Chapter VI: Part 6

These are the dogmas by means of which Pythagoras established the necessity of Destiny, without harming the power of the Will, and left to Providence its universal empire, without being obliged either to attribute to it the origin of evil, as those who admitted only one principle of things, or to give to evil an absolute existence, as those who admitted two principles. In this, he was in accordance with the ancient doctrine which was followed by the oracles of the gods.[382] The Pythagoreans, however, did not regard pain, that is to say, whatever afflicts the body in its mortal life, as veritable evils; they called veritable evils only sins, vices, and errors into which one falls voluntarily. In their opinion, the physical and inevitable evils being illustrated by the presence of virtue, could be transformed into blessings and become distinguished and enviable.[383] These last evils, dependent upon necessity, Lysis commended to be judged for what they were; that is, to consider as an inevitable consequence of some mistake, as the chastisement or remedy for some vice; and therefore to endure them, and far from irritating them further by impatience and anger, on the contrary to modify them by the resignation and acquiescence of the will to the judgment of Providence. He does not forbid, as one sees in the lines cited, assuaging them by lawful means; on the contrary, he desires that the sage should apply himself to diverting them if possible, and healing them. Thus this philosopher did not fall into the excess with which the Stoics have been justly reproached.[384] He considered pain evil, not that it was of the same nature as vice, but because its nature, a purgative for vice, makes it a necessary consequence. Plato adopted this idea, and made all the inferences felt with his customary eloquence.[385]

As to what Lysis said, always following Pythagoras, that the sage was never exposed to the crudest evils, this can be understood as Hierocles has understood it, in a simple and natural manner, or in a more mysterious manner as I stated. It is evident at once, in following the inferences of the principles which have been given, that the sage is not, in reality, subject to the severest evils, since, not aggravating by his emotions those which the necessity of destiny inflict upon him, and bearing them with resignation, he alleviates them; living happy, even in the midst of misfortune, in the firm hope that these evils will no more trouble his days, and certain that the divine blessings which are reserved for virtue, await him in another life.[386] Hierocles, after having revealed this first manner of explaining the verse in question, touches lightly upon the second, in saying that the Will of man can have an influence on Providence, when, acting in a lofty soul, it is assisted by succour from heaven and operates with it.[387] This was a part of the doctrine taught in the mysteries, whose divulgence to the profane was forbidden. According to this doctrine, of which sufficiently strong traces can be recognized in Plato,[388] the Will, exerting itself by faith, was able to subjugate Necessity itself, to command Nature, and to work miracles. It was the principle upon which was founded the magic of the disciples of Zoroaster.[389] Jesus saying parabolically, that by means of faith one could remove mountains,[390] only spoke according to the theosophical traditions known to all the sages. “The uprightness of the heart and faith triumphs over all obstacles,” said Kong-Tse[391]; “all men can render themselves equal to the sages and to the heroes whose memory the nations revere,” said Meng-Tse; “it is never the power which is lacking, it is the will; provided one desire, one succeeds.”[392] These ideas of the Chinese theosophists are found in the writings of the Indians,[393] and even in those of some Europeans who, as I have already observed, had not enough erudition to be imitators. “The greater the will,” said Boehme, “the greater the being and the more powerfully inspired.”[394] “Will and liberty are the same thing.”[395] “It is the source of light, the magic which makes something from nothing.”[396]

“The Will which goes resolutely forward is faith; it models
its own form in spirit and overcomes all things; by it, a
soul receives the power of carrying its influence in another
soul, and of penetrating its most intimate essences. When it
acts with God it can overthrow mountains, break the rocks,
confound the plots of the impious, and breathe upon them
disorder and dismay; it can effect all prodigies, command
the heavens, the sea, and enchain death itself: it
subjugates all. Nothing can be named that cannot be
commanded in the name of the Eternal. The soul which
executes these great things only imitates the prophets and
the saints, Moses, Jesus, and the apostles. All the elect
have a similar power. Evil disappears before them. Nothing
can harm the one in whom God dwells.”[397]

It is in departing from this doctrine, taught as I have said in the mysteries, that certain gnostics of the Alexandrian school assert that evils never attended the true sages, if there were found men who might have been so in reality; for Providence, image of divine justice, would never allow the innocent to suffer and be punished. Basil, who was one of those who supported this Platonic opinion,[398] was sharply reprimanded by the orthodox Christians, who treated him as a heretic, quoting to him the example of the martyrs. Basil replied that the martyrs were not entirely innocent, because there is no man exempt from faults; that God punishes in them, either evil desires, actual and secret sins, or sins that the soul had committed in a previous existence; and as they did not fail to oppose him again with the example of Jesus, who, although fully innocent, had, however, suffered the torture of the cross, Basil answered without hesitation that God had been just, in his opinion, and that Jesus, being man, was no more than another exempt from sin.[399]

13. _Even as Truth, does Error have its lovers;
With prudence the Philosopher approves or blames;
If Error triumph, he departs and waits._

