Chapter II: Part 2

We are now prepared to attempt the last aspect of our view--namely, the description of what is experienced when the physical mists have been evaporated by the Mystical Sense. Again we find that no direct description is possible, language is absolutely inadequate to describe the unspeakable, communications have to be physically transmitted in words to which finite physical meanings have been allocated. The still small voice which may at times of Rapture be momentarily experienced in Music, is something much more wonderful than can be formed by sounds, and this perhaps comes nearest to the expression necessary for depicting the vision of the soul; but it cannot be held or described, it is quickly drowned by the physical sense of audition. As the Glamour of Symbolism can only be transmitted to one who has passed the portal of Symbolic Thought, the Rapture of Music can only be truly understood by one who has already experienced it, and the Ideal of Art requires a true artistic temperament to comprehend it, so it is, I believe, impossible to describe, with any chance of success, this wonderful experience to any but those whom Mr. A. C. Benson, in his _Secret of the Thread of Gold_, very aptly describes as having already entered "the Shrine." Those who have been _there_ will know that it is not at all equivalent to a vision, it is not anything which can be seen or heard or felt by touch; it is entirely independent of the physical senses; it is not Giving or Receiving, it is not even a receiving of some new knowledge from the Reality; it has nothing to do with thought or intellectual gymnastics; all such are seen to be but mist. The nearest description I can formulate is:--A wondrous feeling of perfect peace;--absolute rest from physical interference;--perfect contentment;--the sense of Being-one-with-the-Reality, carrying with it a knowledge that the Reality or Spiritual is nearer to us and has much more to do with us than the Physical has, if we could only see the truth and recognise its presence;--that there is no real death;--no finiteness and yet no Infinity;--that the Great Spirit cannot be localised or said to be anywhere, but that everywhere is God;--that the whole of what we call Creation is an instantaneous Thought of the Reality;--that it is only by the process of analysing in Time and Space that we imagine there is such a thing as succession of events;--that the only Reality is the _Spiritual_, the _Here_ embracing all Space and the _Now_ embracing all Time.

How few of us who are now drawing towards the end of our sojourn here, have not, at certain times during our lives, experienced something akin to what I have tried to put before you in the above! Does not a particular scent, a beautiful country scene, a phrase in music, the beauty or pathos in a picture, symbolic sculpture in a grand cathedral, or even a chance word spoken in our hearing, every now and then waken in our innermost consciousness an enchanting memory of some wonderful happy moment of the past when the sun seemed to have been shining more brightly, the birds singing more merrily, when everything in nature seemed more alive, and our very beings seemed wrapped up in an intense love of our surroundings? On those occasions we were not far from seeing behind the veil, though we did not recognise it at the time; but when we now look back, with experience gained by advancing years, and consider those visions of the past, we cannot help seeing that the physical film was to our eyes more transparent at those times, and the very joy of their remembrance seems to be giving us a prescience of that which we shall experience, when for each one of us the physical film is pricked and passes away like a scroll.

VIEW THREE

MYSTICISM AND SYMBOLISM

"Who can doubt that the Mystics know more than the Theologians, and that the Poets know more than the Scientists? for this inner apprehension is surely the highest and truest kind of Knowledge." Such were the words written to me lately by a clergyman of great learning and of unimpeachable orthodoxy, whose mature knowledge of the Higher Mysteries has been gained by a life-long study of the Divine. In View No. 1 we saw that the first step towards opening our Window, was to grasp the fact that it is not we who are _looking out_ upon Nature, but that it is the Reality which is ever trying to enter and to _come into_ touch with us, through our senses, and is persistently trying to wake within us a knowledge of the sublimest truths: but this has not yet been appreciated by the Theologian; he is looking _outwards_ instead of _inwards_, and asks the question, based on _intellectual_ conception, in the form "Can I find out the Absolute so that I may possess Him?" and the answer ever comes back, "_No_, because I am trying to storm the _Sanctuary_ of the Unthinkable, the Infinite, by means of a Ladder which cannot reach beyond our finite conceptions, and can deal therefore only with the shadows, cast by the outlying ramparts, upon our physical plane." An example of this is surely seen in the lecture lately delivered by the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Gore) to the University of Oxford (13th February 1912, reported in the _Guardian_ of 16th February), when he made the statement that the greatest difficulty we have is to recognise that the Absolute is a God of Love. His exact words were: "I believe that there are a great many of us who know, perhaps from bitter experience, that whatever difficulties there are about religious belief are difficulties about believing in a God of Love; whatever is our experience, and however sunny is our disposition, any steady thinking will make it apparent that thought, apart from the Christian revelation, presumed and accepted, or reflected unconsciously, has never got at it, and even after it has been in the world, thought is continually finding it hard to retain the idea of God the Creator, or the truth that God is Love, partly owing to the limitations of human thinking, partly, and even more, owing to the experience of man and of nature."

