From the absolute One, the sun of the sensible and intellectual world,
millions of stars and suns are produced or developed. Each sun is the
centre of as many worlds which are distributed in as many distinct
series in an infinite number of concentric centres and systems. Each
system is attracted, repelled, and moved by an infinite, internal
passion, or attraction; each turns round its own centre, and moves in a
spiral towards the centre of the whole, towards which centre they all
tend with infinite passional ardour. For in this centre resides the sun
of suns, the unity of unities, the temple, the altar of the universe,
the sacred fire of Vesta, the vital principle of the universe.
That which occurs in the world of stars is reflected in the telluric
world; everything has its centre, towards which it is attracted with
fervour. All is thought, passion, and aspiration.
From this unity, which governs variety, from this movement of every
world around its sun, of every sun around its centre sun--the sun of
suns--which informs all with the rays of the spirit, with the light of
thought--is generated that perfect harmony of colours, sounds, forms,
which strike the sight and captivate and enthrall the intellect. That
which in the heavens is harmony becomes, in the individual, morality,
and in companies of human beings, law. That which is light in the
spheres becomes intelligence and science in the world of the spirit and
in humanity. We must study this harmony that rules the celestial worlds
in order to deduce the laws which should govern civil bodies.
In the science of numbers dwells harmony, and therefore it behoves us to
identify ourselves with this harmony, because from it is derived the
harmonic law which draws men together into companies. Through the
revolution of the worlds through space around their suns, from their
order, their constancy and their measure, the mind comprehends the
progress and conditions of men, and their duties towards each other. The
Bible, the sacred book of man, is in the heavens; there does man find
written the word of God.
Human souls are lights, distinct from the universal soul, which is
diffused over all and penetrates everything. A purifying process guides
them from one existence to another, from one form to another, from one
world to another. The life of man is more than an experience or trial;
it is an effort, a struggle to reproduce and represent upon earth some
of that goodness, beauty, and truth which are diffused over the universe
and constitute its harmony.
Long, slow, and full of opposition is this educational process of the
soul. As the terraqueous globe becomes formed, changed, and perfected,
little by little, through the cataclysms and convulsions which, by means
of fire, flood, earthquake, and irruptions, transform the earth, so it
is with humanity. Through struggle is man educated, fortified, and
raised.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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