It is sufficiently known that Pythagoras was the first who used the word Philosopher to designate _a friend of wisdom._[400] Before him, the word _Sophos_, sage, was used. It is therefore with intention that I have made it enter into my translation, although it may not be literally in the text. The portrayal that Lysis gives of the philosopher represents everything in moderation and in that just mean, where the celebrated Kong-Tse placed also the perfection of the sage.[401] He commended to him tolerance for the opinions of others, instilling in him that, as truth and error have likewise their followers, one must not be flattered into thinking that one can enlighten all men, nor bring them to accept the same sentiments and to profess the same doctrine. Pythagoras had, following his custom, expressed these same ideas by symbolic phrases: “Exceed not the balance,” he had said, “stir not the fire with the sword, all materials are not fitting to make a statue of Mercury.” That is to say, avoid all excess; depart not from the golden mean which is the appanage of the philosopher; propagate not your doctrine by violent means; use not the sword in the cause of God and the truth; confide not science to a corrupt soul; or as Jesus forcibly said: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine”[402]; for all men are not equally fitted to receive science, to become models of wisdom, nor to reflect the image of God.

Pythagoras, it must be said, had not always entertained these sentiments. While he was young and while he still burned unconsciously with the fire of passions, he abandoned himself to a blind and vehement zeal. An excess of enthusiasm and of divine love had thrown him into intolerance and perhaps he would have become persecutor, if, like Mohammed, he had had the weapons at hand. An incident opened his eyes. As he had contracted the habit of treating his disciples very severely, and as he generally censured men for their vices with much asperity, it happened one day that a youth, whose mistakes he had publicly exposed and whom he had upbraided with bitterest reproaches, conceived such despair that he killed himself. The philosopher never thought of this evil of which he had been the cause without violent grief; he meditated deeply, and made from this incident reflections which served him the remainder of his life. He realized, as he energetically expressed it, that one must not stir the fire with the sword. One can, in this regard, compare him with Kong-Tse and Socrates. The other theosophists have not always shown the same moderation. Krishna, the most tolerant among them had nevertheless said, abandoning himself to thoughtless enthusiasm: “Wisdom consists in being wholly for Me … in freedom from love of self … in loosening all bonds of attachment for one’s children, wife, and home … in rendering to God alone a steadfast cult … disdaining and fleeing from the society of men”[403]: words remarkable for the connection that they have with those of Jesus: “If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”[404] Zoroaster seemed to authorize persecution, saying in an outburst of indignation: “He who does evil, destroy him; rise up against all those who are cruel.… Smite with strength the proud Turanian who afflicts and torments the just.”[405] One knows to what pitch of wrath Moses was kindled against the Midianites and the other peoples who resisted him,[406] notwithstanding that he had announced, in a calmer moment, the God of Israel as a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth.[407] Mohammed, as passionate as Moses, and strongly resembling the legislator of the Hebrews by his ability and firmness, has fallen into the same excess. He has often depicted, as cruel and inexorable, this same God whom he invokes at the head of all of his writings, as very good, very just, and very clement.[408] This proves how rare a thing it is to remain in the golden mean so commended by Kong-Tse and Pythagoras, how difficult it is for any pupil to resist the lure of the passions to stifle utterly their voice, in order to hear only the voice of the divine inspiration. Reflecting upon the discrepancies of the great men whom I have just cited, one cannot refrain from thinking with Basil, that, in effect, there are no men on earth veritably wise and without sin[409]; above all when one considers that Jesus expressed himself in the same details as Krishna, Zoroaster, and Moses; and that he who had exhorted us in one passage to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, and to pray even for those who persecute and calumniate us,[410] menaces with fire from heaven the cities that recognize him not,[411] and elsewhere it is written: “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword”[412]; “For there shall be from henceforth five in one house divided: three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father, the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother.”[413] “He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth.”[414]

14. _Listen, and in thine heart engrave my words;
Keep closed both eye and ear ’gainst prejudice;
Of others the example fear; think for thyself._

Lysis continues, in the name of Pythagoras, to trace for the philosopher the course that he must follow in the first part of his doctrine, which is the Purification. After having commended to him moderation and prudence in all things, having exhorted him to be as slow to censure as to approve, he seeks to put him on guard against prejudices and the routine of example, which are, in reality, the greatest obstacles that are encountered by science and truth. This is what Bacon, the regenerator of philosophy in modern Europe, so keenly felt, as I have already cited with praise at the opening of this work. This excellent observer, to whom we owe our freedom from scholastic leading-strings whose ignorance had stifled for us the name of Aristotle, having formed the difficult enterprise of disencumbering and, as it were, clearing the air belonging to the human understanding, in order to put it in a condition to receive an edifice less barbarous, remarked, that one would never attain to establishing there the foundation of true science, if one did not first labour to set aside prejudices.[415] He displayed all his forces against these formidable enemies of human perfectibility, and if he did not overthrow them all, at least he indicated them in such a manner as to make it easier to recognize and destroy them. The prejudices which obsess the human understanding and which he calls idols, are, according to him, of four kinds: these are the idols of the tribe; the idols of the den; the idols of society; and the idols of theories. The first are inherent in human nature; the second are those of each individual; the third result from the equivocal definitions attached to words; the fourth and the most numerous are those that man receives from his teachers and from the doctrines which are current.[416] The last are the most tenacious and the most difficult to conquer. It seems even impossible wholly to resist them. The man who aspires to the perilous glory of improving the human mind, finds himself placed between two formidable dangers, which, like those of Sylla and Charybdis, threaten alternately to break his frail bark: upon one is irresistible routine, upon the other proud innovation. There is danger alike from both sides. He can save himself only by favour of the golden mean, so commended by all the sages and so rarely followed even by them.

