heads of the religious communities,\nendeavouring always to bring back the public cults to the purity of\ntheir ancient traditions and to suggest improvements in the practices of\nthe private brotherhoods, the most important part of his work being\ndevoted to those who were followers of the inner life. _Public_\ninstruction in ethics and practical life he never gave until after the\nmiddle of the day, \u201cfor,\u201d he said, \u201cthose who live the inner life should\non day\u2019s dawning enter the presence of the gods, spending the time till\nmidday in giving and receiving instructions in holy things.\u201d His Indian\nexpedition, from which his friends and disciples endeavoured to dissuade\nhim, he undertook, as he stated, on the advice of his inner monitor,\nstarting his perilous undertaking entirely alone, and so continuing\nuntil he made the acquaintance of Damis at Nineveh.\n\nThere is some doubt as to the date of Apollonius\u2019s birth, but an\nallusion by Philostratus makes it appear that he was quite a young man\nat the time of his Indian expedition, and as he apparently did not\ncommence his five years\u2019 vow of silence till after he came of age, we\nmust assume that he was somewhere between twenty-six and thirty at the\ncommencement of this undertaking. Treadwell dates the Indian travels as\nfrom 41 to 54 A.D. If this is approximately accurate we may assign his\nbirth-date to the second decade of the first century of the Christian\nera. Assuming this to be the case, he was presumably over eighty years\nold at the time of his death, which occurred about 98 A.D. Damis had\nbeen his almost inseparable companion from the time when he first met\nhim at Nineveh. It seems to have been a case of something akin to \u201clove\nat first sight,\u201d for the Assyrian was seized at once with an enthusiasm\nfor the nobility of Apollonius\u2019s character, which was blent with a\nnatural and even dog-like affection. At the last, however, his companion\nwas not with him, and there is some mystery as to the exact place and\noccasion of his death. He sent Damis away when the expected time\napproached, on the pretext of entrusting him with a confidential letter\nto the Emperor Nerva, so that it may be said of him, as it was of Moses,\n\u201cNo man knoweth his burial place unto this day.\u201d\n\nApollonius had never reason to regret his Indian travels. He became\ndeeply imbued with the metaphysical ideas of the Brahmins, and was in\nthe habit ever after of extolling their spiritual philosophy as the\nfountain-head of all the profounder truths of Western religion. As to\nDamis\u2019s record of Apollonius\u2019s sojourn with the Indian Philosophers, we\nhave only Philostratus\u2019s garbled account to guide us, and the quotation\nof Apollonius\u2019s cryptic observation, \u201cI saw men dwelling on the earth\nand yet not on it; defended on all sides, without any defence; and yet\npossessed of nothing but what all possessed.\u201d It may be well to quote\nthe interpretation of this saying given by Mr Mead. \u201cThey were on the\nearth but not of the earth, for their minds were set on things above.\nThey were protected by their innate spiritual power, of which we have so\nmany instances in Indian literature. And yet they possessed nothing but\nwhat all men possess if they would but develop the spiritual part of\ntheir being.\u201d There are a good many references in the conversations with\nApollonius to the belief in Reincarnation, which was of course an\nessential tenet of Pythagorean philosophy, and he himself averred that\nin his previous life he was a man of no consequence, to wit, a ship\u2019s\npilot. A letter ascribed to him, whether rightly or wrongly, has some\ninteresting observations on this subject.\n\n    \u201cWhy has this false notion,\u201d he asks, \u201cof birth and death\u201d (_i.e._,\n    that they are real and not illusory in character)\u2014\u201cwhy has this\n    false notion remained so long without being refuted? Some think that\n    what has happened through them they have themselves brought about.\n    They are ignorant that the individual is brought to birth _through_\n    parents, not _by_ parents. Just as a thing produced through the\n    earth is not produced from it. The change which comes to the\n    individual is nothing that is caused by his visible surroundings,\n    but rather a change in the one thing which is in every man.\u201d\n\nThe portrait of Apollonius which has been handed down through many\ngenerations has become blurred and disfigured beyond recognition, and it\nseemed therefore well to give, even if in but a brief outline, such a\nsketch as might convey a juster idea of the philosopher whose friendship\nthe greatest men of his day considered it their highest honour to enjoy,\nthe man who chose the path of sanctity at a time of life when others\nchoose \u201cthe primrose path of dalliance,\u201d who chose Wisdom for her own\nsake and Truth for the sake of Truth.\n\nThe world holds no record of a long life lived more nobly, of a more\nundaunted courage in confronting the tyrant, of a more unflinching\ntenacity of purpose, of a more single-minded devotion to a high ideal.\nHis boyhood\u2019s choice, the inspiration of his manhood, the beacon-light\nof his latest years\u2014to follow in the footsteps of that Form, so austere\nin the simplicity of her loveliness, \u201cwhose ways are ways of\npleasantness and all whose paths are peace.\u201d[3]\n\nFootnote 1:\n\n  _Philostratus_, Book IV, chapter xlv. I am indebted to Dr Conybeare\u2019s\n  translation, published by Messrs Heinemann, for this and some other\n  quotations. The book is a very useful one, the Greek and English being\n  given side by side.\n\nFootnote 2:\n\n  I am indebted to G. R. S. Mead\u2019s work, _Apollonius of Tyana, The\n  Philosopher-Reformer of the First Century A.D._ (London: T. P. S.),\n  for these particulars.\n\nFootnote 3:\n\n  \u201cHappy is the man that findeth wisdom. Length of days is in her right\n  hand and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of\n  pleasantness and all her paths are peace\u201d (Prov. iii. 13, 16, 17).\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n                                PLOTINUS\n\n\nThe problem of the origin of the universe is one with which every\nreligion in a certain sense claims to deal; but it is a problem only of\nthe most recondite sphere of metaphysics, while religions generally, in\norder to ensure their success, make appeal to popular sympathy and\nendeavour to bring down the truths which they enshrine to the\nintellectual level of the masses of mankind. To put abstruse truths into\nsimple language is an impossibility. They can, however, be conveyed by a\nspecies of symbolism, or presented in an allegorical form which will be\ninterpreted in one sense by the vulgar and in another by the philosopher\nor the religious initiate. The communication of these hidden truths has\nbeen represented in the case of most religions as a definite revelation\nfrom a higher plane; but whatever claim is made as to their origin, they\nare at least put before the rank and file of the faithful as dogmas to\nbe accepted unhesitatingly as a vital element of the orthodox religion\nof the time or country. Such dogmas in their crude form, it is needless\nto say, have never made appeal to the high philosophical intelligence of\nthe day. Under the autocratic regime of persecuting Christianity during\nthe Middle Ages of Europe, Christian dogma was indeed accepted nominally\nby great intellects, but it was accepted under duress and with a\nreservation, and subject to such interpretations of its inner meaning as\nmight commend themselves to the mental standpoint of their professor.\nThe men of highest intellect were compelled to express the faith that\nwas in them in the most guarded language, and if they failed to do so\nthey were only too liable to share the fate of Galileo, or\u2014worse\nstill\u2014of Giordano Bruno. The sole exception to this rule is to be found\nin Oriental countries, such as India, where religion, whether Brahmin or\nBuddhist, has assumed a less dogmatic form, and has found it possible\naccordingly to assimilate and identify itself with philosophical\nspeculations of the profoundest and most abstruse character, without any\nsense of incongruity or doing violence to its own specific tenets. It is\ntrue that Mohammedanism appears to contradict this, but it must be\nremembered that the religion of Mohammed was in the nature of a foreign\nimportation and not indigenous to Indian soil.\n\nThus it came about that the philosophers of early Greece and Rome were\nalmost invariably avowed sceptics as regards the popular religious\nbeliefs of their time, though in spite of this, with the sole exception\nof Socrates, they were allowed to preach their doctrines openly in the\nmarket place without let or hindrance. Thus, too, the triumph of\nChristianity brought it eventually into open antagonism with philosophic\nthought. In this case, however, the dogmatic and intolerant character of\nthe creed suffered no rival schools of opinion, and accordingly, within\n200 years of the date at which it was established by Constantine as the\nrecognised religion of the Roman Empire, the Athenian schools of\nphilosophy were forcibly suppressed by Justinian.[4] For some two and a\nhalf centuries before this latter date Neoplatonism in one form or\nanother had dominated the intellectual world of philosophy. It had\nsuperseded the materialistic philosophies of earlier Rome and Greece,\nand even before the time of Constantine, the Stoic and Epicurean schools\nof thought had already ceased to appeal to the inquiring spirit of the\ntime. When, after a thousand years of intervening barbarism, under the\ninfluence of the Renaissance movement, men began to turn their attention\nonce more to classic scholarship and classic philosophy, it was to\nPlato, mainly as interpreted by his successor and follower, Plotinus,\nthat the leading spirits of the day turned in search of a solution of\nthose problems of life which were once more pressing for interpretation,\nafter the intellectual death in life of the Dark Ages, following the\nbreak-up of the Roman Empire. Christianity, indeed, had its\nmetaphysics\u2014for every religion is bound, in a sense, to explain its\nDivinity to its devotees\u2014but they were the bastard metaphysics of the\nAthanasian Creed, the expression of a political compromise drawn up to\nsatisfy the warring sects of Christendom. Far different was the effort\nof Plotinus, who sought not only to solve the riddle of the sphinx, but\nto express in language intelligible to his hearers the solution of the\nprofoundest mysteries of the universe. How far he succeeded in doing so\nis yet in dispute to the present day. At least the basis of his\nphilosophy still remains as an attempted approximation to the truth\nwhich forms the groundwork for the efforts of every new seeker after\nspiritual enlightenment.\n\nAt the date of the birth of Plotinus, Alexandria was the intellectual\ncapital of the world. There met East and West, in spite of Mr Rudyard\nKipling\u2019s dictum to the contrary. There the philosophical and\nintellectual speculations of the entire civilised world enjoyed a common\nforum where the most diverse views found a ready audience. There Philo\ninterpreted Judaism in terms of current Greek thought. There Gnostics\nand Christians contended for the supremacy of their various religious\ndoctrines. There, among others, Ammonius Saccas lectured on his\nphilosophical interpretation of the universal life, first from a\nstandpoint akin to that of the new Christian religion, which was already\nobtaining so many converts, and later from an independent platform of\nhis own. To him, after listening to many different philosophers, in\nwhose views he found neither satisfaction nor illumination, came the\nmost illustrious of his pupils, Plotinus. Plotinus was at this time\nabout twenty-eight (he was born probably at Lycopolis in Egypt, in the\nyear 205 or 206 A.D.), and he continued to remain at Alexandria and to\nelaborate his theories under the auspices of his master, Ammonius, for\nsome eleven years. At the expiration of this period the similarity of\nthe philosophy of Ammonius to that taught by the Brahmins of India, and\ndoubtless also the interest in these Oriental conceptions which had been\nstimulated by the travels of Apollonius of Tyana, led to a decision on\nthe part of Plotinus to emulate the Tyanian sage and himself embark on a\nsimilar mission. The expedition of the Emperor Gordian against the\nPersians appeared to supply a favourable opportunity for carrying out\nthis project. This expedition was, however, destined to disaster, and\nGordian met with an untimely end. Plotinus himself barely escaped with\nhis life, but eventually reached Antioch in safety. Our philosopher did\nnot remain long in the Syrian capital, but at the earliest opportunity\nsailed for Rome, where the remainder of his life was spent in lecturing\nand in philosophic study and discussion.\n\nIt was not until he had lived in Rome for ten years that, at the urgent\nrequest of his followers, he commenced writing what subsequently became\nknown as _The Enneads of Plotinus_. Twenty-one of these books were\ncompleted when, at the age of fifty-nine, he first met Porphyry, who is\nour principal source of information with regard to his manner of life\nand the main facts of his career. To Porphyry was eventually allotted\nthe task of editing his writings, which he divided into six volumes of\nnine books each, the number of books in each volume being thus used to\ngive a name to his whole system of philosophy (Enneads, Greek \u1f10\u03bd\u03bd\u03b5\u03b1,\nnine).\n\nThat his treatises were in urgent need of a competent editor is apparent\nfrom the observations which Porphyry makes with regard to his methods of\ncomposition. He was in the habit of writing down his thoughts just as\nthey occurred to him, and \u201ccould not (says his biographer) by any means\nendure to review twice what he had written, nor even to read his own\ncomposition,\u201d mainly on account of his defective eyesight. Nor, indeed,\nwas he by any means a perfect master of the Greek language, in which his\nlectures were delivered and his books written. Porphyry in fact\nobserves, let us hope with some exaggeration, that he \u201cneither formed\nthe letters with accuracy, nor exactly distinguished the syllables, nor\nbestowed any diligent attention on the orthography, but neglecting all\nthese as trifles, he was alone attentive to the intellection of his\nwonderful mind, and, to the admiration of all his disciples, persevered\nin this custom to the end of his life.\u201d\n\nOne is, indeed, not a little impressed how entirely, in the later days\nof the Roman Empire, \u201ccaptive Greece led captive her conquerors.\u201d Greek\nphilosophy and Greek ideas had, in truth, permeated the whole civilised\nworld. Not only was this the case, but when the Western or Roman Empire\nfell eventually into decrepitude and ruin, its Eastern partner, though\nthreatened and harassed by barbarian foes on all its borders, continued\nto survive the extinction of the erstwhile mistress of the world by\nsomething like a thousand years. Alexandria was, however, destined to\ndestruction by an Arab invasion long ere this, and never recovered from\nits sack by the Mohammedan Amru in A.D. 640. The survival of the Eastern\nEmpire was doubtless due in great part to the superior vitality of the\nGreek race; but it does not admit of doubt that it would have fallen a\nvictim to the Moslem invader at least 500 years before the date of its\nfinal doom, had it not been for Constantine\u2019s choice of an Eastern\ncapital and the almost impregnable position enjoyed by the imperial\ncity. It is open to conjecture that had the British Government of the\npresent day been better acquainted with the history of Constantinople\nand the many sieges which it had successfully sustained, they would have\nthought twice, and indeed thrice, before launching without adequate\npreparation, the ill-fated expedition to the Dardanelles.\n\nThe dialectical disquisitions of Plotinus were delivered in Greek, and\nhis whole trend of thought was essentially Greek in character. One is\ninclined to ask oneself indeed whether the Latin language would have\nbeen capable of expressing the subtleties of his philosophical\nspeculation. In this connection the similarity of his ideas to those\nenunciated in the great Vedantic system of Indian philosophy must not\nblind us to the fact that his method of treating his subject, and the\nclosely reasoned arguments which he adduces in the defence of his scheme\nof the universe, are purely and entirely Greek. This appears to me to be\nthe real truth in relation to a much disputed point, as to what Plotinus\nowed to Indian thought on the one hand, and to Greek culture and Greek\nphilosophy on the other.\n\nWhen Milton appealed to the Divine Muse to enable him to \u201csoar above the\nAonian Mount\u201d and achieve \u201cthings unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,\u201d he\nwas in truth taking on a small order compared with the tremendous task\nwhich Plotinus set himself in his attempted solution of the riddle of\nthe universe. To say that his exposition of his system lends itself to\ncriticism in more than one vital point is merely to state that he was\nhuman. Whoever attempts to go behind phenomena and postulate a First\nCause, whether we denominate that Cause The One, like Plotinus, or The\nGood, like Plato, or The Absolute, like Herbert Spencer, is manifestly\npassing into realms of thought with which the human mind is incompetent\nto deal. It stands to reason, indeed, that the finite mind cannot\ncomprehend the infinite, and logic, therefore, inevitably fails us. But\nthere is in truth another side to this most recondite problem. Though\nlogic cannot fathom it, and though the finite cannot comprehend the\ninfinite, yet the infinite spirit may contact infinity. In other words,\nthe infinite in man, that is, the divine spark, which is part and parcel\nof infinity, may realise the infinite within itself, not, indeed, by any\nlogical process, but by the immediate experience implicit in spiritual\nunion. Hence the possibility of that form of mystical ecstasy which has\nbeen denominated Cosmic Consciousness, and which it is narrated that\nPlotinus experienced no less than four times during the six years,\n262-268, when Porphyry was his companion in Rome. The effect of these\nexperiences on Plotinus is very evident in his philosophy. They led to\nhis emphasising the unity of all creation, and its oneness with the\nDivine, and the natural corollary of this, the illusory nature of\nseparate individuality. Hence that which causes individuality, the\nprinciple of limitation inherent in matter, appears to him itself also\nof an illusory nature, that is, essentially incapable of acquiring or\nparticipating in real existence. From this negative character of matter\narise, according to Plotinus, the imperfections of the material\nuniverse, and its inability to conform to the ideal or intelligible\norder.\n\nAt the basis of the system of Plotinus there is postulated then an ideal\nuniverse which constitutes an archetype or pattern of the phenomenal\norder which our senses apprehend. Plotinus assumes three root principles\nwhich he denominates the Three Divine Hypostases, and which have been\nsince designated the Alexandrian Trinity, though it would be a mistake\nto confuse this triad with the Trinity of the Christian Creed. The First\nDivine Hypostasis is the Prime Source of Being, denominated, as already\nstated, the One or the Good. This corresponds to the Absolute of the\nSpencerian philosophy, and Plotinus tells us that it transcends all\nknown attributes\u2014so much so, in fact, that even existence itself cannot\nbe predicated of it. Every being, according to the Plotinian system,\ntends to produce an image of itself. Hence we have the Second and Third\nof these Divine Principles, emanating in their turn from the First. The\nSecond Divine Hypostasis our philosopher designates the Intelligible\nUniverse or Universal Intelligence. This is the sphere of Absolute\nReality or Essence, and constitutes a manifestation of the creative\npower of the One. The Third Divine Hypostasis is the Universal Soul, and\nthis again is the image of the Second; but it differs from its principal\nin the fact that life in its sphere is no longer inert or motionless,\nbut revolves about and within the Universal Intelligence. By way of\nexplanation, Plotinus offers the parallel of one circle enclosed within\nanother and larger but concentric circle which revolves about it, the\ncommon centre of both being represented by the One or First Hypostasis,\nthe motionless inner circle by the Universal Intelligence, and the\nrevolving outer circle by the Universal Soul; though it is recognised\nthat this form of symbolism can be pressed too far, as the expressions\n\u201cexternal\u201d and \u201cinternal\u201d in this connection have no real validity.\n\nMatter, as already stated, is regarded as possessing no definite\nattributes of its own; but it is capable of receiving a semblance of\nlife by reflecting the forms derived by the Universal Soul from the\nSecond Divine Principle or Intelligible Universe. Matter, then, serves\nas a mirror upon which the Universal Soul projects the images or\nreflections of its creations, and thus gives rise to the phenomena of\nthe sensible universe. This universe, which we are accustomed to term\nthe Phenomenal World, holds an intermediate position between Reality and\nNegation owing to its participation in matter, which Plotinus identifies\nwith Evil as being the negation of the Spiritual or Real. The existence\nof the Universal Soul is an eternal contemplation of the One as revealed\nin the sphere of Intelligence or Beauty (the Second Divine Hypostasis)\nand is itself an indivisible noncorporeal essence, possessing\nomnipresent consciousness. While, then, one part of the Universal Soul\ninhabits the sphere of Intelligence, its inferior part has relation with\nthe Sensible World, or Material Universe. The Universal Soul by this\nrelation with the Material Universe gives birth to the phenomena of\nNature in all their varied manifestation. But whereas the object of\ncontemplation of the Universal Soul is the One as revealed in terms of\nBeauty or the Intelligible Order, the object of the contemplation of\nNature is Nature itself. Nature, in short, contemplates the forms of its\nown creation, and hence arise the imperfections of its manifestation.\n\n\u201cThe character of the material universe [following Dr Whitby,[5] in his\nsummary of the doctrine of Plotinus] is thus due to the irradiation of\nmatter or chaos by the complex unity of forms or reasons (_logoi_)\nderived by the Universal Soul from its contemplation of the sphere of\nessential reality and Absolute Perfection. By reason of the inability of\nmatter to participate fully in the real qualities of existence, it\nfollows that the perfection of the material universe is inferior to that\nof the Universal Soul, and still more so to that of the Intelligible\nUniverse.\u201d In writing \u201con the nature and origin of evil,\u201d our\nphilosopher observes, \u201cWhatever is deficient of good in a small degree\nis not yet evil, since it is capable from its nature of becoming\nperfect. But whatever is perfectly destitute of good, and such is\nmatter, is evil in reality, possessing no portion of good. For, indeed,\nmatter does not, properly speaking, possess being, by means of which it\nmight be invested with good. But the attribute of being is only\nequivocally affirmed of matter.\u201d\n\nThe association of matter with the soul arises from the voluntary\ndetermination of the individual consciousness towards the material\nplane. But it must not be supposed that this commingling of the soul and\nmatter results in any actual union between the two in the same sense as\nin the chemical world hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water. For\nmatter, as explained above, is in the nature of a mirror which the\ndivine light of the soul illuminates but which is incapable of receiving\ninto itself that light by which it is illuminated. \u201cBut [observes\nPlotinus][6] matter obscures by its sordid mixture and renders feeble\nthe light which emanates from the soul and, by opposing the waters of\ngeneration, it occasions the soul\u2019s entrance into the rapid stream, and\nby this means renders her light, which is in itself vigorous and pure,\npolluted and feeble, like the faint glimmerings from a watch tower\nbeheld in a storm. For if matter were never present, the soul would\nnever approach to generation; and this is the lapse of the soul, thus to\ndescend into matter and become debilitated and impure, inasmuch as\nmatter prohibits many of the soul\u2019s powers from their natural\nactivities, comprehending and as it were contracting the place which the\nsoul contains, in her dark embrace.\u201d Matter thus is the cause of the\nevil inherent in the material world, as without this the soul would have\nfor ever remained \u201cpermanent and pure.\u201d\n\nMatter, in itself, possesses no form, being unable to sustain order or\nmeasure. The soul, however, by its union with matter, imposes form upon\nit, this form being the result of the combination of the limitation\ninherent in matter, in union with the archetypal idea of which the soul\nis the expression. We have, then, a conception of the universe, of which\nthe One represents Infinity, and matter, the opposite pole, or zero.\nOwing, however, to the fact that no attributes or qualities can be\npredicated of the One, and that this is, in a negative sense, also the\ncase with matter, which is the privation of being, we arrive at a\ncertain confusion, the attempts of our philosopher to explain matter\nleading to phrases which are equally applicable to Infinity or the One.