Furthermore, as he added, with the logic of children, in such case we should infallibly fall head downwards through the heaven below us. So philosophers reasoned, while priests, without answering or even smiling at their blunders, continued to write in creative hieroglyphics concerning all dogmas, all forms of poetry and all secrets of truth. In their allegorical description of Hades, the Greek hierophants concealed the palmary secrets of Magic. We find four rivers therein, even as in the Earthly Paradise, _plus_ a fifth, which wound seven times round the others. There was a river of sorrows and silence, called Cocytus; there was a river of forgetfulness, or Lethe; and then there was a swift and irresistible river which carried all before it, flowing in an opposite course to yet another river of fire. The two last were named Acheron and Phlegethon, one being the negative and one the positive fluid, flowing eternally each in each. The black and icy waters of Acheron smoked with the warmth of Phlegethon, while the liquid flames of the latter were covered with thick vapours by the former. _Larvæ_ and _lemures_, shadowy images of bodies which have lived and of those which have yet to come, issued from these vapours by myriads; but whether they drank or not from the flood of sorrows, all desired the waters of oblivion, to bring them youth and peace. The wise alone do not seek to forget, for memory is their reward already; so also they only are truly deathless, since they only are conscious of their immortality. The tortures of Tenarus are truly divine pictures of the vices and their eternal chastisement. The greed of Tantalus, the ambition of Sisyphus, will never be expiated, since they can never be satisfied. Tantalus is athirst in the water, Sisyphus rolls a stone towards the top of a mountain, hoping to take his seat thereon, but it falls back continually and drags him down into the abyss. Ixion, unbridled in licence, would have violated the queen of heaven and was scourged by infernal furies. He did not consummate his crime, for he embraced only a phantom. The phantom may have condescended in appearance to his love and may have ministered to his passion, but when he disowned duty, when his satisfaction was at the price of sacrilege, that which he thought was love proved hatred in a mask of flowers. It is not from beyond the tomb, it is rather in life itself that we must seek the mysteries of death. Salvation or condemnation begin here below, and this earth has also its heaven and hell. Virtue is ever rewarded, vice is ever punished; if the wealth of the wicked incline us at times to think that they enjoy impunity, that instrument of good and evil seeming to be given them by chance, there is woe notwithstanding to the unjust; they may possess the key of gold, but for them it opens only the gate of the tomb and hell.