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Why WileyPLUS for Computer Science?
ileyPLUS for Computer Science is a dynamic online environment that motivates students to spend more
W time practicing the problems and explore the material they need to master in order to succeed.

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Big C++
SECOND EDITION

Cay Horstmann
SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY

Timothy A. Budd
OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

EXECUTIVE PUBLISHER: Don Fowley
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER: Dan Sayre
SENIOR EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Carolyn Weisman
MEDIA EDITOR: Lauren Sapira
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ISBN 978-0-470-38328-5
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Preface

T his book provides a traditional introduction to computer science, focusing on pro-

gram development and effective use of the C++ programming language. It is suitable
for motivated beginners as well as students with prior programming experience. The
book can be used in a variety of settings, such as an introductory computer science
course, a two-semester course sequence that covers data structures and object-
oriented design, or an advanced course on C++ and its applications.
When writing the book, we were guided by the following principles:
• Teach computer science principles and not just C++. We use the C++ programming
language as a vehicle for introducing computer science concepts, and in this
“Big” book, we cover a large subset of the C++ language. However, we do not
aim to cover all esoteric aspects of C++. This book focuses on the modern fea-
tures of the C++ standard, such as the string class and the STL containers. By
minimizing the use of error-prone and confusing constructs, your students will
learn more computer science and become more productive programmers.
• Use a spiral approach to teach complex topics. We do not think it is wise to over-
whelm students when we introduce new topics. Generally, we start with the
essential facts that illustrate a concept, then cover technical details at a later time.
Here is an example. For efficiency’s sake, large object parameters should be
passed by constant reference, not by value. But that consideration obscures more
fundamental issues. For that reason, we don’t use constant references when we
first introduce classes. In the next turn of the spiral, students are comfortable
with classes and reference parameters, and a discussion of efficiency is appropri-
ate. We believe this spiral approach is essential when teaching a language as com-
plex as C++.
• Introduce C++ as an object-oriented language. Objects are introduced in two
stages. From Chapter 2 on, students learn to use objects—in particular, strings,
streams, instances of the simple Time and Employee classes, and graphical shapes.
Students become comfortable with creating objects and calling member func-
tions as the book continues along a traditional path, discussing and providing
practice with control structures and functional decomposition. In Chapter 5,
vi Preface

students learn how to implement classes and member functions. From then on,
objects and classes are used as the natural building blocks of computer programs.
• Keep the order flexible. The book is highly modular. Do you prefer to cover arrays
before classes? Simply switch the chapters. Do you want to cover streams and
files earlier? This is not a problem. We supply a graphics library, but it is entirely
optional. We have found that students enjoy programming exercises in which
numbers and visual information reinforce each other. But you may not want to
spend class time on it. Students can read the material on their own, or you can
skip it altogether. (See Figure 1 on page viii for the chapter dependencies.)
• Offer choices for advanced and applied topics. This “Big” book contains so much
material that it would be difficult to cover every chapter, even in an ambitious
two-semester course. The core material (Part A in Figure 1) contains what is
typically covered in a one-semester introductory course: control structures,
functions, arrays, classes, inheritance, and stream I/O. The advanced material is
grouped into four parts to make it easy to choose a focus that fits your course.

N e w in This Editio n
Streamlined Core Chapters
This edition has been reorganized to make it more suitable for a course that aims to
cover advanced C++ features, data structures, or object-oriented design. The intro-
ductory material has been condensed, and the material on control structures has
been consolidated into a single chapter.

Modular Design
The advanced chapters are now grouped into four distinct parts:
• Data structures and algorithms
• Advanced C++ and the STL
• Object-oriented design
• Applications
Part B covers an introduction to data structures and algorithms, suitable for a sec-
ond-semester programming course. Part C focuses on advanced C++ and covers the
STL in detail. Part D covers object-oriented design, UML, and design patterns.
Finally, Part E (which is available on the Web) contains applied material on graphi-
cal user interface programming, databases, and XML that you may find useful as a
capstone. Except as shown in Figure 1, the parts are independent of each other.
The web-only chapters are part of the WileyPLUS eBook and may also be
downloaded from the book’s web site at www.wiley.com/college/horstmann. If you
are interested in adopting a custom print edition that incorporates portions of the
online material, please contact your local Wiley representative.
Preface vii

Contemporary C++
This book continues to focus on the modern features of the C++ standard, such as
the string class and the STL containers. This edition prepares students for the
future with a new Chapter 21 on the features of the upcoming C++0x standard
(included in Part C).
A large number of extended examples and 15 case studies show how C++ fea-
tures are used in complete and useful programs.

Optional Graphics Programming

The graphics programming coverage is provided because many students enjoy writ-
ing programs that create drawings, and because graphical shapes are splendid exam-
ples of objects. However, this edition makes it easier to skip this focus if desired.
Chapter 2 introduces the simple graphics library provided with this book as
another type of object students may program with. Thereafter, exercises that make
use of the graphics library are clearly identified at chapter end. An optional Chapter
25 covers graphical user interfaces and the wxWidgets library.

