An encyclopedic outline of masonic, hermetic, cabbalistic and rosicrucian symbolical philosophy. Being an interpretation of the secret teachings concealed within the rituals, allegories and mysteries of all ages

Regarding the philosophy of Aristotle, the same author says: "The goal of Aristotle's moral philosophy is perfection through virtue, and the goal of his contemplative philosophy is union with the single principle of all things."

Aristotle conceived philosophy to be twofold: practical and theoretical. Practical philosophy embraced ethics and politics; theoretical philosophy included physics and logic. He considered metaphysics to be the science concerning that substance which contains the principles of motion and rest within itself. To Aristotle, the soul is that by which man first lives, feels, and understands. Consequently, he assigned three faculties to the soul: nutritive, sensitive, and intellective. He further considered the soul to be twofold—rational and irrational—and in some details elevated sensory perceptions above the mind. Aristotle defined wisdom as the science of First Causes. The four major divisions of his philosophy are dialectics, physics, ethics, and metaphysics. God is defined as the First Mover, the Best of beings, an immovable Substance, separate from sensible things, devoid of physical quantity, without parts, and indivisible. Platonism is based upon a priori reasoning deducing from causes to effects; Aristotelianism is based upon a posteriori reasoning inducing from effects to causes. Aristotle taught his pupil, Alexander the Great, so well that Alexander believed if he had not done a good deed, he had not truly reigned that day. Among Aristotle's followers were Theophrastus, Strato, Lyco, Aristo, Critolaus, and Diodorus.

Of Skepticism, as proposed by Pyrrho of Elis (365–275 B.C.) and by Timon, Sextus Empiricus said that those who seek must either find truth, deny they have found it or can find it, or persevere in the inquiry. Those who suppose they have found truth are called Dogmatists; those who think it is incomprehensible are the Academics; and those who still seek are the Skeptics. The attitude of Skepticism toward what can be known is summed up by Sextus Empiricus in the following words: "The chief ground of Skepticism is that for every reason, there is an opposite reason of equal weight, which makes us refrain from dogmatizing." The Skeptics were tough opponents of the Dogmatists and were agnostic in that they held the accepted theories regarding Deity to be self-contradictory and unprovable. "How," asked the Skeptic, "can we have certain knowledge of God, not knowing His substance, form, or place? For while philosophers disagree irreconcilably in their theories, their conclusions cannot be considered undoubtedly true." Since absolute knowledge was considered unattainable, the Skeptics declared the goal of their discipline to be: "In matters of opinion, tranquility; in matters of impulse, moderation; and in matters of distress, suspension of judgment."

The sect of the Stoics was founded by Zeno of Citium (340–265 B.C.), who studied under Crates the Cynic, the sect from which the Stoics originated. Zeno was succeeded by Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Zeno of Tarsus, Diogenes, Antipater, Panaetius, and Posidonius. The most famous of the Roman Stoics are Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. The Stoics were essentially pantheists, since they maintained that as there is nothing better than the world, the world itself is God. Zeno declared that the reason of the world is diffused throughout it like a seed. Stoicism is a materialistic philosophy, advocating voluntary resignation to natural law. Chrysippus maintained that because good and evil are opposites, both are necessary since each sustains the other. The soul was regarded as a body distributed throughout the physical form and subject to dissolving along with it. Though some Stoics held that wisdom prolonged the existence of the soul, actual immortality is not included in their core beliefs. The soul was said to be composed of eight parts: the five senses, the power of reproduction, the power of speech, and an eighth, or "hegemonic" governing part. Nature was defined as God mixed throughout the substance of the world. All things were looked upon as "bodies," whether they were physical or non-physical.

