4. The Tetragramc

The perfect word, that which is adequate to the thought which it expresses, always contains virtually or supposes a tetrad: the idea, with its three necessary and correlated forms, then the image of the thing expressed, with the three terms of the judgement which qualifies it. When I say: “Being exists,” I affirm implicitly that the void is nonexistent. A height, a breadth which the height subdivides longitudinally, a depth separated from the height by the intersection of the breadth, such is the natural tetrad, composed of two lines at right angles one to another. Nature has also four motions, products of two forces which sustain each other by their tendency in an opposite direction. Now, the law which rules bodies is analogous to that which governs minds, and that which governs minds is the very manifestation of God's secret - that is to say, of the mystery of the creation. Imagine a watch having two parallel springs, with an engagement which makes them work in an opposite direction so that the one in unwinding winds up the other. In this way, the watch will wind up itself, and you will have discovered perpetual motion. The engagement should be at two ends and of extreme accuracy. Is this beyond attainment? We think not. But when it is discovered the inventor will understand by analogy all the secrets of Nature PROGRESS IN DIRECT PROPORTION TO RESISTANCE The absolute movement of life is thus the perpetual consequence of two contrary tendencies which are never opposed. When one seems to yield to the other, it is like a spring which is winding up, and you may expect a reaction, the moment and characteristics of which it is quite possible to foresee and determine. Hence at the period of the greatest Christian fervour was the reign of ANTICHRIST known and predicted. But Antichrist will prepare and determine the Second Advent and final triumph of the Man-God. This again is a rigorous and kabalistical conclusion contained in the Gospel premises. Hence the Christian prophecy comprises a fourfold revelation: I. Fall of the old world and triumph of the Gospel under the First Advent; 2. Great apostasy and coming of Antichrist; 3. Fall of Antichrist and recurrence to Christian ideas; 4. Definitive triumph of the Gospel, or Second Advent, designated under the name of the Last Judgement. This fourfold prophecy contains, as will be seen, two affirmations and two negations, the idea of two ruins or universal deaths and of two resurrections; for to every conception which appears upon the social horizon an East and a West, a Zenith and a Nadir, may be ascribed without fear of error. Thus is the Philosophical Cross the key of prophecy, and all gates of science may be opened with the pantacle of Ezekiel, the centre of which is a star formed by the interlacement of two crosses. Does not human life present itself also under these four phases or successive transformations - birth, life, death, immortality? And remark here that the immortality of the soul, necessitated as a complement of the tetrad, is kabalistically proved by analogy, which is the sole dogma of truly universal religion, as it is the key of science and the universal law of Nature. As a fact, death can be no more an absolute end than birth is a real beginning. Birth proves the preexistence of the human being, since nothing is produced from nothing, and death proves immortality, since being can no more cease from being than nothingness can cease to be nothingness.