WileyPLUS
The first two pages of this book describe an innovative online tool for teachers and
students: WileyPLUS. WileyPLUS can be adopted with the book, or as an alterna-
tive to the printed text for about half the cost of print. WileyPLUS integrates all of
the instructor and student web resources into an online version of this text. For
more information and a demo, please visit the web site listed on pages i–ii, or talk to
your Wiley representative. (To locate your local representative, visit www.wiley.com/
college and click on “Who’s My Rep”.)

Student and Instructor Resources in WileyPLUS

This edition offers enhanced electronic supplements. In particular, the test bank has
been completely revised to provide a significant number of multiple-choice ques-
tions that are suitable for self-check assignments and quizzes.
The following resources for students and instructors can be found in the Wiley-
PLUS course for this book. Web chapters and source code are also available on the
Web at www.wiley.com/college/horstmann.
• Solutions to all exercises (for instructors only)
• A test bank (for instructors only)
• A laboratory manual
• Lecture slides that summarize each chapter and include code listings and figures
• Source code for all examples in the book, the Employee and Time classes, and the
optional graphics library
• The programming style guide (Appendix A) in modifiable electronic form
• Help with common compilers, the graphics library, and wxWidgets.
 viii Preface

A
A: Fundamentals
1. Introduction
B: Data Structures & Algorithms
C: Advanced Topics & STL
D: Object-Oriented Design 2. Numbers
E: Applications (web only) and Objects

3. Control Flow

4. Functions

6. Vectors and
5. Classes 9. Streams
Arrays
E
26. Relational
7. Pointers
Databases

8. Inheritance

B C D
14. Operator 22. Object- 25. Graphical
10. Recursion 27. XML
Overloading Oriented Design User Interfaces

11. Sorting 12. Lists, 15. Memory 23. The Unified

and Searching Queues, & Stacks Management Modeling
Language

13. Sets, Maps, & 24. Intro to

Priority Queues Design Patterns

17. Exception 18. Name Scope 19. Class

16. Templates
Handling Management Hierarchies

20. The Standard

Template Library

21. The C++0x

Standard

Figure 1 Chapter Dependencies

 Preface ix

Pedagog ical Structure

This edition builds on the pedagogical elements in the last edition and offers addi-
tional aids for the reader. Each chapter begins with the customary overview of
chapter objectives and motivational introduction. A listing of the chapter contents
then provides a quick reference to the special features in the chapter.
Throughout each chapter, margin notes show where new concepts
Margin notes mark and are introduced and provide an outline of key ideas. These notes are
reinforce new concepts summarized at the end of the chapter as a chapter review.
and are summarized at The program listings are carefully designed for easy reading.
chapter end.
Comments are typeset in a separate font that is easier to read than the
monospaced “computer” font. Functions are set off by a subtle out-
line. Keywords, strings, and numbers are “color-coded” consistently as they would
be in a development environment. (The code for all program listings in the book
(plus any additional files needed for each example) is available in the WileyPLUS
course for the book.)

Special Features
Throughout the chapters, special features set off topics for added flexibility and
easy reference. Syntax boxes highlight new syntactical constructs and their purpose.
An alphabetical list of these constructs can be found on page xxii.
Five additional features, entitled “Common Error”, “Productivity Hint”, “Qual-
ity Tip”, “Advanced Topic”, and “Random Fact”, are identified with the icons
below and set off so they don’t interrupt the flow of the main material. Some of
these are quite short; others extend over a page. Each topic is given the space that is
needed for a full and convincing explanation—instead of being forced into a one-
paragraph “tip”. You can use the tables on pages xxiv–xxxi to see the features in
each chapter and the page numbers where they can be found.
Here is a list of the special features and their icons.
• Common Errors describe the kinds of errors that students often make, with an
explanation of why the errors occur, and what to do about them. Most students
quickly discover the Common Error sections and read them on their own.

• Quality Tips explain good programming practices. Since most of them require an
initial investment of effort, these notes carefully motivate the reason behind the
advice and explain why the effort will be repaid later.

• Productivity Hints teach students how to use their tools more effectively, familiar-
izing them with tricks of the trade such as keyboard shortcuts, global search and
replace, or automation of common tasks with scripts.
x Preface

• Advanced Topics cover nonessential or more difficult material. Some of these top-
ics introduce alternative syntactical constructions that are not necessarily techni-
cally advanced. In many cases, the book uses one particular language construct
but explains alternatives as Advanced Topics. Instructors and students should
feel free to use those constructs in their own programs if they prefer them. It has,
however, been our experience that many students are grateful for the “keep it
simple” approach, because it greatly reduces the number of gratuitous decisions
they have to make.
• Random Facts provide historical and social information on computing, as
required to fulfill the “historical and social context” requirements of the ACM
curriculum guidelines, as well as capsule reviews of advanced computer science
topics.

Appendices
• Appendix A contains a style guide for use with this book. We have found it
highly beneficial to require a consistent style for all assignments. We realize that
our style may be different from yours. If you have strong feelings about a partic-
ular issue, or if this style guide conflicts with local customs, feel free to modify it.
The style guide is available in electronic form for this purpose.
• Appendices B and C contain summaries of the C++ keywords and operators.
• Appendix D lists character escape sequences and ASCII character code values.
• Appendix E documents all of the library functions and classes used in this book.
• Appendices F and G contain a discussion of binary and hexadecimal numbers,
and the C++ bit and shift operations.
• Appendix H contains a summary of the UML features that are used in this book.
• Appendix I compares C++ and Java. This appendix should be helpful to students
with a prior background in Java.

