Now, reading these four letters, י, or I, ה, or H, ו, or O, and ה, or H, as the Hebrew requires, from right to left, we have the word הוהי, equivalent in English to IH-OH, which is really as near to the pronunciation as we can well come, notwithstanding it forms neither of the seven ways in which the word is said to have been pronounced, at different times, by the patriarchs.[134] But, thus pronounced, the word gives us no meaning, for there is no such word in Hebrew as _ihoh_; and, as all the Hebrew names were significative of something, it is but fair to conclude that this was not the original pronunciation, and that we must look for another which will give a meaning to the word. Now, Lanci proceeds to the discovery of this true pronunciation, as follows:-- In the Cabala, a hidden meaning is often deduced from a word by transposing or reversing its letters, and it was in this way that the Cabalists concealed many of their mysteries. Now, to reverse a word in English is to read its letters from _right to left_, because our normal mode of reading is from _left to right_. But in Hebrew the contrary rule takes place, for there the normal mode of reading is from _right to left_; and therefore, to reverse the reading of a word, is to read it from _left to right_. Lanci applied this cabalistic mode to the tetragrammaton, when he found that IH-OH, being read reversely, makes the word HO-HI.[135] But in Hebrew, _ho_ is the masculine pronoun, equivalent to the English _he_; and _hi_ is the feminine pronoun, equivalent to _she_; and therefore the word HO-HI, literally translated, is equivalent to the English compound HE-SHE; that is to say, the Ineffable Name of God in Hebrew, being read cabalistically, includes within itself the male and female principle, the generative and prolific energy of creation; and here we have, again, the widely-spread symbolism of the phallus and the cteis, the lingam and the yoni, or their equivalent, the point within a circle, and another pregnant proof of the connection between Freemasonry and the ancient Mysteries. And here, perhaps, we may begin to find some meaning for the hitherto incomprehensible passage in Genesis (i. 27): "So God created man _in his own image; in the image of God_ created he him; _male and female_ created he them." They could not have been "in the image" of IHOH, if they had not been "male and female." The Cabalists have exhausted their ingenuity and imagination in speculations on this sacred name, and some of their fancies are really sufficiently interesting to repay an investigation. Sufficient, however, has been here said to account for the important position that it occupies in the masonic system, and to enable us to appreciate the symbols by which it has been represented. The great reverence, or indeed the superstitious veneration, entertained by the ancients for the name of the Supreme Being, led them to express it rather in symbols or hieroglyphics than in any word at length.