\nThe two extremes of Absolute Being and Non-Being appear, in short, to\nmeet, and a resulting bewilderment arises in the mind, which one is\nrather inclined to gather, was not entirely absent from the thought of\nPlotinus himself. It may be suggested, tentatively, that this _impasse_\narises rather from the failure of Plotinus to describe the One in more\npositive terms, than in his defective description of the negative\nqualities of matter. The fact that the One of Plotinus is conceived of\nas such that no language is able to express it, does not, in reality,\njustify the philosopher in describing it in terms of negation, however\nmuch positive statements may fall short of portraying the Absolute\nReality. Of matter itself, however, we ought perhaps to predicate a\nrelative though inferior reality; even while we admit that the presence\nof spirit is in inverse proportion to the density of matter.\n\nIn the view of Plotinus the universe is a single vast conscious organism\nof which all the parts are similarly endowed with consciousness. He\nattributes a species of divinity to the Sun and the stars, and appears\nto accept the theory of planetary spirits. Thus also Origen observes:\n\u201cAs our body while consisting of human members is yet held together by\none soul, so the universe is to be thought of as an immense living being\nwhich is held together by one soul, the power of the logos, God.\u201d\n\nAccording to Plotinus it is truer to state that the body is in the soul\nthan that the soul is in the body, inasmuch as the soul is transcendent\nas well as immanent in the corporeal form. Thus, when a particular body\nacquires life the soul which is destined to animate it does not in\nreality descend into it and become identified with it, but rather the\nbody comes within the sphere of its influence, thus attaining to the\nworld of life. This explanation is, it seems to me, helpful in enabling\nus to understand the gradual process by which the individual\nconsciousness becomes _en rapport_ with the immature bodies of\nchildhood. Following out the same theory we can understand the doctrine\nof early Gnostic sects, that Jesus of Nazareth was overshadowed by the\nChrist, and also we may believe, if we will, that the guardian angels of\nthe little children who, as Jesus asserted, \u201cdo always behold the face\nof My Father which is in Heaven\u201d are indeed their own higher spiritual\nselves, attracted on the one hand to those physical bodies of which they\nare the prospective tenants, and on the other looking regretfully back\nto their pre-natal home in the spiritual world.\n\nLike the Deity, the soul is in the nature of a trinity, the occult\naxiom, \u201cAs above, so below\u201d being implicit in Plotinus\u2019s philosophy.\nThus man consists, firstly, of the animal, or sensual soul, which is\nclosely united with the body; secondly, of the logical, or reasoning\nsoul; and thirdly, of that individualised portion of the divine essence\nwhose proper habitation is the Intelligible Universe, of which it in its\norigin forms a part. The return of the soul to the One is accomplished\nby means of a gradual process of purification, which eventually, after\nan immeasurable period of time, releases the soul from its inclination\ntowards the plane of sensibility; _i.e._ its attraction to the material\nworld. The philosophy of Plotinus thus included the doctrine of\nmetempsychosis, as regards the affirmation of the truth of which he is\nvery emphatic. For he declares that \u201cThe gods bestow on each the destiny\nwhich appertains to him, and which harmonises with his antecedents in\nhis successive existences. Every one who is not aware of this is grossly\nignorant of divine matters.\u201d He would even appear to admit that at times\nfallen human souls are imprisoned in the bodies of animals, but speaks\nless confidently on this head.\n\nThe conceptions of Plotinus explain many of those psychical phenomena\nwhich have so much puzzled our modern scientists, and offer a solution\nfor the much-debated problems involved in the phenomena of telepathy,\nmagic, and planetary influence. \u201cThe sensitivity of nature [writes Dr\nWhitby, summarising this side of Plotinus\u2019s philosophy] is manifested as\na vital nexus in virtue of which every minutest and remotest particle of\nthe universe is intimately correlated and symbolically united to the\nrest. The universe as a whole, although thus endowed with a potential\nsensitivity, may nevertheless be considered as impassive, because the\nsoul which animates and pervades it has no need of sensations for its\nown enlightenment and does not, in fact, regard them. Nevertheless, and\nfor the simple reason that nature is a living organism, sympathetic\nthroughout, individual parts of the universe have a quasi-sensitivity,\nand respond to impressions from without. When, for example, the stars,\nin answer to human invocations, confer benefits upon men, they do so,\nnot by a voluntary action, but because their natural or unreasoning\npsychical faculties are unconsciously affected. Similarly demons may be\ncharmed by spells or prayers acting upon the unreasoning part of their\nnature.\u201d For, according to Plotinus, the universe is a vast chain, of\nwhich every being is a link.\n\nPlotinus, like every one else who has attempted to solve the Riddle of\nthe Sphinx, is up against the basic facts of existence. Boldly and\nperseveringly as we may attempt to face the problem, the Sphinx sits and\nsmiles with the smile that will not come off, well knowing that however\nnear we may seem to be to the solution of the mystery, the problem will\nstill baffle us, and remain unsolved to the end. We may postulate a\nDeity who is all Perfection, but, if we do so, it rests with us to\nexplain how it is that evil is present in the universe, if this Deity is\nin reality, as Plotinus and other philosophers have taught us, the All.\nWe may postulate matter as inherently evil in nature, in opposition to\nthe Good, but if so, whence comes that which is not included in the All?\nIf matter is the mere privation of good, whence come its apparently very\npositive qualities? If the All is complete and perfect in itself, what\nneed for the manifested universe? What need for the striving after a\nhigher perfection, which gives the lie to the Absolute Perfection\npredicated of the One? Matthew Arnold has adopted the hypothesis of a\n\u201cPower, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness\u201d; but in this\nhypothesis he first abandons the conception of the unity of the All and\nsubsequently throws over the idea of divine perfection. For his Deity\nis, after all, only striving after a perfection which he has not yet\nreached.\n\nThe dualistic conception offers in truth fewer difficulties to the\nordinary mind. It is more in accordance with the obvious facts of\nexistence, which are brought under our notice every day of our lives.\nDeceptive and illusory though the conception may be, we still appear to\nbe confronted by the existence of a gigantic struggle between good and\nevil in which the two combatants are more nearly matched than we care to\nadmit. We like to shut our eyes to this and postulate a Deity of\ninfinite power and infinite beneficence, but, while we do so, we are for\never admitting into our intellectual sphere certain conceptions that run\ncounter to this theory, and in order to acquit our Deity of\nresponsibility for the evil which we see ever around us, we make of the\nDevil a scapegoat who, in practice, bears on his shoulders the sins of\nthe whole world; or alternatively we accept a conception of God and the\nDevil which runs on parallel lines with that of Dickens\u2019 Spenlow and\nJawkins. If behind Good and Evil, the two forces which are everlastingly\nstruggling for the mastery, we have, as Plotinus and other of the wisest\nphilosophers assure us, some principle of Unity from which both alike\nflow, are we justified in postulating of that Unity Absolute Perfection\nand Absolute Power? Or are we not nearer the mark in describing it in\nthe Nietzschean phrase as \u201cbeyond good and evil,\u201d as possessed of\nattributes and qualities which finite brains are incapable of\napprehending? Are we not indeed darkening counsel by attributing to this\nUnknown a perfection which, after all, the entire gamut of existence\nsuggests to us has never yet been reached through all the \u00e6ons even\nthough we may be approaching nearer to it every day and every hour?\n\nThe creation of the universe, if we are to accept the system of\nPlotinus, did not actually take place in time. He argues this point out\nwith much subtlety and ingenuity in his essay \u201con Providence,\u201d rejecting\nthe hypothesis of \u201ca certain foresight and discursive consideration on\nthe part of Deity, deliberating in what condition the world should be\nespecially formed, and by what means it may be constituted as far as\npossible for the best\u201d; and accepting in place of it the assumption that\nthe universe always had a being, and that it was \u201cformed according to\nintellect, and intellect not preceding _in time_ but prior[7]; because\nthe world is its offspring, and because intellect is the cause and the\nworld its image, perpetually subsisting in the same manner and flowing\nfrom this as its source.\u201d In other words, being faced with the\nalternative of assuming a definite date at which life began, or\npostulating existence from all eternity, he accepts the latter as\npresenting the lesser difficulty of the two; but in order to do so, he\nfinds himself involved in the necessity of admitting a sequence of cause\nand effect which the finite mind is quite unable to dissociate from the\nconception of time. Failing this, his whole theory of the three Divine\nHypostases falls to the ground. If we adopt the alternative which\nPlotinus rejected, we are plunged into still greater embarrassment; for\nif creation began in time, why did the All or the One wait through all\nthe \u00e6ons of eternity[8] for its commencement? And how, indeed, did time\nitself evolve from eternity, in view of the fact that the two ideas have\nno apparent relation to each other? The philosopher may\n\n              plunge into eternity where recorded time\n              Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind\n              Flags wearily in its unending flight\n              Till it sink dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless.[9]\n\nHe may do this, indeed, but after all he will not have solved the Riddle\nof the Sphinx.\n\nFootnote 4:\n\n  Constantine became sole Emperor in 323 A.D. The Athenian schools of\n  philosophy were suppressed by Justinian in 529 A.D.\n\nFootnote 5:\n\n  To whose book, _The Wisdom of Plotinus_ (Rider, 3s. 6d. net) I must\n  acknowledge my indebtedness.\n\nFootnote 6:\n\n  Plotinus on _The Nature and Origin of Evil_ (Taylor\u2019s Translation).\n\nFootnote 7:\n\n  _I.e._, prior in the sense that cause precedes effect.\n\nFootnote 8:\n\n  The Indian conception of the inbreathing and outbreathing of Brahma\n  may help us here, but it does not entirely get over the difficulty.\n\nFootnote 9:\n\n  Shelley, \u201cPrometheus Unbound.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n                              MICHAEL SCOT\n\n\nThe name of Michael Scot is principally familiar to English readers\nthrough Sir Walter Scott\u2019s _Lay of the Last Minstrel_. Shakespeare\u2019s\n_Tempest_ and Scott\u2019s _Lay of the Last Minstrel_ are probably the two,\nbest-known works among English classics which breathe throughout the\nweird and fascinating atmosphere of medi\u00e6val magic. Prospero is a\nmagician, and the whole plot of the _Tempest_ is based upon his magical\npractices and their consequences. The Lady of Branksome in the _Lay of\nthe Last Minstrel_ has also learned from her father the \u201cforbidden art.\u201d\n\n                   Her father was a clerk of fame\n                     Of Bethune\u2019s line of Picardie:\n                   He learned the art that none may name,\n                     In Padua, far beyond the sea.\n                   Men said, he changed his mortal frame\n                     By feat of magic mystery;\n                   For when, in studious mood, he paced\n                     St Andrew\u2019s cloistered hall,\n                   His form no darkening shadow traced\n                     Upon the sunny wall!\n                   And of his skill, as bards avow,\n                     He taught that Ladye fair,\n                   Till to her bidding she could bow\n                     The viewless forms of air.\n\nIn order the more effectually to accomplish her purposes, she dispatches\nher staunch henchman, William of Deloraine, to Melrose Abbey, where lies\nburied the wizard, Michael Scot, and buried with him, the Book of Might,\nwhich contains those potent spells whereby the great wizard had achieved\nhis world-wide celebrity. \u201cThe Monk of St Mary\u2019s Aisle,\u201d now an\necclesiastical veteran of some hundred summers, had in earlier days\nfought the Moslem on the fields of Spain, and had there met and become\nan intimate friend of the much dreaded wizard. He had attended him at\nhis death-bed, and had himself buried him in Melrose Abbey, receiving\ninjunctions from him in his last hours never to allow the Book of Might\nto be disinterred \u201csave at his chief of Branksome\u2019s need.\u201d For Michael\nScot himself was a native of Teviot Dale, though his life had been spent\nin Italy, in Spain, and at Palermo in Sicily in attendance at the court\nof the Emperor Frederick II., whose fame became in a curious way linked\nwith his own. The date of Michael Scot\u2019s departure from Sicily for Spain\nwas approximately 1210 A.D., and coincided with the turning-point of\nthat long war of centuries which ended in the ejection of the Moorish\nconquerors from the Spanish peninsula. 1212 A.D. was the date of the\ndecisive battle of Las Navas, which resulted in a crushing defeat for\nthe Moorish forces, and led within fifty years to their retirement from\nall parts of Spain with the exception of the province of Granada. Scot\nwas at this time in Spain pursuing his studies in Alchemy, Astrology,\nand the forbidden arts generally, and translating the works of the\nlearned Arabians, Avicenna, Averroes, and Geber, and rewriting their\nparaphrases of Aristotle in the Latin tongue, which was then the\nuniversal medium for the dissemination of all scientific and philosophic\nknowledge throughout Europe.\n\nWe may imagine the monk of St Mary\u2019s Aisle in his early days fighting\nthe Moorish hosts in Spain and engaged, perhaps, in the great battle of\nLas Navas, which sealed their doom. Here he is represented by the poet\nas striking up a firm friendship with the student and philosopher,\nMichael Scot, and learning from him the secret of his magical practices.\nThe monk is represented as telling William of Deloraine:\n\n              \u201cIn those far climes it was my lot\n              To meet the wondrous Michael Scot,\n                A wizard, of such dreaded fame,\n              That when, in Salamanca\u2019s cave,\n              Him listed his magic wand to wave,\n                The bells would ring in Notre Dame!\n              Some of his skill he taught to me;\n              And, Warrior, I could say to thee\n              The words that cleft Eildon hills in three,\n                And bridled the Tweed with a curb of stone:\n              But to speak them were a deadly sin;\n              And for having but thought them my heart within,\n                A treble penance must be done.\u201d\n\nThese achievements, according to the legend, were attributed to Michael\nScot\u2019s \u201cfamiliar,\u201d to whom he entrusted first one task and then another,\nbut finding his energies too tireless, and fearing he might engage in\nsome mischief which would react detrimentally on himself, finally sent\nhim to spin ropes of sand at the mouth of the Tweed. This operation\nbeing an unending one, is said to be still in progress, and as his\nbiographer relates, the successive attempts and failures of the spirit\nare pointed out as every tide casts up or, receding, uncovers the\never-shifting sands of Berwick bar. The reference to bridling the Tweed\nwith a curb of stone, is an allusion to the basaltic dyke which crosses\nthe bed of the river near Ednam. Michael, according to the tale, enjoyed\nthat complete mastery of words of power which in the traditions of\nancient magic is so potent a force in the working of wonders. As the\nmonk records in his conversation with the knight of Branksome:\n\n                  \u201cThe words may not again be said\n                  That he spoke to me, on death-bed laid;\n                  They would rend this Abbaye\u2019s massy nave\n                  And pile it in heaps above his grave.\u201d\n\nThe monk was not unnaturally alarmed at the power that this archworker\nof spells might have given to the fiends of darkness, and took\nprecaution to bury him\n\n                  ... On St Michael\u2019s night,\n             When the bell tolled one, and the moon was bright,\n\nso that the cross of his patron saint reflected by the light of the moon\nfrom the emblazoned window pane might fall on the spot which was chosen\nfor his grave. Once again on this fateful night the Red Cross was\nreflected on the sepulchral stone, and the opportunity which this\noffered to take possession of the Book of Might undisturbed by the hosts\nof darkness, must be taken without delay. Within the grave was one of\nthose ever-burning lamps, for the existence of which there seems to be\nsome historical evidence, and which was to serve in the present instance\nas a further protection for the wizard against the fiends of night.\nDeloraine\u2019s task achieved \u201cby dint of passing strength\u201d with the aid of\na bar of iron handed him by the monk, the light\n\n                 Streamed upward to the chancel roof\n                 And through the galleries far aloof.\n                 No earthly flame blazed e\u2019er so bright;\n                 It shone like Heaven\u2019s own blessed light.\n                 Before their eyes the Wizard lay\n                 As if he had not been dead a day,\n                 His hoary beard in silver roll\u2019d,\n                 He seem\u2019d some seventy winters old;\n                 A palmer\u2019s amice wrapp\u2019d him round,\n                 With a wrought Spanish baldric bound,\n                   Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea:\n                 His left hand held his Book of Might;\n                 A silver cross was in his right;\n                   The lamp was placed beside his knee.\n                 High and majestic was his look,\n                 At which the fellest fiends had shook,\n                 And all unruffled was his face;\n                 They trusted his soul had gotten grace.\n\nWilliam of Deloraine hesitated to perform what seemed very like an act\nof sacrilege. He was used to battlefields, but panic seized him in this\nstrange scene, and the monk was eventually compelled to warn him that\ndelay in such circumstances was dangerous.\n\n              \u201cNow speed thee what thou hast to do,\n              Or, warrior, we may dearly rue;\n              For those thou may\u2019st not look upon\n              Are gathering fast round the yawning stone!\u201d\n              Then Deloraine, in terror, took\n              From the cold hand the Mighty Book,\n              With iron clasped and with iron bound:\n              He thought, as he took it, the dead man frowned;\n              But the glare of the sepulchral light,\n              Perchance, had dazzled the warrior\u2019s sight.\n\nHow the knight and priest withdrew from the chapel after the tombstone\nhad been replaced, in the redoubled gloom of the night, \u201cwith wavering\nsteps and with dizzy brain,\u201d imagining the walls of the chapel echoing\nwith fiendish laughter as they retreated, is recounted dramatically\nenough by the bard of the Scottish border. We are, perhaps, more\ninterested to know what manner of man this Michael Scot was, and how far\nthese records of his magical powers are based on anything more than\nunauthenticated tradition. The facts we possess with regard to Michael\nScot\u2019s career convince us indeed that he was a man of the greatest\nerudition and learning, and far in advance of his contemporaries in\nthese respects. He was a noted mathematician, and not content with\ngaining the highest honours in the schools of Paris of that day, he\nsubsequently pursued his studies at the fountain-head of mathematical\nand alchemical research at Toledo in Spain. For it must be remembered\nthat we owe the basis of our mathematical knowledge primarily to the\nArabs who introduced to Europe not only the Arabic numerals in place of\nthe cumbrous Roman figures, but also the study of Algebra, itself an\nArabic word. To the Arabs, too, we owe the basis of our Chemistry\u2014a word\nthat is, of course, synonymous with Alchemy, which again bears the stamp\nof its Arabian origin. It is curious indeed to note how far the\ncivilisation of the Arab was in advance of that of the greater part of\nEurope in those days. Five hundred years before Michael Scot took ship\nfrom Sicily for Spain, the Arabs had advanced across the whole of\nNorthern Africa, conquering Egypt, Tripoli, Algeria, and Morocco in\nturn, and finally crossing to Spain and there establishing a separate\nkaliphate in the eighth century of the Christian era. The invasion of\nSpain by the Arabs introduced into the Iberian peninsula a literary\nculture of a kind till then quite unknown. Under the sway of the Moorish\nsovereigns the arts and architecture flourished, and science found a\nwelcome which it met with nowhere else in Christianised Europe.\n\nIt was to the Moorish capital that students of the medical art repaired\nwho desired to master the latest discoveries and most modern methods in\nthe treatment of the human body. Irrigation with the Moors had become an\napplied science, and was employed extensively throughout the Iberian\npeninsula with the most advantageous results in enhancing the fertility\nof the soil. Nowhere else in Europe did the land yield such rich\nharvests, and nowhere else was the science of agriculture so fully\nunderstood. The fertile fields of those days are in many cases replaced\nby barren deserts and the towns with teeming populations by ruins and\nuninhabited wastes. The ignorant peasantry that has taken the place of\nthe cultivated sons of Arabia are still in the matter of civilisation\nand commercial activity hundreds of years behind the busy and\nintelligent population whom in the latter part of the fifteenth century\nthey finally drove over the seas after subjecting them to the most cruel\npersecution for adhering to the faith of their fathers. Three million\nMoors are said to have been ejected from Spanish soil at the bidding of\nthe civil power, instigated by ecclesiastical tyranny. Civilisation has\nnot yet rallied from the so-called \u201ctriumph of the Cross\u201d in Spain. This\nejection of the Moors from the west of Europe coincided, as it happened,\nwith the advent of the Turk at Constantinople; but here, by a curious\ncontradiction, the Turk as the champion of Mohammedanism represented not\nprogress but the triumph of the sword. The case was inverted, but in\neach instance it represented the victory of barbarism over civilisation,\nwhether the Mohammedan made headway in the east or the Christian in the\nwest. In the east the effete remnant of the Eastern Empire was swept\naway before the advancing hosts of Islam. In the west a far more highly\ndeveloped and industrial population was wiped out at the bidding of the\nmyrmidons of the Papal See.\n\nFor five hundred years the Moors had ruled all but the northernmost\nportion of Spain, and for another 250 they retained the province of\nGranada. Countless examples of their ornate and characteristic\nsemi-oriental architecture remain behind as a record of their artistic\nculture, and much also of their language intermingled with that of the\nrace which they at first conquered and which in the days of their luxury\nand decadence reconquered them in turn. But the intellectual life of\nMoorish Spain, which was for so long like a beacon light in the darkness\nof Medi\u00e6val Europe, has passed, never to return. The Inquisition marked\nthe high-water mark of the reaction of Christian bigotry against the\ntolerant and broad-minded intellectuality which had flourished under the\nfostering dominion of a race whose glories to-day are but a memory of\nthe far-distant past.\n\nScot as a mathematician, alchemist, and astrologer, had this been his\nsole life\u2019s work, would have merited no insignificant niche in the\ntemple of Science; but in addition to this, he exercised, though in an\nentirely indirect manner, a marked influence on the history of Europe.\nHis talents and learning commended him for the position of tutor to\nFrederick II., at that time king only of Sicily, but afterwards \u201cEmperor\nof the Romans.\u201d Frederick was an orphan, having lost both his parents in\nearly childhood, and the receptive mind of the ardent boy responded\nsympathetically to the instructions of his broad-minded and accomplished\ntutor, who was destined subsequently to become his confidant and friend.\n\nMichael Scot\u2019s first efforts as an author had for their aim the\neducation of his royal pupil. For this purpose he first wrote the _Liber\nIntroductorius_, and afterwards the _Liber Particularis_ and the\n_Physionomia_. The first two of these books dealt with astronomy and\nastrology, and the latter with physiognomy and the reading of character\nfrom the physical appearance.\n\nMarriages were arranged early in those days, and Frederick, when a boy\nof but fourteen, was united in wedlock, at the Pope\u2019s desire, with\nConstance, daughter of the King of Aragon, and widow of the King of\nHungary, who was some ten years his senior. This brought the attendance\nof Michael Scot at the court at Palermo, temporarily at least, to an\nend, and led to his setting sail, as already narrated, for the coasts of\nSpain. It appears that the _Physionomia_ was his parting gift on his\nmarriage to his illustrious pupil. On his arrival in Spain, Scot betook\nhimself to the headquarters of the scientific activities of those days,\nthe renowned city of Toledo. Here, towards the middle of the twelfth\ncentury, a regular school for translations from the Arabic had been\nestablished, and it was work of this kind on which Scot himself\nembarked. Here he translated the _Abbreviatio Avicenn\u00e6_ with a\ndedication to the Emperor Frederick in the following terms: \u201cO!