This golden mean must needs be very difficult to hold in the course of life, since Kong-Tse himself, who has made it all his study, has lacked it in the most important part of his doctrine, in that concerning human perfectibility. Imbued unknowingly with the prejudices of his nation, he has seen nothing beyond the doctrine of the ancients and has not believed that anything might be added thereunto.[417] Instead of pushing the mind of the Chinese forward toward the goal where nature unceasingly tends, which is the perfection of all things, he has, on the contrary, thrown it backward and, inspiring it with a fanatical respect for works of the past, has prevented it from meditating upon anything great for the future.[418] Filial piety itself, pushed, to excess changed to a blind imitation, has also augmented the evil. So that the greatest people of the world, the richest in principles of all kinds, not daring to draw from these same principles any development, through fear of profaning them, continually on their knees before a sterile antiquity, have remained stationary, whereas all around is progression; and for nearly four thousand years have really not advanced a step more towards the civilization and perfection of the arts and sciences.

The side on which Bacon has departed from the _juste milieu_ has been precisely the opposite from that which prevented Kong-Tse from remaining there. The Chinese theosophist had been led astray by his excessive veneration for antiquity and the English philosopher, by his profound disdain for it. Warned against the doctrine of Aristotle, Bacon has extended his prejudice to everything that came from the ancients. Rejecting in a moment the labour of thirty centuries and the fruit of the meditation of the greatest geniuses, he has wished to admit nothing beyond what experience could confirm in his eyes.[419] Logic to him has seemed useless for the invention of the sciences.[420] He has abandoned the syllogism, as an instrument too gross to penetrate the depths of nature.[421] He has thought that it could be of no avail either in expression of words or in the ideas which flow from it.[422] He has believed the abstract principles deprived of all foundation; and with the same hand with which he fights these false ideas he has fought the results of these principles, in which he has unfortunately found much less resistance.[423] Filled with contempt for the philosophy of the Greeks, he has denied that it had produced anything either useful or good[424]; so that after having banished the natural philosophy of Aristotle, which he called a jumble of dialectic terms,[425] he has seen in the metaphysics of Plato only a dangerous and depraved philosophy, and in the theosophy of Pythagoras only a gross and shocking superstition.[426] Here indeed is a case of returning again to the idea of Basil, and of exclaiming with him, that no man is without sin. Kong-Tse has been unquestionably one of the greatest men who has honoured the earth, and Bacon one of the most judicious philosophers of Europe; both have, however, committed grave mistakes whose effect is more or less felt by posterity: the former, filling the Chinese _literati_ with an exaggerated respect for antiquity, has made of it an immobile and almost inert mass, that Providence, in order to obtain certain necessary movements, has had to strike many times with the terrible scourge of revolutions; the latter, inspiring, on the contrary, a thoughtless contempt for everything that came from the ancients, demanding the proof of their principles, the reason for their dogmas, subjecting all to the light of experience, has broken the scientific body, has deprived it of unity, and has transformed the assemblage of thinkers into a tumultuous anarchy from whose irregular movement has sprung enough violent storms. If Bacon had been able to effect in Europe the same influence that Kong-Tse had effected in China, he would have drawn philosophy into materialism and absolute empiricism. Happily the remedy is born of the evil itself. The lack of unity has taken away all force from the anarchical colossus. Each supposing to be in the right, no one was. A hundred systems raised one upon the other clashed and were broken in turn. Experience, invoked by all parties, has taken all colours and its opposed judgments were self-destructive.

If, after having called attention to the mistakes of these great men, I dared to hazard my opinion upon the point where both of them have failed, I would say that they have confused the principles of the sciences with their developments; it must be so, by drawing the principles from the past, as Kong-Tse; by allowing the developments to act throughout the future, as Bacon. Principles hold to the Necessity of things; they are immutable in themselves; finite, inaccessible to the senses, they are proved by reason: their developments proceed from the power of the Will; these developments are free, indefinite; they affect the senses and are demonstrated by experience. Never is the development of a principle finished in the past, as Kong-Tse believed; never is a principle created in the future, as Bacon imagined. The development of a principle produces another principle, but always in the past; and as soon as this new principle is laid down, it is universal and beyond the reach of experience. Man knows that this principle exists, but he knows not how. If he knew, he would be able to create it at his pleasure; which does not belong to his nature.

