It is very little reflected upon, but it is no less a truth, which (because profound) is therefore contradictory that if you take away Man from out the universe, that no universe remains. There cannot be any proof of there being anything outside of us when you take away Man, To WHOM ALONE THE WORLD IS. For to any other intelligence than Man's, the world real CANNOT BE. And hence arises a curious question. It is, whether space as occurring AS AN IDEA in sleep (which implies time) would be real space? The truth of time, and of space, depend alone upon this question. Consider the depth of void ("something") into which thought has the power to extend. Consider the preposterous (in our senses) wall of separation (utterly IMPOSSIBLE to our POSSIBLE) which divides living human life (or "living possibility") from the life (and the "possibility") of the world even next-off this world. Not to speak of possibly multitudinous other worlds (or other possibilities), which stretch-for all we know to the contrary-we know not whither. And these "possibilities" or metaphysical intelligible worlds-of what kind, of what nature, or of what (whether pleasant or unpleasant) character we can conceive We understand not what they are; or how they are; or why they are. Indeed-penetrating down to this truth we know not why we ourselves exist, or what we ARE. For we - that is, the human race are not intelligible. Creation is not intelligible. That single word-SOMEHOW -alone covers the whole of our knowledge. The entire ground next-off this ground of senses (or of nature) is. wholly conjecture. Nature itself-away from us, and not us-may be "UNNATURAL," for all we know to the contrary. For Man himself is only a "PHENOMENON," and HE alone MAKES nature, which exists not without Him. All the foregoing is the groundwork of the arguments of the deep Buddhists in regard to the real nature of things.

not.

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The result of all these sound and only possible philosophical conclusions is, that there is nothing left for man but entire submission-entire subjection to the UNKNOWN POWER the humbleness of the UNKNOWING CHILD. And herein we see the force of that dictum of the Saviour,

BHUDDIST, Or buddhist, reveries.

319

"Unless ye become as one of THESE" (little children), "ye shall in nowise see the Kingdom of God." Certainly we are unable to know absolutely (that is, philosophically) that WE OURSELVES EXIST. (Berkeley, in showing that our senses are only medium, but not means, implied that we did not exist.) By a side-glance, as it were, we can suspect whether "Life" itself be only a grand DREAM"* which may be, or be not;-be anything, or be nothing. Hume, in demonstrating that in reality there is "no connection between cause and effect," proved that there is some delusion between cause and effect; and therefore that life may be a dream. Benedictus Spinoza, in his merciless logic, although he was a man so interpenetrated with the idea of Deity as to be called the "God-intoxicated man," proved that GOD MUST BE "MATTER ;" in evaporating, or exhausting, or calculating Him the closest OUT of His own works." So much for the AUDACITY of mind-mind which is "knowledge," knowledge which is the "devil;" the devil which is the "DENIER." Our highest knowledge—the most refined "sum-up" of the thinnest-sifted (until disappearing, evanishing) metaphysics, is peremptorily passed-back upon us when we essay beyond the frontier of "second causes." All is guess over that brink. All is cloud where this pathway→→→ turn which way we will-ends. Man's human arms are insufficient to lift as "weights" aught than second causes66 CAUSED CAUSES." He falls asleep, helpless, when the Great Veil is dropped over him to insulate his understanding. All is possible in "SLEEP," because "DREAMS are in sleep. God is in sleep. And God, who is in sleep, although He is a reality AWAY from us, is a delusion, when sought to

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* There is no such thing as pain or pleasure, radically ;—without a medium which makes it pain or pleasure. And both are only "disturbance," made pain or pleasure from without. Our pain may be pleasure in another differently-constituted nervous method (or medium of) existence. Our pleasures may be pains (or PENALTIES) elsewhere. This possibility, which is the foundation of supernaturalism-or of the doctrine of the "intelligent population of the elements"-proves that pain and pleasure, and the countless shades between them, necessitate the idea of body, or of capacity, of some kind or other :-because capacity is "state," and state is "material." So says PARACELSUS; so says VAN HELMONT; so says JACOB BEHм. Nothing can be anything, unless it is fixed in something material.

be demonstrated to us. And sleep, which is men's thoughts, or rather the dreams are that are in his (man's sleep), is the stumblingblock over which the whole comprehensible theory of man parts into nothing and falls into absurdity; as in which dream he is himself ALONE, perhaps, made. These general ideas of the profound constitute the "ByTHOS" of the GNOSTICS, and the "MAYA," or annihilation, of the BUDDHISTS-however defectively interpreted heretofore, where these sublime subjects have not been wholly misunderstood or thought absurd—