\nFrederick, Lord of the World, and Emperor, receive with devotion this\nbook of Michael Scot, that it may be a grace unto thy head and a chain\nabout thy neck\u201d\u2014no empty compliment as such phrases generally are, nor\none unappreciated by its distinguished recipient. Here, too, he pursued\nhis studies in alchemy, chemistry, medicine, and astrology. Alchemy in\nthose days was a special bone of contention, one school maintaining its\nfeasibility, and the other denouncing it, after the manner of nineteenth\ncentury scientists, as a mere will-o\u2019-the-wisp. The belief in it which\nlater on took hold of Medi\u00e6val Europe had not yet met with any general\nsort of acceptance, though the Arabian school in the main adopted it,\nand there seems little doubt that it was held by Michael Scot himself.\nOne book indeed on this particular subject, _De Alchimia_, is attributed\nto his pen. The book is contained in a manuscript in possession of\nCorpus Christi College, Oxford. If, however, the main part of the work\nis genuine, which is somewhat uncertain, the dedication to Theophilus,\nKing of the Scots, is certainly not so. We have in this book a curious\nformula for turning lead into gold, which runs as follows:\n\n    Medibibaz, the Saracen of Africa, used it to change lead into gold\n    in the following manner:\u2014Take lead and melt it thrice with caustic\n    (comburenti), red arsenic, sublimate of vitriol, sugar of alum, and\n    with that red tuchia of India which is found on the shore of the Red\n    Sea, and let the whole be again and again quenched in the juice of\n    the Portulaca marina, the wild cucumber, a solution of sal ammoniac,\n    and the urine of a young badger. Let all these ingredients then,\n    when well mixed, be set on the fire, with the addition of some\n    common salt, and well boiled until they be reduced to one-third of\n    their original bulk, when you must proceed to distil them with care.\n    Then take the marchasite of gold, prepared talc, roots of coral,\n    some carcharoot, which is an herb very like the Portulaca marina;\n    alum of Cum\u00e6, something red and saltish, Roman alum and vitriol, and\n    let the latter be made red; sugar of alum, Cyprus earth, some of the\n    red Barbary earth, for that gives a good colour; Cum\u00e6an earth of the\n    red sort, African tuchia, which is a stone of variegated colours and\n    being melted with copper changeth it into gold; Cum\u00e6an salt which is\n    pure red arsenic, the blood of a ruddy man, red tartar, gumma of\n    Barbary, which is red and worketh wonders in this art; salt of\n    Sardinia which is like.... Let all these be beaten together in a\n    brazen mortar, then sifted finely and made into a paste with the\n    above water. Dry this paste, and again rub it fine on the marble\n    slab. Then take the lead you have prepared as directed above, and\n    melt it together with the powder, adding some red alum, and some\n    more of the various salts. This alum is found about Aleppo (Alapia),\n    and in Armenia, and will give your metal a good colour. When you\n    have so done you shall see the lead changed into the finest gold, as\n    good as what comes from Arabia. This have I, Michael Scot, often put\n    to the proof and ever found it to be true.\n\nWhether the statement appearing in the manuscript under his name, that\nMichael Scot worked on this recipe, be true or not, one would not envy\nthe task of the modern chemist who was called upon to compound the\nprescription. The basic idea of alchemy which, since the discovery of\nradium, is looked upon with some favour by certain advanced scientists,\nthat all metals are reducible to a single substance, and therefore\ntheoretically interchangeable, does not seem to find much place in this\ncurious prescription, which suggests the idea of what we should call\nto-day a gold-substitute, rather than the genuine metal itself, in spite\nof the fact that we are told that the gold in question would prove \u201cas\ngood as what comes from Arabia.\u201d\n\nThe greatest work of Scot as translator was his reproduction in Latin of\nthe commentary of Averroes on the _De Anima_ of Aristotle. This book,\nwhich expounded views on theological problems which were the reverse of\northodox, was long held back from publication by Scot\u2019s patron, the\nEmperor Frederick, who hesitated to incur obloquy, and in especial the\nhostility of the Pope by reason of its publication. Friction, however,\nbetween the Papal See and the Emperor became so acute in the end that it\nappeared useless to attempt to placate papal bigotry further, and the\npublication in question was thus finally given to the world.\n\nThe study of the writings of Averroes had indeed taken very strong hold\non Scot\u2019s imagination, and if the story may be accepted as authentic, he\neven went so far as to attempt to evoke the spirit of the great Arabian,\npresumably with a view to securing his assistance in the work which he\nhad in hand. There is nothing intrinsically improbable in the\nsupposition that Scott practised or experimented in such methods of\nevocation. Averroes had only been dead some twenty years when Scot was\nin Spain, and holding the views he did, he may well have thought that\nthe philosopher\u2019s spirit had not passed so far from the physical plane\nthat some form of necromantic conjuration of his conscious personality\nwould be ineffectual. Here, as elsewhere, it seems impossible to draw\nthe line between record of fact and that fabric of legend and tradition\nwhich has been woven round the story of his life.\n\nA number of the tales told of Scot\u2019s magical achievements reduce\nthemselves in the light of modern knowledge to the results of highly\ndeveloped hypnotic powers. It is familiar knowledge that such\nachievements are not unknown in India at the present day. A Florentine\nauthority gives us one of these anecdotes. Scot\u2019s guests at dinner, we\nare told, once asked him to show them a new marvel. The month was\nJanuary. Yet in spite of the season he caused vines with fresh shoots\nand ripe grapes to appear on the table. The company were bidden each of\nthem to choose a bunch, but their host warned them not to put forth\ntheir hands till he should give the sign. At the word \u201cCut!\u201d lo, the\ngrapes disappeared, and the guests found themselves each with a knife in\nthe one hand and in the other his neighbour\u2019s sleeve. Another story of a\nmore or less similar character is told of a feast given by the Emperor\nto celebrate his coronation at Rome, which took place on November 22,\n1220.\n\n    The pages were still on foot with ewers and basins of perfumed water\n    and embroidered towels, when suddenly Michael Scot appeared with a\n    companion, both of them dressed in Eastern robes, and offered to\n    show the guests a marvel. The weather was oppressively warm, so\n    Frederick asked him to procure them a shower of rain which might\n    bring coolness. This the magician did accordingly, raising a great\n    storm, which as suddenly vanished again at their pleasure. Being\n    required by the Emperor to name his reward, Scot asked leave to\n    choose one of the company to be the champion of himself and his\n    friend against certain enemies of theirs. This being freely granted,\n    their choice fell on Ulfo, a German baron. As it seemed to Ulfo,\n    they set off at once on their expedition, leaving the coasts of\n    Sicily in two great galleys, and with a mighty following of armed\n    men. They sailed through the Gulf of Lyons, and passed by the\n    Pillars of Hercules, into the unknown and western sea. Here they\n    found smiling coasts, received a welcome from the strange people,\n    and joined themselves to the army of the place; Ulfo taking the\n    supreme command. Two pitched battles and a successful siege formed\n    the incidents of the campaign. Ulfo killed the hostile king, married\n    his lovely daughter, and reigned in his stead; Michael and his\n    companion having left to seek other adventures. Of this marriage\n    sons and daughters were begotten, and twenty years passed like a\n    dream ere the magicians returned, and invited their champion to\n    revisit the Sicilian court. Ulfo went back with them, but what was\n    his amazement, on entering the palace of Palermo, to find everything\n    just as it had been at the moment of their departure so long before;\n    even the pages were still holding rounds with water for the hands of\n    the Emperor\u2019s guests. This prodigy performed, Michael and the other\n    withdrew and were seen no more; but Ulfo, it is said, remained ever\n    inconsolable for the lost land of loveliness, and the joys of wedded\n    life he had left behind for ever, in a dream not to be repeated.\n\nOn Scot\u2019s return to the court of Frederick II., after his sojourn in\nSicily, he added the study and practice of the medical art to his other\nactivities. Lesley states that he \u201cgained much praise as a philosopher,\nastronomer, and physician,\u201d and Dempster speaks of him as \u201cone of the\nfirst physicians for learning.\u201d He appears to have treated cases which\nwould not yield to the ordinary medical pharmacop\u0153ia, and in particular\nhe specialised in leprosy, gout, and dropsy. Acting apparently under his\nadvice, Frederick II. instituted various reforms in the practice of\nmedicine. It was stipulated that the course preliminary to qualification\nshould consist of three years in arts, and five in medicine and surgery.\nLaws were passed forbidding the adulteration of drugs, while physicians\nwere prohibited from demanding a greater fee than half a _taren_ of gold\nper day, and this gave the patient the right to be visited three times\nin the course of the twenty-four hours. It was stipulated that the poor\nshould be attended free of charge. Certain recipes of Michael Scot\u2019s are\nstill extant, and can be studied in Latin in the British Museum. One of\nthese bears the name of the _Pillul\u00e6 Magistri Michaelis Scoti_. They\nseem to be something in the nature of a universal panacea, and perhaps\nif the prescription were taken up by some enterprising modern chemist,\nthey might rival the fame of the celebrated Beecham\u2019s Pills!\n\nIt appears that Scot had ambitions in the way of ecclesiastical\npreferment; but though the Emperor put himself out to secure his\nfavourite the position which he coveted, and in fact appealed to the\nPope on his behalf, nothing practical came of these representations.\nProbably Scot\u2019s fame was of too dubious a kind to recommend him to the\nheads of the orthodox Church, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, to whom\nthe Pope applied in his interest, does not seem to have responded in any\nfriendly fashion. Finally, an offer was made to Michael Scot of the\nArchbishopric of Cashel in Ireland, but in those days the Irish were\nlittle better than a barbarous race, and they spoke the language of\nErse, which was a sealed book to their prospective bishop. In any case,\nthough the Chapter had actually elected him to the post, he decided to\ndecline. He apparently had too much principle to accept the position of\nan absentee bishop, and a home among a wild and uncultured race would\nhardly have been to the liking of a man who had associated with the most\nintellectual minds of Europe. These hopes of ecclesiastical preferment\nhaving fallen through, Frederick, after long delay, decided to take\nsteps for the publication of the translation of the works of Averroes,\nand certain books of Aristotle, with the commentaries thereon of the\nArabian philosophers. He issued an imperial circular announcing the\nappearance of these, and sent Michael Scot as his emissary to arrange\nfor their publication in the principal European centres of learning.\nFinally, after visiting Bologna and Paris, Scot made his way to England,\nwhere he appears to have visited Oxford about the year 1230. Tradition\nsays that he journeyed thence to his native land of Scotland. But\nshortly after this we lose sight of him altogether, and though there is\nno authoritative evidence with regard to his death, he seems to have\npassed away by or before the year 1232. In this year the _Abbreviatio\nAvicenn\u00e6_ was published at Melfi, in the Latin version which Scot had\ntranslated. Henry of Colonia was selected by Frederick to transcribe the\nwork from the imperial copy, and Scot\u2019s biographer is probably right in\nregarding this work as a wreath laid by his imperial friend on his\ngrave. The matter would assuredly have been placed in Scot\u2019s own hands\nif he were still alive.\n\nScot is related to have foretold that his death would take place by the\nblow of a stone falling on his head, and tradition says that being in\nchurch one day with head uncovered at the sacring of the mass, a stone,\nshaken from the tower by the motion of the bell rope, fell upon his\nhead, mortally wounding him. Presumably this incident occurred in\nScotland; if, that is, there is any truth at all in the story.\n\nAnother prediction is also attributed to Michael Scot by the same\nchronicler\u2014Pipini. He states that he foretold the manner also of the\nEmperor\u2019s death, which he declared would take place \u201cad portas ferreas\u201d;\nthat is, \u201cat the iron gates,\u201d and in a town named after Flora.\nFrederick, it is said, interpreted this as referring to Florence, which\ncity he accordingly made a point of avoiding. During his last campaign,\nhowever, in the year 1250, he fell ill at Florentino, in Apulia, where\nhe slept in a chamber of the castle. His bed, says the story, stood\nagainst a wall recently built to fill up the ancient gateway of the\ntower, the iron staples on which the gate had been hung still forming\npart of the wall. It is stated that the Emperor, learning these\nparticulars, and calling to mind Michael Scot\u2019s prediction, exclaimed,\n\u201cThis is the place where I shall make an end, as it was told me. The\nwill of God be done, for here I shall die.\u201d A few days later the great\nEmperor passed to his rest.\n\nOf Michael Scot\u2019s learning and erudition there can be no question, in\nspite of the unfavourable criticisms of Roger Bacon with regard to his\nknowledge of languages, which are the less worthy of notice in view of\nthe fact that Bacon\u2019s own accomplishments in this direction were far\ninferior to those of Scot. A fairer criticism of his work would be based\non its lack of originality, and the fact that the greater part of his\nliterary output was borrowed either from the Arabians or the Greeks. His\ntalents as a past master of mathematics were never in dispute, and his\nresearches into the problems presented by astronomy enjoyed a great\nvogue in his own day.\n\nWhile there is no evidence but that of highly-coloured tradition to\nsuggest that Michael Scot was the adept he is represented as being in\nmagical spells and incantations, there is nothing in our historical\nknowledge of his career which renders the practice of such arts by him\nat all incredible, or indeed unlikely. Legend has magnified this portion\nof his many-sided activities to the exclusion of that branch of his\nlabours which might well, one would have thought, have earned for him\nmore enduring fame. The lovers of the marvellous have thus surrounded\nwith a mysterious and semi-sinister halo the name of a man whose chief\nwork in life lay in the paths of philosophy, astronomy, and medical\nresearch. It seems not improbable that the last of these pursuits led\nthis daring thinker into the investigation and practice of what to-day\nwe term hypnotism, and its employment to the bewilderment of his\nacquaintances in the creation of illusions, the source of which we now\nrecognise in the power of a master mind to mould by sheer force of will\nthe plastic imagination and subjective consciousness of his audience.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n                               PARACELSUS\n\n\nThe embattled forces of conservative orthodoxy are so strong that one is\nsometimes tempted to wonder how it is that the world ever goes round at\nall; how it is that the forward movement of progress succeeds, as it\napparently does, in getting the better of so many retrograde tendencies,\nso much prejudice, so strong a clinging to the stereotyped conditions of\nthe day. After all, the more one thinks about it, the more one becomes\nconvinced that the whole progress of the world is the work of the very,\nvery few; that the positive and progressive intellect is the rare\nexception, and that if democratic conditions really prevailed (as of\ncourse they never do) all civilisation would go backwards and gradually\nrevert once more to chaos. What a mockery, after all, Democracy is! And\nhow hopelessly the modern world is deluded in thinking that anywhere or\nat any time Democracy has in reality held sway! As a matter of fact, the\nmany have never ruled, have never wished to rule; they have merely asked\nfor some strong man to lead them. Where was ever the flock of sheep that\ndid not follow the bell-wether? Here and there we meet with a master\nmind that\u2014for good or evil\u2014leads the multitude\u2014or, if he does not lead,\nat least points the way where others will eventually follow. Side by\nside with him we see the multitude either drifting or being led. \u201cWork!\u201d\nsaid Voltaire, that most popular of writers, \u201cwork for the little\npublic!\u201d Voltaire knew, as all great leaders have known, before and\nafter, that it is the \u201clittle public\u201d that ever dominates the situation.\nIt is the \u201clittle leaven that leaveneth the whole lump.\u201d \u201cIt is a sight\nbeloved of the gods,\u201d says the old saying, \u201cto see a good man struggling\nagainst adversity.\u201d But is it not a finer sight still, to see a strong\nman battling with the forces of orthodoxy, and refusing to yield his\nground? A man of such a mould was Philip Bombast of Hohenheim, better\nknown by his assumed name of Paracelsus. Never was there any one to whom\nShelley\u2019s celebrated line\n\n                 The sun comes out and many reptiles spawn,\n\nwas more absolutely appropriate. The hostility and venomous antagonism\nof his own profession, with a few notable exceptions, followed and\npersecuted him throughout his entire medical career. The boldness and\nindependence of his medical attitude galled the leaders as well as the\nrank and file of the profession. But what was still more galling to them\nthan his lack of orthodoxy, was the fact that his novel methods, as they\nmust have appeared to the doctors of that day, were so immeasurably more\nsuccessful than their own. Paracelsus, indeed, never gave nor asked for\nquarter. John the Baptist denouncing the Pharisees who came to him as \u201ca\ngeneration of vipers\u201d was no bad parallel to Paracelsus\u2019s stinging\ninvective on the ignorance and tradition-loving proclivities of his own\nprofession.\n\n[Illustration: Paracelsus (aged 24).]\n\nMany to whom the name of Paracelsus is familiar are accustomed to look\nupon him as little more than a singularly successful quack who revived\nthe traditions of an earlier school of Occultism in defiance of the more\nscientific methods of his own time. As a matter of fact, the doctors of\nhis day were, in the vast majority of cases, merely theorists with\nlittle real practical experience, but with a fair store of book-learning\nof a very indifferent kind. It was Paracelsus whose medical knowledge\nwas derived from experiment and experience, and who had acquired the\ngreater part of his medical and surgical skill from wide and varied\ntravelling and visiting more countries and more different nationalities\nthan any other medical expert of his day, and who had learnt by actual\nassociation with all sorts and conditions of men in different climes,\nfar more than any book-learning had ever taught him.\n\nThe period of Paracelsus\u2019s career coincided with the Reformation of\nLuther, and with the wider and more general Renaissance movement. This\nlatter development had brought back in its train the study of classical\nlearning and classical ideals which had fallen into discredit about the\nperiod of the first triumph of Christianity and its establishment as a\nworld-religion. The attitude of the earlier Christians, who looked upon\nthe Pagan deities as devils, and Greek and Roman classical writers as\napologists for devil-worship, had passed away; and the highest\ndignitaries of the Church were now often noted for their classical\nerudition and ripe scholarship. With the return of classical ideals came\nback also into favour in a number of unexpected quarters the doctrines\nof Neoplatonism. When Hypatia perished at Alexandria, orthodox\nChristianity set its foot on Plotinus and all his works. The struggle at\nthe end had been one rather between Christianity and the later Greek\nphilosophers with their Neoplatonic conceptions than between\nChristianity and Pagan Rome. The gods of Rome were dead already. Pan was\ndead past resurrecting. The danger that threatened Christianity was the\ntriumph of such Emperors as Julian the Apostate\u2014Julian, whose master was\nPlotinus, and whose religion was Neoplatonism merely dressed in an old\nRoman garb. To the thinkers and philosophers of that time the triumph of\nChristianity seemed like the victory of exoteric religion over the inner\nesoteric truths. Back, now, with all that was best of the scholarship\nand art of Greece and Rome, came the mystic doctrines of the Alexandrian\nphilosophers\u2014back, not in triumph, but daring once more to reassert\nthemselves in the face of a hostile world that had long even forgotten\ntheir existence. A thousand years separated Hypatia from Cornelius\nAgrippa\u2014a thousand years which, in the realm of thought, might well be\ncharacterised as the Dark Ages. Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim was\nborn at Cologne in 1486. Seven years later, on 10th November 1493, at\nEinsiedeln, near Zurich, a son was born to Dr Wilhelm Bombast von\nHohenheim, and was christened Theophrastus, in honour of Theophrastus\nTyrtamos, a Greek physician, philosopher, and follower of Aristotle.\nThis child was subsequently to be known to fame and held up to obloquy\nunder the title of Paracelsus.\n\nIt was a period in which the world was in labour with great events. Only\na year before Columbus had landed on American soil. In the same year, or\nthe previous one, passed away a man whose life was destined to create as\ngreat a revolution in the history of the human race as that of Columbus\nhimself\u2014William Caxton. Returning from a long sojourn in the Netherlands\nin or about 1474, Caxton established his printing press in the precincts\nof Westminster Abbey, and before his death at least sixty-four books are\nknown to have been issued from this first English Printing House. Ten\nyears exactly before Paracelsus\u2019s birth, a third of these great makers\nof revolutions had seen the light. On 10th November 1483, Martin Luther\nwas born at Eisleben in Lower Saxony, and when the subject of these\nnotes was twenty-four years old, Luther nailed his ninety-five theses\nagainst the Doctrine of Indulgences on the church door at Wittenberg.\nParacelsus, when occasion offered, did not attempt to disguise his\nsympathy with this bold reformer, though he took no actual part in the\nmovement, and he was accused by his enemies of being a medical Luther, a\ncharge which he took pains to show that he did not in any way resent.\nAnother noteworthy character in the realm of History and Literature,\nLorenzo de Medici, had passed away a year before our hero\u2019s birth. In\nEngland the Wars of the Roses were over, and Henry VII. was busy\nestablishing monarchy on a firm basis, the people, worn out by incessant\nstruggles, being glad to accept the Tudor rule, sympathetic as it always\nwas to the middle and commercial classes. In Europe there was no\nAustrian Emperor, and Italy was still fated, for centuries to come, to\nremain a geographical expression. The Holy Roman Empire extended from\nthe German Ocean and the Baltic Sea on the North to the Adriatic on the\nSouth. Poland and Lithuania extended far along its Eastern border, and\nthe outmost limit of the realm of the Muscovite was still 500 miles east\nof the site where a century later Peter the Great was to found and give\nhis name to the capital of the Russian Empire. The conquering Turk was\nthundering at the gates of Christendom. Ferdinand and Isabella, patrons\nof Columbus, reigned at Madrid. Everywhere throughout the civilised\nworld vast changes were impending, everywhere the horizon was widening,\nand men\u2019s minds were being directed into new channels and to fresh\nfields of enterprise and of opinion.\n\nThere has been much discussion as to what exactly is connoted by the\nname \u201cParacelsus,\u201d and how it came to be first adopted. What seems clear\nis that von Hohenheim adopted the name himself, and was not, as some\nhave held, given it by his admirers. It was a usual practice in those\ndays to write books under some Latin _nom de plume_, frequently some\nadaptation into Latin of the name of the writer. In all probability the\nlast two syllables of the name, \u201ccelsus,\u201d were suggested by \u201cHohen\u201d (or\n\u201chigh\u201d), \u201cHohenheim\u201d being literally translated as \u201chigh home.\u201d With\nregard to the first two syllables it is noticeable that these were\noccasionally employed by Paracelsus in giving name to his medical\ntreatises. There is thus one treatise called \u201cParamirum,\u201d and another\n\u201cParagranum.\u201d This word \u201cpara\u201d seems to have been used in the sense of\ngiving the word to which it was prefixed a superlative value. Thus\n\u201cParamirum\u201d would mean \u201cextremely wonderful.\u201d The whole word is\ndoubtless a polyglot hotchpotch, the first part being Greek and the\nsecond Latin; but medi\u00e6val writers had little scruple in adapting the\nclassical tongues to their own requirements.