Man develops, perfects, or depraves, but he creates nothing. The scientific golden mean commended by Pythagoras, consists therefore, in seizing the principles of the sciences where they are and developing them freely without being constrained or driven by any false ideas. As to that which concerns morals, it is forcibly enough expressed by all that has preceded.

The man who recognizes his dignity, says Hierocles, is incapable of being prejudiced or seduced by anything.[427] Temperance and force are the two incorruptible guardians of the soul: they prevent it from yielding to the allurements of things pleasing and being frightened by the horrors of things dreadful. Death suffered in a good cause is illustrious and glorious.

15. _Consult, deliberate, and freely choose._

In explaining this line from a moral standpoint as Hierocles has done, one readily feels that to deliberate and choose in that which relates to moral conduct, consists in seeking for what is good or evil in an action, and in attaching oneself to it or fleeing from it, without letting oneself be drawn along by the lure of pleasure or the fear of pain.[428] But if one penetrates still deeper into the meaning of this line, it is seen that it proceeds from principles previously laid down regarding the necessity of Destiny and the power of the Will; and that Pythagoras neglected no opportunity for making his disciples feel that, although forced by Destiny to find themselves in such or such a condition, they remained free to weigh the consequences of their action, and to decide themselves upon the part that they ought to take. The following lines are, as it were, the corollary of his counsel.

16. _Let fools act aimlessly and without cause,
Thou shouldst, in the present, contemplate the future._

That is to say, thou shouldst consider what will be the results of such or such action and think that these results, dependent upon thy will (while the action remains in suspense and free, while they are yet to be born), will become the domain of Necessity the very instant when the action will be executed, and increasing in the past, once they shall have had birth, will coöperate in forming the plan of a new future.

I beg the reader, interested in these sorts of comparisons, to reflect a moment upon the idea of Pythagoras. He will find here the veritable source of the astrological science of the ancients. Doubtless he is not ignorant of what an extended influence this science exercised already upon the face of the globe. The Egyptians, Chaldeans, Phœnicians, did not separate it from that which regulated the cult of the gods.[429] Their temples were but an abridged image of the Universe, and the tower which served as an observatory was raised at the side of the sacrificial altar. The Peruvians followed, in this respect, the same usages as the Greeks and Romans.[430] Everywhere the grand Pontiff united the science of genethlialogy or astrology with the priesthood, and concealed with care the principles of this science within the precincts of the sanctuary.[431] It was a Secret of State among the Etruscans and at Rome,[432] as it still is in China and Japan.[433] The Brahmans did not confide its elements except to those whom they deemed worthy to be initiated.[434] For one need only lay aside an instant the bandage of prejudice to see that an Universal science, linked throughout to what men recognize as the most holy, can not be the product of folly and stupidity, as has been reiterated a hundred times by a host of moralists. All antiquity is certainly neither foolish nor stupid, and the sciences it cultivated were supported by principles which, for us today, being wholly unknown, have none the less existed. Pythagoras, if we give attention here, revealed to us those of genethlialogy and of all the sciences of divination which relate thereunto.

Let us observe this closely. The future is composed of the past――that is to say, that the route that man traverses in time, and that he modifies by means of the power of his will, he has already traversed and modified; in the same manner, using a practical illustration, that the earth describing its annual orbit around the sun, according to the modern system, traverses the same spaces and sees unfold around it almost the same aspects: so that, following anew a route that he has traced for himself, man would be able not only to recognize the imprints of his steps, but to foresee the objects that he is about to encounter, since he has already seen them, if his memory preserved the image, and if this image was not effaced by the necessary consequence of his nature and the providential laws which rule him. Such is the doctrine of Pythagoras as I have already revealed.[435] It was that of the mysteries and of all the sages of antiquity. Origen, who has opposed it, attributes it to the Egyptians, to the Pythagoreans, and to the disciples of Plato. It was contained in the sacred books of the Chaldeans, cited by Syncellus, under the title of _livres géniques_.[436] Seneca and Synesius have supported it as wholly in accordance with the spirit of the initiations.[437] What the ancients called the _great year_, was a consequence of this doctrine; for it was taught in the mysteries, that the Universe itself traversed, after a sequence of incalculable centuries, the same revolutions that it had already traversed, and brought around in the vast unfolding of its concentric spheres, as much for it as for the worlds which compose it, the succession of the four ages, the duration of which, relative to the nature of each being, immense for the Universal Man, is limited in the individual to what is called infancy, youth, manhood, and old age, and is represented on the earth by the fleeting seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. This great year, thus conceived, has been common to all the peoples of the earth.[438] Cicero has plainly seen that it constituted the veritable basis of genethlialogy or the astrological science.[439] Indeed if the future is composed of the past――that is, a thing already made, upon which the present is gradually unfolded as upon the circumference of a circle which has neither beginning nor end, it is evident that one can succeed, up to a certain point, to recognize it, whether by means of remembrance, by examining in the past, the picture of the whole revolution; or by means of prevision carrying the moral sight, more or less far, upon the route through which the Universe is passing. These two methods have grave disadvantages. The first appears even impossible. For what is the duration of the great year? What is the immense period, which, containing the circle of all possible aspects and of all corresponding effects, as Cicero supposes, is able, by observations made and set down in the genethliatic archives, to foresee, at the second revolution, the return of the events which were already linked there and which must be reproduced?[440] Plato exacts, for the perfection of this great year, that the movement of the fixed stars, which constitutes what we call the precession of the equinoxes, should coincide with the particular movement of the celestial bodies, so as to bring back the heavens to the fixed point of its primitive position.[441] The Brahmans carry the greatest duration of this immense period, which they name _Kalpa_, to 4,320,000,000 of years, and its mean duration, which they name _Maha-Youg_, to 4,320,000.[442] The Chinese appear to restrict it to 432,000 years,[443] and in this they agree with the Chaldeans; but when one reduces it again to a twelfth of this number, with the Egyptians, that is, to the sole revolution of the fixed stars, which they made, according to Hipparchus, 36,000 years, and which we make no more than 25,867, according to modern calculations,[444] we feel indeed that we would be still very far from having a series of observations capable of making us foresee the return of the same events, and that we could not conceive even, how men could ever attain to its mastery. As to the second method, which consists, as I have said, in carrying forward the moral sight upon the route which one has before him, I have no need to observe that it can be only very conjectural and very uncertain, since it depends upon a faculty which man has never possessed except as a special favour of Providence.