On the other hand the Mystic, with _introspection_, asks the question in the form "Can the Absolute find me out and possess me and thus make me feel that that which is within me is akin to, is, in fact, a part of Him and that I am possessed thereby?" and the answer ever comes back from those who are on the true Quest:--"_Yes_; because the Unthinkable, the Hidden which desires to be found, is ever trying to come into our Consciousness to waken the knowledge that His _Sanctuary_, or what is called the Kingdom of Heaven, is within us, that we are not an external but an internal creation of the All-loving." Such a realisation is, as pointed out in "The Vision," far above Analysis and Synthesis or Intellectual gymnastics, which can deal only with the finite and are seen to be but Mist. How many valuable thoughts are wrecked and lost from our inability to formulate and describe them intellectually, even in our own consciousness. We are too apt to lay the blame upon, and to doubt, the Truth of those conceptions, because we are unable to find words to express them; the very act of attempting to analyse such thoughts in Time and Space destroys our power of carrying them to higher levels. Those who have once realised that the knowledge of the Absolute is the true Divine Life within us, can, as we have seen, at certain times and under certain conditions, experience that wonderful joy of perception by means of what I have called the Eye of the Soul; but that is missed by those who are always asking questions, and arguing, about what that knowledge consists in; the command "Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you, ask and it shall be given you," was not meant for the intellect but for the Heart, not for logical controversy but for inward discernment, not for physical enjoyment but for the nourishment of the Transcendental Ego. All things _may_ be possible to him that believeth, but how much more is this true of him who, as referred to in View No. 2, is perfected in "Loving and Knowing." The nearer we get to that consciousness of Being-one-with-the-Reality, the more we see and can meditate upon the wonderful "joy" which permeates all creation; but without that consciousness it is invisible, and the world is dark and evil and unloving, and to many, alas! appears more the handiwork of a Devil than of a God of Love.

Mysticism is not, as the man in the street generally thinks, the study of the "Mysterious," but is the attempt to gain a knowledge of the Reality, the ultimate Truth in everything, especially the perception of that wonderful Transcendental Power which is growing up within, or in close connection with, each one of us. The study of the Physical Sciences, as also of the various forms of Religion around us, is useful and fascinating in the domain of "Intellectualism," but does not take us far towards the goal of our aspirations. I shall, however, attempt to show, in my next View, that by examining the phenomena of Nature and realising that they are symbols only of the Noumenon, the Reality, which is behind them, it is possible to reach a point where we may even feel that we are thinking, or having divulged to us, what may be called the very thoughts of the Absolute. We shall see that this can only be accomplished by first recognising that the Invisible is the Real, that the visible is only its shadow, that all our surroundings are but the images, or outlines, of the Reality cast on the Physical plane of our Senses; to accomplish this, we have to understand the use of _Symbolic_ Thought for sustaining and carrying conceptions to a higher level; because, as already explained, we can only express and, indeed, think of the Invisible or Infinite under terms of the Visible or Finite. Let me give you a glimpse at what may be called the "Glamour of Symbolism"; it is difficult to explain to those who have not yet thought of or felt it, but the following may be helpful:

Think of the loveliest story or poem you have ever read, the most entrancing music you have ever heard, or the most beautiful paintings you have ever seen, and think how, at the end, you experienced a wonderful glow of enchantment with the concept as a whole, apart from specialising any particular character or event in the story, phrase in the music, or subject in the pictures; then do the same with one of those wonderful cathedrals of the twelfth to fourteenth centuries, the epoch of that beautiful Gothic style which I shall show was founded upon the highest mystical form of Symbolism possible to those who lived at the then zenith of Mystical Thought in the history of the world. The number of cathedrals built during those three centuries was so prodigious that, without the documentary evidence which we have, it would be absolutely incredible. Every part of those buildings, even to the smallest decorations, was, as shown by any of the old writers on Religious Symbolism, such as Durandus, planned to symbolise some beautiful thought, aspiration, tradition, or religious belief. The highest Thinkers, Artists, Poets, Philosophers, and Mystics in those centuries became Architects, and, in pure contemplation of and love for the Divine, helped to beautify design by giving up their lives and energies to the work without reward. It was, in fact, at that period the surest means by which they could record their ideals and aspirations. Before the advent of the printing press, with its facilities for spreading knowledge broadcast, they appreciated that Tectonic Art and Iconography were the means by which they could best permanently record and teach their aspirations to the masses. Every beautiful thought found its expression in some symbol of artistic design. Each Cathedral was, in fact, a beautiful complete _story_, and, when this has been fully grasped, the enchantment of the whole, the thread of gold running through the whole of that wonderful pile, is what may be called the Glamour of Symbolism.

For the last 400 years, Archaeologists, Architects, and others interested in the history of Tectonic art, have been trying without avail to discover what is called "the lost secret of Gothic Architecture"; even Sir Christopher Wren had a try and expressed his opinion that it was lost for ever. They were all looking in the wrong direction, confining themselves to the mists of physical intellectual perception, and could not get beyond that limited range of thought. I propose now, in illustration of this View, to show what this secret was. It has the making of a fascinating Romance; it is the most wonderful example of what I will call "the Evolution of Thought as depicted by Human strivings after the Transcendental in Mediaeval Mysticism." I shall give it in a brief form, touching only on those essential points which require a very slight knowledge of Geometry, but those interested in the subject may refer to _Ars Quatuor Coronatorum_ (vol. xxiii., 1910), where I have given the whole subject, _in extenso_, under the title "Magister Mathesios."

