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And Porphyry, who quotes from the Pythagorean Moderatus , **** says that the numerals of Pythagoras were "hieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained ideas concerning the nature of things," or the origin of the universe. Now, if, on the other hand, the most ancient Indian manuscripts show as yet no trace of decimal notation in them, and Max Muller states very clearly that until now he has found but nine letters (the initials of the Sanscrit numerals) in them; on the other hand, we have records as ancient to supply the wanted proof. We speak of the sculptures and the sacred imagery in the most ancient temples of the far East. Pythagoras derived his knowledge from India; and we find Professor Max Muller corroborating this statement, at least so far as to allow the Neo -Pythagoreans to have been the first teachers of "ciphering," among the Greeks and Romans; that "they at Alexandria, or in Syria, became acquainted with the Indian figures, and adapted them to the Pythagorean abacus" (our figures). This cautious admission implies that Pythagoras himself was acquainted with but nine figures. Thus we might reasonably answer that, although we possess no certain proof ( exoterically ) that the decimal notation was known by Pythagoras, who lived on the very close of the archaic ages,***** we have yet sufficient evidence to show that the full numbers, as given by Boethius, were known to the Pythagoreans, even before Alexandria was built.****** This evidence we find in Aristotle, who says that "some philosophers hold that ideas and numbers are of the same nature, and amount to TEN in all."******* This, we believe, will be sufficient to show that the decimal notation was known among them at least as early as four centuries B.C., for Aristotle does not seem to treat the question as an innovation of the "Neo-Pythagoreans." [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * A Kabalist would be rather inclined to believe that as the Arabic cifron was taken from the Indian Synya , nought, so the Jewish Kabalistic Sephiroth ( Sephrim ) were taken from the word cipher, not in the sense of emptiness but the reverse -- that of creation by number and degrees in their evolution. And the Sephiroth are 10 or . ** See Max Muller's "Our Figures." *** See King's "Gnostics and their Remains," plate xiii. **** "Vita Pythag." ***** 608 B.C. ****** This city was built 332 B.C . ******* "Metaph." vii., F. [[Vol. 1, Page]] 362 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. But we know more than that: we know that the decimal system must have been known to the mankind of the earliest archaic ages, since the whole astronomical and geometrical portion of the secret sacerdotal language was built upon the number 10, or the combination of the male and female principles, and since the Pyramid of "Cheops" is built upon the measures of this decimal notation, or rather upon the digits and their combinations with the nought. Of this, however, sufficient was said in Isis Unveiled , and it is useless to repeat and return to the same subject. The symbolism of the Lunar and Solar Deities is so inextricably mixed up, that it is next to impossible to separate such glyphs as the egg, the lotus, and the "sacred" animals from each other. The ibis , for instance, sacred to Isis, who is often represented with the head of that bird, sacred also to Mercury or Thoth, because that god assumed its form while escaping from Typhon, -- the ibis was held in the greatest veneration in Egypt. There were two kinds of ibises, Herodotus tells us (Lib. II. c. 75 et seq. ) in that country: one quite black , the other black and white. The former is credited with fighting and exterminating the winged serpents which came every spring from Arabia and infested the country. The other was sacred to the moon, because the latter planet is white and brilliant on her external side, dark and black on that side which she never turns to the earth. Moreover, the ibis kills land serpents, and makes the most terrible havoc amongst the eggs of the crocodile, and thus saves Egypt from having the Nile infested by those horrible Saurians. The bird is credited with doing so in the moonlight, and thus being helped by Isis , as the moon, her sidereal symbol. But the nearer esoteric truth underlying these popular myths is, that Hermes, as shown by Abenephius ( De cultu Egypt. ), watched under the form of that bird over the Egyptians, and taught them the occult arts and sciences. This means simply that the ibis religiosa had and has "magical" properties in common with many other birds, the albatross pre-eminently, and the mythical white swan, the swan of Eternity or Time, the K ALAHANSA. Were it otherwise, indeed, why should all the ancient peoples, who were no more fools than we are, have had such a superstitious dread of killing certain birds? In Egypt, he who killed an ibis , or the golden hawk -- the symbol of the Sun and Osiris -- risked and could hardly escape death. The veneration of some nations for birds was such that Zoroaster, in his precepts, forbids their slaughter as a heinous crime. We laugh in our age at every kind of divination. Yet why should so many generations have believed in divination by birds, and even in zoomancy, said by Suidas to have been imparted by Orpheus, who taught how to perceive in the yoke and white of [[Vol. 1, Page]] 363 EGG-BORN LOGOI. the egg, under certain conditions, that which the bird born from it would have seen around it during its short life. This occult art, which demanded 3,000 years ago the greatest learning and the most abstruse mathematical calculations, has now fallen into the depths of degradation: it is old cooks and fortune-tellers who read their future to servant-girls in search of husbands, by means of the white of an egg in a glass. Nevertheless, even Christians have to this day their sacred birds; for instance, the dove, the symbol of the Holy Ghost. Nor have they neglected the sacred animals. The Evangelical zoolatry -- the Bull, the Eagle, the Lion, and the Angel (in reality the Cherub, or Seraph, the fiery-winged Serpent), is as much pagan as that of the Egyptians or the Chaldeans. These four animals are, in reality, the symbols of the four elements, and of the four lower principles in man. Nevertheless, they correspond physically and materially to the four constellations that form, so to speak, the suite or cortege of the Solar God, and occupy during the winter solstice the four cardinal points of the zodiacal circle.