The principle by which it is claimed that the future is only a return of the past, did not therefore suffice to recognize even the plan of it; a second principle is necessary, and this principle, openly announced in the Golden Verses, as we shall see farther on, was that by which it was established that Nature is everywhere alike, and, consequently, that its action, being uniform in the smallest sphere as in the greatest, in the highest as in the lowest, can be inferred from both, and pronounced by analogy. This principle proceeded from the ancient dogma concerning the animation of the Universe, as much in general as in particular: a dogma consecrated among all nations, and following which it was taught that not only the Great All, but the innumerable worlds which are like its members, the heavens and the heaven of heavens, the stars and all the beings who people them even to the plants and metals, are penetrated by the same Soul and moved by the same Spirit.[445] Stanley attributes this dogma to the Chaldeans,[446] Kircher to the Egyptians,[447] and the wise Rabbi Maimonides traces it back to the Sabæans.[448] Saumaise has attributed to them the origin of astrological science,[449] and he is correct in one point. But of what use is it to consider the movement of the heavens and the respective position of the stars belonging to the same sphere as the earth, in order to form the genethliatical theme of the empires of nations, cities, and even of simple individuals, and conclude from the point of departure in the temporal route of existence, the aim of this route and the fortunate or unfortunate events with which they should be sown, if one had not established, primarily, that this route, being only some portion of an existing sphere and already traversed, it belonged thus to the domain of Necessity and could be known; and, secondarily, that the analogical _rapport_ ruling between the sentient sphere that one examined and the intelligible sphere that one could not perceive, authorized drawing inferences from both and even deciding from the general to the particular? For, believing that the stars have an actual and direct influence upon the destiny of peoples and of men, and that they even determine this destiny by their good or evil aspects, is an idea as false as ridiculous, born of the darkness of modern times, and that is not found among the ancients, even among the most ignorant masses. The genethliatical science is supported by principles less absurd. These principles, drawn from the mysteries, were, as I have explained, that the future is a return of the past and that nature is everywhere the same.

It is from the union of these two principles that resulted genethlialogy, or the science by which the point of departure being known in any sphere whatever, they believed they had discovered, by the aspect and direction of the stars, the portion of this sphere which must immediately follow this point. But this union, outside of the enormous difficulty that it presented, still involved in its execution very dangerous consequences. This is why they concealed in the sanctuaries the science which was its object, and made of religion a secret and state affair. The prevision of the future, supposing it possible as the ancients did, is not, in effect, a science that one should abandon to the vulgar, who, being unable to acquire previously the learning necessary, and having but rarely the wisdom which regulates its use, risked debasing it, or making use of it wrongfully. Furthermore, the pontiffs, who were in sole charge, initiated in the great mysteries and possessing the _ensemble_ of the doctrine, knew very well that the future, such even as they could hope to understand it in the perfection of the science, was never aught but a doubtful future, a sort of canvas upon which the power of the Will might exercise itself freely, in such a manner that, although the matter might be determined beforehand, its form was not, and that such an imminent event could be suspended, evaded, or changed by a coöperation of the acts of the will, inaccessible to all prevision. This is what was said with such profoundness by Tiresias, the most famous hierophant of Greece and whom Homer called the only sage,[450] these words so often quoted and so little understood: “Whatever I may see will come to pass, or it will not come to pass”[451]; that is to say, The event that I see is in the necessity of Destiny and it will come to pass, unless it is changed by the power of the Will; in which case it will not come to pass.