To understand the subject it is necessary to recognise fully the place Geometry held, not only among Mediaeval Builders, but also in Classical times; it was recognised in those early times as the head of all the Sciences, and was the A, B, C of Hellenic Philosophy. Come back with me 2300 years, to the time when the "Greek Age of Reason" was at its zenith, and Plato, the greatest of the philosophers, was teaching at Athens, working thus, let it be known to his honour, solely for the love he bore to science, for he always taught gratuitously. What qualification was required of those who attended his Academy? Look up over the porch, and you will see written in large capitals these words:

[Greek: MEDEIS AGEOMETRETOS EISITO
MOU TEN STEGEN.]

"Let no one who is ignorant of Geometry enter my doors."

At the root of Socratic teaching was the idea that wisdom is the attribute of the Godhead, and Plato, for twenty years the companion and most favoured pupil of Socrates, was imbued with that doctrine, and, having arrived at the conclusion that the impulse to find out TRUTH was the necessity of intellectual man, he saw in Geometry the keystone of all Knowledge, because, among all other channels of thought, it alone was the exponent of absolute and undeniable truth. He tells us that "Geometry rightly treated is the Knowledge of the Eternal"; and Plutarch gives us yet another instance of Plato's teaching concerning this subject, in which he looks upon God as the Great Architect, when he says, "Plato says that God is always geometrising." Holding, therefore, as Plato did, that God was a great Geometer, and that the aim of philosophy was the acquisition of a knowledge of the Eternal, it is natural that he should make a knowledge of Geometry imperative on those wishing to study philosophy. This was continued also by those philosophers who succeeded Plato in the management of the Academy, as we are told that Zenocrates turned away an applicant for admission, who knew no geometry, with the words:

[Greek: poreuou, labas gar ouk echeis tes philosophias.]

"Depart, for thou hast not the _grip_ of philosophy."

In connection with the idea that God was a Geometer, must be taken the contention held by the Egyptians, and after them the Greeks and Arabs, that the Right-Angled Triangle symbolised the nature of the Universe; it was called the law of the three squares, because in every Right-Angled Triangle, as expounded by the Pythagorean Theorem, the squares, formed on the two sides containing the Right Angle, must together be exactly equal to the square on the third side, whatever the shape of the triangle may be. The Right Angle at an early date gave its name to the odd numbers, which were called, by the Greeks, gnomonic numbers, as personifying the male sex, and the Right-Angled Triangle was also called the Nuptial Figure, or Marriage, the Pythagorean Theorem receiving the name, [Greek: to theorema tes nymphes] (the Theorem of the Bride). Plutarch, in his _Osiris and Isis_, tells us in explanation of this, "The Egyptians imagined the nature of the Universe like this most beautiful triangle, as Plato also seems to have done in his work on the _State_, when he sketches the picture of Matrimony under the form of a Right-Angled Triangle. That triangle contains one of the perpendiculars of three, the base of four, and the hypotenuse of five parts, the square of which is equal to the squares of those sides containing the right angle. The perpendicular (three) is the Male, Osiris, the originating principle ([Greek: arche]); the base (four) is the Female, Isis, the receptive principle ([Greek: hypodoche]); and the Hypotenuse (five) is the offspring of both, Horus, the product ([Greek: apotelesma])." The central feature of this triangle, upon which its property is based, is the Right Angle. The Greeks gave to this Right Angle the name of _Gnomon_ (meaning Knowledge), and it has ever since been, under the form of a carpenter's "square," the emblem or symbol of an Architect, the Master Mason, as personifying the Great Architect of the Universe--namely, He who has the knowledge of Geometry; and, as the Right-Angled Triangle represented the Universe, it was upon the _perfection_ of this Gnomon, or knowledge, that the very existence of the Universe depended, because the law of the three squares only holds good when that angle is perfect.

The Secret handed down in the Craft, from Architect to Architect, was how to form a perfect right angle, or, as it was called, the "Square," without possibility of Error, and this I have called "the Knowledge of the Square." Vitruvius, who, at the beginning of our Era, wrote his thesis on Tectonic art, which is still the text-book of Architecture for Ancient buildings, says Pythagoras taught his followers to form a gnomon, or square, as follows: "Take three rods, of three lengths, four lengths, and five lengths long; with these form a triangle, and, if each rod be squared, you have 9, 16, and 25, and the areas of the two former will be equal to the latter."