Meekness marked the attitude of the Stoic philosopher. While Diogenes was delivering a lecture against anger, one of his listeners spat contemptuously in his face. Receiving the insult with

Virgil describes part of the ritual of a Greek Mystery school—possibly the Eleusinian—in his account of the descent of Æneas to the gate of hell under the guidance of the Sibyl. Of that part of the ritual portrayed above, the immortal poet writes:

"Full in the midst of this infernal Road,
An Elm displays her dusky Arms abroad;
The God of Sleep there hides his heavy Head
And empty Dreams on every Leaf are spread.
Of various Forms, unnumbered Specters more;
Centaurs, and double Shapes, besiege the Door:
Before the Passage horrid Hydra stands,
And Briareus with all his hundred Hands:
Gorgons, Geryon with his triple Frame;
And vain Chimæra vomits empty Flame.
The Chief unsheathed his shining Steel, prepared,
Though seized with sudden Fear, to force the Guard.
Offering his brandished Weapon at their Face:
Had not the Sibyl stopped his eager Pace,
And told him what those empty Phantoms were;
Forms without Bodies, and impassive Air."

humility, the great Stoic was moved to retort: "I am not angry, but I am in doubt whether I ought to be so or not!"

Epicurus of Samos (341–270 B.C.) was the founder of the Epicurean sect, which in many respects resembles the Cyrenaic school but has higher ethical standards. The Epicureans also identified pleasure as the most desirable state, but they conceived it to be a grave and dignified state achieved through the renunciation of those mental and emotional instabilities that produce pain and sorrow. Epicurus held that just as the pains of the mind and soul are more grievous than those of the body, so the joys of the mind and soul exceed those of the body. The Cyrenaics asserted that pleasure depended upon action or motion; the Epicureans claimed that rest or lack of action was equally capable of producing pleasure. Epicurus accepted the philosophy of Democritus concerning the nature of atoms and based his physics upon this theory. The Epicurean philosophy may be summed up in four rules: "(1) Sense is never deceived; therefore every sensation and every perception of an appearance is true. (2) Opinion follows sense and is added to sensation, and it is capable of being true or false. (3) All opinion that is confirmed or not contradicted by the evidence of the senses is true. (4) An opinion contradicted or not confirmed by the evidence of the senses is false." Among the notable Epicureans were Metrodorus of Lampsacus, Zeno of Sidon, and Phaedrus.

Eclecticism may be defined as the practice of choosing apparently irreconcilable doctrines from rival schools and constructing from them a composite philosophical system that harmonizes with the convictions of the eclectic thinker themselves. Eclecticism can scarcely be considered philosophically or logically sound because individual schools arrive at their conclusions through different methods of reasoning; thus, a philosophical product made of fragments from these schools must necessarily be built on conflicting premises. Accordingly, Eclecticism has been called the "layman's cult." In the Roman Empire, little thought was devoted to philosophical theory; consequently, most of its thinkers were of the eclectic type. Cicero is the outstanding example of early Eclecticism, for his writings are a literal potpourri of the thoughts and opinions of earlier schools. Eclecticism appears to have begun at the moment when men first doubted the possibility of discovering final truth. Observing all so-called knowledge to be merely opinion at best, less studious individuals concluded that the wiser course was to accept whatever appeared most reasonable among the teachings of any school or person. However, from this practice arose a pseudo-broadmindedness that lacked the precision found in true logic and philosophy.

The Neo-Pythagorean school flourished in Alexandria during the first century of the Christian Era. Only two names stand out in connection with it—Apollonius of Tyana and Moderatus of Gades. Neo-Pythagoreanism is a link between the older pagan philosophies and the religious schools of that day. It contained many surviving elements of thought derived from Pythagoras and Plato; like Plato, it emphasized metaphysical speculation and ascetic habits. A striking similarity has been observed by several authors between Neo-Pythagoreanism and the doctrines of the Essenes a Jewish mystical sect. Special emphasis was laid upon the mystery of numbers, and it is possible that the Neo-Pythagoreans had a far wider knowledge of the true teachings of Pythagoras than is available today. Even in the first century, Pythagoras was regarded more as a god than a man, and the revival of his philosophy was apparently attempted in the hope that his name would stimulate interest in deeper systems of learning. But Greek philosophy had passed the peak of its splendor; the mass of humanity was awakening to the importance of physical life and physical phenomena. The emphasis upon earthly affairs that began to assert itself later reached its full expression in twentieth-century materialism and commercialism, even though Neo-Platonism would intervene and many centuries would pass before this emphasis took definite form.