\n\nTo follow the writings of Paracelsus it is necessary to understand his\nphraseology, his jargon, as we should call it in the slang of to-day.\nWithout this he is as incomprehensible as is the dog Latin of a\nscientific textbook to one who is not a scientific specialist\u2014or, to\ngive another example, as the language of Astrology is to one who is not\nan Astrologer. Paracelsus held that there were three basic substances\nnecessary to the existence of all bodies. These he called Sulphur,\nMercury, and Salt. Sulphur corresponds to fire, or rather to the\nprinciple of inflammability; Mercury to water, or fluidity; and Salt to\nearth, or solidity. For a full glossary of the terms which he employed,\nreaders are referred to the volume on _The Life and Philosophy of\nParacelsus_, by the late Dr Franz Hartmann. In this terminology _Azoth_\nstands for the creative principle in Nature, or the spiritual vitalising\nforce; the _Ilech Primum_ is the causative force; _Cherio_, the essence\nof the thing, the \u201cfifth principle,\u201d which constitutes what we call its\nessential qualities; the _Evestrum_ is man\u2019s astral body, his ethereal\ncounterpart, that may act to him as guardian angel and warn him of\ndangers; the _Elementaries_ are the astral corpses of the dead, and must\nnot be confused with the _Elementals_, or Nature Spirits\u2014Sylphs,\nSalamanders, Undines, and Gnomes; _Magic_ is the conscious employment of\nspiritual powers to act on external Nature. Many of these expressions\nhave been adopted by the Theosophists of the present day and by students\nof Occultism.\n\nIt is clear, though Paracelsus long antedated Hahnemann, the founder of\nHom\u0153opathy, that much of his medical teaching is what we should now call\nHom\u0153opathic. Hahnemann, in fact, borrowed extensively from Paracelsus.\nTake, for instance, Paracelsus\u2019s teaching with regard to the\nquintessence or virtue of each substance. This, he taught, though\ninfinitesimal in quantity, even in large bodies, had none the less the\npower to affect the mass through and through, as a single drop of gall\nembitters, or a few grains of saffron colour a large quantity of water.\nThe application of hom\u0153opathic cures by those ignorant of hom\u0153opathic\nprinciples has frequently led to mistakes in this connection; as, for\ninstance, the administration of doses many times in excess of what the\ncomplaint requires, the result being the entire failure of the medicine\nto produce the intended effect.\n\n    \u201cThere are wide differences,\u201d says Paracelsus, striking again a very\n    hom\u0153opathic note, \u201cbetween what the ancient doctors taught and what\n    we here teach, and therefore our healing art differs widely from\n    theirs. For we teach that what heals a man also wounds him, and what\n    wounded will also heal him. For the nettle can be so changed that it\n    cannot burn, the flame so that it does not scorch, and the chelidony\n    so that it does not cicatrize. Thus similars are good in healing,\n    such and such a salt to such and such a sore. And the things which\n    heal a wound in Nature heal the same sort of wound in man.\u201d\n\n\u201cMany kinds of rust,\u201d says Paracelsus again, \u201coccur in the minerals; for\neach mineral has its own peculiar nature.\u201d This rust is in the form of a\ndisease, and iron has one disease, while copper has another. In a\nsimilar way a man has a sore and it is healed by treatment. The metal,\ntoo, has a sore, and can be healed by treatment. \u201cMetallic bodies,\u201d says\nParacelsus, long antedating the discoveries of the present day, \u201care as\nliable to death as the others, for their salt is arsenic.\u201d The whole\nearth is linked together, and the life that passes through the bodies of\nmen passes also through the bodies of minerals. Paracelsus had no\npatience with those who taught of a panacea that would heal all\ndiseases. He described them as people who \u201crode all horses with one\nsaddle,\u201d through whom more harm than good was effected. He maintained\nthat a doctor must know the sick and all matters appertaining to their\nstate \u201cjust as a carpenter knows his wood.\u201d He mentions six essential\nqualifications for the practical physician.\n\n    (1) A doctor (he says) must know how many kinds of tissue there are\n    in the body, and how each kind stands in relation to the man.\n\n    (2) He must know all the bones, such as the ribs and their\n    coverings, the difference between one and another, their relations\n    to each other and their articulations.\n\n    (3) He must know all the blood-vessels, the nerves, the cartilages\n    and how they are held together.\n\n    (4) He must know the length, number, form, condition, and purpose of\n    each member of the body, its particular flesh, marrow, and all other\n    details.\n\n    (5) He must know where all emunctoria lie and how they are to be\n    averted; also what is in every cavity of the body, and everything\n    about the intestines.\n\n    (6) He must with all his might and being seek to understand about\n    life and death, what the chief organs in man mean, and what each\n    member can and may suffer.\n\nIf we look to Paracelsus as the real founder of Hom\u0153opathy, so also must\nwe regard him as the pioneer of magnetism and magnetic healing. Man, he\nmaintained, is nourished through the magnetic power which resides in all\nNature and by which each individual being draws its specific nourishment\nto itself. He called this magnetic force _Mumia_ in his special\nphraseology, and he laid great stress on the healing power which resided\nin this _Mumia_. \u201cJust as the power of the lily breaks forth in perfume\nwhich is invisible, so,\u201d he writes, \u201cthe invisible body sends forth its\nhealing influence. Just as in the visible body are wonderful activities\nwhich the senses can perceive, so, too, lie powers in the invisible body\nwhich can work great wonders.\u201d To him the whole universe was one, and\nknit together by indissoluble bonds.\n\n    \u201cThe astral currents created by the imagination of the Macrocosmos,\u201d\n    he writes, \u201cact upon the Microcosmos, and produce certain states in\n    the latter, and likewise the astral currents produced by the\n    imagination and will of man produce certain states in external\n    Nature; and these currents may reach far, because the power of the\n    imagination reaches as far as thought can go. The physiological\n    processes taking place in the body of living beings are caused by\n    their astral currents, and the physiological and meteorological\n    processes taking place in the great organism of Nature are caused by\n    the astral currents of Nature as a whole. The astral currents of\n    either act upon the other, either consciously or unconsciously; and\n    if this fact is properly understood it will cease to appear\n    incredible that the mind of man may produce changes in the universal\n    mind, which may cause changes in the atmosphere\u2014winds and rains,\n    storm, hail and lightning\u2014or that evil may be changed into good by\n    the power of Faith. Heaven is a field into which the imagination of\n    man throws the seeds.\u201d\n\nHere, in a single paragraph, is the philosophy of Astrology, and the\njustification for the efficacy of prayer.\n\nI have said that Paracelsus was the father of Hom\u0153opathy, and the father\nalso of that later school of animal magnetism which was founded in\nFrance in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and the inception\nof which is always associated with the name of Mesmer. Unfortunately,\nMesmer had neither the knowledge nor the experience, nor yet the\nintuitive faculties of his master, Paracelsus. But, resurrected as it\nwas under somewhat unfavourable conditions, there is reason to believe\nthat magnetic healing is destined to play a far greater part in the\nfuture of medical art than it has ever done in the past. Not only was\nParacelsus a pioneer in Hom\u0153opathy and animal magnetism, he was also one\nof the first, as well as one of the greatest, of all Faith-healers.\n\u201cFaith,\u201d he says, \u201chas a great deal more power than the physical body.\u201d\n\u201cAll magical processes are based upon Faith.\u201d \u201cThe power of Faith\novercomes all spirits of Nature, because it is a spiritual power, and\nSpirit is higher than Nature.\u201d \u201cWhatever is grown in the realm of Nature\nmay be changed by the power of Faith.\u201d \u201cAnything we may accomplish which\nsurpasses Nature is accomplished by Faith, and by Faith diseases may be\ncured.\u201d \u201cImagination,\u201d he says again, \u201cis the cause of many diseases.\nFaith is the cure for all.\u201d \u201cIf we cannot cure a disease by Faith, it is\nbecause our Faith is too weak. But our Faith is weak on account of our\nwant of knowledge. If we were conscious of the power of God within\nourselves, we should never fail.\u201d \u201cThe power of amulets does not rest so\nmuch in the material of which they are made as in the Faith with which\nthey are worn.\u201d Paracelsus\u2019s chosen motto was:\n\n    Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest\u2014\n\n\u201cLet him not belong to another who has the power to be his own\u201d\u2014who can,\nin short, be master of his own soul. Paracelsus declined to follow any\nleader, but formed his own conclusions from his own experience. For him\nthe _Codex Natur\u00e6_ was a system which led straight to exact knowledge,\nand he rejected whatever could not be verified by research. He laid the\nfoundations of a new system, built on evidence rather than on the\noutworn traditions of the medicine of his day. This system comprised\nwithin itself at once a practical guide to the medical art and a\nspiritual philosophy of life. The fatal error of divorcing the physical\nfrom the spiritual, and treating the physical as a thing apart, which\nhas rendered abortive so much of the medical research of recent\ngenerations, would undoubtedly have been obviated, had the modern\nexponent of the medical art realised that in Paracelsus was to be found\na pioneer who brought the life-giving genius of his intellect to bear on\nold truths in their relation to modern problems, rather than a quack and\nmountebank who deluded his contemporaries\u2014none so easy a task\u2014into the\nidea that he had accomplished marvellous cures where the medical faculty\nof his day could show nothing but a record of failures.\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n                           EMANUEL SWEDENBORG\n\n\nOf all the men and women whom the world has classed under the general\ntitle of \u201cmystic,\u201d not one certainly occupies so singular a position as\nEmanuel Swedenborg. If we decide to accept the world\u2019s verdict\u2014and it\nseems difficult to do otherwise\u2014and agree to call Swedenborg a mystic,\nwe are confronted by the fact that we can find no parallel either to his\npersonality or to his career, though we search the roll of the mystics\nof all the ages. Pascal indeed was, like Swedenborg, a master\nmathematician, and a man of wide general learning, but he was a mystic\nfirst and foremost, and his life from an early date was given up to his\ncalling as a leading light of the Catholic Church. Swedenborg, on the\nother hand, was, until the age of fifty, a man of science and a man of\naffairs; that is, he was a scientist of the most eminently practical\nkind, one whose encyclop\u00e6dic knowledge was turned always into\nutilitarian channels, and for whom knowledge of any kind appeared to\nhave no meaning outside its practical application. It would be difficult\nto instance a single one of the world\u2019s great men whose interests were\nso wide, or whose mental activity was so all-absorbing. Outside art\nthere seemed literally nothing that did not appeal to him as a field for\nhis indefatigable investigation, and, as regards art, it was presumably\nits lack of utilitarian value which led to its neglect by his\nessentially practical mentality.\n\n[Illustration: Emanuel Swedenborg.]\n\nSwedenborg started his travels in the first years of early manhood, and\nwherever they took him there was nothing which escaped his observant\neye. To whatever part of Europe he went it would seem that he could not\nbe satisfied without learning all that was to be learnt, without seeing\nall that was to be seen. When he establishes himself in London he does\nnot merely take lodgings because the price is reasonable or because the\ncooking is good, or because he thinks he will be comfortable. He writes\nfrom London in 1711: \u201cI turn my lodgings to some use, and change them\noften. At first I was at a watchmaker\u2019s, and now I am at a mathematical\ninstrument maker\u2019s. From them I steal their trades, which some day will\nbe of use to me.\u201d At Leyden he learnt to grind glass for lenses, so that\nhe might furnish himself with appliances which he could not afford to\nbuy. His brother wishes for globes for the university at Upsala. These\nproved too expensive, and he was asked to purchase printed maps which\nmight be mounted in Sweden. The makers would not supply these, so\nSwedenborg applied himself to learning engraving, and prepared them\nhimself. When chafing at enforced inactivity at home he turns his\nattention to music, and writes to his brother-in-law that he has been\nable several times to take the place of the organist. In travelling on\nthe Continent he studies the fortifications of the towns, the methods of\nconstructing fences. He visits and investigates all the manufactories.\nHe passes critical remarks with regard to the blast furnaces, the\nvitriol, arsenic, and sulphur works, the copper and tin manufactories,\nthe paper mills, and studies also the methods of mining. Not content\nwith this, he investigates the social conditions of the people,\ncriticises the situation of affairs in France, the wealth of the Church\nand the poverty of the people. \u201cEverywhere,\u201d he says, \u201cthe convents,\nchurches, and monks are the wealthiest and possess most land. The monks\nare fat, puffed up, and prosperous. A whole proud army might be formed\nof them without their being missed.\u201d Again: \u201cThe houses are miserable,\nthe convents magnificent, the people poor and wretched.\u201d He investigates\nthe problem of the revenue of the French Government, obtained by the\nsystem of taxation called tithing. \u201cIt amounts,\u201d he says, \u201cto some\nthirty-two million livres, and Paris, on account of its rents,\ncontributes nearly two-thirds of the sum.\u201d \u201cI am told,\u201d he says, \u201cthat\nthe ecclesiastical order possesses one-fifth of all the property in the\nState, and that the country will be ruined if this goes on much\nlonger.\u201d[10] He gives the number of convents in France, actually at that\ndate between fourteen and fifteen thousand; the number of the members of\nthe religious orders; the number of the abbesses, prioresses, chapters,\netc. He goes to hear the celebrated preachers, among them the King\u2019s\nchaplain, who \u201cgesticulates like an actor.\u201d He discusses the adoration\nof saints with an abb\u00e9. He visits the hospitals and attends the opening\nof Parliament. Not content with this, he frequents the opera and the\ntheatres, and passes opinions upon the most popular pieces and the most\ndistinguished actors and actresses. In the midst of all this we find him\nspeculating on the form of the particles of the atmosphere, and writing\nan introductory essay to a book which he is planning to prove that \u201cthe\nsoul of wisdom is the knowledge and acknowledgment of the Supreme\nBeing.\u201d As if this were not enough, he occupies his spare moments in the\nstudy of anatomy, astronomy, magnetism, and hydrostatics.\n\nSurely, since the world began, there was never a more versatile brain!\nHe has even observations to make on military matters. He goes to see the\nBrandenburg soldiers, Frederick the Great\u2019s famous regiment. \u201cThe men,\u201d\nhe says, \u201care tall and slender and they march erectly. They go through\ntheir drills with the greatest promptness and regularity, but their\nmanner is a little theatrical. The whole squadron is like a machine\nplaced there, moving instantaneously at the pleasure of the machinist.\u201d\n\u201cIf,\u201d he says, \u201cthey displayed the same uniformity in battle as in\ndrill, they would conquer Alexander\u2019s army, and subject a great part of\nEurope to Prussia, but\u2014\u2014\u201d He leaves it to the reader to fill in the\nreason of his doubt.\n\nOthers besides Swedenborg have possessed that encyclop\u00e6dic type of brain\nwhich amasses vast stores of miscellaneous knowledge, but few, if any,\nhave possessed at the same time Swedenborg\u2019s extraordinary capacity for\nutilising the knowledge gained and turning it to practical account. The\nidea of learning as an object in itself was indeed entirely alien to\nSwedenborg\u2019s type of mentality. All information acquired was merely\nregarded as a means towards some practical end. We thus find him\nfounding universal principles upon the knowledge he has accumulated in\nexplanation of the laws which govern phenomena. We see him, for example,\ndeducing his conclusions in the field of geology from a number of\nobserved facts. He reports on the geological conformation of Sweden, and\nconcludes from it that the country was at one time swept over by a sea\nin a state of great commotion. He notices the fact that the stones on\nthe mountain sides are worn off and rounded, in support of this. He also\ndescribes the remnants of a wrecked ship excavated far inland, and the\nskeleton of a whale which was discovered in West Gothland. \u201cSwedenborg\u2019s\ncontributions in the field of geology,\u201d says Professor A. G. Nathorst,\n\u201care of such significance and value that they alone would have been\nsufficient to have secured him an honoured scientific name.\u201d As a mining\nexpert he was unequalled. \u201cWe should never be able to finish,\u201d says\nProfessor Schleiden, \u201cif we attempted to enumerate all the improvements\nwhich Swedenborg introduced in the working of the mines in his own\ncountry.\u201d \u201cThe metallurgical works of this remarkable man,\u201d says Dr\nPercy, \u201cseem to be very imperfectly known, and yet none are in my\njudgment more worthy of the attention of those interested in the history\nof metallurgy.\u201d The air-tight stove which he describes in his work on\n_New Observations and Discoveries Respecting Iron and Fire_, published\nin 1721, is stated to be identical in principle with one recently\npatented in Washington.[11] Sir Isaac Newton had propounded the\ncorpuscular theory of light, which was for long universally held.\nSwedenborg dissented, stating, in his _Principia_, that \u201cmotion diffused\nfrom a given centre through a contiguous medium or volume of particles\nof ether produced light.\u201d This theory is the one now adopted. Swedenborg\nalso notices that light and electricity are produced by the same\nefficient cause, thereby supplying the clue to the utilisation of\nelectricity as a means of lighting. Even where in the field of science\nhe was looked upon as a dreamer in his own days, his dreams have since\ntaken practical shape. Among the inventions which he projected was \u201cthe\nplan of a certain ship which with its men was to go under the surface of\nthe sea wherever it chooses, and do great damage to the fleet of the\nenemy.\u201d He also designed a flying machine, a project which he was very\nreluctant to drop. Christopher Polhem, however, threw cold water on\nthis, saying, with respect to flying by artificial means, \u201cthere is\nperhaps the same difficulty as in making a _perpetuum mobile_, or gold\nby artificial means.\u201d\n\nHis philosophy recognises the synthetical as well as the analytical\nmethod as requisite to arrive at true conclusions. \u201cBoth,\u201d he says, \u201care\nnecessary in reflecting upon and tracing out one and the same thing; for\nin order to do so there is required both light, _a priori_, and\nexperience, _a posteriori_.\u201d \u201cHe who is possessed of scientific\nknowledge,\u201d he says elsewhere, \u201cand is merely skilled in experiment, had\ntaken only the first steps in wisdom. For such a person is only\nacquainted with what is posterior, and is ignorant of what is prior.\nThus his wisdom does not extend beyond the working of the senses and is\nunconnected with reason; whereas, nevertheless, true wisdom embraces\nboth.\u201d\n\nUnquestionably Swedenborg, as he is known to us from the record of the\nfirst fifty years of his life (if we except the earliest years of his\nchildhood), was about the last person one would expect to have his name\nassociated with that Swedenborgian gospel by which eventually it came to\nbe known to the world at large. He had, as we have seen, earned many\ntitles to recognition, but assuredly that of a medium of communication\nbetween this world and the world of spirits was not one of them.\n\nSwedenborg\u2019s father was a Swedish Lutheran Bishop with leanings towards\npietism, and a rather broader and more sympathetic outlook than the\nmajority of his fellow clergy. His name, Swedborg, was subsequently\nchanged to Swedenborg when the family was ennobled by the Swedish king.\nEmanuel was the second son and third child of Bishop Swedborg and his\nwife, Anna, of whom we know but little, and who died when Emanuel was\nonly eight years old. The child was thus surrounded by religious\ninfluences in his early days, and it is said that his father had a\nguardian angel with whom he claimed to be able to hold converse on\noccasion. Reared under these conditions, he naturally enough evinced\nstrongly religious tendencies in his childhood. \u201cFrom my fourth to my\ntenth year,\u201d he says, \u201cI was constantly engaged in thought upon God,\nsalvation, and the spiritual experiences of men. I revealed things at\nwhich my father and mother wondered, saying that angels must be speaking\nthrough me.\u201d Here at least we obtain some suggestion of what he\neventually became, and of which the intervening years between childhood\nand middle age seem to afford us little or no hint. The believer in\nheredity will point to the psychic temperament of the father as\ninherited by the son; but there appears to be no foreshadowing in his\nancestry of that encyclop\u00e6dic mind with which he was destined to\nastonish his contemporaries. His father evidently failed to understand\nhis precocious son, and the relations between the two were far from\ncordial, the son considering that his father was inappreciative and\nfailed to encourage his intellectual activities, and also blaming him\nfor meanness in matters of finance. Bishop Swedborg had, however, eight\nother children besides Emanuel, and very probably he did not find it\neasy to make two ends meet, especially as he was something of an author\nhimself, and published books at his own expense, which proved far from\nremunerative. Probably the father considered that the son ought to\nsettle down to some regular trade or profession instead of commencing\nlife by travelling in search of knowledge first to one country and then\nto another. Presumably he regarded his precocious offspring as likely to\nbecome a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, and there are doubtless\nmany other parents who, under similar circumstances, would have thought\nthe same. In any case the son was able to start off on his travels in\nspite of financial embarrassments and many dangers on the way. He was\nnearly wrecked when approaching England. Then the ship was boarded by\npirates, and on the top of this was fired into by a British guardship,\nbeing mistaken for the pirate craft. Finally, our youthful hero narrowly\nescaped hanging for breaking the quarantine regulations, the plague at\nthis time being prevalent in Sweden. Under somewhat similar\ncircumstances the great Julius told the captain of his vessel not to be\nafraid, as he was carrying C\u00e6sar. Whether Swedenborg had any such faith\nin a Providence watching over his future destiny, we are not told. He\ncertainly realised his unique powers, but can hardly have suspected the\nchannel into which they were eventually to be diverted.\n\nThe one link between Emanuel and his family was his brother-in-law, Eric\nBenzelius, afterwards bishop, and the sister to whom he was married. In\nhis financial and other troubles he repeatedly appeals to him for\nsympathy and practical help, evidently not without response. He also\nasks for intercession with his father, to whom he obviously did not care\nto appeal direct, having met with too many rebuffs. It is interesting to\nnote that one of the first objects that met his eyes in London was \u201cthe\nmagnificent St Paul\u2019s Cathedral, finished a few days ago, in all its\nparts.\u201d He makes the acquaintance of Flamsteed, the most notable\nastronomer in England, who was concerned in the founding of Greenwich\nObservatory and seems to have been something of an astrologer as well.\nApparently as the result of this visit, he takes up with enthusiasm the\nstudy of astronomy.\n\n    I have made such progress in it [he says], as to have discovered\n    much which I think will be useful in its study. Although in the\n    beginning it made my brain ache, yet long speculations are no longer\n    difficult for me. I examined closely all proportions for finding the\n    terrestrial longitude, but could not find a single one. I have,\n    therefore, originated a method by means of the Moon, which is\n    unerring, and I am certain that it is the best which has yet been\n    advanced. In a short time I will inform the Royal Society that I\n    have a proposition to make on this subject, stating my points.... I\n    have also discovered many new methods for observing the planets, the\n    Moon, and the stars. That which concerns the Moon and its parallax,\n    diameter, and inequality I will publish whenever an opportunity\n    arises.\n\nHe longs to go to Oxford, and investigate the Bodleian Library, but\ncannot, for want of money. \u201cI wonder,\u201d he says, \u201cmy father does not show\ngreater care for me than to let me live now for more than sixteen months\nupon 250 rixdalers (something under \u00a350).