Now let us come to the closing years of the tenth century. What a strange condition of the building craft was to be seen all over Europe; not a church was being built, nor had been built, for the last twenty years; the thousand years after Christ was drawing to its close, everybody was waiting for, and expecting, the world to come to an end; no new undertakings were begun. How much money went into the hands of the Monasteries and other Religious Houses, as peace offerings for the future welfare of the givers, nobody can say; it was probably enormous. When, however, the eleventh century was well started and the crisis was over, churches were built on a large scale, as shown by the numerous remains we have of Norman buildings of the last half eleventh century, and building was probably at its height about A.D. 1140 to 1150; but at this period an extraordinary thing happened. Hitherto the arches in the Norman style were round-headed and their columns enormously thick to carry them; but suddenly the style changed into the beautiful Gothic all over Europe. No single country can claim precedence, it was almost simultaneous; churches half finished in the round style were not only completed in the pointed, but had parts already built altered to the new style. What, then, determined this sudden change, resulting in a wonderful accession of beauty to Architectural design? We must go to the Monasteries and Religious Houses to find the explanation. These Houses had become the Patrons of Masonry, the providers of the funds for building Cathedrals, &c.; it naturally followed that, growing up alongside the Operative Science, there was a Religious symbolism being gradually formed which attached itself specially to the tools used by Masons, and thus formed the basis of Moral teaching--"to act on the Square," "to keep within the bounds of the Compasses," "to be Level in all your dealings," &c., &c. A wonderful, new, and Mystical form of Symbolism was opened to them with the advent of Geometry. The text-book of Geometry was unknown throughout the whole of Europe, omitting Spain, from the sixth to the beginning of the twelfth century; it was, as I have pointed out, well known in Greece before our Era, and continued to be so up to about the sixth century A.D. In the fourth century lived the Greek, Theon of Alexandria, so well known for his edition of Euclid's Elements, with notes, from which all Greek MSS. which first came to light in the sixteenth century were taken, being entitled [Greek: ek ton Theonos synousion], "from Theon's Lectures," and which he probably used as a text-book in his classes; but these MSS. had all been lost before the seventh century, and were not recovered again until the sixteenth century, when Simon Grynaeus, the greatest Greek scholar on the Continent, and companion of Melancthon and Luther, discovered a copy in Constantinople. Meanwhile, Theon's edition had been translated into Arabic, and thus preserved by the Mohammedans, and it was only at the beginning of the twelfth century that Athelard of Bath, who had been travelling in the East, came to study at Cordova, in Spain, and there found the Arabic MSS. of Euclid; these he translated into Latin, and this translation must have come into the hands of the patrons of the building craft at the very time when the Gothic style had its origin; it was the only Latin translation known in Europe, and was, some centuries later, the text-book of the first printed edition of Euclid.

The Operative Masons had always formed their Right-Angled Triangles by means of mundane measures of 3, 4, and 5 units to each side respectively, as was done by the Harpedonaptae of Egypt 5000 years ago, and 2500 years later by Pythagoras, and this same method continues to be used to this day; but to those of a religious turn of mind, who had only lately become conversant with Euclid, and looked upon Geometry not only as the height of all learning, but, as they progressed in the knowledge of its bearing on the Science of building, actually made it synonymous with Tectonic Art (the old MSS. which have come down to us from that time _invariably_ state that "at the head of all the Sciences stands _Geometry which is Masonry_"), there must have come a wave of wonderful enthusiasm when they first discovered that the Geometrical way of creating a Right Angle, as given in Euclid I. ii., was by means of an Equilateral Triangle, by joining the Apex with the centre of the base. This Equilateral Triangle was the earliest symbol we know of the Divine _Logos_ in connection with that wonderful figure the Vesica Piscis; and as the Bible declared that the Universe was created by the Logos (the Word), so the Square which represented the Universe was naturally created by means of the Equilateral Triangle. A great mystery this must have appeared to those who, like the Hellenic philosophers, postulated that everything on Earth has its counterpart in Heaven, and who, in their religious mysticism, were always looking for signs of the transcendental in their temporal surroundings.

But in what awe and reverence must they have held Geometry, when they further found that the Equilateral Triangle, representing the Logos, was itself generated, as shown in the _first_ Problem of Euclid, upon which the whole Science of Geometry was therefore based, by the intersection of two Circles! These two Circles were held by the Greeks, at the beginning of our Era, to represent the Past and Future Eternities generating the Logos; but the whole figure (Euclid I. i.) was at the time we are now dealing with looked upon by Mediaeval Architects as representing the Three Divine _personae_, and that part, or _cavity_, of the figure which is bounded by the Arcs of the two circles, and which takes to itself one-third of each of the two generating circles (making its perifera exactly equal with that remaining to each of the two circles, all three therefore being _co-equal_), and in which the Equilateral Triangle is formed (_vide_ frontispiece), was naturally held by the Mediaeval Architects, and indeed from earliest times, as the most sacred Christian Emblem--namely, that of _Regeneration_ or "New Birth."

The Cavity is evidently referred to in the Mystical Gospel of St. John (iii. 16), in the question by and answer to Nicodemus, and it was the eye of the needle referred to in St. Mark x. 25, in answer to the question in verse 17, and again in St. Luke xviii. 25. In later ages this symbol was extensively used by the Christian Church to surround the "Soul of a Saint" after death (illustrated in _Magister Mathesios_). The date of the birth of a Saint was always given as the date on which he or she died and had been born again in the Spiritual Life, and the Saint was depicted in a Vesica Piscis, the vulva of the _Ruach_ or Holy Spirit, representing this new birth. To show the extraordinary reverence and high value attached to this symbol, it is only necessary to remember that, from the fourth century, when Theon of Alexandria lectured on Geometry, and onwards, all Seals of Colleges, Abbeys, Monasteries, and other religious communities, as well as of ecclesiastical persons, have been made invariably of this form, and they continue to be made so to this day. It was also in allusion to this most sacred ancient emblem that Tertullian, and other early Fathers, spoke of Christians as "Pisciculi." It was called the "Vesica Piscis" (Fish's Bladder), and named, no doubt, by the Greeks at the beginning of our Era, for the purpose of misleading the ignorant from the true meaning of the Figure.

