The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)
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there is no movement. Be assured of this. Without the operation of the vdll, the soul is inert and the spirit sterile. This is the origin of that inequality among men of which I have spoken. When the will does not disengage itself from matter, it constitutes instinctive men; when it is concentrated in the understanding, it produces animistic men; when it acts in the spirit, it creates intellectual men.
Its perfect harmony in the primordial Ternary, and its action more or less energetic in the uniformity of their faculties, equally developed, constitute the extraordinary men endowed with sublime genius; but the men of this fourth class which represents the autopsy of the mysteries," are extremely rare.
Often it suffices for a powerful will, acting either in the understanding or in the intelligence and concentrating wholly there, to astonish men by the strength of reasoning and outbursts of wisdom, which draws the name of genius ■vnthout being wholly merited.
Recently there has been seen in Germany the most extraordinary reasoning, in Kant, failing in its aim through lack of intelligence; one has seen in the same country the most exalted intelligence, in Boehme, giving way for want of reason. There have been in all times and among all nations men similar to Boehme and to Kant.
These men have erred through not knowing themselves; they have erred, through a lack of harmony that they might have been able to acquire, if they had taken the time to perfect themselves; they have erred, but their very error attests the force of their will. A weak will, operating either in the understanding or in the intelligence, makes only sensible men and men of intellect.
This same will acting in the instinct produces artful men; and if it is strong and violently concentrated through its original attraction in this corporal faculty, it constitutes men dangerous to society, miscreants, and treacherous brigands.
After having applied the Pythagorean Quaternary to
- Plato, In Gorgia; ibid., In Phad.; ibid., De Rep., 1. vii.; August., De Civil. Dei, 1. iii., c. i, et 1. x., c. 29.
Examinations of the Golden Verses 233
Man, and having shown the intimate composition of this Being, image of the Universe, according to the doctrine of the ancients, I ought perhaps to use all the means in my power, in order to demonstrate with what facility the physical and metaphysical phenomena which result from their combined action can be deduced; but such an undertaking would necessarily draw me into details foreign to these examinations. I must again put off this point as I have put off many others; I wUl take them up in another work, if the savants and the thinkers to whom I address myself approve the motive which has put the pen in my hand.
26. But before all, thy soul to its faithful duty.
Invoke these Gods with fervour, they whose aid. Thy work begun, alone can terminate.
All the cults established upon the face of the earth have made a religious duty of prayer. This alone would prove, if it were necessary, what I have advanced concerning the theosophical dogma of the volitive liberty of man ; for if man were not free in his actions, and if an irresistible fatality led him on to misfortune and to crime, what use would be invoking the gods, imploring their assistance, begging them to turn aside from him the evils which must inevitably overwhelm him? If, as Epicurus taught, an impenetrable barrier separated gods and men; if these gods, absorbed in their beatitude and their impassive immortality, were such strangers to the evils of humanity that they neither troubled to alleviate them nor to prevent them, for what purpose then the incense burning at the foot of their altars?"
It was, he said, on account of the excellence of their nature that he honovu-ed them thus, and not from any motive of hope or fear, not expecting any good from them and not dreading any evil.* What miserable sophism!
^ Diogen. Laert., 1. x., § 123; Cicero, De Nat. Dear., 1. i., c. 30. b Cicer., ibid., c. 8 et seq.
234 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras
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