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CHAPTER IV

A DOCTRINE OF CORRESPONDENCES

WE have seen that Saint-Martin completed his literary experiment in the early part of 1774, and in the autumn of that year he paid a short visit to Italy, in the company of a brother of Willermoz. They returned apparently to Lyons, where Saint-Martin must have been occupied for some time in seeing his work through the press. It appeared in 1775 under the pseudonym of "the Unknown Philosopher," and bearing the imprint of Edinburgh, which, however, must be understood as Lyons. We do not know when he left that city, but he was in Paris at the end of July, at Lyons again in the autumns at Tours on a flying visit, and then at Bordeaux in 1776. He had returned to Paris in March 1777. Pasqually had died at Port- au-Prince on September 20, 1774, having nominated Caignet de Lestere as his successor, he also being resident in the West Indies. The Temples of the Elect Priesthood were left to their own devices, and the mighty pageant of the Strict Observance drew several under that obedience. Willermoz becomes - as stated previously - Grand Prior of Auvergne, and having profited nothing in attempting to follow Pasqually's instructions concerning Ceremonial Magic, he was presumably more and more immersed in Masonry, especially its High Grades. Whatever sympathy may have existed originally between him and Saint-Martin when they were merely correspondents - their paths were now dividing, and the born mystic was disposing of the occult yoke placed upon him by his early Master. There is evidence of strained relations when Saint- Martin wrote from Paris on JuIy 30, 1775, to dissuade WilIermoz from supposing that he was seeking the latter's conversion to his own views or was presuming to pronounce judgment upon him. At the same time certain matters, the nature of which does not emerge in the letter, made it necessary for the peace of both that he should no longer be a guest of has friend, though for the sake of the Order and its - members he must return to Lyons and remain there a given time. It should not appear, in other words, that there was estrangement between himself and Willermoz. When, therefore, he took a lodging in isolation, it would be explained that he was following up chemical experiments. Whether the device served its purpose we do not know, but after it reached a term the two correspondents do not seem to have met one another for ten years. They continued to write occasionally, and they remained friends.

It has been suggested that Des Erreurs filled the purse of Saint- Martin, but the evidence of his improved position cannot be accounted for by reference to that source its considerable measure of success notwithstanding. On the contrary, there are indications that he was on better terms with his father, and I infer that thenceforward he was not without modest means. It has been suggested also that the authorship of the book was kept a profound secret. this is unlikely in the nature of things, for it was obviously well known at Lyons prior to publication. It has been said by one of his biographers that he "became known widely and was in request everywhere." His own memorial notes bear witness to the distinguished circle of his acquaintance, and so also do his letters. It is unnecessary to labor the point, and as, for the rest, his life in social and intellectual circles during the seven years between 1775 and 1782 has left little trace behind it, I pass on to the latter date, to which his second book belongs. In one of those unconverted intimations which seem to open for a moment his whole heart of purpose, Saint-Martin says that his work has its fount and course in the Divine.(1a) He is alluding to work of life rather than books, but it is true of all that he wrote, and the Tableau Naturel des Rapports qui existent entre Dieu, I'Homme et Univers was assuredly undertaken for the justification by means of their unfolding of the ways of God to man. It was written at Paris, as he tells us, partly in the Luxembourg at the house of the Marquise de Lusignan and partly in that of the Marquise de Ia Croix. (1a) Publication took place in two parts appearing, as previously, in one volume elated 1782 - at the symbolical Edinburgh, which on this occasion is more likely to mean Paris than Lyons though the latter place is understood by bibliographers. We have seen that Des Erreurs confessed to recurring reservations, and it has all the atmosphere of a truncated document issued from a Temple of the Mysteries, or at least a Secret College. The - Natural Scheme of Correspondences, on the surface, withholding nothing, yet it adopts another air of mystery. The entirely anonymous publishers state in a prefatory note (1) that they received the MS. from an unknown person; (2) that it had numerous marginal additions in- a different hand; (3) that they seemed different from the rest of the work; and (4) that in printing they had been placed in quotation commas, to distinguish them from the rest of the text. When tested on the subject by Baron de Liebistorf, Saint-Martin admitted (1) that the passages referred to were his; (2) that the publisher regarded them as out of keeping with the rest of the work; (3) that he gave the explanation which he did to prepare readers; and (4) that he was allowed to have his way. It happens that the paragraphs in quotations are the most enigmatical parts of the work, and suggest derivation from Pasqually's occult instructions; it happens also that Saint-Martin was replying to a correspondent who was not initiated; and if, therefore, what he says does not quite cover the facts, we may take it as the best that he could do without discovering his source. In any case, the paragraphs were written - i.e. expressed - by himself, and, for the rest, their consequence is not in proportion to their obscurity.

The Tableau compares the universe to a great temple: "the stars are its lights, the earth is its altar, all corporeal beings are its holocausts, and man, who is priest of the Eternal, offers the sacrifices." It follows from the logic of the symbolism that he himself is the chief holocaust, and this must be the sense in which it is said also that the universe is "like a great fire lighted since the beginning of things for the purification of all corrupted beings." Finally, it is "a great allegory or fable which must give place to a grand morality." When it is affirmed elsewhere that the external world is illusory, the reference presumably is to its surface sense, apart from the inward meaning. God is the meaning and God the grand morality; creation is not merely His visible sign, but a channel through which His thoughts are communicated to intelligent beings. Here is the only mode of communication for fallen man, namely, through signs and emblems. But these and the whole signifying universe are earnests of God's love for corrupted creatures and evidence that He is at work unceasingly "to remove the separation so contrary to their felicity." As it is certain that He does not world in vain, it follows that a day will come when there shall be no separateness thenceforward. So does the end emerge with all true thought implying - when it does not express - the doctrine of unity, all true paths being paths that lead thereto, and God Himself - One, Immutable and Eternal - the Witness from everlasting to this our end of being. Here is the Great Work, and it is to be performed "by restoring in our faculties the same law, the same order, the same regularity by which all beings are directed in Nature," or, in other words, by acting no longer in our own name, but in that of the living God. It is a work of the will in its redirection, for this is "the agent bar which alone man and every free being can efface within them and round them the traces of error and crime. The revindication of the will is therefore the chief work of all fallen creatures.

The same Iesson is conveyed in symbolical language when it is said that "the object of man on earth is to employ all rights and powers of his being in rarefying as far as possible the intervening media between himself and the true Sun, so that - the opposition being practically none there may be a free passage, and that the rays of light may reach him without refraction." It will be seen that, as in Des Erreurs, the instrument by which we fall is that-also by which we must rise: the evil in man originated in the will of man, and thereby it must be stamped out His "crime" is defined as "the abuse of the knowledge he possessed concerning the union of the principle of the universe with the universe." His penalty was the privation of this knowledge. The definition is dogmatic, and it is obvious that Saint-Martin can throw no light on the real nature of the alleged knowledge: otherwise he must have undone the crime in his own person. He is least convincing when discussing the legendary Fall, and most when conveying his own thoughts apart from any formal system. When he tells us that truth is in God, that it is written in all about us, that its messages are meant for our reading, that the light within leads to the light without; that the principle of being and of life is within us, that it cannot perish, that the regeneration of our "virtues" is possible; and that we can ascend to a demonstration of the Active and Invisible Principle, from which the universe derives its existence and its Iaws: we are then in the presence of the mystic who is speaking on the warrants of his proper insight.

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