A c knowledgments
Many thanks to Dan Sayre, Lauren Sapira, Lisa Gee, and Carolyn Weisman at John
Wiley & Sons, and to the team at Publishing Services for their hard work and sup-
port for this book project. An especially deep acknowledgment and thanks to
Cindy Johnson, who, through enormous patience and attention to detail, made this
book a reality.
Several individuals assisted in the creation of the online resources for this edition.
We would like to thank Kurt Schmidt, Drexel University, and Diya Biswas, Maria
Kolakowska, and John O’Meara for a great set of lecture slides. We are grateful to
Fred Annexstein, University of Cincinnati, Steven Kollmansberger, South Puget
Sound Community College, and Gwen Walton, Florida Southern College, for their
Preface xi

contributions to the solutions. And thank you to John Russo, Wentworth Institute
of Technology, for working with us to prepare the labs that accompany the book.
We are very grateful to the many individuals who reviewed this and the prior edi-
tion of the book, made many valuable suggestions, and brought an embarrassingly
large number of errors and omissions to our attention. They include:
Charles Allison, Utah Valley State College
Vladimir Akis, California State University, Los Angeles
Richard Borie, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa
Ramzi Bualuan, Notre Dame University
Drew Coles, Boston University
Roger DeBry, Utah Valley State College
Joseph DeLibero, Arizona State University
Martin S. Dulberg, North Carolina State University
Jeremy Frens, Calvin College
Timothy Henry, University of Rhode Island
Robert Jarman, Augusta State University
Jerzy Jaromczyk, University of Kentucky
Debbie Kaneko, Old Dominion University
Vitit Kantabutra, Idaho State University
Stan Lippman, Microsoft Corporation
Brian Malloy, Clemson University
Stephen Murrell, University of Miami
Jeffery Popyack, Drexel University
John Russo, Wentworth Institute of Technology
Kurt Schmidt, Drexel University
William Shay, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
Joseph R. Shinnerl, University of California, Los Angeles
Deborah Silver, Rutgers University
John Sterling, Polytechnic University
Gwen Walton, Florida Southern College
Joel Weinstein, New England University
Lillian Witzke, Milwaukee School of Engineering
Our gratitude also to those who took time to tell us about their C++ course and
whose advice shaped this new edition:
Fred Annexstein, University of Cincinnati
Noah D. Barnette, Virginia Tech
Stefano Basagni, Northeastern University
xii Preface

Peter Breznay, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay

Subramaniam Dharmarajan, Arizona State University
Stephen Gilbert, Orange Coast College
Barbara Guillott, Louisiana State University
Mir Behrad Khamesee, University of Waterloo
Sung-Sik Kwon, North Carolina Central University
W. James MacLean, University of Toronto
Ethan V. Munson, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Kurt Schmidt, Drexel University
Michele A. Starkey, Mount Saint Mary College
William Stockwell, University of Central Oklahoma
Jonathan Tolstedt, North Dakota State University
David P. Voorhees, Le Moyne College
Salih Yurttas, Texas A&M University
Contents

Preface v
Special Features xxii

Chapter 1 Introduction 1

1.1 What Is a Computer? 2

1.2 What Is Programming? 3
1.3 The Anatomy of a Computer 4
1.4 Translating Human-Readable Programs to Machine Code 9
1.5 Programming Languages 10
1.6 The Evolution of C++ 11
1.7 Becoming Familiar with Your Computer 12
1.8 Compiling a Simple Program 15
1.9 Errors 19
1.10 The Compilation Process 21
1.11 Algorithms 24