One can well understand the object which led the learned Rabbi Maimonides, the greatest savant of the Middle Ages, when addressing his pupils in the twelfth century, to command his hearers: "When you have discovered the meaning thereof, do not divulge it, because the people cannot philosophise nor understand that to the Infinite there is no such thing as Sex;" but later on the noted writer on Symbolism, Durandus, in the introduction to his book, is more explicit, and gives the real meaning as follows: "The Mystical Vesica Piscis ... wherein the Divinity and, more rarely, the Blessed Virgin are represented, has no reference, except in name, to a fish, but represents the Almond, the symbol of Virginity and self-production."

The Vesica Piscis, and its name, is intimately connected with the discovery, by Augustus Caesar in the century preceding our Era, as narrated by Baronius, of a prophecy in one of the Sibylline books, foretelling "a great event coming to pass in the birth of One who should prove to be the true 'King of Kings,' and Augustus Caesar therefore dedicated an altar in his palace to this unknown God." Eusebius and St. Augustine inform us that the first letter of each line of the verses from the Erythrean Sibyl containing this prophecy, formed the word [Greek: ICHTHYS] (a fish), and were taken as representing the sentence: [Greek: Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter]("Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour"). Based upon this discovery arose that extraordinary enthusiasm, during the second, third, and fourth centuries, for hunting up further prophecies in Pagan sources, resulting in a great number of Sibylline verses being invented, giving the minutest details in the Life of our Lord. These fabrications seem to have been at that time generally accepted by the masses as true prophecies, though we know now that they were written some centuries after the events they were supposed to foretell.

Let us now return to the Vesica Piscis. In the paintings and sculptures of the Middle Ages, we find it constantly used to circumscribe the figure of the Saviour, especially whenever He is represented as judging the world and in His glorified state. Many beautiful examples of this in Anglo-Saxon work of the tenth century may be seen in King Edgar's Book of Grants to Winchester Cathedral and the famous Breviary of St. Ethelwolfe. Numerous illustrations of these and other pictures of the Middle Ages, as also diagrams of the properties of the Vesica Piscis, can be seen in the volume I have already referred to dealing fully with this subject.

The building fraternity was a purely Christian community; the First Crusade raised a great enthusiasm for building Christian Churches, and brought in large gifts of money for that purpose. Up to 1140 Norman Architecture held sway, having the "Square" for its unit, its greatest symbol being the _Gnomon_, representing knowledge; but about that time, as we have seen, arose from the study of Geometry, the head of all learning, a Mystical form having the mysterious figure of the Vesica Piscis, the true Gothic Arch, with the Equilateral Triangle enclosed as its unit, and symbolising the Trinity in Unity. The recognition of the import of the Trinity was paramount throughout those early days; all important documents began with an Invocation of the _Tres Personae_, or were garnished with symbolic illustrations thereof; all the old MSS., already referred to, which have come down to us from that period, invariably commence with "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."

It can therefore be readily understood what determined the sudden change between 1140-1150, resulting in that wonderful accession of beauty to architectural design which we find in the Gothic. The incentive had to be a strong one, and of an eminently religious character, to accomplish the radical change of throwing over so absolutely the Norman, and commencing to build entirely on what are called Gothic lines. A careful examination of the proportions of the structures themselves, and the character of the decorations found in the finest examples of buildings representing that style, at once shows us that the incentive was the symbolism attached to the mysterious figure called the Vesica Piscis, which appears to be not only the principal feature upon which the whole style rests, but is also employed, as a symbol of the Divine, wherever we have Gothic Architecture, either in painted windows or mural decorations. Every Cathedral has its Vesica Piscis, often of enormous dimensions. Geometry was synonymous with Masonry, and the very _foundation_ of the Science of Geometry, as expounded by Euclid, was his _first_ proposition. _Every single problem_ in the whole of his books necessitates for its construction the use of this one foundation--namely, "how to form an Equilateral Triangle," and this is the Mystical form of "the Knowledge of the Square." This triangle, symbolising the Logos, is therefore not only the _beginning_ of the Science of Geometry, and therefore of Masonry, the Head of all the Sciences, but it is by that triangle that all Geometrical forms, and therefore forms of knowledge, are _made_, and it became the most mysterious and secret symbol of the Logos, for is it not written by St. John that "In the beginning was the Logos, and by it were all things made"; so the Vesica Piscis, the cradle of the Logos, became the great _secret_ of Masonry, the foundation as we find it upon which Gothic Architecture was evolved, the means by which its wonderful plans were laid down, and the most reverenced figure in Religious Symbolism, as shown by its use in seals, engravings, sculptures, pictures, &c., throughout the Middle Ages.