Although Ammonius Saccas was long believed to be the founder of Neo-Platonism, the school actually began with Plotinus (A.D. 204–269?). Prominent among the Neo-Platonists of Alexandria, Syria, Rome, and Athens were Porphyry, Iamblichus, Sallustius, the Emperor Julian, Plutarch, and Proclus. Neo-Platonism was the supreme effort of a declining pagan world to publish and thus preserve for future generations its secret (or unwritten) doctrine. In its teachings, ancient idealism found its most perfect expression. Neo-Platonism was concerned almost exclusively with the problems of higher metaphysics. It recognized the existence of a secret and all-important doctrine which, from the time of the earliest civilizations, had been concealed within the rituals, symbols, and allegories of religions and philosophies. To a mind unacquainted with its fundamental principles, Neo-Platonism may appear to be a mass of speculations mixed with extravagant flights of fancy. Such a viewpoint, however, ignores the institution of the Mysteries—those secret schools into whose profound idealism nearly all the primary philosophers of antiquity were initiated.

When the physical body of pagan thought collapsed, an attempt was made to resurrect the form by instilling new life into it through the unveiling of its mystical truths. This effort apparently produced few results. Despite the antagonism between early Christianity and Neo-Platonism, however, many basic principles of the latter were accepted by the former and woven into the fabric of Patristic philosophy. Briefly described, Neo-Platonism is a philosophical code that views a logical or concrete body of doctrine as merely the shell of a spiritual truth, which may be discovered through meditation and certain mystical exercises. Compared to the esoteric inner or secret spiritual truths they contain, the outer forms of religion and philosophy were considered to be of relatively little value. Likewise, no emphasis was placed upon the material sciences.

The term Patristic is used to designate the philosophy of the Fathers of the early Christian Church. Patristic philosophy is divided into three eras: Apostolic, Ante-Nicene, and Post-Nicene. The Ante-Nicene period was mainly devoted to attacks upon paganism and to defenses and apologies for Christianity. The entire structure of pagan philosophy was attacked, and the requirements of faith were elevated above those of reason. In some instances, efforts were made to reconcile the evident truths of paganism with Christian revelation. Eminent among the Ante-Nicene Fathers were St. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Justin Martyr. In the Post-Nicene period, more emphasis was placed on developing Christian philosophy along Platonic and Neo-Platonic lines. The Patristic school is noted for its emphasis on the supremacy of man throughout the universe. Man was conceived to be a separate and divine creation—the crowning achievement of God and an exception to the rule of natural law. To the Patristics, it was inconceivable that there should ever exist another creature so noble, so fortunate, or so capable as man, for whose sole benefit and education all the kingdoms of Nature were primarily created.

Patristic philosophy culminated in Augustinianism, which may best be defined as Christian Platonism. Opposing the Pelagian doctrine that man is the author of his own salvation, Augustinianism elevated the church and its dogmas to a position of absolute infallibility—a position it successfully maintained until the Reformation. Gnosticism, a system of emanationism the belief that all things flow from a divine source that interpreted Christianity in terms of Greek, Egyptian, and Persian metaphysics, appeared in the latter part of the first century A.D. Practically all the information surviving regarding the Gnostics and their doctrines—which were labeled as heresy by the Ante-Nicene Church Fathers—is derived from the accusations made against them, particularly from the writings of St. Irenaeus. In the third century, Manichaeism appeared; this was a dualistic system of Persian origin which taught that Good and Evil were forever struggling for universal supremacy. In Manichaeism, Christ is conceived as the Principle of redeeming Good, in contrast to the man Jesus, who was viewed as an evil personality.

