of Abstraction and Instinct, there are beings inwhom the attributes of both combine and produce a mixture; these
are men of genius.
XVIII
Specialism is necessarily the most perfect expression of man, and
he is the link binding the visible world to the higher worlds; he
acts, sees, and feels by his inner powers. The man of Abstraction
thinks. The man of Instinct acts.
XIX
Hence man has three degrees. That of Instinct, below the average;
that of Abstraction, the general average; that of Specialism,
above the average. Specialism opens to man his true career; the
Infinite dawns on him; he sees what his destiny must be.
XX
There are three worlds—the Natural, the Spiritual, and the
Divine. Humanity passes through the Natural world, which is not
fixed either in its essence and unfixed in its faculties. The
Spiritual world is fixed in its essence and unfixed in its
faculties. The Divine world is necessarily a Material worship, a
Spiritual worship, and a Divine worship: three forms expressed in
action, speech, and prayer, or, in other words, in deed,
apprehension, and love. Instinct demands deed; Abstraction is
concerned with Ideas; Specialism sees the end, it aspires to God
with presentiment or contemplation.
XXI
Hence, perhaps, some day the converse of Et Verbum caro factum est will become the epitome of a new Gospel, which will proclaim that The Flesh shall be made the Word and become the Utterance of God.
XXII
The Resurrection is the work of the Wind of Heaven sweeping over
the worlds. The angel borne on the Wind does not say: "Arise, ye
dead"; he says, "Arise, ye who live!"
Such are the meditations which I have with great difficulty cast in a form adapted to our understanding. There are some others which Pauline remembered more exactly, wherefore I know not, and which I wrote from her dictation; but they drive the mind to despair when, knowing in what an intellect they originated, we strive to understand them. I will quote a few of them to complete my study of this figure; partly, too, perhaps, because, in these last aphorisms, Lambert's formulas seem to include a larger universe than the former set, which would apply only to zoological evolution. Still, there is a relation between the two fragments, evident to those persons—though they be but few—who love to dive into such intellectual deeps.
I
Everything on earth exists solely by motion and number.
II
Motion is, so to speak, number in action.
III
Motion is the product of a force generated by the Word and by
Resistance, which is Matter. But for Resistance, Motion would have
had no results; its action would have been infinite. Newton's
gravitation is not a law, but an effect of the general law of
universal motion.
IV
Motion, acting in proportion to Resistance, produces a result
which is Life. As soon as one or the other is the stronger, Life
ceases.
V
No portion of Motion is wasted; it always produces number; still,
it can be neutralized by disproportionate resistance, as in
minerals.
VI
Number, which produces variety of all kinds, also gives rise to
Harmony, which, in the highest meaning of the word, is the
relation of parts to the whole.
VII
But for Motion, everything would be one and the same. Its
products, identical in their essence, differ only by Number, which
gives rise to faculties.
VIII
Man looks to faculties; angels look to the Essence.
IX
By giving his body up to elemental action, man can achieve an
inner union with the Light.
X
Number is intellectual evidence belonging to man alone; by it he
acquires knowledge of the Word.
XI
There is a Number beyond which the impure cannot pass: the Number
which is the limit of creation.
XII
The Unit was the starting-point of every product: compounds are
derived from it, but the end must be identical with the beginning.
Hence this Spiritual formula: the compound Unit, the variable
Unit, the fixed Unit.
XIII
The Universe is the Unit in variety. Motion is the means; Number
is the result. The end is the return of all things to the Unit,
which is God.
XIV
Three and Seven are the two chief Spiritual numbers.
XV
Three is the formula