Chapter 2 Numbers and Objects 31

2.1 Number Types 32

2.2 Input 40
2.3 Assignment 45
2.4 Constants 51
2.5 Arithmetic 54
Other documents randomly have
different content
would be understood by materialists to indicate some such
phenomenon as the sudden ignition of the star in Cassiopeia, a.d.
1572, and the one in Serpentarius, in 1604, which was noted by
Kepler. But, do the Chaldeans evince in this expression a profounder
philosophy than of our day? Does this change into balls of “pure
divine fire” signify a continuous planetary existence, correspondent
with the spirit-life of man, beyond the awful mystery of death? If
worlds have, as the astronomers tell us, their periods of embryo,
infancy, adolescence, maturity, decadence, and death, may they not,
like man, have their continued existence in a sublimated, ethereal, or
spiritual form? The magians so affirm. They tell us that the fecund
mother Earth is subject to the same laws as every one of her
children. At her appointed time she brings forth all created things; in
the fulness of her days she is gathered to the tomb of worlds. Her
gross, material body slowly parts with its atoms under the inexorable
law which demands their new arrangement in other combinations.
Her own perfected vivifying spirit obeys the eternal attraction which
draws it toward that central spiritual sun from which it was originally
evolved, and which we vaguely know under the name of God.
“And the heaven was visible in seven circles, and the planets
appeared with all their signs, in star-form, and the stars were divided
and numbered with the rulers that were in them, and their revolving
course was bounded with the air, and borne with a circular course,
through the agency of the divine spirit.”[423]
We challenge any one to indicate a single passage in the works of
Hermes which proves him guilty of that crowning absurdity of the
Church of Rome which assumed, upon the geocentric theory of
astronomy, that the heavenly bodies were made for our use and
pleasure, and that it was worth while for the only son of God to
descend upon this cosmic mote and die in expiation for our sins! Mr.
Proctor tells us of a liquid non-permanent shell of uncongealed
matter enclosing a “viscous plastic ocean,” within which “there is
another interior solid globe rotating.” We, on our part, turn to the
Magia Adamica of Eugenius Philalethes, published in 1650, and at
page 12, we find him quoting from Trismegistus in the following
terms: “Hermes affirmeth that in the Beginning the earth was a
quackmire or quivering kind of jelly, it being nothing else but water
congealed by the incubation and heat of the divine spirit; cum adhuc
(sayeth he) Terra tremula esset, Lucente sole compacta esto.”
In the same work, Philalethes, speaking in his quaint, symbolical
way, says, “The earth is invisible ... on my soul it is so, and which is
more, the eye of man never saw the earth, nor can it be seen without
art. To make this element invisible, is the greatest secret in magic ...
as for this fœculent, gross body upon which we walk, it is a compost,
and no earth but it hath earth in it, ... in a word all the elements are
visible but one, namely the earth, and when thou hast attained to so
much perfection as to know why God hath placed the earth in
abscondito,[424] thou hast an excellent figure whereby to know God
Himself, and how He is visible, how invisible.”[425]
Ages before our savants of the nineteenth century came into
existence, a wise man of the Orient thus expressed himself, in
addressing the invisible Deity: “For thy Almighty Hand, that made the
world of formless matter.”[426]
There is much more contained in this language than we are willing
to explain, but we will say that the secret is worth the seeking;
perhaps in this formless matter, the pre-Adamite earth, is contained
a “potency” with which Messrs. Tyndall and Huxley would be glad to
acquaint themselves.
But to descend from universals to particulars, from the ancient
theory of planetary evolution to the evolution of plant and animal life,
as opposed to the theory of special creation, what does Mr. Proctor
call the following language of Hermes but an anticipation of the
modern theory of evolution of species? “When God had filled his
powerful hands with those things which are in nature, and in that
which compasseth nature, then shutting them close again, he said:
‘Receive from me, O holy earth! that art ordained to be the mother of
all, lest thou shouldst want anything;’ when presently opening such
hands as it becomes a God to have, he poured down all that was
necessary to the constitution of things.” Here we have primeval
matter imbued with “the promise and potency of every future form of
life,” and the earth declared to be the predestined mother of
everything that should thenceforth spring from her bosom.
More definite is the language of Marcus Antoninus in his discourse
to himself. “The nature of the universe delights not in anything so
much as to alter all things, and present them under another form.
This is her conceit to play one game and begin another. Matter is
placed before her like a piece of wax and she shapes it to all forms
and figures. Now she makes a bird, then out of the bird a beast—
now a flower, then a frog, and she is pleased with her own magical
performances as men are with their own fancies.”[427]
Before any of our modern teachers thought of evolution, the
ancients taught us, through Hermes, that nothing can be abrupt in
nature; that she never proceeds by jumps and starts, that everything
in her works is slow harmony, and that there is nothing sudden—not
even violent death.
The slow development from preëxisting forms was a doctrine with
the Rosicrucian Illuminati. The Tres Matres showed Hermes the
mysterious progress of their work, before they condescended to
reveal themselves to mediæval alchemists. Now, in the Hermetic
dialect, these three mothers are the symbol of light, heat, and
electricity, or magnetism, the two latter being as convertible as the
whole of the forces or agents which have a place assigned them in
the modern “Force-correlation.” Synesius mentions books of stone
which he found in the temple of Memphis, on which was engraved
the following sentence: “One nature delights in another, one nature
overcomes another, one nature overrules another, and the whole of
them are one.”
