result of this marvellous combination. The numbers of Fo-Hi are the same as those of the Kabalah, while his pantacle is analogous to that of Solomon, as explained already in our _Doctrine and Ritual of Transcendental Magic_.[299] His tables correspond to the thirty-two Paths and the fifty Gates of Light; consequently the _Y-Kim_ cannot be obscure for those who have the key of the _Sepher Yetzirah_ and _Zohar_.[300] The science of absolute philosophy has therefore existed in China; the Kims are commentaries on this Absolute which is hidden from the profane, and their relation to the _Y-Kim_ is like that of the Pentateuch of Moses to the Revelations in the _Sepher Dzenioutha_, which is the _Book of Mysteries_ and the key of the Hebrew _Zohar_.[301] Kong-fu-tzee, or Confucius, was the revealer or veiler of this Kabalah, the existence of which he might have denied, to turn the researches of the profane into a wrong path, just as that learned Talmudist Maimonides denied the realities of the Key of Solomon. After Confucius came the materialistic Fo, who substituted the traditions of Indian sorcery for the remnants of Egyptian Transcendental Magic. The cultus of Fo paralysed the progress of the sciences in China, and the abortive civilisation of this great people collapsed into routine and stupor. A philosopher of sagacity and admirable profundity, the learned Leibnitz, who deserved most assuredly initiation into the supreme truths of absolute science, thought that he could discern in the _Y-Kim_ his own discovery of the differential calculus, while in the straight and divided line he recognised the characters 1 0, employed in his own calculations. He was on the threshold of the truth, but, seeing it in only one of its details, he could not grasp it as a whole. The most important discoveries on religious antiquities in China have been the result of theological disputes.[302] This came about through the question whether the Jesuits were justified in permitting the worship of heaven and ancestral worship among the Chinese who were converted to Christianity—in other words, whether the educated Chinese regarded their heaven as God or simply as space and Nature. It was reasonable to have recourse to the educated themselves and to public good sense, but these do not constitute theological authorities. There was therefore much debate, much writing and more intriguing; the Jesuits were fundamentally right but were wrong in their mode of procedure, with the result that fresh difficulties were created which have not been yet overcome and which still continue in China to cost the blood of our indefatigable martyrs. [Illustration: THE GREAT HERMETIC ARCANUM]