The entire object of the Bible is to combat the idea, of two opposing forces in the world. The good news is said to be that of "reconciliation" (2 Cor. v. 18), where also we are told that "all things are from God," hence leaving no room for any other power or any other substance; and the great falsehood, which it is the purpose of the Good News to expose, is everywhere in the Bible proclaimed to be the suggestion of duality, which is some other mode of Life, that is not the One Life, but something separate from it--an idea which it is impossible to state distinctly without involving a contradiction in terms. Everywhere the Bible exposes the fiction of the duality of separation as the great lie, but nowhere in so emphatic and concentrated a manner as in that wonderful passage of Revelations where it is figured in the mysterious Number of the Beast. "He that hath understanding let him count the number of the Beast ... and his number is six hundred and sixty and six" (Rev. xiii, 18, R.V.). Let me point out the great principle expressed in this mysterious number. It has other more particular applications, but this one general principle underlies them all. It is an established maxim that every unity contains in itself a trinity, just as the individual man consists of body, soul, and spirit. If we would perfectly understand anything, we must be able to comprehend it in its threefold nature; therefore in symbolic numeration the multiplying of the unit by three implies the completeness of that for which the unit stands; and, again, the threefold repetition of a number represents its extension to infinity. Now mark what results if we apply these representative methods of numerical expression to the principles of Oneness and of separateness respectively. Oneness is Unity, and 1 × 3 = 3, which, intensified to its highest expression, is written as 333. Now apply the same method to the idea of separateness. Separateness consists of one and another one, each of which, according to the universal law, contains a trinity. In this view of duality the totality of things is two, and 2 × 3 = 6, and, intensifying this to its highest expression, we get 666, which is the Number of the Beast. Why of the Beast? Because separateness from God, or the duality of opposition, which is also a duality of polarity, which is Dual-Unity, recognises something as having essential being, which is not the One Spirit; and such a conception can be verbally rendered only by some word that in common acceptance represents something, not only lower than the divine, but lower than the human also. It is because the conception of oneself as a being apart from God, if carried out to its legitimate consequences, must ultimately land all who hold it in a condition of things where open ferocity or secret cunning, the tiger nature or the serpent nature, can be the only possible rule of action.