Let me make this clearer. The more one examines the typical points in the Saxon, Norman, and Gothic styles of Architecture, the more clearly one sees that the Architects of the two former used circles and squares on their tracing-boards, as units for their proportions, in drawing up both ground plans and elevations, with here and there suggestions only of the Equilateral Triangle having been made use of in some of the smaller details; whereas the Gothic Architects seem to have used the Vesica Piscis almost entirely. This explains the reason why true Gothic buildings have always been said to be built mainly on the basis of the Equilateral Triangle; this naturally follows, because the use of the Vesica creates, and therefore necessitates, the appearance of the Equilateral Triangle in every conceivable situation. The following quotation is typical of the leading essay writers on this subject: "The Equilateral Triangle enters largely into, if it does not entirely control, all mediaeval proportions, particularly in the ground plans. In Chartres Cathedral the apices of two Equilateral Triangles (_vide_ frontispiece to these Views), whose common base is the internal length of the transept, measured through the two western piers of the intersection, will give the interior length, one apex extending to the east end of the chevet within the aisles, the other to the original termination of the Nave westward, and the present extent of the side aisles in that direction. With slight deviation, most, if not all, the ground plans of the French Cathedrals are measurable in this manner, and their choirs may be so measured almost without exception. Troyes Cathedral is in exact proportion with that of Chartres, and the choirs of Rheims, Beauvais, St. Ouen at Rouen, and others are equally so. Bourges Cathedral, which has no transept, is exactly three Equilateral Triangles in length inside, from the East end of the outer aisle to the Eastern columns supporting the West Towers. Most English Cathedrals appear to have been constructed in their original plans upon similar rules." White's Classical Essay on Architecture compares the Norman with the Gothic, where he says: "In what is usually called the Norman period, the general proportions and outlines of the Churches are reducible to certain rules of setting out by the plain Square. As Architecture progressed the Square gradually disappeared, and the proportion of general outline, as well as of detail, fell in more and more with applications of the Equilateral Triangle, till the art, having arrived at its culminating point, or that which is generally acknowledged to be its period of greatest beauty and perfection in the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries, again began to decline. With this decline the Equilateral Triangle was almost lost sight of, and then a mode of setting out work by diagonal squares was taken up, for such is the basis found exactly applicable to the work of the fifteenth century, since which time mathematical proportions have been generally employed." And after referring to numerous scale drawings of Churches, windows, doors, and arches, he points out that every student of Church architecture must pronounce those of the untraceried and traceried first point to be the most beautiful of all, those of the Norman to be a degree less so, and those of the perpendicular and debased to be far inferior to either, and in that analysis we find that the Equilateral Triangle was used almost exclusively for determining one order (the Gothic), the Square for another (the Norman), and the Square diagonally divided for the other (the debased).

Now let me try to describe the wonderful properties of the Vesica Piscis, so that you may understand the mystery which shrouded it in the minds of those Mediaeval builders. The rectangle formed by the length and breadth of this figure, in the simplest form, has several extraordinary properties; it may be cut into three equal parts by straight lines parallel to the shorter side, and these parts will all be precisely and geometrically similar to each other and to the whole figure,--strangely applicable to the symbolism attached at that time to the Trinity in Unity,--and the subdivision may be proceeded with indefinitely without making any change in form. However often the operation is performed, the parts remain identical with the original figure, having all its extraordinary properties, the Equilateral Triangle appearing everywhere, whereas no other rectangle can have this curious property.

It may also be cut into four equal parts by straight lines parallel to its sides, and again each of these parts will be true Vesicas, exactly similar to each other, and to the whole, and of course the Equilateral Triangle is again everywhere.

Again, if two out of the tri-subdivisions mentioned above be taken, the form of these together is exactly similar, geometrically, to half the original figure, and again the Equilateral Triangle is ubiquitous on every base line.

Again, the diagonal of the rectangle is exactly double the length of its shorter side, which characteristic is absolutely _unique_, and greatly increases its usefulness for plotting out designs; and this property of course holds good for all the rectangles formed by the original figure and for the other species of subdivision. But perhaps its most mysterious property (though not of any practical use) to those who had studied Geometry, and to whom this figure was the symbol of the Divine Trinity in Unity, so dear to them, was the fact that it actually put into their hands the means of _trisecting_ the Right Angle.

Now, the three great problems of antiquity which engaged the attention and wonderment of geometricians throughout the Middle Ages, were "the Squaring of the Circle," "the Duplication of the Cube," and lastly, "the Trisection of an Angle," even Euclid being unable to show how to do it; and yet it will be seen that the diagonal of one of the subsidiary figures in the tri-subdivision, together with the diagonal of the whole figure, actually trisect the angle at the corner of the rectangle. It is true that it only showed them how to trisect one kind of angle, but it was that particular angle which was so dear to them as symbolising their craft, and which was created by the Equilateral Triangle. All these unique properties place the figure far above that of a square for practical work, because even when the diagonal of a square is given, it is impossible to find the exact length of any of its sides or _vice versa_; whereas in the Vesica rectangle the diagonal is exactly double its shorter side, and upon any length of line which may be taken on the tracing-board as a base for elevation, an Equilateral Triangle will be found whose sides are of course all equal and therefore known, as they are equal to the base, and whose line joining apex to centre of base is a true Plumb line, forming at its foot the perfect right angle, so important in the laying of every stone of a building.