The inherent restlessness of matter is embodied in the saying of
Hermes: “Action is the life of Phta;” and Orpheus calls nature
Πολυμήχανος μάτηρ, “the mother that makes many things,” or the
ingenious, the contriving, the inventive mother.
Mr. Proctor says: “All that that is upon and within the earth, all
vegetable forms and all animal forms, our bodies, our brains, are
formed of materials which have been drawn in from those depths of
space surrounding us on all sides.” The Hermetists and the later
Rosicrucians held that all things visible and invisible were produced
by the contention of light with darkness, and that every particle of
matter contains within itself a spark of the divine essence—or light,
spirit—which, through its tendency to free itself from its
entanglement and return to the central source, produced motion in
the particles, and from motion forms were born. Says Hargrave
Jennings, quoting Robertus di Fluctibus: “Thus all minerals in this
spark of life have the rudimentary possibility of plants and growing
organisms; thus all plants have rudimentary sensations which might
(in the ages) enable them to perfect and transmute into locomotive
new creatures, lesser or higher in their grade, or nobler or meaner in
their functions; thus all plants, and all vegetation might pass off (by
side roads) into more distinguished highways as it were, of
independent, completer advance, allowing their original spark of light
to expand and thrill with higher and more vivid force, and to urge
forward with more abounding, informed purpose, all wrought by
planetary influence directed by the unseen spirits (or workers) of the
great original architect.”[428]
Light—the first mentioned in Genesis, is termed by the kabalists,
Sephira, or the Divine Intelligence, the mother of all the Sephiroth,
while the Concealed Wisdom is the father. Light is the first begotten,
and the first emanation of the Supreme, and Light is Life, says the
evangelist. Both are electricity—the life-principle, the anima mundi,
pervading the universe, the electric vivifier of all things. Light is the
great Protean magician, and under the Divine Will of the architect, its
multifarious, omnipotent waves gave birth to every form as well as to
every living being. From its swelling, electric bosom, springs matter
and spirit. Within its beams lie the beginnings of all physical and
chemical action, and of all cosmic and spiritual phenomena; it
vitalizes and disorganizes; it gives life and produces death, and from
its primordial point gradually emerged into existence the myriads of
worlds, visible and invisible celestial bodies. It was at the ray of this
First mother, one in three, that God, according to Plato, “lighted a
fire, which we now call the sun,”[429] and, which is not the cause of
either light or heat, but merely the focus, or, as we might say, the
lens, by which the rays of the primordial light become materialized,
are concentrated upon our solar system, and produce all the
correlations of forces.
So much for the first of Mr. Proctor’s two propositions; now for the
second.
The work which we have been noticing, comprises a series of
twelve essays, of which the last is entitled Thoughts on Astrology.
The author treats the subject with so much more consideration than
is the custom of men of his class, that it is evident he has given it
thoughtful attention. In fact, he goes so far as to say that, “If we
consider the matter aright, we must concede ... that of all the errors
into which men have fallen in their desire to penetrate into futurity,
astrology is the most respectable, we may even say the most
reasonable.”[430]
He admits that “The heavenly bodies do rule the fates of men and
nations in the most unmistakable manner, seeing that without the
controlling and beneficent influences of the chief among those orbs
—the sun—every living creature on the earth must perish.“[431] He
admits, also, the influence of the moon, and sees nothing strange in
the ancients reasoning by analogy, that if two among these heavenly
bodies were thus potent in terrestrial influences, it was ” ... natural
that the other moving bodies known to the ancients, should be
thought to possess also their special powers.”[432] Indeed, the
professor sees nothing unreasonable in their supposition that the
influences exerted by the slower moving planets “might be even
more potent than those of the sun himself.” Mr. Proctor thinks that
the system of astrology “was formed gradually and perhaps
tentatively.” Some influences may have been inferred from observed
events, the fate of this or that king or chief, guiding astrologers in
assigning particular influences to such planetary aspects as were
presented at the time of his nativity. Others may have been invented,
and afterward have found general acceptance, because confirmed
by some curious coincidences.
 A witty joke may sound very prettily, even in a learned treatise,
and the word “coincidence” may be applied to anything we are
unwilling to accept. But a sophism is not a truism; still less is it a
mathematical demonstration, which alone ought to serve as a
beacon—to astronomers, at least. Astrology is a science as infallible
as astronomy itself, with the condition, however, that its interpreters
must be equally infallible; and it is this condition, sine qua non, so
very difficult of realization, that has always proved a stumbling-block
to both. Astrology is to exact astronomy what psychology is to exact
physiology. In astrology and psychology one has to step beyond the
visible world of matter, and enter into the domain of transcendent
spirit. It is the old struggle between the Platonic and Aristotelean
schools, and it is not in our century of Sadducean skepticism that the
former will prevail over the latter. Mr. Proctor, in his professional
capacity, is like the uncharitable person of the Sermon on the Mount,
who is ever ready to attract public attention to the mote in his
despised neighbor’s eye, and overlook the beam in his own. Were
we to record the failures and ridiculous blunders of astronomers, we
are afraid they would outnumber by far those of the astrologers.
Present events fully vindicate Nostradamus, who has been so much
ridiculed by our skeptics. In an old book of prophecies, published in
the fifteenth century (an edition of 1453), we read the following,
among other astrological predictions:[433]