17. _That which thou dost not know, pretend not that thou dost.
Instruct thyself: for time and patience favour all._

Lysis has enclosed in these two lines the summary of the doctrine of Pythagoras regarding science: according to this philosopher, all science consists of knowing how to distinguish what one does not know and of desiring to learn that of which one knows nothing.[452] Socrates had adopted this idea, as simple as profound; and Plato has consecrated several of his dialogues to its development.[453]

But the distinction between what one does not know and the desire to learn that of which one is ignorant, is a thing much rarer than one imagines. It is the golden mean of science, as difficult to possess as that of virtue, and without which it is, however, impossible to know oneself. For, without knowledge of oneself, how can one acquire knowledge of others? How judge them if one cannot be one’s own judge? Pursue this reasoning. It is evident that one can know only what one has learned from others, or what one has found from oneself: in order to have learned from others, one must have wished to receive lessons; in order to have found, one must have wished to seek; but one cannot reasonably desire to learn or to seek only for what one believes one does not know. If one imposes upon oneself this important point, and if one imagines oneself knowing that of which one is ignorant, one must judge it wholly useless to learn or to seek, and then ignorance is incurable: it is madness to style oneself doctor concerning things that one has neither learned nor sought after, and of which one can consequently have no knowledge. It is Plato who has made this irresistible reasoning, and who has drawn this conclusion: that all the mistakes that man commits come from that sort of ignorance which makes him believe that he knows what he does not know.[454]

From time immemorial this sort of ignorance has been quite considerable; but I believe that it will never again show itself to the extent it did among us some centuries ago. Men hardly free from the mire of barbarism, without being given the time either to acquire or to seek after any true knowledge of antiquity, have offered themselves boldly as its judges and have declared that the great men who have made it illustrious were either ignorant, imposters, fanatics, or fools. Here, I see musicians who seriously assure me that the Greeks were rustics in the way of music; that all that can be said of the wonders effected by this art is idle talk, and that we have not a village fiddler who could not produce as much effect as Orpheus, Terpander, or Timotheus, if he had similar auditors.[455] There, are the critics who tell me with the same phlegmatic air that the Greeks of the time of Homer knew neither how to read nor how to write; that this poet himself, assuming that he really existed, did not know the letters of the alphabet[456]; but that his existence is a fancy,[457] and that the works attributed to him are the crude productions of certain plagiarist rhapsodists.[458] Further on I see, to complete the singularity, a research worker who finds, doubtless to the support of all this, that the first editor of the poems of Homer, the virile legislator of Sparta, Lycurgus in short, was a man ignorant and unlettered, knowing neither how to read nor write[459]: quite an original idea and a comparison wholly bizarre, between the author and the editor of the _Iliad_! But this is nothing. Here is an archbishop of Thessalonica, who, animated by a righteous indignation, declared that Homer may have been an instrument of the devil,[460] and that one may be damned in reading him. That one shrugs the shoulders at the allegories of this poet, that one finds them not in the least interesting, that one falls asleep even, let all that pass; but to be damned! I have said that Bacon, drawn along unfortunately by that fatal prejudice which makes one judge without understanding, had calumniated the philosophy of the Greeks; his numerous disciples have even surpassed him upon this point. Condillac, the _coryphée_ of modern empiricism, has seen in Plato only delirious metaphysics unworthy of occupying his time, and in Zeno only logic deprived of reasoning and principles. I would that Condillac, so great an amateur of analysis, had endeavoured to analyse the metaphysics of the one and the logic of the other, to prove to me that he understood at least what he found so unworthy of taking up his time; but that was the thing about which he thought the least. Open whatever book you will; if the authors are theologians, they will say to you that Socrates, Pythagoras, Zoroaster, Kong-Tse or Confucius, as they call him, are pagans,[461] whose damnation is, if not certain, at least very probable; they will treat their theosophy with the most profound contempt: if they are physicists, they will assure you that Thales, Leucippus, Heraclitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Aristotle, and the others are miserable dreamers; they will jeer at their systems: if they are astronomers, they will laugh at their astronomy: if they are naturalists, chemists, botanists, they will make jest of their methods, and will take into consideration their credulity, their stupidity, their bad faith, the numerous wonders that they no longer understand in Aristotle and in Pliny. None will take the trouble to prove their assertions; but, like people blinded by passion and ignorance, they state as fact what is in question, or putting their own ideas in place of those that they do not understand they will create phantoms for the sake of fighting them. Never going back to the principles of anything, stopping only at forms, adopting without examination the commonest notions, they will commit on all sides the same mistake that they have committed with respect to the genethliatical science, the principles of which I have shown in my last Examination; and confounding this science of the ancients with the astrology of the moderns, they will consider in the same light Tiresias and Nostradamus, and will see no difference between the oracle of Ammon, or of Delphi, and the lucky chance of the most paltry fortune-teller.