In the volume referred to I have given a skeleton plan upon such a scale of subdivision that a tracing-board, of 5 feet by 8 feet, would be divided up into over one million parts, and, as all these subdivisions are perfect representations of the original Vesica figure with all its properties, the design of the largest building, with the minutest detail, could be drafted with absolute accuracy. There are many other curious properties of this Figure, but they are difficult to explain without diagrams. I will, however, give one more example of its creative power. The problem of describing a Pentagon must have puzzled architects considerably in those early times, but this was again easily accomplished by means of the Vesica. Albrecht Duerer, the great designer and engraver, who lived at the end of the fifteenth century, refers to the Vesica in his works (_Dureri Institutune Geometricarum_, lib. ii. p. 56) in a way which shows that it was as commonly known in his time as the Circle, Square, and Triangle. His instructions for forming a Pentagon are: "Designa circino invariato tres piscium vesicas" (describe with unchanged compasses three vesicae piscium). Three similar circles are described with centres at the angles of an Equilateral Triangle, forming the three Vesicae, by means of which the Pentagon is drawn, and from which also we get a beautiful form of arch very common in the thirteenth century (_vide_ illustrations in _Magister Mathesios_). This is also the method used in that old manuscript of the fifteenth century named "Geometria deutsch." In this old MS. it is also shown that the easiest method for finding the centre of a circle, however large, or any segment of a circle, is by means of the Vesica Piscis. And just as we see so many Cathedrals of the Middle Ages are stated by antiquarians to have been planned on the Equilateral Triangle, so do we find the Pentagon appearing as the basis of Architectural designs of buildings of a later date, such as Liverpool Castle, Chester Castle, and other similar structures; but the true means by which each were laid down, as in the case of the Equilateral Triangle, was again the Vesica Piscis. A beautiful example of decoration, on the basis of the Vesica, is seen in the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey.

I will conclude this subject by quoting from the summing up by Prof. Kerrich (Principal Librarian to the University of Cambridge in 1820), in his masterly Essay on Architecture, where he gives the different forms of what he calls the "Mysterious Figure," used in the most noted Gothic buildings: he says, "I would in nowise indulge in conjectures as to the reference these figures might possibly have to the most sacred mysteries of religion; independently of any such allusion, their properties are of themselves sufficiently extraordinary to have struck all who have observed them."

From earliest Christian times the principal _doctrine_ based upon the Mysticism of the Neo-platonists and the Kabalists was what was called the [Greek: Gnosis], the Knowledge of the All, and the fundamental basis of this, as of all esoteric teaching from the beginning of History, was _Procreation_. From the first dawn of civilisation the "Great One" always had an enemy with whom he had to fight; having conquered, he married that enemy, and their offspring was Life or Duration. In the oldest forms, as in Persia and ancient Egypt, it was Light and Darkness, "Ormuz and Ahriman," "Osiris and Isis," the Light conquering Darkness, the Day conquering Night, resulting in Time and duration. In the Eleusinian Mysteries it was the "Sun and Earth" producing Vegetable Life, and in the [Greek: Gnosis] it was the "Ainsoph and Ignorance," resulting in True Knowledge or Everlasting Life.

In the Vesica Piscis (_vide_ frontispiece) we see two Equilateral Triangles formed on the same base, similar to what we found in the ground-plan of Chartres and other Gothic Cathedrals; these two triangles symbolised to the Mediaeval Builders the Divine and Human Natures of the Logos, the Word, the Creator; they are both procreated and enclosed in the Vesica; the one having the Apex pointed upwards, represented Divine or Spiritual Life, and in that I have placed the "Tetragrammaton," the Word or name of God (Jehovah), which, throughout the Jewish race for thousands of years, was held to be so sacred that they did not dare to utter it aloud. It was, at this time, depicted in the Equilateral Triangle, the symbol of the Logos, becoming thus the Masonic Word of the Middle Ages, and was probably used, exoterically, for purposes of recognition among members of the Great Building Societies, with the introduction of Gothic Architecture; but the _esoteric_ teaching, which was known only to the elite of the Craft and not by the Ordinary Operatives, was the mystical _procreation_ of that triangle, the doctrine of Spiritual or New Birth, symbolised by that mysterious figure which we have seen was the very foundation stone of Geometry, and therefore of Tectonic Art, the Head of all learning, and the great Secret of Gothic Architecture, called for esoteric purposes "Vesica Piscis." The Triangle, having the Apex pointing downwards, represented Human or Physical Life, and I have placed therein a representation of _sacrificial_ death, which we shall see was introduced, as a necessity, for the good of the Race.

As "everything in Heaven has its counterpart on Earth," so may we see, by introspection, that the _reflecting_ surface, the thin, physical film between the Human and Divine, is represented by that Base, and Human Life then becomes truly, as it should be, the reflection of the Divine.

One more glance through the Window at what I will call--

"The Mystery of the Apex."