“In twice two hundred years, the Bear

The Crescent will assail;
But if the Cock and Bull unite,
The Bear will not prevail.
In twice ten years again—
Let Islam know and fear—
The Cross shall stand, the Crescent wane,
Dissolve, and disappear.”

In just twice two hundred years from the date of that prophecy, we
had the Crimean war, during which the alliance of the Gallic Cock
and English Bull interfered with the political designs of the Russian
Bear. In 1856 the war was ended, and Turkey, or the Crescent,
closely escaped destruction. In the present year (1876) the most
unexpected events of a political character have just taken place, and
twice ten years have elapsed since peace was proclaimed.
Everything seems to bid fair for a fulfilment of the old prophecy; the
future will tell whether the Moslem Crescent, which seems, indeed,
to be waning, will irrevocably “wane, dissolve, and disappear,” as the
outcome of the present troubles.
In explaining away the heterodox facts which he appears to have
encountered in his pursuit of knowledge, Mr. Proctor is obliged more
than once in his work, to fall back upon these “curious coincidences.”
One of the most curious of these is stated by him in a foot-note
(page 301) as follows: “I do not here dwell on the curious
coincidence—if, indeed, Chaldean astrologers had not discovered
the ring of Saturn—that they showed the god corresponding within a
ring and triple.... Very moderate optical knowledge—such, indeed, as
we may fairly infer from the presence of optical instruments among
Assyrian remains—might have led to the discovery of Saturnal rings
and Jupiter’s moons.... Bel, the Assyrian Jupiter,” he adds, “was
represented sometimes with four star-tipped wings. But it is possible
that these are mere coincidences.”
In short, Mr. Proctor’s theory of coincidence becomes finally more
suggestive of miracle than the facts themselves. For coincidences
our friends the skeptics appear to have an unappeasable appetite.
We have brought sufficient testimony in the preceding chapter to
show that the ancients must have used as good optical instruments
as we have now. Were the instruments in possession of
Nebuchadnezzar of such moderate power, and the knowledge of his
astronomers so very contemptible, when, according to Rawlinson’s
reading of the tiles, the Birs-Nimrud, or temple of Borsippa, had
seven stages, symbolical of the concentric circles of the seven
spheres, each built of tiles and metals to correspond with the color of
the ruling planet of the sphere typified? Is it a coincidence again, that
they should have appropriated to each planet the color which our
latest telescopic discoveries show to be the real one?[434] Or is it
again a coincidence, that Plato should have indicated in the Timæus
his knowledge of the indestructibility of matter, of conservation of
energy, and correlation of forces? “The latest word of modern
philosophy,” says Jowett, “is continuity and development, but to Plato
this is the beginning and foundation of science.”[435]
The radical element of the oldest religions was essentially
sabaistic; and we maintain that their myths and allegories—if once
correctly and thoroughly interpreted, will dovetail with the most exact
astronomical notions of our day. We will say more; there is hardly a
scientific law—whether pertaining to physical astronomy or physical
geography—that could not be easily pointed out in the ingenious
combinations of their fables. They allegorized the most important as
well as the most trifling causes of the celestial motions; the nature of
every phenomenon was personified; and in the mythical biographies
of the Olympic gods and goddesses, one well acquainted with the
latest principles of physics and chemistry can find their causes, inter-
agencies, and mutual relations embodied in the deportment and
course of action of the fickle deities. The atmospheric electricity in its
neutral and latent states is embodied usually in demi-gods and
goddesses, whose scene of action is more limited to earth and who,
in their occasional flights to the higher deific regions, display their
electric tempers always in strict proportion with the increase of
distance from the earth’s surface: the weapons of Hercules and Thor
were never more mortal than when the gods soared into the clouds.
We must bear in mind that before the time when the Olympian
Jupiter was anthropomorphized by the genius of Pheidias into the
Omnipotent God, the Maximus, the God of gods, and thus
abandoned to the adoration of the multitudes, in the earliest and
abstruse science of symbology he embodied in his person and
attributes the whole of the cosmic forces. The Myth was less
metaphysical and complicated, but more truly eloquent as an
expression of natural philosophy. Zeus, the male element of the
creation with Chthonia—Vesta (the earth), and Metis (the water) the
first of the Oceanides (the feminine principles)—was viewed
according to Porphyry and Proclus as the zōŏn-ek-zōōn, the chief of
living beings. In the Orphic theology, the oldest of all, metaphysically
speaking, he represented both the potentia and actus, the
unrevealed cause and the Demiurg, or the active creator as an
emanation from the invisible potency. In the latter demiurgic capacity,
in conjunction with his consorts, we find in him all the mightiest
agents of cosmic evolution—chemical affinity, atmospheric electricity,
attraction, and repulsion.
It is in following his representations in this physical qualification
that we discover how well acquainted were the ancients with all the
doctrines of physical science in their modern development. Later, in
the Pythagorean speculations, Zeus became the metaphysical trinity;
the monad evolving from its invisible self the active cause, effect,
and intelligent will, the whole forming the Tetractis. Still later we find
the earlier Neo-platonists leaving the primal monad aside, on the
ground of its utter incomprehensibleness to human intellect,
speculating merely on the demiurgic triad of this deity as visible and
intelligible in its effects; and thus the metaphysical continuation by
Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, and other philosophers of this view of
Zeus the father, Zeus Poseidon, or dunamis, the son and power, and
the spirit or nous. This triad was also accepted as a whole by the
Irenæic school of the second century; the more substantial
difference between the doctrines of the Neo-platonists and the
Christians being merely the forcible amalgamation by the latter of the
