Page:The Golden verses of Pythagoras (IA cu31924026681076).pdf/179

 had not enclosed them in a syllogistic circle, by making them admit, sometimes that the unique and all-powerful Principle cannot think of everything, sometimes that vice is useful and that without it there would be no virtue ; paradoxes of which they had no trouble demonstrating the absurdity and the revolting inferences.

Take a survey of all the nations of the world, peruse all the books that you please, and you will find the liberty of man, the free will of his actions, the influence of his will over his passions, only in the theosophical tradition. Wherever you see physical or metaphysical systems, doctrines of whatever kind they may be, founded upon a sole principle of the material or spiritual Universe, you can conclude boldly that absolute fatality results from it and that their authors find themselves in need of making two things one: or of explaining the origin of good and evil, which is impossible; or of establishing the free will a priori, which is a manifest contradiction of their reasonings. If you care to penetrate into metaphysical depths, examine this decisive point upon this matter. Moses founded his cult upon the Unity of God and he explained the origin of evil; but he found himself forced by the very nature of this formidable mystery to envelop his explanation with such a veil, that it remained impenetrable for all those who had not received the traditional revelation; so that the liberty of man existed in his cult only by favour of theosophical tradition, and that it became weaker and disappeared entirely from it with this same tradition, the two opposed sects of the Pharisees and Sadducees which divided the cult prove this. The(aor), the light, governed by the article [Hebrew] (phe), which expresses the emphasis; thence [Hebrew] (phær), an aureola, a tiara, and [Hebrew] (pharethmim), men illustrious, sublime. The name given to the sect of the Sadducees is derived from the word [Hebrew] (shad) which, expressing all diffusion,]*