However, I do not pretend to say that all the modern savants indulge, in this same manner, in presumption and false notions with regard to antiquity; there have been many honourable exceptions among them: even those have been found who, drawn beyond the golden mean, by the necessity of effecting a useful reform or of establishing a new system, have returned there as soon as their passion or their interest have no longer commanded them. Such for example is Bacon, to whom philosophy has owed enough great favours to forget certain incidental prejudices; for I am, furthermore, far from attributing to him the errors of his disciples. Bacon, at the risk of contradicting himself, yielding to the sentiment of truth, although he subjected all to the light of experience, admitted, however, positive and real universals, which, by his method are wholly inexplicable.[462] Forgetting what he had said of Plato in one book, he declared in another: that this philosopher, endowed with a sublime genius, turning his attention upon all nature and contemplating all things from a lofty elevation, had seen very clearly, in his doctrine of ideas, what the veritable objects of science are.[463] Finally recognizing the principles of physics and the _ensemble_ of things as the foremost to be considered, he made astrological science, which he likened to astronomy, depend upon it, in such a manner as to show that he did not confound it with vulgar astrology. This philosopher found that before his time, astronomy, well enough founded upon phenomena, utterly lacked soundness, and that astrology had lost its true principles. To be sure he agreed with astronomy presenting the exterior of celestial phenomena, that is to say, the number, situation, movement, and periods of the stars; but he accused it of lacking in understanding of the physical reasons of these phenomena. He believed that a single theory which contents itself with appearances is a very easy thing, and that one can imagine an infinity of speculations of this sort; also he wished that the science of astronomy might be further advanced.

Instead of revealing the reasons of celestial phenomena [he
said], one is occupied only with observations and
mathematical demonstrations; for these observations and
these demonstrations can indeed furnish certain ingenious
hypotheses to settle all that in one’s mind, and to make an
idea of this assemblage, but not to know precisely how and
why all this is actually in nature: they indicate, at the
most, the apparent movements, the artificial assemblage, the
arbitrary combination of all these phenomena, but not the
veritable causes and the reality of things: and as to this
subject [he continues], it is with very little judgment that
astronomy is ranked among the mathematical sciences; this
classification derogates from its dignity.[464]

Regarding astrological science, Bacon wished that it might be regenerated completely by bringing it back to its real principles, that is to say, that one should reject all that the vulgar had added thereto, both narrow and superstitious, preserving only the grand revolutions of the ancients. These ideas, as is quite obvious, are not at all in accord with those that his disciples have adopted since; also the greater part of them refrain from citing similar passages.

18. _Neglect not thy health …_

I had at first the intention of making here some allusion to the manner in which Pythagoras and the ancient sages considered medicine; and I had wished to reveal their principles, quite different from those of the moderns; but I have realized that an object so important requires developments that this work would not allow and I have left them for a time more opportune, and for a work more suitable. Moreover the line of Lysis has no need of explanation; it is clear. This philosopher commends each one to guard his health, to keep it by temperance and moderation, and if it becomes impaired, to put himself in condition of not confiding to another the care of its re-establishment. This precept was sufficiently understood by the ancients for it to have become a sort of proverb.

The Emperor Tiberius, who made it a rule of conduct, said that a man of thirty years or more who called or even consulted a physician was an ignoramus.[465] It is true that Tiberius did not add to the precept the exercise of the temperance that Lysis did not forget to commend in the following lines, also he lived only seventy-eight years, notwithstanding the strength of his constitution promised him a much longer life. Hippocrates of Cos, the father of medicine in Greece and strongly attached to the doctrine of Pythagoras, lived one hundred and four years; Xenophile, Apollonius, Tyanæus, Demonax, and many other Pythagorean philosophers lived to one hundred and six and one-hundred and ten years; and Pythagoras himself, although violently persecuted towards the end of his life, attained to nearly ninety-nine years according to some and even to the century mark according to others.[466]

19. … _Dispense with moderation,
Food to the body, and to the mind repose_,

The body, being the instrument of the soul, Pythagoras desired that one should take reasonable and necessary care of it in order to hold it always in condition to execute the behests of the soul. He regarded its preservation as a part of the purgative virtue.[467]

20. _Too much attention or too little shun; for envy
Thus, to either excess is alike attached._

The philosopher, firm in his principle of _juste milieu_, wished that his disciples should avoid excess in all things, and that they should not draw attention to themselves by an unusual way of living. It was a widespread opinion among the ancients, that envy, shameful for the one who felt it and dangerous for the one who inspired it, had fatal consequences for both.[468] For envy is attached to all that tends to distinguish men too ostensibly. Thus, notwithstanding all that has been published of the extraordinary rules and severe abstinences that Pythagoras imposed upon his disciples and that he made them observe, it appears indubitable that they were only established after his death, and that his interpreters, being deceived regarding the mysterious meaning of these symbols, take in the literal sense, what he had said in the figurative. The philosopher blamed only the excess, and permitted besides, a moderate usage of all the foods to which men were accustomed. Even the beans, for which his disciples later conceived so much abhorrence, were eaten frequently.[469] He did not forbid absolutely either wine, or meat, or even fish, whatever may have been asserted at different times[470]; though, indeed, those of his disciples who aspired to the highest perfection abstained from them[471]; he represented drunkenness and intemperance only as odious vices that should be avoided.[472] He had no scruples about drinking a little wine himself, and of tasting the meats set before him at table,[473] in order to show that he did not regard them as impure, notwithstanding he preferred the vegetable _régime_ to all others and that, for the most part, he restricted himself to it from choice.[474] Further on I will return to the mystic meaning of the symbols, by which he had the appearance of forbidding the use of certain foods and above all beans.