incomprehensible monad with its actualized creative trinity.
In his astronomical aspect Zeus-Dionysus has his origin in the
zodiac, the ancient solar year. In Libya he assumed the form of a
ram, and is identical with the Egyptian Amun, who begat Osiris, the
taurian god. Osiris is also a personified emanation of the Father-Sun,
and himself the Sun in Taurus. The Parent-Sun being the Sun in
Aries. As the latter, Jupiter, is in the guise of a ram, and as Jupiter-
Dionysus or Jupiter-Osiris, he is the bull. This animal is, as it is well
known, the symbol of the creative power; moreover the Kabala
explains, through the medium of one of its chief expounders, Simon-
Ben-Iochai,[436] the origin of this strange worship of the bulls and
cows. It is neither Darwin nor Huxley—the founders of the doctrine of
evolution and its necessary complement, the transformation of
species—that can find anything against the rationality of this symbol,
except, perhaps, a natural feeling of uneasiness upon finding that
they were preceded by the ancients even in this particular modern
discovery. Elsewhere, we will give the doctrine of the kabalists as
taught by Simon-Ben-Iochai.
It may be easily proved that from time immemorial Saturn or
Kronos, whose ring, most positively, was discovered by the
Chaldean astrologers, and whose symbolism is no “coincidence,”
was considered the father of Zeus, before the latter became himself
the father of all the gods, and was the highest deity. He was the Bel
or Baal of the Chaldeans, and originally imported among them by the
Akkadians. Rawlinson insists that the latter came from Armenia; but
if so, how can we account for the fact that Bel is but a Babylonian
personification of the Hindu Siva, or Bala, the fire-god, the
omnipotent creative, and at the same time, destroying Deity, in many
senses higher than Brahma himself?
“Zeus,” says an Orphic hymn, “is the first and the last, the head,
and the extremities; from him have proceeded all things. He is a man
and an immortal nymph (male and female element); the soul of all
things; and the principal motor in fire; he is the sun and the moon;
the fountain of the ocean; the demiurgus of the universe; one power,
one God; the mighty creator and governor of the cosmos.
Everything, fire, water, earth, ether, night, the heavens, Metis, the
primeval architecturess (the Sophia of the Gnostics, and the Sephira
of the Kabalists), the beautiful Eros, Cupid, all is included within the
vast dimensions of his glorious body!”[437]
This short hymn of laudation contains within itself the groundwork
of every mythopœic conception. The imagination of the ancients
proved as boundless as the visible manifestations of the Deity itself
which afforded them the themes for their allegories. Still the latter,
exuberant as they seem, never departed from the two principal ideas
which may be ever found running parallel in their sacred imagery; a
strict adherence to the physical as well as moral or spiritual aspect of
natural law. Their metaphysical researches never clashed with
scientific truths, and their religions may be truly termed the psycho-
physiological creeds of the priests and scientists, who built them on
the traditions of the infant-world, such as the unsophisticated minds
of the primitive races received them, and on their own experimental
knowledge, hoary with all the wisdom of the intervening ages.
As the sun, what better image could be found for Jupiter emitting
his golden rays than to personify this emanation in Diana, the all-
illuminating virgin Artemis, whose oldest name was Diktynna, literally
the emitted ray, from the word dikein. The moon is non-luminous,
and it shines only by the reflected light of the sun; hence, the
imagery of his daughter, the goddess of the moon, and herself, Luna,
Astartè, or Diana. As the Cretan Diktynna, she wears a wreath made
of the magic plant diktamnon, or dictamnus, the evergreen shrub
whose contact is said, at the same time, to develop somnambulism
and cure finally of it; and, as Eilithyia and Juno Pronuba, she is the
goddess who presides over births; she is an Æsculapian deity, and
the use of the dictamnus-wreath, in association with the moon,
shows once more the profound observation of the ancients. This
plant is known in botany as possessing strongly sedative properties;
it grows on Mount Dicte, a Cretan mountain, in great abundance; on
the other hand, the moon, according to the best authorities on animal
magnetism, acts upon the juices and ganglionic system, or nerve-
cells, the seat from whence proceed all the nerve-fibres which play
such a prominent part in mesmerization. During childbirth the Cretan
women were covered with this plant, and its roots were administered
as best calculated to soothe acute pain, and allay the irritability so
dangerous at this period. They were placed, moreover, within the
precincts of the temple sacred to the goddess, and, if possible, under
the direct rays of the resplendent daughter of Jupiter—the bright and
warm Eastern moon.
The Hindu Brahmans and Buddhists have complicated theories on
the influence of the sun and moon (the male and female elements),
as containing the negative and positive principles, the opposites of
the magnetic polarity. “The influence of the moon on women is well
known,” write all the old authors on magnetism; and Ennemoser, as
well as Du Potet, confirm the theories of the Hindu seers in every
particular.
 The marked respect paid by the Buddhists to the sapphire-stone—
which was also sacred to Luna, in every other country—may be
found based on something more scientifically exact than a mere
groundless superstition. They ascribed to it a sacred magical power,
which every student of psychological mesmerism will readily
understand, for its polished and deep-blue surface produces
extraordinary somnambulic phenomena. The varied influence of the
prismatic colors on the growth of vegetation, and especially that of
the “blue ray,” has been recognized but recently. The Academicians
quarrelled over the unequal heating power of the prismatic rays until
a series of experimental demonstrations by General Pleasonton,
proved that under the blue ray, the most electric of all, animal and
vegetable growth was increased to a magical proportion. Thus
Amoretti’s investigations of the electric polarity of precious stones
show that the diamond, the garnet, the amethyst, are -E., while the
sapphire is +E.[438] Thus, we are enabled to show that the latest