The death of Boethius in the sixth century marked the close of the ancient Greek school of philosophy. The ninth century saw the rise of the new school of Scholasticism, which sought to reconcile philosophy with theology. Representative of the main divisions of the Scholastic school were the Eclecticism of John of Salisbury, the Mysticism of Bernard of Clairvaux and St. Bonaventura, the Rationalism of Peter Abelard, and the pantheistic Mysticism of Meister Eckhart. Among the Arabian Aristotelians were Avicenna and Averroes. The peak of Scholasticism was reached with the arrival of Albertus Magnus and his famous disciple, St. Thomas Aquinas. Thomism (the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, sometimes called the "Christian Aristotle") sought to reconcile the various factions of the Scholastic school. Thomism was basically Aristotelian, with the added concept that faith is an extension of reason.

In opposition to Thomism was Voluntarism, promoted by Johannes Duns Scotus, a Franciscan Scholastic, who emphasized the power and effectiveness of the individual will. The outstanding characteristic of Scholasticism was its frantic effort to force all European thought into an Aristotelian mold. Eventually, the Scholastics descended to the level of mere "word-mongers" who picked the words of Aristotle so clean that nothing but the bones remained. It was this declining school of meaningless verbiage against which Sir Francis Bacon directed his bitter irony, and which he relegated to the potter's field a burial ground for the discarded of rejected ideas.

In ridiculing the geocentric earth-centered system of astronomy explained by Claudius Ptolemy, modern astronomers have overlooked the philosophical key to the Ptolemaic system. The universe of Ptolemy is a diagrammatic representation of the relationships existing between the various divine and elemental parts of every creature; it is not concerned with astronomy as that science is now understood. In the figure above, special attention is called to the three circles of zodiacs surrounding the orbits of the planets. These zodiacs represent the threefold spiritual constitution of the universe. The orbits of the planets are the "Governors of the World," and the four elemental spheres in the center represent the physical constitution of both man and the universe. Ptolemy's scheme of the universe is simply a cross-section of the universal aura; the planets and elements to which he refers have no relation to those recognized by modern astronomers.

The Baconian, or inductive, system of reasoning—by which facts are reached through a process of observation and verified by experimentation—cleared the way for the schools of modern science. Bacon was succeeded by Thomas Hobbes (who was his secretary for some time), who held mathematics to be the only exact science and thought to be essentially a mathematical process. Hobbes declared matter to be the only reality, and scientific investigation to be limited to the study of bodies, the phenomena related to their probable causes, and the resulting consequences under every variety of circumstance. Hobbes laid special stress upon the significance of words, declaring understanding to be the faculty of perceiving the relationship between words and the objects they represent.

Having broken away from the scholastic and theological schools, Post-Reformation and modern philosophy experienced a very prolific growth along many diverse lines. According to Humanism, man is the measure of all things; Rationalism makes the reasoning faculties the basis of all knowledge; Political Philosophy holds that man must understand his natural, social, and national privileges; Empiricism declares that only what is demonstrable by experiment or experience is true; Moralism emphasizes the necessity of right conduct as a fundamental philosophical principle; Idealism asserts that the realities of the universe are supersensuous—either mental or psychical; Realism asserts the opposite; and Phenomenalism restricts knowledge to facts or events that can be scientifically described or explained. The most recent developments in the field of philosophical thought are Behaviorism and Neo-Realism. The former estimates intrinsic characteristics through an analysis of behavior; the latter may be summarized as the total rejection of idealism.

Baruch de Spinoza, the eminent Dutch philosopher, conceived God to be a substance that is absolutely self-existent and needs no other concept besides itself to make it complete and intelligible. Spinoza held that the nature of this Being was comprehensible only through its attributes, which are extension and thought: these com—