The earliest forms of Life, the unicellular "Beings," whether animal or vegetable--for both divisions, if they can be said to be divided, have the same protoplasmic cell as basis of life--were, and are still, immortal except for accidents; they are not subject to natural death as we know it; they multiply by fission and not by "budding." It was only with the building up of cell upon cell into communities, and the advent of polycellular beings of greater and greater complexity of structure, that the "Wisdom" behind natural laws introduced death as an _adaptation_, to prevent monstrosities in the shape of mutilated specimens being perpetuated on the earth. Life is purely physical and, in conformity with the modes under which our physical senses act, has the appearance of tri-unity. As white light is seen to be composed of but three primary colours, as Music is based on the Triad, as Space is known to us in three dimensions only, and Geometry, "the Head of all Learning," is based upon the Circle, Square, and Triangle, so may we see life in its three primary aspects: the Animal, Vegetable, and Material. The last-mentioned aspect, though long suspected, from the investigation of Crystallography, to have in some mysterious way a common basis with the animal and vegetable, was not fully grasped until, in the last few years, we have been able to study in our laboratories the actual evolution, or more correctly devolution, of matter from one form to another; and as all plants and animals are found to be built up of the same identical protoplasmic cells, so are we now able to break down and analyse not only these cells but even the very structure of matter, and find that all substances are built up of exactly the same bricks, the different forms known to us as Elements being the _designs_ of the great Architect upon which each structure has been built; and these completed designs again are used and become the "ashlars" of the higher forms of plant and animal structure. As Evolution in the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms has given us Species, so in the Material it has developed Elements. The structures of animal and vegetable life are of comparatively recent formation, and are still apparently progressing in the direction of complexity, whereas the structures of matter appear to have long passed the stage of highest complexity, and the elements are now undergoing the retrograde process of being transformed, by radio-activity, from the more complex into simpler elements of lower atomic denominations--namely, having fewer bricks in each atom.

All these material designs are more or less radio-active--namely, changing into other elements, but some, like radium, polonium, &c., are active to an extraordinary extent. Each molecule or atom may be looked upon as an _aperture_, more or less open, through which we have flowing the equivalent of what may be called a leak from the Infinite, the changing of one element into another being represented by the change of shape or activity of that aperture. Countless ages ago these apertures were, by evolution, growing more and more complex in shape, but when the limit of complexity was reached and the _Apex_ was passed, an adaptation, somewhat analogous to death in the animal and vegetable, must have come into play, with the result that these apertures are now becoming more and more simple in their shape and activity. The Infinite referred to above may be diagnosed by some as being in the fourth dimension of space, or it may even be comprised within the Ether of our known three dimensions, for the discovery of radio-activity has enabled us to see that Ether is not only as dense as iron, but millions of times denser than that metal, every cubic foot, or probably cubic inch, being capable of supplying millions of horse-power if it could only be tapped. A homely simile of this leak from the Infinite may be seen in a glass of aerated water, where an irregularity of surface, a crumb of bread, or a grain of sand becomes the means by which carbonic-dioxide escapes from the interstices of the water.

Radio-active substances then are really forges for forming new structures of matter or forms of energy, rather than quarries from which they are cut, and we seem to get a glimpse of the origin of life, perhaps itself the cause of "retrogression" in the material, coming through from the Reality, the Infinite beyond the physical Universe.

Life and its processes are well symbolised by a triangle, the base of which is the "Divide" between the Real and its reflections or shadows on the Material plane, and through which all energy percolates. One side of the triangle represents anabolism, or the process of building up, and the other katabolism, the process of breaking down, and at the Apex is the Mystical "Terror of the Threshold," the "Ainsoph" (_vide_ frontispiece), which introduced _sacrificial_ death to the Physical, as an adaptation in the evolution of, and for the good of, the Human race. With the death of the Physical, the rending of the Veil, as we have seen in View Two, all Shadows and Reflections disappear, and, in place of "seeing as through a glass darkly," the Soul has its true birth, and at last enters upon its heritage in the Divine Life, face to face with the Reality, the Good, the Beautiful, and the True.

VIEW FOUR

LOVE IN ACTION

In the preceding Views we have seen that Time and Space have no real existence apart from our physical senses; they are only modes or conditions under which those senses act, and by which we gain a very limited and illusory knowledge of our surroundings. Our very consciousness of living depends upon our perception of multitudinous changes in our surroundings, and our very thoughts are therefore also limited by Time and Space, because _change_ is dependent on those two limits, the very basis of perceived motion being the time that an object takes to go over a certain space; we must therefore look behind consciousness itself, beyond the conditioning in Time and Space, for the true reality of Being. We have seen that man is the offspring of two distinct natures--the Spiritual or Transcendental and the Material or Physical; the former is the Real, the latter is only a shadow. If we now try to consider the connection between these two natures, we have to recognise that, with all our advance in Knowledge during the last hundred years, we are indeed still as children playing with pebbles on the sea-shore, knowing neither why we are placed there, nor what those pebbles are, or whence they came. Though we seem ever to be discovering fresh truths concerning their relations one with another, when arranged in different patterns, built up into new forms, or split up into smaller fragments, we have to acknowledge (substituting thoughts for pebbles) that we are still only learning our alphabet and the simple rules of multiplication, addition, and division, which must be mastered before we can hope to take the real step towards understanding.

We are surrounded by mysteries; we are indeed a mystery to ourselves, we do not even know how the Physical Ego is connected with the physical world; how the sense organs, receiving the impression of multitudinous and diverse frequencies of different intensities, transmit them to the brain, and how the mind is able to combine all these impressions and form concepts. But by examining the Physical Universe, we seem to see clearly that the only Reality is the Spiritual, the Here, and the Now, that our real _Personality_ being Spiritual is independent of Space and Time limitations, and is therefore Omnipresent and Omniscient; it may indeed be not only connected with the Physical Ego of this World, but be in close working connection with other Physical Egos in the Universe, and may, in some wonderful process, through its affinity with the Great Spirit, be helping them to progress in other directions possibly quite beyond our power to conceive under the conditions we are accustomed to here.