In geometry a straight line cannot represent an absolutely perfect figure, any more than two straight lines. Three straight lines, on the other hand, produce by their junction a triangle, or the first absolutely perfect figure. Therefore, it symbolized from the first and to this day the Eternal—the first perfection. The word for deity in Latin, as in French, begins with D, in Greek the delta or triangle, Δ, whose three sides symbolize the trinity, or the three kingdoms, or, again, divine nature. In the middle is the Hebrew Yod, the initial of Jehovah [see Éliphas Lévi’s _Dogme et Rituel_, i. 154], the animating spirit or fire, the generating principle represented by the letter G, the initial of “God” in the northern languages, whose philosophical significance is generation.(187) As stated correctly by the famous Mason Ragon, the Hindu Trimûrti is personified in the world of ideas by Creation, Preservation and Destruction, or Brahmâ, Vishnu and Shiva; in the world of matter by Earth, Water and Fire, or the Sun, and symbolised by the Lotus, a flower that lives by earth, water, and the sun.(188) The Lotus, sacred to Isis, had the same significance in Egypt, whereas in the Christian symbol, the Lotus, not being found in either Judæa or Europe, was replaced by the water‐lily. In every Greek and Latin Church, in all the pictures of the Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel is depicted with this trinitarian symbol in his hand standing before Mary, while above the chief altar or under the dome, the Eye of the Eternal is painted within a triangle, made to replace the Hebrew Yod or God. Truly, says Ragon, there was a time when numbers and alphabetical characters meant something more than they do now—the images of a mere insignificant sound. Their mission was nobler then. Each of them represented by its form a complete sense, which, besides the meaning of the word, had a double(189) interpretation adapted to a dual doctrine. Thus when the sages desired to write something to be understood only by the savants, they confabulated a story, a dream, or some other fictitious subject with personal names of men and localities, that revealed by their lettered characters the true meaning of the author by that narrative. Such were all their religious creations.(190) Every appellation and term had its _raison d’être_. The name of a plant or mineral denoted its nature to the Initiate at the first glance. The essence of everything was easily perceived by him once that it was figured by such characters. The Chinese characters have preserved much of this graphic and pictorial character to this day, though the secret of the full system is lost. Nevertheless, even now, there are those among that nation who can write a long narrative, a volume, on one page; and the symbols that are explained historically, allegorically and astronomically, have survived until now.