\u201d Finally, he returns home and\nobtains an appointment as Assessor-extraordinary at the State Department\nof the Board of Mines, which was responsible for the supervision of the\ngreat mining industries of Sweden. In this connection he is fortunate in\nmaking the acquaintance of Christopher Polhem, the celebrated engineer,\nwho recommends him for his talents and readiness of resource. By degrees\nhe becomes an intimate guest with Polhem\u2019s family, a circumstance which\nleads in the end to a tragic love affair. He falls desperately in love\nwith Polhem\u2019s younger daughter. The father gives his consent; but the\ngirl, a mere child of thirteen or fourteen, cannot reconcile herself to\nthe idea. Swedenborg, with great sorrow, relinquishes his claim,\nresolving never again to let his thoughts settle upon any woman. Polhem\nhimself seems to have been almost equally distressed with Swedenborg\nover the incident, especially as it led to a breach between himself and\nthe young man, whom he had come to regard in the light of his own son. A\nperiod of depression follows, which is accentuated by the death of\nCharles XII. of Sweden, about the same period, from whose encouragement\nand support Emanuel had considerable expectations. The relations between\nhimself and the King were, indeed, singularly intimate, Charles readily\nappreciating the young man\u2019s remarkable talents and mathematical\nknowledge. \u201cEvery day,\u201d says Swedenborg, in writing on 14th September\n1718, \u201cI had some mathematical matters for his Majesty, who deigned to\nbe pleased with all of them. When the eclipse took place, I took his\nMajesty out to see it, and talked much to him about it. This, however,\nis a mere beginning.\u201d\n\nIn the summer of 1721, Swedenborg started again on his travels, his\nobject this time being to study the mines and manufactories of other\ncountries, so that he might be in a position to render greater services\nto his own in the office to which he had been appointed. On this\noccasion he visited all the mines in Saxony and the Hartz mountains, and\nwas royally entertained by Duke Ludvic Rudolf of Brunswick-L\u00fcneburg, who\nshowed him a generosity which he doubtless appreciated after his\nfather\u2019s parsimony. Meanwhile his pen was by no means idle. He published\na treatise at Amsterdam on Chemistry and Physics; some observations on\nIron and Fire; and a work on the construction of Docks and Dykes; and\nlater on, at Leipzig, some miscellaneous observations on Geology and\nMineralogy. On his return home he settled down again for a period to his\nwork at the Board of Mines, in the meantime gathering matter for further\npublications which followed in due course. The most important of these\nwere his _Opera Philosophia Mineralia_, and a treatise on _The\nInfinite_. The former work met with a very favourable reception, and\nbetween one publication and another Swedenborg soon won for himself a\nEuropean reputation. The Academy of Sciences at St Petersburg nominated\nhim a corresponding member, while he was one of the first to be elected\nfor the newly established Royal Academy of Sciences in his own country.\n\nEverything thus seemed to open out for Swedenborg a career of great\nscientific and practical utility. He became, however, gradually led by\nhis philosophical speculations to an investigation of the nature of the\nsoul and its operation in the body, and the mutual relations of the two.\nThis study was the subject of two important works, entitled respectively\n_The Economy of the Animal Kingdom considered Anatomically and\nPhilosophically_, and _The Animal Kingdom considered Anatomically,\nPhysically, and Philosophically_. By the \u201canimal kingdom\u201d must be\nunderstood the kingdom presided over by the soul. In the first of these\nbooks Swedenborg deals with the composition of the blood and its\ncirculation, with the heart, arteries, and veins, and with the brain and\nits cortices. In this book Swedenborg attaches \u201cgreat importance to the\nblood, for, as he says, nothing exists in the body that has not\npreviously existed in the blood.\u201d He describes it again as \u201ca vital and\nmost spirituous fluid, which has an immediate connection with the soul.\u201d\nIn the _Animal Kingdom_ Swedenborg describes in full detail all the\norgans of the body and their uses, the object being in the end to track\nthe soul home and to describe its activities. \u201cFor as yet,\u201d he tells us,\n\u201cher modes of being and her nature are absolutely unknown.\u201d Naturally he\nrecognises that this will be regarded by the philosophers of his day as\na vain and useless quest. But he is prepared to meet their objections\nwith the following pertinent remarks, which, now that the materialistic\nhypothesis has been finally discarded by the advance guard of modern\nScience, are likely to find a sympathetic echo in scientific as well as\nphilosophic circles.\n\n    Inasmuch [he says] as the soul is the model, the idea, the first\n    form, the substance, the force, and the principle of her organic\n    body, and of all its forces and powers, or what amounts to the same\n    thing, as the organic body is the image and type of its soul\n    conformed and principled to the whole nature of the soul\u2019s\n    efficiency, it follows that the one is represented in the other....\n    Thus by the body we are instructed respecting the soul, by the soul\n    respecting the body, and by both respecting the truth of the whole.\n\nEmerson describes the _Animal Kingdom_ as \u201can anatomist\u2019s account of the\nhuman body in the highest style of poetry,\u201d and its object as to \u201cput\nscience and the soul, long estranged from each other, at one again.\u201d It\nwas while continuing his pursuit of this apparently visionary aim that\nSwedenborg quite unexpectedly found himself, as he believed, in touch\nwith another than the physical world. In writing of this extraordinary\ndevelopment in his life history in the Introduction to the _Arcana\nC\u0153lestia_, the first volume of which appeared in 1749, he gives his own\naccount of his relationship with the spiritual realm in justification of\nthe remarkably dogmatic statements contained in the book in question.\n\n\u201cIt is,\u201d he says, \u201cexpedient here to premise that of the Lord\u2019s\ndivine mercy it has been granted me now for several years to be\nconstantly and uninterruptedly in company with spirits and angels,\nhearing them converse with each other and conversing with them.\nHence it has been permitted me to hear and see things in another\nlife which are astonishing, and which have never before come to the\nknowledge of any man nor entered into his imagination. I have thus\nbeen instructed concerning different kinds of spirits and the state\nof souls after death\u2014concerning Hell, or the lamentable state of the\nunfaithful\u2014concerning Heaven, or the most happy state of the\nfaithful\u2014and particularly concerning the doctrine of Faith, which is\nacknowledged throughout all Heaven, on which subjects, by the divine\nmercy of the Lord, more will be said in the following pages.\u201d With\nregard to the extraordinary transformation which these experiences\nbrought about in his life\u2019s work, he explains to a friend that the\nLord has elected him for this work, and \u201cfor revealing the spiritual\nmeaning of the Sacred Scriptures which he had promised to the\nProphets and in the Book of Revelation.\u201d \u201cMy purpose previously,\u201d he\nadds, \u201chad been to explore Nature, chemistry, and the sciences of\nmining and anatomy.\u201d\n\nThe basis of Swedenborg\u2019s teaching which, of course, under the\ncircumstances he did not claim in any way as original, was that the\nBible must be accepted absolutely as a divinely inspired book, but must\nbe taken in an allegorical sense. Thus where historical events are\nrecorded they are not recorded for the sake of history, for the object\nof the Scriptures is to treat not of the kingdoms of the earth, but of\nthe Kingdom of God. In other parts of the Bible, as in Genesis, there is\nno truth in the story from the historical point of view. The record is\nmerely an allegory of the soul.\n\nHis doctrine of Correspondences was merely the recognition of this\nallegorical relationship of the spiritual and material. The universe,\naccording to Swedenborg, is symbolical throughout, All material things\nare derived from their spiritual archetypes, and are representations of\nthese. The bodily form represents the spiritual character, for the\nspirit forms the body in its own likeness. A man\u2019s acts are thus the\noutcome of his inward nature, and there is consequently a similar\ncorrespondence between them and the inward man. The basis of these ideas\nis, of course, the ancient occult teaching that the universe is the\nmacrocosm, and man the microcosm. Thus Swedenborg tells us that as there\nis a material sun, moon, and stars, so each of these heavenly bodies has\nits mental and spiritual counterpart.\n\nSwedenborg\u2019s doctrine of Degrees appears to follow from his doctrine of\nCorrespondences. The three degrees of the human mind correspond to the\nthree kingdoms of Nature: animal, vegetable, and mineral, corresponding\nto spirit, soul, and body. \u201cDegrees,\u201d Swedenborg tells us, \u201care of two\nkinds, discrete and continuous.\u201d \u201cAll things, from least to greatest, in\nboth the spiritual and natural worlds, co-exist at once from discrete\nand continuous degrees. In respect of discrete degrees there can be no\nintercourse between either by continuity.\u201d It follows, therefore, with\nregard to the degrees of the human mind, the celestial, spiritual, and\nthe natural, that they cannot communicate under normal conditions one\nwith another. Thus, too, men on earth can have no sensible communication\nwith the spiritual world or see things of that world without a special\nopening of the spiritual sight. Elsewhere Swedenborg tells us \u201cto the\nintent that anything may be perfect it must be distinguished into three\ndegrees. The ground and reason of this is because there must be end,\ncause, and effect.\u201d Another doctrine of Swedenborg\u2019s was that of\nregeneration. In order to be partaker of the higher life, man, he held,\nmust be born again, but this regeneration was not a special occurrence\nof any particular date, but a continuous process. One of the orthodox\ndoctrines which Swedenborg attacked was that of the Trinity. He denied\nthat Jesus Christ was merely the Second Person of a Divine Trinity. He\ncites St Paul\u2019s statement that \u201cin Him dwelleth all the fullness of the\nGodhead bodily,\u201d and maintains that the whole Trinity is centred in his\nPerson. \u201cIn consequence,\u201d he says, \u201cof separating the Divine Trinity\ninto Three Persons each of which is declared to be God and Lord, a sort\nof frenzy has infected the whole system of theology as well as the\nChristian Church so called from its Divine Founder.... That a trinity of\ngods occupies the minds of Christians, although they deny it from shame,\nis very evident from the ingenuity of many who contrive methods to prove\nthat three are one, and one three, by geometry, arithmetic, and\nphysics.... Others have trifled with the Divine Trinity as jugglers play\none with another. Their juggling on this subject may be compared to\nthose sick of a fever who see a single object, such as a man, a table,\nor a candle, as three; or three as one.\u201d\n\nThe basis of this orthodox Christian teaching with regard to the Trinity\nis, of course, the Athanasian Creed, which attempts to explain the\nmatter by the absurd method of a juxtaposition of contradictions. It is\nwell to bear in mind, in view of the enormous amount of theological\ntwaddle that has been talked on this subject, that the Athanasian Creed\nwas in the nature of a political concordat to meet the exigencies of a\ntime of acute religious difficulty, and in no sense an exposition of\nspiritual truth.\n\nAs the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity was false, argued Swedenborg,\nand there were no three Persons, as supposed, it was, of course,\nimpossible for one of them, the Son, to offer Himself as sacrifice to\nappease the wrath of another, the Father. The doctrine of the atonement,\ntherefore, as taught by the Church, had no basis in fact. God needed no\nreconciliation to His creatures. It was they who needed to be reconciled\nto Him before they could be fitted to appear in His presence. Christ\ntook upon Himself human nature that He might conquer mankind\u2019s spiritual\nenemies which were keeping him in bondage and estranged from his Divine\nSource.\n\nOne of Swedenborg\u2019s most astounding statements had reference to the Last\nJudgment. This was not, maintained Swedenborg, as the orthodox generally\nhold, the final consummation of all things. The event was an occurrence\nin the spiritual sphere which actually took place in the year 1757! It\nappears from this amazing account that in the Intermediate State so many\nundesirable and evil spiritual entities had accumulated that they were\nthreatening the whole world with imminent catastrophe. It may be\nremembered, in this connection, that in Swedenborg\u2019s time scepticism was\neverywhere rampant, and that religious life had reached its lowest ebb.\nThis was the case not only on the Continent, but pre-eminently in\nEngland, where the movement headed by John Wesley led to such remarkable\nscenes in connection with the great spiritual revival which followed\nthis period of religious apathy. To avert the catastrophe threatened to\nthe world according to Swedenborg\u2019s theory, a general judgment was\nexecuted upon the spirits who were in revolt and were imperilling the\ndivine order. These powers of evil were at that date placed under\nrestraint, so that an influx of new spiritual forces among men might be\nmade possible. Swedenborg actually goes so far as to affirm that he\nhimself was permitted to witness this judgment in fulfilment of the\nprophecies made in the Gospels and in the Book of Revelation.\n\nThe Swedenborgian teaching which has come in probably for most criticism\nis that with regard to Marriage. Swedenborg (thus far as it appears to\nme quite rightly) insisted that sex is a spiritual as well as a physical\ndistinction. He denied the virtues of celibacy and declared that true\nchastity resides in the perfect marriage relation. Marriage, according\nto Swedenborg, is not a physical relationship till death part the united\npair, but is eternal in its character. \u201cConjugial love\u201d being the\ncentral and fundamental love of man\u2019s life is also the source of his\nfullest joy. The delights of the true conjugial love exceed the delights\nof all other loves. All delights that are felt by man proceed from love,\nand it follows, therefore, that the principal happiness in the celestial\nlife must have a similar source, and the highest joy of heaven must\ntherefore be the spiritual counterpart of the conjugial life of earth.\nIt does not, of course, necessarily follow from this that earthly\nmarriages are perpetuated in heaven. If the feelings of the marriage\npartners towards one another are concordant and sympathetic, they\ncontinue indeed their married life; but if they are discordant and\nantipathetic, they dissolve it. For true conjugial love is the only\npossible form of marriage in heaven, and \u201cas their love lasts to\neternity, it follows that the wife becomes more and more a wife and the\nhusband more and more a husband. The true reason of this is that in a\nmarriage of truly conjugial love each married partner becomes\ncontinually a more interior man. For that love opens the interiors of\ntheir minds and in the proportion in which these are opened the man\nbecomes more and more a man.\u201d\n\nSwedenborg has some very beautiful observations with regard to the\nrejuvenescence of those who have passed into the higher life. \u201cAll who\ncome into heaven,\u201d he says, \u201creturn into their vernal youth, and remain\nso to eternity. The more thousands of years they live the more beautiful\nand happy is the spring to which they attain.... In a word, to grow old\nin heaven is to grow young.... They who live in the chaste life of\nmarriage are above all others in the order and form of Heaven after\ndeath. Their beauty, therefore, is surpassing, and the flower of their\nyouth endures for ever.\u201d\n\nWhat are we to say of this man who propounded this amazing gospel as a\ndirect message from the highest spheres? What are we to say of his\ncommunications and conversations with the unseen world? Of his _bona\nfides_ it is impossible to entertain a doubt. The ordinary hypothesis is\nthat he suffered from hallucinations. It has been argued on the other\nhand, that for a man so sane and so shrewd in the ordinary affairs of\nthe world, hallucinations of the kind were an impossibility. This,\nhowever, seems going rather too far. Some of the sanest men in the world\nhave had special points on which they were not mentally sound. Monomania\nis a recognised form of mental aberration, and the man who suffers from\nit is as sane as his fellows on all matters except one.\n\nThis spiritual communion, however, was continuous in the case of\nSwedenborg for many years, and during those years occupied either in\nitself or in the activities that arose from it the larger portion of his\nlife. In spite of this absorption, his relations with his fellow men\ncontinued as sane and responsible as those of any of his neighbours.\nWould this have been possible, one may ask, in the face of so absorbing\nan interest, had this interest merely been founded on a monomania? It\nwould, I think, be difficult to parallel such a case. If, however, we\ndecide to take Swedenborg\u2019s relations with the other world at his own\nvaluation, are we called upon to accept his gospel at his own valuation\non that account? Certainly I think not. Swedenborg\u2019s estimate of the\nstatus of the spiritual beings with whom he communicated, even if we\naccept their reality, need not be ours. Recent investigations and\nrecords of innumerable psychic experiences have tended to show what a\nmiscellaneous crowd of spirits hover around the confines of this\nmaterial world. Swedenborg\u2019s mistake has been made by many spiritualists\nof the present day, and sometimes with disastrous results. Swedenborg\nhad not before him the evidence which we now hold to warn him of the\nnecessity of testing the quality of his spiritual communicants. The\nexperiences encountered overwhelmed him by their unexpected and\napparently miraculous character, and his naturally sane judgment was at\nfault for want of a criterion by which to estimate them.[12] Few of\nthose who now accept the genuineness of psychical phenomena are prepared\nto question Swedenborg\u2019s exceptional mediumistic powers. To allow them\nto their fullest extent is by no means to accept the doctrine which was\npreached through his mediumship.\n\nOf Swedenborg\u2019s psychic gifts there is indeed plenty of evidence quite\noutside the teachings of his celestial visitors. On one occasion he\ndisclosed to the Queen of Sweden a secret that had existed between her\nand her deceased brother, the Crown Prince Augustus William of Prussia,\nwhich was unknown to any living person. On another he described to a\nwhole company of people at Gothenburg a destructive fire which had\nbroken out at that very moment in Stockholm. Again on another occasion\nhe revealed to the widow of Monsieur de Marteville the hiding place of a\nmissing receipt for money which had been paid by her husband, the Dutch\nAmbassador at Stockholm. These incidents are among the best\nauthenticated of any extant historical records of a psychic character.\nThe philosopher Kant, among others, made a searching investigation into\nthe evidence on which they rested, and came away absolutely convinced of\ntheir truth. It is curious to note that John Wesley was not a little\ninterested in the Swedenborgian propagandism. The great Methodist\npreacher was impressed with a strong desire to meet the Swedish seer\u2014a\ndesire to which, however, he had never given open expression. The Rev.\nSamuel Smith, one of Wesley\u2019s preachers, records how, about the end of\nFebruary 1772 he was in attendance upon John Wesley, when the latter\nreceived a communication as follows from Swedenborg, who was then in\nLondon, which he read aloud.\n\n                             GREAT BATH STREET,\n                             GREAT BATH FIELDS.\n\n    SIR,\u2014I have been informed in the world of spirits that you have a\n    strong desire to converse with me. I shall be happy to see you if\n    you will favour me with a visit. I am, sir, your humble servant,\n\n    EMANUEL SWEDENBORG.\n\nMr Wesley wrote in reply that he was then on the point of starting for a\nsix months\u2019 journey, but would be pleased to wait on Swedenborg after\nhis return to London. Swedenborg replied to this, that the visit\nproposed by Wesley would be too late, as he, Swedenborg, would enter the\nworld of spirits on the 29th day of the next month, never more to\nreturn, a prediction which proved perfectly correct.\n\nOther men have written many books. It is Swedenborg\u2019s unique\ndistinction, if distinction it is, to be the one man in history who has\nwritten a library on his own account. The encyclop\u00e6dic brain does not,\nas a rule, tend to perspicuity in style, and Swedenborg has suffered\nfrom neglect owing to the fact that the fertility of his genius was not\nsufficiently associated with the powers of selection and condensation.\nTo search for the treasures of his knowledge among his published works\nis like looking, in the words of the hackneyed proverb, \u201cfor needles in\na haystack.\u201d Had he given us far less in volume the world would\ndoubtless have profited more by the very valuable information contained\nin his writings.\n\nThere are times when one is inclined to regret (if also to feel\nthankfulness) that Swedenborg was side-tracked by his Celestials and\nthat he did not complete his phenomenal career on the lines which he had\nmarked out for himself. It is a vain, though a most alluring\nspeculation, to consider how the destinies of nations might have evolved\nif certain incidents in a single life history had eventuated otherwise\nthan they did. We may conceive of Swedenborg bringing to completion his\nschemes for the construction of flying machines and submarines, nearly\ntwo centuries earlier than was decreed by destiny, and ask ourselves, if\nwe will, what use the great Napoleon might not have made of these\nformidable implements of destructive warfare, and how far the map of\nEurope, and indeed of the world, might have been changed through their\nemployment by his formidable genius; or, again, to what extent the\nlinking up of the New and Old Worlds might have been accelerated by such\ndevelopments. Here at least we must admit was a phenomenon\u2014a man who\nrealised, in a measure undreamed of by his contemporaries, not only in\nthe physical but also in the spiritual sphere, the stupendous\npossibilities of the Coming Time.\n\nFootnote 10:\n\n  Church property being free from taxation.\n\nFootnote 11:\n\n  See _Life of Emanuel Swedenborg_. By George Trobridge. London:\n  Frederick Warne & Co. To which book I must acknowledge my great\n  indebtedness.\n\nFootnote 12:\n\n  There are not a few of the communications recorded, notably in the\n  \u201cSpiritual Diary,\u201d which might be advanced to support the hypothesis\n  of a disordered brain; and we must not lose sight of the fact that\n  Swedenborg\u2019s tireless activities taxed his intellectual faculties\n  beyond the powers of any but the most exceptional human organism.\n\n\n\n\n                                   VI\n                            COUNT CAGLIOSTRO\n\n\nWho has not heard of Cagliostro? And yet who but a few students have any\nreal knowledge of that mysterious character, of whom it may be said, as\nit was of Melchizedek, that he had \u201cneither beginning of life nor end of\ndays.\u201d Both, at least, like the king of Salem\u2019s, are wrapped in\nuncertainty, and though popular tradition, repeated again and again by\nthe uncritical historian, has identified Cagliostro\u2019s early life with\nthat of the Italian scoundrel Joseph Balsamo, the evidence is as near\nconclusive as presumptive evidence can well be, that the two had no\nconnection whatever with one another, beyond having married Italian\nwives with the same surname[13]\u2014and that by no means an uncommon one\u2014and\nthe fact that Balsamo is said to have had an uncle of the name of\nCagliostro. From what we know of Balsamo it may fairly be said that two\npeople more opposite in character than himself and Count Cagliostro\nwould be difficult to discover, and the identification of the two would\nseem to involve the assumption that Cagliostro had discarded his first\nwife and taken a second, a supposition which would render worthless the\nargument based on the identity of their surnames.\n\nCagliostro\u2019s whole career, as far as we know it, shows a character in\nwhich generosity is perpetually being carried to the verge of folly. His\ncredulity was constantly making him the dupe of designing knaves, in\nwhose honesty he placed a pathetic faith, and had he ever had the\nmisfortune to encounter his alter ego, a common rogue of the most\nordinary type, it is safe to predict that he would not have escaped from\nhis clutches till he had been fleeced of the bulk of his possessions. As\nlate as the date of his trial in the affair of the Diamond Necklace, no\nsuggestion of the identity of the two characters was even mooted. The\nstory owes its origin to the fertile brain of one of the greatest\nscoundrels of whom European history holds record, the notorious\nblackmailer, Theveneau de Morande.\n\nA short _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of this arch-villain\u2019s history will probably be\nsufficient to dissipate any credence which has ever been placed in a\nnarrative for which his assertions are our only authority. Theveneau de\nMorande was born in 1741, the son of a lawyer, at Arnay-le-Duc, in\nBurgundy. As a boy he was arrested for theft in a house of ill-fame.