The ancients called it _Chaos_; Plato and the Pythagoreans named it _the Soul of the World_. According to the Hindus, the Deity in the shape of Æther pervades all things. It is the invisible, but, as we have said before, too tangible Fluid. Among other names this universal Proteus—or “the nebulous Almighty,” as de Mirville calls it in derision—was termed by the theurgists “the living fire,”[232] the “Spirit of Light,” and _Magnes_. This last appellation indicates its magnetic properties and shows its magical nature. For, as truly expressed by one of its enemies—μάγος and μάγνης are two branches growing from the same trunk, and shooting forth the same resultants. Magnetism is a word for the derivation of which we have to look to an incredibly early epoch. The stone called _magnet_ is believed by many to owe its name to Magnesia, a city or district in Thessaly, where these stones were found in quantity. We believe, however, the opinion of the Hermetists to be the correct one. The word _Magh_, _magus_, is derived from the Sanskrit _Mahaji_, the _great_ or _wise_ (the anointed by the divine wisdom). “Eumolpus is the _mythic_ founder {130} of the Eumolpidæ (priests); the priests traced their own wisdom to the Divine Intelligence.”[233] The various cosmogonies show that the Archæal Universal Soul was held by every nation as the “mind” of the Demiurgic Creator, the _Sophia_ of the Gnostics, or _the Holy Ghost as a female principle_. As the Magi derived their name from it, so the Magnesian stone or Magnet was called in their honor, for they were the first to discover its wonderful properties. Their temples dotted the country in all directions, and among these were some temples of Hercules,[234]—hence the stone, when it once became known that the priests used it for their curative and magical purposes, received the name of the Magnesian or Heraclean stone. Socrates, speaking of it, remarks: “Euripides calls it the Magnesian stone, but the common people, the Heraclean.[235]” It was the country and stone which were called after the Magi, not the Magi after one or the other. Pliny informs us that the wedding-ring among the Romans was magnetized by the priests before the ceremony. The old Pagan historians are careful to keep silent on certain Mysteries of the “wise” (Magi) and Pausanias was warned in a dream, he says, not to unveil the holy rites of the temple of Demeter and Persephoneia at Athens.[236]