But it differed from ordinary
secret language in this, that not only were the truths represented in the
symbols, but the philosophical development of the truth, in its
ramifications, was completely evolved under the cover of a logically
consistent tale. This, evidently, is a far higher achievement of ingenuity
than merely to string together a series of unrelated parts of speech,
which, on being tested by the "key," shall discover the message or
information really intended. It is, in fact, a practical application of
the philosophical discovery, made by or communicated to the hermetic
philosophers, that every material object in nature answers to or
corresponds with a certain one or group of philosophical truths. Viewed in
this light, the science of symbols or of correspondences ceases to be an
arbitrary device, susceptible of alteration according to fancy, and
avouches itself an essential and consistent relation between the things of
the mind and the things of the senses. There is a complete mental
creation, answering to the material creation, not continuously evolved
from it, but on a different or detached plane. The sun,--to take an
example,--the source of light and heat, and thereby of physical nature, is
in these fables always the symbol of God, of love and wisdom, by which the
spirit of man is created.
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