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CHAPTER IV.

The Conclusion.

T has been our endeavour, as clearly as the limits prescribed by evidence and our understanding would enable us, to discuss the ground and practical pretensions in general of the Hermetic Mystery. To explain all would require an extensive range and a closer opportunity of experience than has hitherto been granted us. Nor with these auxiliaries, perhaps, should we become more intelligible, since caution very usually increases with observation, and the truth has been so intricately, arbitrarily, and in many folds enveloped, and the cloud of witnesses is such that it might puzzle Apollo himself to explicate the whole Enigma intelligibly to the world. To induce research, therefore, we pretend only to have signalized the Light, that any one fortunately perceiving, might be led along by its attracting presence to the discovery of Truth. Evidence has constantly preceded, neither have we ventured many assertions of our own; but the reputable witness of individuals of various ages and nations, whose names are renowned in philosophy, have been gathered together in aid of this Inquiry, and in support of the dignity of the Hermetic Science; which they have not only judged to be true, but many add their personal experience in confirmation, attesting the reality of the Philosopher's Stone.

The confection of this miraculous substance, moreover, they have helped us to trace in theory from its foundation in the free Ether, through an artificial process of elaboration, into manifest effect. And the principle of Transmutation, they have shown to be relating not to Species but to

their Universal Subject, whose concentrated virtue the Stone likewise itself is.

And Man was the proper laboratory of the whole Art; not only the most perfect chemical apparatus, devised by Nature for the distillation of her Spirit, but having besides the whole fermentative virtue, motive, and principle of vital melioration and every requisite complete within himself, for the rectification and furtherance of her prescribed Law; mind and manual efficacy, as it is narrated, by the Divine Will, to effect all things, though concealed in this life by the external attraction and obstructive energies of sense.

This hidden capacity it has been shown to be the purpose of the Hermetic artifice to explore; and that adepts well-skilled, as they profess, in the vital analysis of bodies, by such means discovered the life of man therein circulating to be a pure fire incorporated in a certain incombustible ethereal vapour; also, that the Universal Efficient was in this fire, and the diverse kingdoms of nature, as it were, bound together in the threefold enchantment of his natural Identity; one of which only, the animal life, being developed to consciousness, the other two, viz. the vegetable and mineral, are known only to those who have entered experimentally within to prove the hypostatic action and passion of the working essences in life.

Partly, also, on the authority of the Ancients, coupled with certain other arguments, not altogether speculative, we have been thence led to regard the Mysteries celebrated at Eleusis and the rest, in a more important light than heretofore; not as mere external ceremonials, pictured scenes of sufferings and beatitudes, but as real inductions of the Understanding Spirit to its Source.

And with the development of these Mysteries we have been enabled to connect Alchemy; and with these both, in their preliminary practice, the modern art, called Mesmerism, strikingly accords;

which we have proposed suggestively, therefore, as a first key opening to the vestibule of this Experiment, where sits the Sphinx with her eternal enigma, still to perplex intruders, and open to philosophers only the inner halls of Light.

Bearing these things in mind, by the assistance of the Greek Ontologists, we have ventured, intimately pursuing their course, to follow mysterious Nature through many intricate windings and circumstantial difficulties, into her Initial Source; and there observed her, after operating voluntarily about her own annihilation, to survive and establish a stable monarchy upon her redeemed Light.

Particulars, also, of the metaphysical experience we have attempted to delineate, and to show the catholicity and causal reference of the Hermetic Work throughout.

From impediments likewise described, and rare intellectual conditions, it has been shown why the Divine Experiment has been so seldom attempted and more rarely brought to a legitimate conclusion on this earth. And why philosophers, in all ages, considering the unfitness of the multitude, and fearful consequences that might ensue from individual abuse, have concealed their knowledge, communicating almost by word of mouth only the practical device.

If we have been freer in our expositions, the spirit was not the more reckless, but because the thresholds of ignorance are already overpast, and experiment is in need rather of a motive to dignify it than of practical machinery. What if the darkness should contend with and prevail awhile, yet there in the centre the light will kindle and increase, and gain strength to radiate upwards through the whole circumference, despite every effort of ignorant selfishness and folly to prevent. So reason instructs that we should have faith in humanity as in the ultimate realization and prevalence of good. But that class are all now incredulous who were

formerly dreaded in their belief; and under that safe guardianship we leave them, happily supine in the conviction that our conduct will neither be attractive or intelligible, much less practically useful to the profane multitude of mankind. For although this Art of Alchemy is eminently experimental and practical in its consequences, yet it is wholly unsuited to minds commonly so styled practical, who are impatient of every proposition that is not immediately applicable to the affairs of life. For these the Hermetic Art is no more suited than they for it; it needs a philosopher, one of the antique mould, a true lover of Wisdom, who, for her sake, will devote everything else, studious, simple, ardent, and withal suscipient of appearing truth.

They who in a kindred spirit have pursued this Inquiry, may have divined many things which will be hidden from the indifferent and thoughtless reader; for we have spoken of principles with reference to practice, and in an order indirectly indicative of the genealogical method of ascent; even that artistic fabrication of the Fire which Prometheus received from Vulcan, and Minerva disseminated providentially for the sake of her luminous radix, lest it should be smothered in our irrational alliance, and perish ungratefully without

return.

In the course of this vital experiment the ancients discovered the whole of the philosophy they teach, the quintessence of Universal Nature and her fruitful springs: by this pyrotechnical induction, powers were revealed to conscience, the whole generative original and those temptations which the Reason alone, purified and singled out by Art for the encounter, is able entirely to withstand.

And that ray of motive Light, pure, vital, and efficient, we have shown to be the true Form of Gold, the alone universal principle of increase and perfection, the same which in the circulatory

system, becoming dominant, is made concrete in life; and is the transmutative ferment-even the Philosophic Stone.

And this is the grand Hermetic secret, that there is a Universal Subject in nature, and that Subject is susceptible of nourishment in Man; and this is the greatest mystery, of all mysteries the most wonderful, that man should be able not only to find the Divine Nature, but to effect It.

The philosophers sought after Wisdom for her own sake; for her beauty and bright divinity they wooed her, and gained with her an ample dowry, gold, silver, and the glittering treasures of her creative light in abundance. And some have dwelt gratefully on these intermediate benefits, recording them, but were, above all, careful to celebrate the primary attraction which led them in for the discovery of life. And we have omitted many things, which, to the many, might be more attractive, even than gold or silver, or a more remote prospect of immortality; for every desire is, in the magic region, made prolific, embodying itself, by the ethereal conception, as a principle to enact its voluntary accord. But to allure by particular promises, however rich or real, which might restrict to individual interests a virtue which is infinite, forms no part of our design; man is sufficiently bounded already in all-how many ways is he not fettered, by the poverty of his imagination and the littleness of his love?

Having then run cursorily through the circuit of the Hermetic Tradition, without attempting, however, to include the whole length, which would embrace a far wider field of philosophical inquiry than is commonly imagined, it may be proper, in conclusion, to consider the several bearings of the same with respect to other sciences, and their comparative value to mankind at large.

Between the Physical and Moral sciences, commonly so called, though there are links found