\nSubsequently he enlisted, obtained his discharge through his father\u2019s\nintervention, found himself once more in prison at For-l\u2019Ev\u00eaque, and was\nthen confined in a convent at Armenti\u00e8res, from which he was released\ntwo years after at the age of four-and-twenty. Having shortly after\nlampooned one of the members of the government, he was compelled to fly\nthe country and took refuge in England, where he arrived in a state of\ndestitution.\n\n[Illustration: Count Cagliostro. From an engraving by Bartolozzi, in the\nBritish Museum.]\n\nNeeds must when the devil drives, and, the pinch of poverty sharpening\nhis wits, he now turned his attention to the black-mailing business, in\nthe pursuit of which he was soon to evince a quite uncommon aptitude and\nadroitness. His talents in this direction were ably seconded by a facile\npen and a command of vituperative language and personal abuse which the\nauthor of the Letters of Junius could scarcely have outdone. His first\neffort of importance in this direction was _Le Gazetier Cuirass\u00e9, ou\nAnecdotes Scandaleuses sur la Cour de France_. Those who would not\npurchase immunity by a lump sum down had their characters and private\nlives mercilessly torn to pieces in its pages. The book is said to have\nbrought him \u00a31000. An attempt to blackmail Voltaire was less successful.\nThe veteran _philosophe_ published the blackmailer\u2019s letter with\ncomments by his own satiric pen. The blackmailer\u2019s path has indeed its\nups and downs, and once he was fain to accept a horsewhipping and\npublish an abject apology, the price extorted by an offended French\nnobleman. Madame du Barry, however, Louis XV.\u2019s notorious favourite, was\nmade of other stuff, and in consequence the _Memoires d\u2019une Femme\nPublique_, compared with which _Le Gazetier Cuirass\u00e9_ was said to have\nbeen \u201crosewater,\u201d were never published. Morande accepted the sum of\n32,000 livres in solatium for his wounded literary _amour propre_.\nBefore, however, paying him his price the French Government had\nattempted to kidnap the audacious libeller. This was the ancient\nsubstitute for the more prosaic extradition methods of modern times. The\nplot, however, failed. With a dexterity worthy of a better cause,\nMorande, warned in time, was able to pose in the English press as a\npolitical exile and avenger of public morality. The sympathy of the\nsusceptible public responded warmly to the unscrupulous appeal, and the\nrepresentatives of French authority escaped with difficulty from the\nclutches of an infuriated London mob.\n\nIt not unfrequently happens with countries that have been at war, that\nthe signature of the treaty of peace is followed after no long lapse of\ntime by a formal alliance between the erstwhile foes, there being\nobviously two methods of gaining one\u2019s ends, the method of grab and the\nmethod of give and take, and the failure of one suggesting the\nadvisability of adopting the other. So at least reasoned the French\nGovernment, and the payment of Morande\u2019s price was followed in due\ncourse by his employment on behalf of the said Government in the\ncapacity of subsidised journalist, and spy. Morande was nothing loth to\ncome to terms, and eventually blossomed out into the Editor of the\n_Courier de l\u2019Europe_. This journal, originally started by Latour under\nthe \u00e6gis of the French Government, was soon read in every corner of the\nContinent. This was the weapon which of all others the blackmailer\ndesired for his purposes. \u201cIn it,\u201d says Brisset, \u201che tore to pieces the\nmost estimable people, and manufactured, or caused to be manufactured,\narticles to ruin any one whom he feared.\u201d\n\nCagliostro had\u2014all unwittingly\u2014made dire enemies of the French Court\nthrough his acquittal in the trial over the Diamond Necklace affair. To\nacquit Cagliostro, who had no more to do with the matter in question\nthan the man in the moon, appeared from the royal standpoint to be\ntantamount to incriminating the Queen, on whom, in fact, suspicion long\nand not unnaturally rested. Morande, therefore, received his\ninstructions from Paris to ruin Cagliostro\u2019s reputation. The means ready\nto his hand was the _Courier de l\u2019Europe_. Hence the story of Joseph\nBalsamo and his identification with the _soi-disant_ Count Cagliostro.\nTo say that the authority hardly seems adequate is surely to put it\nmildly. And yet Carlyle, and others before and after him, have quietly\naccepted the statement of the paid blackmailer as sufficient evidence of\nthe character and history of his victim!\n\nWho, then, was Cagliostro? The answer to this question must ever remain\namong the unsolved problems of history. There is, however, no reason to\ndismiss as incredible\u2014even if there is reason to doubt\u2014the account which\nhe gave of himself on the occasion of the \u201cDiamond Necklace\u201d trial. From\nwhat we know of Cagliostro we may, I think, say that his character was\nfar too ingenuous for him to have been likely to invent so remarkable a\ntale. Everything, however, in his history points to the fact that he was\njust the person to take a record of the kind and colour it with the hues\nof his own fertile imagination. In any case, the impartial historian,\nwhile dismissing as preposterous the Balsamo fiction is bound to give\nsome weight\u2014however slight\u2014to the only evidence on the subject we\npossess which is not manifestly untrue. Cagliostro, however, himself did\nnot pretend to have knowledge of his parentage. \u201cI cannot,\u201d he states,\n\u201cspeak positively as to the place of my nativity, nor as to the parents\nwho gave me birth. All my inquiries have ended only in giving me some\ngreat notions, it is true, but altogether vague and uncertain,\nconcerning my family.\u201d The gist, however, of his story was that he spent\nhis childhood in Arabia, where he was brought up under the name of\nAcherat. He had then, he states, four persons attached to his\nservice\u2014the chief of whom was a certain Althotas, a man between\nfifty-five and sixty years of age. This man (whom it has been attempted\nto identify with a certain K\u00f6lmer, a Jutland merchant, who had travelled\nextensively and had the reputation of being a master-magician) informed\nCagliostro that he had been left an orphan when three months old, and\nthat his parents were Christian and nobly born. All his attempts,\nhowever, to discover the secret of his birth were doomed to\ndisappointment. The matter was one which was treated as taboo. In his\ntwelfth year (to follow his own story) he left Medina for Mecca, where\nhe remained three years, until, wearying of the monotonous round of the\nCherif\u2019s Court, he obtained leave to travel.\n\n    One day (he narrates), when I was alone, the prince entered my\n    apartment; he strained me to his bosom with more than usual\n    tenderness, bid me never cease to adore the Almighty, and added,\n    bedewing my cheeks with his tears: \u201cNature\u2019s unfortunate child,\n    adieu!\u201d\n\nFrom this date commenced, according to his own account, Cagliostro\u2019s\ntravels, first in company with Althotas, for whom he ever expressed the\nwarmest affection, afterwards with the wife whom he chose for himself in\nItaly. For upwards of three years he claims to have travelled through\nEgypt, Africa, and Asia, finally reaching the island of Rhodes in the\nyear 1766, and thence embarking on a French ship bound for Malta. Here\nhe and his guardian were received with all honour, Pinto, the Grand\nMaster of the Knights of Malta, giving them apartments in his palace.\n\n    It was here (he notes) that I first assumed European dress and with\n    it the name of Count Cagliostro; nor was it a small matter of\n    surprise to me to see Althotas appear in a clerical dress with the\n    insignia of the Order of Malta.\n\nThe Grand Master Pinto was apparently acquainted with Cagliostro\u2019s\nhistory. He often spoke to him, he says, of the Cherif, but always\nrefused to be \u201cdrawn\u201d on the subject of his real origin and birth. He\ntreated him, however, with every consideration and endeavoured to induce\nhim to \u201ctake the cross,\u201d promising him a great career and rapid\npreferment if he would consent to do so. Cagliostro\u2019s love of travelling\nand of the study of medicine drew him in another direction, and on the\ndeath of his guardian, Althotas, which occurred shortly after, he left\nMalta for ever. After visiting Sicily and the Greek Archipelago in\ncompany with the Chevalier d\u2019Aquino he proceeded thence to Naples, where\nhe took leave of his companion. Provided with a letter of credit on the\nbanking house of Signor Bellone he left Naples for Rome, where his\ndestiny awaited him in the shape of Seraphina Feliciani, who shortly\nafter became his wife, and to whom he showed throughout his married life\na most unfailing devotion.[14] Cagliostro states that he was then (anno\n1770) in his twenty-second year, and he appears to have continued to\npursue that nomadic life which was so dear to him, travelling from town\nto town on the Continent of Europe till he at length emerges into the\nlight of day in the city of London, in the month of July 1776, in\nfurnished apartments in Whitcombe Street, Leicester Fields. London seems\nalways to have been an unfortunate place for Cagliostro, and here he was\ndestined, on the first of many occasions, to become the victim of his\nown too trustful and generous disposition and to be fleeced of the\ngreater part of his possessions by a nest of rogues, who took advantage\nof a foreigner entirely ignorant of London. Eventually he was rescued\nfrom this gang of knaves by a good Samaritan in the shape of a certain\nO\u2019Reilly. Now O\u2019Reilly was a prominent member of the Esperance Lodge of\nFreemasons, and here we first find Cagliostro brought into contact with\nthat celebrated secret society, his connection with which was destined\nto play so all-important a part in the subsequent years of his life.\nO\u2019Reilly, it appears, was the proprietor of the _King\u2019s Head_, in Gerard\nStreet, where the Esperance Lodge assembled, and it was only natural\nthat one so fascinated with the occult as Cagliostro should be readily\npersuaded by his benefactor and rescuer to become initiated into the\norder of Freemasons. It is not necessary here to follow in detail the\nsordid intrigues of which, during his sojourn in England, he was made\nthe victim. He was, however, glad eventually to escape from the country,\nwith \u201cno more than \u00a350 and some jewels\u201d in his possession, having lost\nin all, through fraud and consequent legal proceedings, some 3000\nguineas during his sojourn. Cagliostro\u2019s star, however, had not yet set,\nand his all too brief spell of fame and triumph was still in front of\nhim. Providence, in the shape probably of the emissaries of Freemasonry,\nwas waiting at Brussels to replenish his purse, and the same Providence,\nprobably in the same guise, replenished it many times afterwards with no\nniggardly hand.\n\nFrom Brussels to The Hague, from The Hague to Nuremberg, from Nuremberg\nto Berlin, from Berlin to Leipzig, we trace the Count\u2019s peregrinations,\ngathering fame and founding Egyptian Masonic Lodges as he went. It is\ntrue he met with setbacks and reverses, and the capital of Frederick the\nGreat would have none of him, but it is clear that, in spite of these,\nhis credit and reputation as a healer and clairvoyant grew steadily in\nvolume. It was, in fact, on these two gifts that his fame rested. Though\nhe claimed to have been taught the secrets of occultism by Althotas, or\nto have learned them from the Egyptian priests, there is no evidence[15]\nthroughout the records of his career of his possessing anything but a\nsmattering of such abstruse knowledge, and on several occasions, notably\nat St Petersburg, there is something more than a suspicion that his\nattempt to make good his claim to the name of occultist involved him in\nserious humiliation and rebuffs. The tales, however, of his predictions\nand their fulfilments were handed on from mouth to mouth, doubtless\nlosing nothing on the way, while his reputation as a healer and the\nstories of the cures which he effected assured a perfect furore of\nenthusiasm in every fresh town to which he paid a visit. He took\nadvantage of this enthusiasm to found fresh Masonic Lodges in all\ndirections, and, while he consistently refused to receive payment of any\nkind for his cures, the shekels of an endless file of initiate converts\npoured into the coffers at the headquarters of Egyptian Masonry. Never\nwas man at once more lavish with money and more indifferent to the\ncomforts which money brings. \u201cHe slept in an armchair,\u201d said Madame\nd\u2019Oberkirch contemptuously, \u201cand lived on cheese.\u201d Whatever he spent,\nhowever, he appeared to draw from an inexhaustible widow\u2019s cruise. As in\nspite of his refusal to accept fees, he paid his own bills with the\ngreatest promptitude; the problem whence this continuous stream of gold\nflowed excited unbounded curiosity, and many were the fantastic stories\ninvented to account for it.\n\nMeanwhile, after visiting Mittau, where he was enthusiastically taken up\nby Marshal von Medem, the head of the Masonic Lodge at that place, he\npassed on to Petersburg, Warsaw, and thence to Strassburg. Here he was\ndestined to enjoy a great triumph and to win a powerful friend, who was\neventually, through a pure accident, to prove the cause of his undoing.\nThis was none other than the notorious Cardinal de Rohan. It is hardly\nnecessary to state that the ecclesiastical dignitary of the eighteenth\ncentury in France was not selected for his high office by reason of his\nexemplary life or his Christian virtues. To neither of these did\nCardinal de Rohan make any claim. Yet honours had fallen thick and fast\nupon him. He was Bishop of Strassburg, Grand Almoner of France,\nCardinal, Prince of the Empire, Landgrave of Alsace, in addition to\nbeing Abbot of the richest abbey in France, the Abbey of St Waast\nHandsune. Of fascinating manner, an aristocrat of the aristocrats, there\nwas no position in the kingdom to which he did not feel justified in\naspiring. The fact that he enjoyed a reputation for dissipation and\nextravagance did not appear calculated to tell against him in such an\nage.\n\nSurprising as it may seem, the Cardinal combined with a pleasure-loving\ndisposition a passion for alchemy and the pursuit of the occult\nsciences, and the arrival of Cagliostro at Strassburg naturally enough\nexcited his interest to no small degree. The Cardinal determined to lose\nno time in making the acquaintance of the man about whom and whose\nmarvellous cures the whole town was already talking almost before he set\nfoot in its streets. But Cagliostro was inclined to ride the high horse.\n\u201cIf the Cardinal is ill,\u201d he replied to the great man\u2019s messenger, \u201clet\nhim come to me and I will cure him. If not, he has no need of me nor I\nof him.\u201d In spite of the Count\u2019s stand-offishness, the Cardinal was not\nto be denied, and the acquaintance once made soon ripened into the\nclosest intimacy. Cagliostro was told to consider the palace his own,\nand he and his wife resided there on the footing of the most honoured\nguests. Marvellous tales are told of the results of his experiments in\nthe Cardinal\u2019s laboratory, how he manufactured gold and jewels, and\nfinally showed De Rohan in the crystal the form of the woman whom he had\nloved. It is on these stories alone that the reputation of Cagliostro as\nan alchemist really rests, and in the absence of further confirmatory\nevidence one is inclined to take them with a grain of salt. However this\nmay be, it is certain that the Cardinal was completely won over, and\nCagliostro took care not to lose caste by assuming airs of humility or\ndeference. Never, certainly, was there less of a snob than this\nmarvellous adventurer. \u201cCagliostro,\u201d says Madame d\u2019Oberkirch, \u201ctreated\nhim and his other distinguished admirers as if they were under the\ndeepest obligation to him; but he under none whatever to them.\u201d As\nusual, our hero was besieged at Strassburg by those who would profit by\nhis medical knowledge and skill as a healer, for he really appears to\nhave possessed both, and as usual by obliging his clients he incurred\nthe inveterate hostility of the medical profession. In all ages of the\nworld\u2019s history the natural healer has had the doctor as his enemy, and\nthe prophet, the priest. Orthodoxy has ever closed its ranks against\nthose who poach on its preserves. Doubtless it is the natural instinct\nof self-defence. For Cagliostro, however, it was extremely inconvenient.\nThe people would throng his doorsteps to be cured and make him heal them\nwilly-nilly, and the medical profession were equally determined to make\neach place in which he practised his medical skill too hot for him.\nOthers might have been willing to let the dogs bark, but a fatal\nsensitiveness to criticism made the Count an all too easy target for\ntheir venom. They drove him from Strassburg as they had driven him from\nother places, in spite of the entreaties of De Rohan, who pressed him to\nstay and disregard their clamour.\n\nWe need not follow Cagliostro from Strassburg to Bordeaux and from\nBordeaux to Lyons, where he added further laurels to his reputation and\nfounded further Lodges of Egyptian Masonry. He might have remained\nindefinitely to all appearance at the latter place if it had not been\nfor the solicitations of Cardinal de Rohan, who urged him to respond to\nthe appeals of Parisian Society and visit the gay capital, where he\nguaranteed him an enthusiastic reception. He even sent a special\nmessenger to back his request, and perhaps Cagliostro himself had heard\nthe capital of cultured Europe a-calling. Anyhow he came, his evil\nfate\u2014if not Paris\u2014summoning him. Cagliostro declared that he took the\ngreatest precaution on arriving there to avoid causing ill-will. However\nthis may be, he immediately became \u201cthe rage\u201d in fashionable circles;\npeople flocked to him by hundreds to be cured, and the stories of the\nmiracles which he was supposed to have effected were the talk of every\ndinner-party in the capital. Mesmer had already left Paris with a\nfortune of 340,000 livres, made by his lucrative practice, in his\npocket. Paris, craving for a new excitement, was ready to receive with\nopen arms the wonder-worker of whom it was said that no one of all his\npatients ever succeeded in making him accept the least mark of\ngratitude.[16]\n\nCagliostro was here surfeited with flattery. Houdin executed his bust.\nHis statuettes were in every shop window. His portrait was in every\nhouse. Those who claimed to have been cured by him were met with on all\nsides. Angels, it is said, and heroes of Biblical story appeared at his\ns\u00e9ances. No story was too absurd for Paris to believe about him.\n\nBut a train of events in which he had no hand, and a catastrophe for\nwhich he had no responsibility, were destined, while wrecking other\nreputations and undermining the throne itself, to bring his career of\ntriumph to a sudden and tragic close, and eventually to drive him, a\nforsaken and persecuted outcast, to his final doom. Cagliostro, as\nalready stated, had nothing whatever to do with the affair of the\nDiamond Necklace. But for all that, he was caught in the web of deceit\nthat an unscrupulous woman had woven to suit her own purposes.\n\nThe Countess de Lamotte-Valois, a descendant of a natural son of Henri\nII., and an adventuress of the most reckless type, had found a protector\nin the person of the susceptible Cardinal de Rohan. Now the Cardinal was\nby no means a _persona grata_ at the Court of Versailles. As a matter of\nfact, he was never seen there except at the feast of the Assumption,\nwhen it was his duty as Grand Almoner to celebrate Mass in the Royal\nChapel. The cause of this was the enmity of Queen Marie Antoinette. The\nCardinal had been recalled from the embassy at Vienna at the instance of\nher mother, Maria Theresa, and doubtless the mother had communicated to\nthe daughter a distrust for the brilliant but pleasure-loving Cardinal.\nThis was a fatal obstacle to De Rohan, whose ambition it was to become\nFirst Minister to the King. The Countess de Lamotte saw her chance in\nthe thwarted ambitions of her protector, and took care to pose as an\nintimate friend of the Queen, a story to which her frequent visits to\nVersailles in connection with a petition for the recovery of some family\nproperty which had passed into the possession of the State, lent a\ncertain appearance of truth. She represented to the Cardinal the\ninterest the Queen took in him but which matters of policy compelled her\nto dissemble. In the sequel, a series of letters\u2014of course forged\u2014passed\nbetween De Rohan and the supposed Queen. The Queen, through the\nintermediary of the Countess, borrowed large sums of money of the\nCardinal, which the Cardinal, on his part, being head over ears in debt\nin spite of his enormous income, was compelled to borrow of the Jews.\nThen, when the Cardinal was becoming suspicious, the Countess arranged a\nbogus interview, at which another lady\u2014admittedly remarkably like\nher\u2014posed as the Queen, and permitted De Rohan to kiss her hand.\nFinally, Madame de Lamotte got in touch with B\u00f6hmer, the owner of the\nfamous necklace. This she represented to the Cardinal that the Queen had\nset her heart on obtaining, but could not, at a moment\u2019s notice, find\nthe ready cash. Would he become security? Needless to say, De Rohan fell\ninto the trap. The first instalment of the bill fell due, and the\nCardinal, who had not expected to be called on to pay, was unable\noffhand to find the money. At this point B\u00f6hmer, feeling nervous,\nconsulted one of the Queen\u2019s ladies-in-waiting, who informed him that\nthe story of the Queen having bought the necklace was all moonshine. He\nthen went to the Countess de Lamotte, who had the effrontery to say she\nbelieved he was being victimised, and advised him to go to the Cardinal,\nthinking, doubtless, that De Rohan would take the entire responsibility\nwhen the alternative was his ruin. The jeweller, however, instead of\ntaking her advice, went straight to the King. The King immediately\ncommunicated with the Queen, who was furious, and insisted on having the\nCardinal arrested forthwith. The fat was now in the fire with a\nvengeance. The arrest of the Cardinal was followed by that of the\nCountess de Lamotte, of Cagliostro and his wife (whom the Countess in\nutter recklessness accused of the theft of the necklace), of the\nBaroness d\u2019Oliva, who had \u201cplayed\u201d the Queen, of de Vilette, the forger\nof the letters, and various minor actors in this astounding drama.\n\nIn the celebrated trial that followed Cagliostro was acquitted, but not\nuntil he had spent nine months in the Bastille. There was, in fact, not\na shadow of evidence against him. His wife was released before the trial\ntook place. Cagliostro received an ovation from the people of Paris on\nthe occasion of his release, as well as De Rohan, who was also\nacquitted, the popularity of the verdict being due to the hatred with\nwhich the Royal Family were now everywhere regarded. But on the day\nafter, by a Royal edict, De Rohan was stripped of all his dignities and\nexiled to Auvergne, while Cagliostro was ordered to leave France within\nthree weeks. The Count retired to England, fearful lest worse might\nbefall him; but even here the relentless malignity of the discredited\nQueen, who regarded his acquittal as equivalent to her own condemnation,\nfollowed his footsteps. The unscrupulous De Morande, as we have already\nseen, was paid by the Court to ruin his reputation and to identify him\nwith the thief and gaolbird Joseph Balsamo. London was soon made so hot\nfor him that he returned once more to the Continent, and made his home\nfor a short time in Switzerland. Later on he went to Trent, where the\nPrince-Bishop, who had a passion for alchemy, made him a welcome guest.\nBut the Count\u2019s day was over, and misfortune continued to dog his\nfootsteps. The Emperor Joseph II. would not permit his vassal to harbour\nthe man who had been mixed up in the Diamond Necklace affair, and the\nBishop was reluctantly obliged to bid him begone. Cagliostro now found\nhimself driven from pillar to post, his resources were at an end, and\nhis friends were dead or had deserted him. He turned his steps towards\nItaly, and eventually arrived at Rome. Here his presence becoming known\nto the papal authorities, he and his wife were arrested as members of\nthe Masonic Fraternity. In those days, within the Papal States\nFreemasonry was a crime punishable by death. After a mock trial the\ndeath-sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life, while his wife was\nconfined in a penitentiary.\n\nRumour which wove a web of romance round all his doings, did not leave\nhim even here, and stories were circulated that he had escaped from his\ndungeon and was living in Russia. There appears, however, to be no doubt\nthat neither Count nor Countess long survived their incarceration, and\nwhen the French soldiers invaded the Papal States in 1797 and the Polish\nLegion under General Daubrowski captured the fortress of San Leo, in\nwhich the Count had been confined, the officers who inquired after the\nonce famous magician, hoping to set him free, were informed that it was\ntoo late, and that he was already dead. The Queen, whose vindictive\nspite had ruined these two lives, went to her doom first; but her\ninstrument, the blackmailer Morande, retired to a quiet corner of France\non his ill-gotten fortune, escaped the furies of the French Revolution,\nand ended his life surrounded by an atmosphere of the most unquestioned\nrespectability.\n\nAnd what of the man with whom not only his own fate, but the\nmisrepresentations of history have dealt so hardly? What manner of man\nwas he for whom even those who denounce him as mountebank might not\nunreasonably, one would think, feel a passing sympathy? On two points we\nhave ample testimony. All those who knew him bore witness to the\nmarvellous magnetism of his personality and to the fascination and\nbeauty of his extraordinary eyes. \u201cNo two eyes like his were ever seen,\u201d\nsays the Marquise de Cr\u00e9gny, \u201cand his teeth were superb.