21. _Luxury and avarice have similar results.
One must choose in all things a mean just and good._

Lysis terminates the purgative part of the doctrine of Pythagoras with the trait which characterizes it in general and in particular; he has shown the golden mean in virtue and in science; he has commended it in conduct, he states in full and says openly that extremes meet; that luxury and avarice differ not in their effects, and that philosophy consists in avoiding excess in everything. Hierocles adds that, to be happy, one must know how, where, when, and how much to take; and that he who is ignorant of these just limits is always unhappy and he proves it as follows:

Voluptuousness [he said] is necessarily the effect of an
action: now, if the action is good the voluptuousness
remains; if it is evil the voluptuousness passes and is
corrupted. When one does a shameful thing with pleasure, the
pleasure passes and the shame remains. When one does an
excellent thing with great trouble and labour the pain
passes and the excellence alone remains. Whence it follows
necessarily, that the evil life is also bitter and produces
as much sorrow and chagrin as the good life is sweet and
procures joy and contentment.[475]

“As the flame of a torch tends always upward whichever way one turns it,” said the Indian sages, “thus the man whose heart is afire with virtue, whatever accident befalls him, directs himself always toward the end that wisdom indicates.”[476]

“Misfortune follows vice, and happiness virtue,” said the Chinese, “as the echo follows the voice and the shadow him who moves.”[477]

O virtue! divine virtue! [exclaims Kong-Tse[478]] a
celestial power presents thee to us, an interior force
conducts us toward thee; happy the mortal in whom thou
dwellest! he strikes the goal without effort, a single
glance suffices for him to penetrate the truth. His heart
becomes the sanctuary of peace and his very inclinations
protect his innocence. It is granted to the sage only, to
attain to so desirable a state. He who aspires to this must
resolve upon the good and attach himself strongly to it; he
must apply himself to the study of himself, interrogate
nature, examine all things carefully, meditate upon them and
allow nothing to pass unfathomed. Let him develop the
faculties of his soul, let him think with force, let him put
energy and firmness into his actions. Alas! how many men
there are who seek virtue and science, and who stop in the
middle of their course, because the goal keeps them waiting!
My studies, they say, leave me with all my ignorance, all my
doubts; my efforts, my labours enlarge neither my views nor
my sagacity; the same clouds hover over my understanding and
obscure it; I feel my forces abandoning me and my will
giving way beneath the weight of the obstacle. No matter;
guard yourself against discouragement; that which others
have been able to attain at the first attempt, you may be
able at the hundredth; that which they have done at the
hundredth, you will do at the thousandth.[479]

PERFECTION

22. _Let not sleep e’er close thy tired eyes,
Without thou ask thyself; What have I omitted, and what
done?_

Lysis, after having indicated the route by which Pythagoras conducted his disciples to virtue, goes on to teach them the use that this philosopher wished them to make of this celestial gift, once they had mastered it. Up to this point it is confined in the purgative part of the doctrine of his teacher; he now passes to the unitive part, that is to say, to that which has as object the uniting of man to the Divinity, by rendering him more and more like unto the model of all perfection and of all wisdom, which is God. The sole instrument capable of operating this union has been placed at his disposition by means of the good usage that he has made of his will: it is virtue which must serve him at present to attain truth. Now, Truth is the ultimate goal of perfection: there is nothing beyond it and nothing this side of it but error; light springs from it; it is the soul of God, according to Pythagoras,[480] and God himself, according to the legislator of the Indians.[481]

The first precept that Pythagoras gave to his disciples on entering the course of perfection tended to turn their thoughts upon themselves, to bring them to interrogate their actions, their thoughts, their discourse, to question the motives, to reflect in short upon their exterior movements and seek thus to know themselves. Knowledge of self was the most important knowledge of all, that which must conduct them to all others. I will not weary my readers by adding anything to what I have already said pertaining to the importance of this knowledge, and the extreme value set upon it by the ancients. They know unquestionably that the morals of Socrates and the philosophy of Plato were only the development of it and that an inscription in the temple of Greece, that of Delphi, commended it, after that of the golden mean, as the very teaching of the God whom they worshipped there[482]: _Nothing in excess, and know Thyself_, contained in few words the doctrine of the sages, and presented for their meditation the principles upon which reposed virtue and wisdom which is its consequence. Nothing further was necessary to electrify the soul of Heraclitus and to develop the germs of genius, which until the moment when he read these two sentences were buried in a cold inertia.