The Golden Verses of Pythagoras — with commentary (1917)

Now it is the essence of theosophy to be dogmatic, and that of natural philosophy to be skeptical; the theosophist speaks by faith, the physicist speaks by reason; the doctrine of the one excludes the discussion that the system of the other admits and even necessitates. Up to that time, theosophy dominating upon the earth had taught the influence of the will, and the tradition which was preserved in it among all the nations of the earth during an incalculable succession of centuries gave it the force of demonstration. Among the Indians, Krishna ; among the Persians, Zoroaster; in China, Kong-Tse; in Egypt, Thoth; among the Greeks, Orpheus ; even Odin, among the Scandinavians ; everywhere the lawgivers of the people had linked the liberty of man with the consoling dogma of Divine Providence." The peoples

" The doctrine of Krishna is found especially recorded in the Bhaghavad Gita, one of the Pouranas most esteemed by the Brahmans; in the ZendAvesta and in the Boun-Dehesh, that of Zoroaster. The Chinese have the Tchun-Tsieou of Kong-Tse, historic monument raised to the glory of Providence; in the Pcemander and jEsculapius, the ideas of Thoth. The book of Synesius upon Providence contains the dogmas of the Mysteries. Finally one

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accustomed to worship in polytheism the Divine Infinity and not its Unity, did not find it strange to be guided, protected, and watched over on the one side, whereas they remained, on the other, free in their movements; and they did not trouble themselves to find the source of good and evil since they saw it in the objects of their cult, "in these same gods, the greater part of whom being neither essentially good nor essentially bad were reputed to inspire in them the virtues or the vices which, gathered freely by them, rendered them worthy of recompense or chastisement." But when Natural Philosophy appeared, the face of things was changed. The natural philosophers, substituting the observation of nature and experience for mental contemplation and the inspiration of theosophists, thought that they could make sentient what was intelligible, and promised to prove by fact and reasoning whatever up to that time had had only proofs of sentiment and analogy. They brought to light the great mystery of Universal Unity, and transforming this Intellectual Unity into corporal substance placed it in water,* in infinite space,"" in the air,"* in the fire,^ whence they draw in turn the essential and formal existence of all things. The one, attached to the school of Ionia, established as fundamental maxim, that there is but one principle of all ; and the other, attached to that of Elea, can consult in the course of the Edda, the subUme discourse of Odin, entitled Havamdl. The basis of all these works is the same.

" This, as I observed in my Second Examination, should be understood only by the vulgar. The savant and the initiate easily restored to Unity this infinity of gods, and understood or sought the origin of evil, without the knowledge of which, divine Unity is inexplicable.

^Talfes, cit6 par Platon, De Republ., 1. x.; Aristot., Metaph., 1. iii.; Cicer., Acad. Qucest., iv., c. 37.

- Anaximandre, cit6 par Aristot., Phys., 1. i.; Sext. Empir., Pyrr., iii.

•^Anaximfene, cit6 par Aiist., Metaph., 1. i., c. 3; Plutar., De Placit. Phil, i., 3.

< H^raclite, cit6 par Platon, Thetetet.; Arist., Metaph., 1. i., c. 6; Sext. Empir., Adv. Math., 1. vii.

158 The Golden Verses of Pythagoras