\u201d \u201cHe was not,\nstrictly speaking, handsome,\u201d says Madame d\u2019Oberkirch, \u201cbut I have never\nseen a more remarkable face. His glance was so penetrating that one\nmight almost be tempted to call it supernatural. I could not describe\nthe expression of his eyes; it was, so to speak, a mixture of flame and\nice. It attracted and repelled at the same time, and, whilst it inspired\nterror, it aroused along with it an irresistible curiosity. I cannot\ndeny,\u201d she adds, \u201cthat Cagliostro possessed an almost demoniacal power.\u201d\nNot less noteworthy is the opinion of so hostile a witness as Beugnot,\nwho confesses, while ridiculing him, that his face, his attire, the\nwhole man, in fact, impressed him in spite of himself. \u201cIf gibberish can\nbe sublime,\u201d he continues, \u201cCagliostro was sublime. When he began\nspeaking on a subject he seemed carried away with it, and spoke\nimpressively in a ringing, sonorous voice.\u201d\n\nThis was the man whose appearance Carlyle caricatured in the following\nelegant phraseology:\n\n    A most portentous face of scoundrelism; a fat snub abominable face;\n    dew-lapped, flat-nosed, greasy, full of greediness, sensuality,\n    ox-like obstinacy; the most perfect quack face produced by the\n    eighteenth century.\n\nCarlyle, however, who would say anything or write anything in his moods\nof irritability, also alluded to the late Cardinal Newman as \u201cnot\npossessing the intellect of a moderate-sized rabbit\u201d; and the two\nstatements may fairly be juxtaposed.\n\nMr W. R. H. Trowbridge, to whose recent book I am greatly indebted for\nmaterial for this brief sketch of Cagliostro\u2019s life, well observes that\n\u201cthere is perhaps no other equally celebrated personality in modern\nhistory whose character is so baffling to the biographer.\u201d History has\ncondemned him purely on the evidence of his most unscrupulous enemies.\nBut while dismissing such one-sided portraits, it is no easy matter to\narrive at an unprejudiced valuation of the real man. Of his latest\nbiographer\u2019s impartiality and candour, as well as his careful research\nof authorities, it is impossible to speak too highly. His conclusions\nwill be all the more widely accepted in view of the fact that he is\nhimself in no sense an occultist. In spite of a rather long chapter\ndealing with \u201cEighteenth Century Occultism,\u201d we feel instinctively and\nat every turn that the subject is one in which he is obviously out of\nhis depth. Indeed, only on the second page of his biography we come\nacross the following surprising statement. Speaking of \u201ctheosophists,\nspiritualists, occultists,\u201d all of whom are unceremoniously lumped\ntogether, he observes:\n\n    By these amiable visionaries Cagliostro is regarded as one of the\n    princes of occultism whose mystical touch has revealed the arcana of\n    the spiritual world to the initiated, and illumined the path along\n    which the speculative scientist proceeds on entering the labyrinth\n    of the supernatural.\n\nEvery occultist knows this to be sheer rubbish. Cagliostro has never\nbeen regarded as an authority in any school of occultism. Many, if not\nmost occultists, have been inclined to believe that he was more than\nhalf a quack. Mr Trowbridge\u2014it is to be said to his credit\u2014has judged\nhim in the light of the evidence more fairly than they. The truth is\nthat, Cagliostro with all his good qualities, with all his generosity of\nheart, his human sympathy, his nobility\u2014yes, it really was nobility\u2014of\ncharacter, was beyond and above all things a poser and a mystery-monger.\nHe had a magnetic personality, a mediumistic temperament, and almost\ncertainly some clairvoyant power, though it is noticeable that he\ninvariably employed a little boy or girl whose assistance was essential\nto his predictions. Beyond this, and, I think we must say, more\nimportant than all this, he had an incontestable natural healing gift,\nwhich he aided by no small knowledge of practical medicine. In these\nqualifications we have the secret of his success, and also the clue to\nhis failure. He was excessively vain, and loved to impress the\nmultitude. He loved, moreover, to impress them by surrounding himself\nwith an atmosphere of mystery and posing as an occultist, which\n(probably) he never was. He has left no body of teaching behind him. He\nhas left no followers, no disciples. He was merely the comet of a\nseason, though an exceptionally brilliant one. It would be absurd to\nclass him in the same category as such master occultists as Cornelius\nAgrippa and Paracelsus, or indeed even as Eliphas Levi. He was not cast\nin the same mould. He belonged to another and a lower type. But his was\nwithal a striking as well as a sympathetic personality, a personality\nthat makes appeal, by a certain glamour heightened by the tragedy of his\ninglorious end, to all that is warm, and chivalrous, and romantic in the\nhuman heart.\n\nFootnote 13:\n\n  The Christian name of Balsamo\u2019s wife was Lorenza, of Cagliostro\u2019s\n  Seraphina. But the story is itself of doubtful authenticity.\n\nFootnote 14:\n\n  It is perhaps almost superfluous to state that Joseph Balsamo got his\n  wife locked up in jail, beside compelling her to lead a life of\n  immorality.\n\nFootnote 15:\n\n  Unless indeed we accept the (doubtful) story of his transmuting metals\n  for De Rohan.\n\nFootnote 16:\n\n  Grimm.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VII\n                   ANNA KINGSFORD AND EDWARD MAITLAND\n\n\nWe are all of us familiar with the old proverb that marriages are made\nin Heaven, though there are few of us who believe it. It may, however,\nwell be true that there are certain spiritual marriages or associations\nwhich are made in Heaven in the sense that they have a certain cosmic\nfoundation in the nature of things and in the relationship of one life\nto another. It may also be true that two lives are brought together for\nspecial and important purposes by influences working from another and a\nfar higher plane. Collaboration is a very commonplace word, but there\nwas certainly no element of the commonplace in the collaboration of Anna\nKingsford and Edward Maitland. History perhaps contains nothing more\nremarkable, and romance nothing more romantic, than this singular\nassociation of two strikingly diverse and original characters of\nopposite sexes for a single and supreme purpose. To the two individuals\nconcerned, the sacrifice of two lives to the ideal which inspired them\nseemed but little in view of the momentous character of the objects to\nbe achieved. The world may not set the same store on the high mission of\nAnna Kingsford and Edward Maitland, may not perhaps value it at the same\nprice as the two co-workers who gave up their all in pursuit of their\naims. Many may say, as many have said already, that, like Arthur\u2019s\nKnights of the Round Table, they were pursuing a will-o\u2019-the-wisp and\nnot the Holy Grail of their hearts\u2019 desire. But assuming that they\npartially misinterpreted the end to be achieved, or, alternatively,\nover-estimated their own powers of achieving that end with anything like\nthe success that so high an ideal demanded, it should still be borne in\nmind that those who under-estimate the greatness of their own mission\nmust inevitably fail to impress others with its value in the scheme of\nthings, and it is therefore far better to over-estimate your own powers\nand the importance of the object aimed at than to underrate either the\none or the other.\n\n[Illustration: Anna Kingsford.]\n\nPeople are apt to look scoffingly at the man with a mission, but it is\nthe men and the women with missions who have in fact made the world what\nit is to-day. \u201cA crank,\u201d said some wit, \u201cis a little thing that makes\nrevolutions.\u201d The saying is as true as it was in the times of Jesus\nChrist, that God has \u201cchosen the foolish things of the world to confound\nthe wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things which\nare mighty.\u201d If there is one word in our language more misunderstood\nthan any other, it is the little word \u201cFaith.\u201d We have been told by the\ncynical that faith is the capacity for believing that which we know to\nbe untrue, and the misinterpretation of this term by the orthodox clergy\nis responsible for the derision which has been cast upon it. Worst of\nall sinners within the fold of the Church has been the evangelical\ncontingent. \u201cBelieve,\u201d they tell us, \u201call the dry-as-dust dogmas of\northodox theology, and you will win eternal salvation.\u201d This is not, we\nmay be sure, the sense in which Jesus used the word. Neither is it the\nsense in which, in a magnificently eloquent passage, the word was\nemployed by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, when he spoke of\nthose who \u201cthrough faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness,\nobtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions; quenched the violence of\nfire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong,\nwaxed valiant in fight, and turned to flight the armies of the aliens.\u201d\n\nThe faith of Jesus and the faith of his apostles and followers is the\nfaith that implies and includes the power to achieve. It is what we call\nin the ordinary language of the day \u201cself-confidence,\u201d but it is not the\nconfidence in the _lower_ but in the _higher_ self; it is the confidence\nwhich comes of the conscious placing of ourselves _en rapport_ with what\nPrentice Mulford called \u201cthe Infinite Life\u201d and the \u201cDivine Source.\u201d\nThis power is the secret of all great achievement. The _faith_ of the\northodox, on the other hand, corresponds to the _credulity_ of the man\nin the street. It is the will-o\u2019-the-wisp that leads fools to sacrifice\nthe reality for a chimera. It was in condemnation and in ridicule of\nsuch folly as this that Omar Khayy\u00e1m bade his friends \u201ctake the cash and\nlet the credit go.\u201d It was in the spirit of this true self-confidence\nand self-reliance that Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland entered upon\nthe daring project of their life\u2019s work. It was this spirit of faith\nthat enabled them to carry it at length to a triumphant\nconclusion\u2014successful in spite of those imperfections inevitably\nincidental to a work of the kind, achieved under the defective\nconditions of present-day humanity.\n\nA great work was certainly seldom, if ever, accomplished under such\ncurious and such self-contradictory conditions. A man and a woman have\nfrequently worked together before, and worked effectively and\nharmoniously, but they have either been in the relationship of husband\nand wife, of avowed lovers, independent of or having deliberately cast\naside other ties, or they have been free to work together as friends\nowing to the fact that circumstances have left them unhampered by family\nconditions. The peculiarity of the present case is that the relations of\nAnna Kingsford and Edward Maitland subsisted in spite of the existence\nof a husband for whom his wife had a very genuine and warm affection,\nand who most undoubtedly reciprocated it to the full\u2014in spite also of\nthe fact that the husband was fully aware of, and approved of, all that\ntook place, without seeing anything in it to lessen his esteem for his\nwife or compromise their relationship\u2014in spite also of the fact that the\nsociety of the day held up its hands in horror at the scandal and more\nthan suspected immorality where there was none to suspect\u2014in spite,\nfinally, of the fact that, joined to the respect and friendly feeling\nwhich Edward Maitland felt for the husband, there was something in his\nwhole attitude and demeanour towards Anna Kingsford which was more in\nthe nature of the devotion of a lover to his mistress than anything else\nwhich the ordinary terms of language can express. When Anna Kingsford\npassed away to another sphere early indeed in life (she was but\nforty-two), but with her life\u2019s work accomplished, the two who joined\nhands over her grave and who mourned her most deeply and most sincerely\nwere the devoted husband who loved her without understanding the most\nremarkable side of her character, and the friend who loved and\nunderstood, but, better even than the woman whom he loved, loved the\nwork of which her presence and being were to him the divine symbol and\nseal.\n\nPeople of the type of Anna Bonus Kingsford are too sensitive and\nimpressionable ever to be really happy for long. The acuteness of their\nfeelings exaggerates their own sufferings, and at the same time makes\nthe consciousness of the sufferings of others an ever present torture\nand martyrdom. Mrs Kingsford\u2019s life, indeed, at times when her health,\nalways far from robust, was below the usual level, became absolutely\nunbearable. The thought of bringing a child into the world to share her\nown anguish and despair seemed in itself a crime.\n\n    I long (she writes, in one of these moods of depression), I long for\n    a little rest and peace. The world has grown very bitter to me. I\n    feel as if every one were dead!\n\n    Ah, what a life is before me!\u2014a life of incessant struggle,\n    reproach, and loneliness. I shall never be as other women, happy in\n    their wifehood and motherhood. Never to my dying day shall I know\n    the meaning of a home.\n\n    And behind me, as I look back on the road by which I have come, all\n    is storm and darkness. I fought my way through my lonely,\n    sad-hearted childhood; I fought my way through my girlhood,\n    misunderstood, and mistrusted always; and now, in my womanhood, I am\n    fighting still. On every side of me are rebuke and suspicion, and\n    bitter, abiding sorrow. Pain and suffering of body and of spirit\n    have hung on my steps all the years of my life. I have had no\n    respite.\n\n    Is there never to be peace? Never to be a time of sunlight that\n    shall make me glad of my being?\n\nHer spirit was indeed naked and without defence against the arrows of\nthe world. Endowed with courage far greater than falls to the lot of\nmost women, with great independence and an utter fearlessness of\nconventionality, she had no hesitation in avowing her own profound\nbelief in her divine mission. To one who, meeting her for the first\ntime, observed with ill-timed jocularity, \u201cI understand, Mrs Kingsford,\nthat you are a prophetess,\u201d she retorted with the utmost solemnity, \u201cI\nam indeed a prophetess,\u201d and on her interrogator continuing his banter\nby inquiring: \u201cBut not, I suppose, as great as Isaiah?\u201d \u201cYes,\u201d she\nreturned, \u201cgreater than Isaiah.\u201d Such mockery, however boldly she faced\nit, caused her the most acute pain. There was, indeed, nothing\nundignified about her avowal of her claims, nothing that jarred, nothing\nof the charlatan in her composition. If she was deceived herself, at\nleast she never dreamed of deceiving others. She never posed or\nattempted to gain a hearing by acting a part which was not natural to\nher. She was too genuine, too intense in her convictions, and withal too\nnatural and too unaffected to be otherwise than always and everywhere\ntrue to herself. She was essentially a child of nature, and in some of\nthe traits of her character she retained to the end the simplicity and\nwayward playfulness which most people say good-bye to when they reach\nyears of discretion. Animals, of course, always appealed to her\nstrongest sympathies, and for nine long years she could not bear to be\nparted except for occasional very brief periods from her favourite\nguinea-pig, Rufus. Nature in its varying moods made the strong appeal\nwhich it always does to people of so emotional a temperament. Once after\nrecovering from a serious bout of illness she was taken to convalesce at\nDieppe. An incident occurred here very illustrative of her susceptible\nnature. Having stayed for some time and being greatly benefited by the\nchange, she was proceeding in company with Mr Edward Maitland to see her\nhusband off by the steamer. Says her biographer:\n\n    It was a day of days for beauty. While waiting, we sat watching the\n    gambols of a flock of sea-gulls, whose gleaming white wings, as they\n    circled round and round against a sky of clearest and tenderest\n    blue, approaching each other to give loving salute with their bills,\n    and then darting off only to return and repeat the act, uttering the\n    while shrill notes of joy and delight, made a spectacle of exquisite\n    beauty, and one that went to the invalid\u2019s inmost heart, inducing an\n    estatic sense of the possibilities of happiness in the mere fact of\n    a natural and healthy existence. Though entranced by the scene no\n    less than my companion, I did not fail to note the effect upon her,\n    and the thought arose in my mind, \u201cThis is the best remedy of all\n    she has yet had.\u201d\n\n    As we were thus gazing and feeling, a shot was fired from a boat\n    containing some men and women, which, unperceived by us, had glided\n    out from behind the opposite pier; and immediately one of the birds\n    fell into the sea, where it lay fluttering in agony with a broken\n    wing, while its companions fled away with harsh, discordant cries;\n    and in one instant the whole bright scene was changed for us from\n    one of innocence and joy into one of the darkest gloom and misery.\n    It was a murder done in Eden, followed by the instant eclipse of all\n    that made it Paradise. Mary was frantic. Her so lately injured\n    organism gave way under the shock of such a revulsion of feeling.\n    Her impulse was to throw herself into the sea to succour the wounded\n    bird, and it was with difficulty that I restrained her; and only\n    after giving vent to an agony of tears, and pouring on the shooting\n    party a storm of reproaches, at the imminent risk of being given\n    into custody as they landed bearing the bird, now dead, as a trophy,\n    did I succeed in getting her back to the hotel. For the next\n    twenty-four hours her state was one of raving mania.\n\nNo incident could be more characteristic of her temperament or of her\noutlook upon life. The charm and beauty and joy of life were all on the\nsurface and only served to conceal the horror and anguish which lurked\nbeneath. She felt, with the apostle, that all creation groaneth and\ntravaileth together, and to her hyper-sensitive spirit life itself was\nall too frequently a very hell. One can well understand the ardour with\nwhich a spirit like hers pursued the campaign against vivisection. But\nit is rare indeed to find this temperament joined with a courage which\nfaced the presence of the horrors she so dreaded to go through the\nentire medical course and qualify as a doctor at a time when obstacles\ninnumerable were placed in the way of women candidates for the\nprofession. It is in connection with this phase of her career that a\nstory is narrated which has attained for her a somewhat unenviable\nnotoriety. This is the record of the boast she is stated herself to have\nmade that she had brought about by her magical powers the death of one\nof the most prominent supporters of vivisection in its worst form in the\nmedical world. The doctor in question was the well-known Professor\nClaude Bernard, and the claim that she made will probably be regarded by\nthe occultist as not wanting foundation in fact. The narrative had\nbetter be given in her biographer\u2019s own words:\n\n    It was in mid-February, when, having occasion to visit the _Ecole de\n    M\u00e9decine_, I accompanied her thither. It was afternoon. On reaching\n    the place we found it shut up, and a notice on the gate apprised us\n    that the school was closed for the day on account of the obsequies\n    of Professor Claude Bernard. We had not heard even of his illness. A\n    cry, or rather a gasp, of astonishment escaped her, and she\n    exclaimed, \u201cClaude Bernard dead! Claude Bernard dead! Take hold of\n    me! Help me to a seat or I shall fall. Claude Bernard dead! Claude\n    Bernard dead!\u201d The only seat available near was on the stony steps\n    by which we were standing, and I accordingly placed her on these,\n    seeing that emotion had deprived her of all her powers. Once seated\n    she buried her face in her hands, and I stood before her awaiting\n    the result in silence. I knew that such an event could not fail\n    greatly to move her, but no special reason occurred to me. Presently\n    she looked up, her face strangely altered by the intensity of her\n    emotion, and asked me if I remembered what she had told me some\n    weeks ago about Claude Bernard, and her having been provoked to\n    launch her maledictions at him. I remembered perfectly. It was in\n    the latter part of the previous December. Her professor had forced\n    her into a controversy about vivisection, the immediate occasion\n    being some experiments by Claude Bernard on animal heat, made by\n    means of a stove invented by himself, so constructed as to allow of\n    observations being made on animals while being slowly baked to\n    death. Her professor had agreed with her as to the unscientific\n    character and utter uselessness for any medical purpose of such a\n    method of research. But he was altogether insensible to its moral\n    aspects, and in answer to her strong expressions of reprobation, had\n    taken occasion to deliver himself of a tirade against the sentiments\n    generally of morality and religion, and the folly of allowing\n    anything so chimerical to stand in the way, not merely of science,\n    but of any object whatever to which one might be inclined, and\n    setting up a transcendental standard of right and wrong, or\n    recognising any limits to self-gratification saving the physical\n    risks to oneself. Even the feeling which makes a mother weep over\n    her child\u2019s suffering he sneered at as hysterical, and gloried in\n    the prospects of the time when science and intellect should be\n    utterly unrestrained by what people call heart and moral conscience,\n    and the only recognised rule should be that of the bodily self.\n\n    Thus speaking, he had worked his pupil into a frenzy of righteous\n    indignation, and the vision rose before her of a future when,\n    through the teaching of a materialistic science, society at large\n    had become wholly demonised, even as already were this man and his\n    kind. And seeing in Claude Bernard the foremost living\n    representative and instrument of the fell conspiracy, at once\n    against the human and the divine, to destroy whom would be to rid\n    the earth of one of its worst monsters, she no sooner found herself\n    alone than she rose to her feet, and with passionate energy invoked\n    the wrath of God upon him, at the same moment hurling her whole\n    spiritual being at him with all her might, as if with intent, then\n    and there, to smite him with destruction. And so completely, it\n    seemed to her, had she gone out of herself in the effort that her\n    physical system instantly collapsed, and she fell back powerless on\n    her sofa, where she lay awhile utterly exhausted and unable to move.\n    It was thus that, on rejoining her, I found her, with just\n    sufficient power to recount the experience, and to ask me my opinion\n    as to the possibility of injuring a person at a distance by making,\n    as it were, a spiritual thunderbolt of oneself; for, if such a thing\n    were possible, and had ever happened, it must, she was convinced,\n    have happened then.\n\nAt the moment the discussion on this subject was dropped, but further\nevidence was subsequently sought which it was hoped would confirm or\ndisprove the idea that Anna Kingsford had been responsible for the great\nFrench doctor\u2019s death. Eventually, our heroine came across an\nacquaintance of the deceased Professor in the person of a practical\nstudent of occult science. It appeared from his narrative that Claude\nBernard was one of the few members of the profession who also took an\ninterest in this subject, which had served as a link between them. He\ninformed Mrs Kingsford that the doctor had described his earliest\nsymptoms to himself, and had regarded them as somewhat mysterious. He\nwas engaged, it appears, in his laboratory in the _Coll\u00e8ge de France_,\nbeing at the time in his usual health, when he felt himself suddenly\nstruck as if by some poisonous effluvium which he believed to emanate\nfrom the subject of his experiment. The effect, instead of passing off,\nbecame intensified, and manifested itself in severe internal\ninflammation, from which he eventually died. The doctors pronounced the\ncomplaint to be Bright\u2019s disease. This was the disease which Claude\nBernard had chiefly endeavoured to investigate by inducing it in\nanimals. The possibility of such an incident is of course familiar to\nstudents of occultism, and Paracelsus, with others before and since,\nhave maintained its feasibility. The great German occultist writes that\nit is possible that the spirit without the help of the body may,\n\u201cthrough a fiery will alone, and without a sword, stab and wound\nothers.\u201d This is purely in accordance with the general trend of his\ndoctrine, a large part of which is based on the belief that the will is\na most potent operator in medicine.