Firstly. In the affairs of God Almighty and the world there is some mighty reason-ab extra-which contradicts itself; inasmuch as it contradicts reason—having no reason. But because it contradicts reason, it proves itself to HAVE a REASON-divine and ABOVE REASON-which is human; that is, INTELLIGIBLE ONLY. It follows from this, logically, (even)—that in being "UNINTELLIGIBLE" it is master of the "INTELLIGIBLE." Therefore "MIRACLE is superior to 66 REALITY." Because miracle is true (being impossibility and wonder), and reality is untrue, being possible and therefore limited (in the face of the illimitable). Reality (reason) is satisfied, and complete, and "full"-so to speak. While the "impossible," and therefore the "supernatural," must be true, because it encloses nature: which is only intelligible up to its certain point of nature.* Nature itself being yet to be accounted for inasmuch as NATURE is NOT REASONABLE. There is no truth-inasmuch as nature itself, which must necessarily be the basis of everything, is not true truth, but only apparent truth.

What is truth?

Secondly. So long as Nature must have a "farther "—or a "whereto "beyond the present apparent "whole" (and forward to which, in the necessity of things, it must pass)— it may be reasonable—that is, all of TRUTH APPARENT; †

* But not beyond.

The Cabalists (Rosicrucians, the Brothers of the "CRUCIFIED ROSE") say that "Man" is unintelligible, that "Nature" is unintelligible, that the Old Testament, with its Genesis, its Pentateuch; that the New Testament, with Christianity and the "Scheme of Redemption," that all is unintelligible without their secret-to the world wholly forbidden-" interpretation."

BUDDHIST IDEALITY.

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He only obtains that

He is of his His helplessness He only lives

but it cannot be TRUE TRUTH; or abstract, positive truth. Man is made. Man is not a maker. In other words, man gets nothing that is outside of him. which is already in him. He is in his world. world. But he is not of another world. -unsupported-is perfectly ridiculous. forgetting himself. He "falls asleep," blindly "into his morrow." "'* Now, in regard of real truth, it has been settled for very many ages that there is no possibility of there ever being such. Cogito; ergo sum." I am; because Existent only to the periphery of consciousness :—

I am.

no more.

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Thirdly. For there is something in the ring outside which (converging) makes the centre-or, in other words, that creates consciousness. That which insulates is greater than that which it insulates. "Power "" is only escape "Rest." The "Living" out of the "Dead." Fourthly. Thus IMPOSSIBILITY, alone, makes POSSIBILITY

POSSIBLE.

Fifthly. The "made" cannot know its "maker;" otherwise it would be "its maker itself." For the MAKER knows that which It (HE) makes, up to the farthest possible limit of its making or prolongation. Every man's morrow (not yet arrived at him) is already PAST to the SUPERIOR INTELLIGENCE that is altogether independent of "morrows"—that is, ordinary morrows. "The ANGELS have their manacles on the wrists of the MEN-MOVERS." Men think they act their own intentions; but in reality they act other agents' intentions. In this "delusion" perhaps lies the reconcilement of that unresolvable puzzle by MAN-at least, in his waking, or real, state-"Free - Will," and "Necessity." Free-will is "necessity" UPWARDS, while necessity is "freewill" DOWNWARDS; or mutual reversal of the ends of the same lever-GOD'S INTENTIONS. This is as far as MAN is concerned; for Fate is Fate as regards the universal frame of things; the human reason being capable of grasping no possibility otherwise.

*If he had independent power he would not do this. He would know his " morrow. (This is the contention of the Buddhists.)

X

H

Christian Monogram.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FOURTH.

THE PRE-ADAMITES. PROFOUND CABALISTIC OR

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ROSICRUCIAN SPECULATIONS.

HE monastic or separate (sexual) state, where nature is ignored and its suggestions and the indulgence of the seductive individual appetite

is held to be ruinous (to the spiritual aims of the human creature) is a dangerous—nay, almost an impossible abnegation. From the spirit-side, in this respect, nature is held abominable. Its practice is the shutting of the heavenly door. Thus fleshly incitements are AWFUL; and yet such are the contradictions of nature - they are necessitated. We must "whip" the body, as it were, "into wood" before we can drive the devil therefrom.* We must fast and watch, and watch and fast. We must reduce our robustness into leanness. Our physical graceful, worthy or handsome "selves we must punish down into everything that is incapable and pitiable. We must become pitiless in our body's own maceration and mortification. Meanwhile (in faith, and in reliance on the efficacy of our penances) we grow into holiness-intensifying into SAINTHOOD. The lights of the soul are to shine through the rents and fractures of the flagellated and punished body, until the fleshly sense or enchantment and enticement is trampled-up, through the destruction of its medium, into life other than this life.

*And thereout.