\n\nAnna Kingsford was, it is well known, one of the earliest and foremost\nchampions of the movement for women\u2019s rights, but the line she took in\nthis movement was supremely sane and wise, and was devoid of all the\nextravagances which have since brought certain sides of one of the\ngreatest and most important movements of the day into well-deserved\ncontempt. Edward Maitland was in entire sympathy with her in this\nmatter, and in endorsing one of her communications to him observes: \u201cI\nsend you to-day\u2019s _Times_, with a report of the debate on the Women\u2019s\nSuffrage Bill, which will show you how much you are needed in that\nmovement. For the debate shows why it does not advance. They are all on\nthe wrong tack, supporters and opponents alike. The franchise is claimed\nin hostility, not sought in love. The women are demanding it as a means\nof defence and offence against man, instead of as a means of aiding and\nperfecting man\u2019s work. They want a level platform with man expressly in\norder to fight him on equal terms. And of course the instinct of the\nmajority of men and women resents such a view.\u201d \u201cJustice, in fact, as\nbetween men and women, human and animal,\u201d was among Anna Kingsford\u2019s\nforemost aims; for, as her biographer well says: \u201cAll injustice was\ncruelty, and cruelty was for her the one unpardonable sin.\u201d \u201cHer love,\u201d\nhe adds in a curiously revealing passage, \u201cwas all for principles, not\nfor persons. The last thing contemplated by Anna Kingsford was an\naggravation of the existing divisions and antagonisms between the\nsexes.\u201d \u201cAnd,\u201d continues Mr Maitland, \u201cso far from accepting the\ndoctrine of the superiority of spinsterhood over wifehood, she regarded\nit as an assertion of the superiority of non-experience over experience\nas a means of education.\u201d But that which most of all she reprobated was\nthe disposition which led women to despise womanhood itself as an\ninferior condition, and accordingly to cultivate the masculine at the\nexpense of the feminine side of their nature. \u201cIt was by magnifying\ntheir womanhood and not by exchanging it for a factitious masculinity\nthat she would have her sex obtain its proper recognition.\u201d This\nrecognition no one more ardently desired than herself. She compares the\nmodern woman to Andromeda bound to the rock on the seashore, shackled by\nthe chains of ignorance and a helpless prey to that terrible monster\nwhose name is ennui. \u201cWhen,\u201d she asks, \u201cwill Perseus come to deliver the\nfair Andromeda, to loosen her fetters and to set her free?\u201d Much has\nhappened to better the position of women since this was written, but\nmuch yet remains to be done.\n\nAll who knew Anna Kingsford unite in testifying to the impression\nconveyed to them by her striking personality with its originality,\nfreshness, and force, no less than by her many-sidedness and the strange\ncontradictions of her character. Her biographer gives the following\ndescription of her appearance at the date when he first met her:\n\n    Tall, slender, and graceful in form. Fair and exquisite in\n    complexion. Bright and sunny in expression. The hair long and\n    golden, but the brows and lashes dark and the eyes deep set and\n    hazel, and by turns dreamy and penetrating. The mouth rich, full,\n    and exquisitely formed. The broad brow prominent and sharply cut.\n    The nose delicate, slightly curved, and just sufficiently prominent\n    to give character to the face. And the dress somewhat fantastic as\n    became her looks. Anna Kingsford seemed at first more fairy than\n    human and more child than woman. For though really twenty-seven she\n    appeared scarcely seventeen, and made expressly to be caressed,\n    petted and indulged, and by no means to be taken seriously.\n\nThese impressions as regards her character were appreciably modified on\nsubsequent acquaintance, and Mr Maitland observes that \u201cwhen she warmed\nto her favourite themes, her whole being radiant with a spiritual light,\nher utterances were those in turn of a savant, a sage, and a child, each\npart suiting her as well as if it were her one and only character.\u201d\n\nThe relationship between the authors of _The Perfect Way_ and the\nfounders of the Theosophical Society in the days of its infancy affords\nmatter of no little interest. The basic idea of the Theosophical\nSociety, viz. the harmonising of the esoteric side of all religions,\nnaturally suggested to the promoters of the movement that in the authors\nof so remarkable a work, they would find a tower of strength, and Madame\nBlavatsky, in particular, was most anxious to obtain their support and\nco-operation for the British section of the Society. Eventually, after\nconsiderable hesitation, Anna Kingsford responded to the advances made\nto her, and accepted the presidency of the British section. But the\narrangement was not one which was destined to last long. That it was not\nlikely to be a success might, I think, have been readily enough\nforeseen. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland were too uncompromising in\ntheir point of view\u2014too positive that the source of their own\ninformation could not be impugned, to accept readily the _bona fides_ of\nother and, as they considered, lower oracles. This, however, was by no\nmeans all. The attitude of Theosophy in its early days towards\nChristianity was in the main hostile. To make the esoteric\ninterpretation of this creed the pivot of their teaching was the last\nidea they contemplated. Madame Blavatsky had attacked Christianity in\n_Isis Unveiled_. Mr Sinnett was equally unsympathetic. The basis of\ntheir actual teaching was an interpretation of Eastern religions,\nwhereas the basis of _The Perfect Way_ was an interpretation of Western.\nAnna Kingsford was just as unhesitating in giving her preference to\nChristianity as the leaders of Theosophy were in according theirs to\nBuddhism, Hinduism, and kindred Oriental philosophies. Mrs Besant\u2019s\nattitude when she joined the Society showed similar preferences. Her\nearly experiences of orthodox Christianity were not such as to bias her\nin its favour, and it was not until later days that she assumed the\nmantle of the prophet of _The Perfect Way_, and openly recognised the\nimportance of the esoteric side of Christianity to complete the circle\nof theosophical teachings. The views with which Theosophy commenced have\nin the course of time been materially modified, and a curious sidelight\nis thrown, by a letter of Anna Kingsford\u2019s, on the question whether the\nleaders of this Society had originally adopted the reincarnation\nhypothesis, or whether this was in the nature of a subsequent\ndevelopment. Mrs Kingsford writes under date 3rd July 1882, to her\nfriend Lady Caithness, alluding to the reception of _The Perfect Way_ by\nthe Press:\n\n    After all this reviewing and fault-finding on the part of critics\n    having but a third of the knowledge which has been given to us,\n    there is not a line in _The Perfect Way_ which I would alter were\n    the book to be reprinted. The very reviewer\u2014Mr Sinnett\u2014who writes\n    with so much pseudo-authority in the _Theosophist_, has, within a\n    year\u2019s time, completely altered his views on at least one important\n    subject\u2014I mean Reincarnation. When he came to see us a year ago in\n    London, he vehemently denied that doctrine, and asserted, with\n    immense conviction, that I had been altogether deceived in my\n    teaching concerning it. He read a message from _Isis Unveiled_ to\n    confute me, and argued long on the subject. He had not then received\n    any instruction from his Hindu guru about it. Now, he has been so\n    instructed, and wrote Mr Maitland a long letter acknowledging the\n    truth of the doctrine which, since seeing us, he has been taught.\n    But he does not yet know all the truth concerning it, and so finds\n    fault with our presentation of that side of it which, as yet, he has\n    not been taught.\n\nPresumably in this matter Mr Sinnett reflected Madame Blavatsky\u2019s views,\nand the fact that he cites _Isis Unveiled_ seems to me to leave little\ndoubt in the matter. Surely if he had misunderstood her, H. P. B. would\nhave taken pains to put him right! I think that the date given will fix\napproximately the period at which official Theosophy was openly\nconverted to the doctrine of Reincarnation. Until that time, if it was\nnot uniformly denied, at least there were wide diversities of opinion,\nand apparently its opponents mustered more strongly than its supporters.\nEventually Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland founded between them the\n_Hermetic Society_. This was not destined to a long lease of life,\nmainly owing to the breakdown of Anna Kingsford\u2019s health. But while\nTheosophy showed the greater vitality, in spite of scandals and discords\nwhich might well have shattered it to its base, the teachings of the\nauthors of _The Perfect Way_ exercised a profound influence in leavening\nthe mass of Theosophical teaching. Though possessing no little dogmatism\nin her own intellectual organisation, Anna Kingsford had no great liking\nfor any form of society that taught dogmatically, her idea being that\nevery one must necessarily find out the truth for himself and realise it\nspiritually from his own individual standpoint. Theosophy was altogether\ntoo dogmatic for her, without being dogmatic on her own lines. She was\nreadier to admit the existence of the Mahatmas than to grant the\ninspired source of their communications. In any case she looked upon\ntheir teaching as of a radically lower order than her own, and\nreflecting those vices and defects which she and Maitland were wont to\nassociate with the denizens of the astral plane. On the subject of\ncommunications with such entities, or with those whom she suspected of\nbelonging by nature to this region, she was never tired of inveighing.\n\n    The secret (she says) of the opposition made in certain circles to\n    the doctrine set forth in _The Perfect Way_ is not far to seek. It\n    is to be found in the fact that the book is, throughout, strenuously\n    opposed to idolatry in all its forms, including that of the popular\n    \u201cspiritualism\u201d of the day, which is, in effect, a revival, under a\n    new guise and with new sanctions, of the ancient cultus known as\n    Ancestor-worship. _The Perfect Way_, on the contrary, insists that\n    truth is accessible only through the illumination, by the Divine\n    Spirit, of man\u2019s own soul; and that precisely in proportion as the\n    individual declines such interior illumination, and seeks to\n    extraneous influences, does he impoverish his own soul and diminish\n    his possibilities of knowledge. It teaches that \u201cSpirits\u201d or\n    \u201cAngels,\u201d as their devotees are fond of styling them, are\n    untrustworthy guides, possessed of no positive divine element, and\n    reflecting, therefore, rather than instructing, their interrogators;\n    and that the condition of mind, namely, passivity, insisted on by\n    these \u201cangels\u201d is one to be strenuously avoided, the true attitude\n    for obtaining divine illumination being that of ardent active\n    aspiration, impelled by a resolute determination to know nothing but\n    the Highest. Precisely such a state of passivity, voluntarily\n    induced, and such veneration of and reliance upon \u201cguides\u201d or\n    \u201ccontrols,\u201d are referred to by the Apostle when he says: \u201cBut let no\n    man beguile you by a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels.\u201d\n    And precisely such exaltation of the personal Jesus, as _The Perfect\n    Way_ repudiates and its opponents demand, is by the same Apostle\n    condemned in the words: \u201cHenceforth know we no man after the flesh:\n    yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth\n    know we him no more.\u201d\n\nAccordingly, as Maitland and Kingsford fell foul of the Theosophical\nSociety on the one hand, they fell foul of the Spiritualists on the\nother. But the cleavage between Spiritualism and the teaching of _The\nPerfect Way_ was far deeper than that between this teaching and\nTheosophy. With Theosophy indeed, in its broadest sense, there was\nnothing in Kingsford and Maitland\u2019s teaching that was radically\nantagonistic. _The Perfect Way_ might in fact be accepted to-day, with\nsome reservations on minor points, as a theosophical text-book, and,\nlooked at from this point of view, it is the fullest, the most complete,\nand the most coherent exposition of Christianity as seen through\ntheosophical spectacles. Anna Kingsford had indeed herself been received\ninto the fold of the Roman Catholic Church, though certainly Roman\nCatholicism never had a more rebellious or more independent subject. On\nthe doctrine of authority she would never have made concessions, and,\nwithout this admission, one fails to see what status the Roman Church\ncan be held to occupy. It is indeed a case of Hamlet without the Prince\nof Denmark. Her leanings, however, towards the ancient mother of\nChristian churches was, even in its modified form, gall and wormwood to\nher partner and collaborator, and in the end it brought about some very\nunhappy and regrettable scenes in connection with her last hours, and a\ndispute as to the faith in which she died, which must have been\nexceedingly painful to all concerned.\n\nPerhaps in no single point does Roman Catholicism present a worse and\nmore undesirable aspect than in the manner in which its missionaries\nbesiege the last hours of the passing soul in the effort to induce its\nvictims, when too weak for resistance, to say \u201cditto\u201d to the formul\u00e6\nwhich their priests pretend to regard as constituting a password to the\ncelestial realms. Certainly, in Anna Kingsford\u2019s case, the admission of\na Roman Catholic Sister of Mercy to tend her in her last illness was\nproductive of the worst results, troubling her last hours with an\nunseemly wrangle that did not cease even after her body was consigned to\nits final resting-place.\n\nA sidelight is thrown on Mrs Kingsford\u2019s attitude towards Roman\nCatholicism by the record of a conversation which her biographer cites\nher as having had on one occasion with a Roman Catholic priest. She was\ncalling on a Catholic friend on the occasion, and speaking as usual in\nher very free and self-confident manner with regard to the religious\nviews which she held. Some remark which she made elicited from the\npriest the rebuke, \u201cWhy, my daughter, you have been _thinking_. You\nshould never do that. The Church saves us the trouble and danger of\nthinking, by telling us what to _believe_. We are only called on to\nbelieve. I never think: I dare not. I should go mad if I were to let\nmyself think.\u201d Anna Kingsford replied that what she wanted was to\nunderstand, and that it was impossible to do this without thinking.\nBelieving without understanding was for her not faith but credulity.\n\u201cHow, except by thinking,\u201d she asked, \u201cdoes one learn whether the Church\nhas the truth?\u201d\n\nWhen the Hermetic Society was founded, W. T. Stead was editor of the\n_Pall Mall Gazette_, and Mrs Kingsford wrote for him an account of the\nnew Society. Stead, with his usual taste for dramatic headlines,\nentitled it \u201cThe Newest Thing in Religions.\u201d This was the very last\ndescription that its founders were likely to tolerate. Anna Kingsford\nwrote back an indignant letter of repudiation. \u201cSo far,\u201d she says, \u201cfrom\nbeing the newest thing in religions, or even claiming to be a religion\nat all, that at which the Society aims is the recovery of what is really\nthe oldest thing in religion, so old as to have become forgotten and\nlost\u2014namely, its esoteric and spiritual, and therefore its true\nsignification.\u201d Elsewhere she writes of _The Perfect Way_ as not\npurporting to be a new gospel. \u201cIts mission,\u201d she says, \u201cis that simply\nof rehabilitation and re-interpretation undertaken with the view, not of\nsuperseding Christianity, but of saving it.\u201d She continues:\n\n    For, as the deepest and most earnest thinkers of our day are\n    painfully aware, the Gospel of Christendom, as it stands in the Four\n    Evangels, does NOT suffice, uninterpreted, to satisfy the needs of\n    the age, and to furnish a perfect system of thought and rule of\n    life. Christianity\u2014historically preached and understood\u2014has for\n    eighteen centuries filled the world with wars, persecutions, and\n    miseries of all kinds; and in these days it is rapidly filling it\n    with agnosticism, atheism, and revolt against the very idea of God.\n    _The Perfect Way_ seeks to consolidate truth in one complete whole,\n    and, by systematising religion, to demonstrate its Catholicity. It\n    seeks to make peace between Science and Faith; to marry the\n    Intellect with the Intuition; to bring together East and West, and\n    to unite Buddhist philosophy with Christian love, by demonstrating\n    that the basis of religion is not historical, but spiritual\u2014not\n    physical, but psychic\u2014not local and temporal, but universal and\n    eternal. It avers that the true \u201cLord Jesus Christ\u201d is no mere\n    historical character, no mere demi-god, by whose material blood the\n    souls of men are washed white, but \u201cthe hidden man of the heart,\u201d\n    continually born, crucified, ascending and glorified in the interior\n    Kingdom of the Christian\u2019s own Spirit. A scientific age rightly\n    refuses to be any longer put off with data which are more than\n    dubious, and logic which morality and philosophy alike reject. A\n    deeper, truer, more real religion is needed for an epoch of thought,\n    and for a world familiar with Biblical criticism and revision\u2014a\n    religion whose foundations no destructive agnosticism can undermine,\n    and in whose structure no examination, however searching, shall be\n    able to find flaw or blemish. It is only by rescuing the Gospel of\n    Christ from the externals of history, persons, and events, and by\n    vindicating its essential significance, that Christianity can be\n    saved from the destruction which inevitably overtakes all idolatrous\n    creeds. There is not a word in _The Perfect Way_ at variance with\n    the spirit of the Gospel of the \u201cLord Jesus Christ.\u201d\n\nNothing shows the method adopted in their Gospel of Interpretation by\nthe two authors more clearly than their teaching with regard to the\nstory of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man. It is curious how\nliterally this story has been taken through many ages of the Church\u2019s\nhistory, in view of the fact that such a writer as Origen in the early\ndays of the infant Church observed that: \u201cNo one in his time would be so\nfoolish as to take this allegory as a description of actual fact.\u201d\nKingsford and Maitland refer the interpretation firstly to the Church,\nand secondly to individual man. \u201cThe conscience,\u201d they say, \u201cset over\nthe human reason as its guide, overseer, and ruler, whether, in the\ngeneral, as the Church, or in the particular, as the individual, falls,\nwhen, listening to the suggestions of the lower nature, she desires,\nseeks, and at length defiles herself with, the ambitions and falsehoods\nof this present world.\u201d \u201cCeasing to be a trustworthy guide she becomes\nherself serpent and seducer to the human reason, leading him into false\npaths until, if she have her way, she will end by plunging him into the\nlowest depths of abject ignorance, there to be devoured by the brood of\nunreason and to be annihilated for ever. For she is now no longer the\ntrue wife, Faith, she has become the wanton, Superstition.\u201d On the other\nhand, \u201cthe Church at her best, unfallen, is the glass to the lamp of\nTruth, guarding the sacred flame within and transmitting unimpaired to\nher children the light received upon its inner surface.\u201d Hitherto this\nfall has been the common fate of all Churches. \u201cThus fallen and\ndegraded, the Church becomes a church of this world, greedy of worldly\ndignities, emoluments, and dominion, intent on foisting on the belief of\nher votaries in the name of authority fables and worse than fables\u2014a\nChurch jealous of the letter which killeth, ignorant of, or bitterly at\nenmity with, the spirit which giveth life.\u201d\n\nWe now come to the interpretation of the Fall as applied to individual\nMan. This is allegorically described as \u201cthe lapse of heavenly beings\nfrom their first happy estate and their final redemption by means of\npenance done through incarnation in the flesh.\u201d The authors tell us that\nthis imagined lapse is a parable designed to veil and preserve a truth.\nThis truth is the Creative Secret, the projection of Spirit into matter,\nthe descent of substance into Maya, or illusion. From a cosmic\nstandpoint \u201cthe Tree of Divination or Knowledge becomes Motion or the\nKalpa\u2014the period of Existence as distinguished from Being; the Tree of\nLife is Rest or the Sabbath, the Nirv\u00e2na. Adam is Manifestation; the\nSerpent\u2014no longer of the lower, but of the higher sphere\u2014is the\ncelestial Serpent or Seraph of Heavenly Counsel.\u201d By the Tree of\nDivination of Good and Evil in this interpretation must be understood\nthat condition by means of which Spirit projected into appearance\nbecomes manifested under the veil of Maya, a necessary condition for the\nevolution of the individual, but carrying with it its own inevitable\nperils. It is not, say our authors, because matter is in itself evil\nthat the soul\u2019s descent into it constitutes a fall. It is because to the\nsoul matter is a forbidden thing. By quitting her own proper condition\nand descending into matter she takes upon herself matter\u2019s limitations.\nIt is no particular act that constitutes sin. Sin does not consist in\nfulfilling any of the functions of nature. Sin consists in acting\nwithout or against the Spirit, and in not seeking the divine sanction\nfor everything that is done. Sin, in fact, is of the soul, and it is due\nto the soul\u2019s inclination to the things of sense. To regard an act as\n_per se_ sinful is materialism and idolatry. For in doing so we invest\nthat which is physical with a spiritual attribute, and this is of the\nessence of idolatry.\n\nAdam signifies the manifested personality, or man, and is only complete\nwhen Eve, his soul, is added to him as helpmeet. When Eve takes of the\nfruit and enjoys it, she turns away from her higher spiritual self to\nseek for pleasure in the things of her lower self, and in doing so she\ndraws Adam down with her till they both become sensual and debased. The\nsin which commences in the thought of the soul, Eve, thus becomes\nsubsequently developed into action through the energy of the body or\nmasculine part, Adam. One of the inevitable results of the soul\u2019s\nenslavement to matter is its liability to extinction. In eating of the\nfruit Adam and Eve absorb the seeds of mortality. As Milton says:\n\n                      They engorged without restraint,\n                      And knew not, eating Death.\n\nThe soul in her own nature is immortal, but the lower she sinks into\nmatter the weaker becomes her vitality. A continuous downward course\nmust therefore end in the extinction of the individual\u2014not of course of\nthe Divine Ray, which returns to the Source whence it came. It is well\nto bear in mind that man is a dual being, not masculine or feminine\nonly, but both. This, of course, applies equally to man whether\nmanifested in a male or female body. One side is more predominant in man\nand the other in woman, but this does not imply absence of the other\nside, but merely its subordination. The man who has nothing, or next to\nnothing, of the woman in him, is no true man, and the woman who has\nnothing of the man in her, is no true woman. Man, whether man or woman,\nconsists of male and female, Reason and Intuition, and is therefore\nessentially twofold. Owing to the duality of his constitution, every\ndoctrine relating to man has a dual significance and application. Thus\nthe sacred books not only present an historical narrative of events\noccurring in time, but have a spiritual significance of a permanent\ncharacter in regard to which the element of time has no meaning. In this\nsense Scripture is a record of that which is always taking place.\n\n    Thus, the Spirit of God, which is original Life, is always moving\n    upon the face of the waters, or heavenly deep, which is original\n    Substance. And the One, which consists of these two, is always\n    putting forth alike the Macrocosm of the universe and the Microcosm\n    of the individual, and is always making man in the image of God, and\n    placing him in a garden of innocence and perfection, the garden of\n    his own unsophisticated nature. And man is always falling away from\n    that image and quitting that garden for the wilderness of sin, being\n    tempted by the serpent of sense, his own lower element. And from\n    this condition and its consequences he is always being born of a\n    pure virgin\u2014dying, rising and ascending into heaven.\n\nThis, in brief, is one of the most essential portions of the new Gospel\nof Interpretation. It exemplifies the method adopted throughout which is\nthat to which we are accustomed to apply the word \u201cHermetic.\u201d It is both\nChristian and pre-Christian, for it is the interpretation of the meaning\nof life, which was the Key to the ancient Gnostic faiths which,\nsubsisting before Christianity, became incorporated in the Christian\nteaching. New generations and races of men require the old truths to be\nput before them in a new guise. This was so when Christianity first came\nto birth, but in the days of Jesus Christ there were many things which\nthe Prophet of Nazareth had to say to his disciples, but which, as he\ntold them, they were then too weak to understand. The mystical\ninterpretation of Christian truth fell on deaf ears then. Re-stated and\nre-interpreted, after a lapse of 1900 years, is it too much to hope that\nit may no longer prove \u201cto the Gentiles foolishness, and to the Jews a\nrock of offence\u201d?\n\nPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH\n\n\n\n\n \u25cf Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n    \u25cb Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n    \u25cb Footnotes have been moved to follow the chapters in which they are\n      referenced.","title":"Occultists & mystics of all ages","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":40404}