experiments of science only corroborate that which was known to the
Hindu sages before any of the modern academies were founded. An
old Hindu legend says that Brahma-Prajapâti, having fallen in love
with his own daughter, Ushâs (Heaven, sometimes the Dawn also),
assumed the form of a buck (ris’ya) and Ushâs that of a female deer
(rôhit) and thus committed the first sin.[439] Upon seeing such a
desecration, the gods felt so terrified, that uniting their most fearful-
looking bodies—each god possessing as many bodies as he desires
—they produced Bhûtavan (the spirit of evil), who was created by
them on purpose to destroy the incarnation of the first sin committed
by the Brahma himself. Upon seeing this, Brahma-
Hiranyagarbha[440] repented bitterly and began repeating the
Mantras, or prayers of purification, and, in his grief, dropped on earth
a tear, the hottest that ever fell from an eye; and from it was formed
the first sapphire.
This half-sacred, half-popular legend shows that the Hindus knew
which was the most electric of all the prismatic colors; moreover, the
particular influence of the sapphire-stone was as well defined as that
of all the other minerals. Orpheus teaches how it is possible to affect
a whole audience by means of a lodestone; Pythagoras pays a
particular attention to the color and nature of precious stones; while
Apollonius of Tyana imparts to his disciples the secret virtues of
each, and changes his jewelled rings daily, using a particular stone
for every day of the month and according to the laws of judicial
astrology. The Buddhists assert that the sapphire produces peace of
mind, equanimity, and chases all evil thoughts by establishing a
healthy circulation in man. So does an electric battery, with its well-
directed fluid, say our electricians. “The sapphire,” say the
Buddhists, “will open barred doors and dwellings (for the spirit of
man); it produces a desire for prayer, and brings with it more peace
than any other gem; but he who would wear it must lead a pure and
holy life.”[441]
Diana-Luna is the daughter of Zeus by Proserpina, who represents
the Earth in her active labor, and, according to Hesiod, as Diana
Eilythia-Lucina she is Juno’s daughter. But Juno, devoured by
Kronos or Saturn, and restored back to life by the Oceanid Metis, is
also known as the Earth. Saturn, as the evolution of Time, swallows
the earth in one of the ante-historical cataclysms, and it is only when
Metis (the waters) by retreating in her many beds, frees the
continent, that Juno is said to be restored to her first shape. The idea
is expressed in the 9th and 10th verses of the first chapter of
Genesis. In the frequent matrimonial quarrels between Juno and
Jupiter, Diana is always represented as turning her back on her
mother and smiling upon her father, though she chides him for his
numerous frolics. The Thessalian magicians are said to have been
obliged, during such eclipses, to draw her attention to the earth by
the power of their spells and incantations, and the Babylonian
astrologers and magi never desisted in their spells until they brought
about a reconciliation between the irritated couple, after which Juno
“radiantly smiled on the bright goddess” Diana, who, encircling her
brow with her crescent, returned to her hunting-place in the
mountains.
It seems to us that the fable illustrates the different phases of the
moon. We, the inhabitants of the earth, never see but one-half of our
bright satellite, who thus turns her back to her mother Juno. The sun,
the moon, and the earth are constantly changing positions with
relation to each other. With the new moon there is constantly a
change of weather; and sometimes the wind and storms may well
suggest a quarrel between the sun and earth, especially when the
former is concealed by grumbling thunder-clouds. Furthermore, the
new moon, when her dark side is turned toward us, is invisible; and it
is only after a reconciliation between the sun and the earth, that a
bright crescent becomes visible on the side nearest to the sun,
though this time Luna is not illuminated by sunlight directly received,
but by sunlight reflected from the earth to the moon, and by her
reflected back to us. Hence, the Chaldean astrologers and the
magicians of Thessaly, who probably watched and determined as
accurately as a Babinet the course of the celestial bodies, were said
by their enchantments to force the moon to descend on earth, i.e., to
show her crescent, which she could do but after receiving the
“radiant smile” from her mother-earth, who put it on after the conjugal
reconciliation. Diana-Luna, having adorned her head with her
crescent, returns back to hunt in her mountains.
As to calling in question the intrinsic knowledge of the ancients on
the ground of their “superstitious deductions from natural
phenomena,” it is as appropriate as it would be if, five hundred years
hence, our descendents should regard the pupils of Professor
Balfour Stewart as ancient ignoramuses, and himself a shallow
philosopher. If modern science, in the person of this gentleman, can
condescend to make experiments to determine whether the
appearance of the spots on the sun’s surface is in any way
connected with the potatoe disease, and finds it is; and that,
moreover, “the earth is very seriously affected by what takes place in
the sun,”[442] why should the ancient astrologers be held up as either
fools or arrant knaves? There is the same relation between natural
and judicial or judiciary astrology, as between physiology and
psychology, the physical and the moral. If in later centuries these
sciences were degraded into charlatanry by some money-making
impostors, is it just to extend the accusation to those mighty men of
old who, by their persevering studies and holy lives, bestowed an
immortal name upon Chaldea and Babylonia? Surely those who are
now found to have made correct astronomical observations ranging
back to “within 100 years from the flood,” from the top observatory of
the “cloud-encompassed Bel,” as Prof. Draper has it, can hardly be
considered impostors. If their mode of impressing upon the popular
minds the great astronomical truths differed from the “system of
education” of our present century and appears ridiculous to some,
the question still remains unanswered: which of the two systems was
the best? With them science went hand in hand with religion, and the
idea of God was inseparable from that of his works. And while in the
present century there is not one person out of ten thousand who
knows, if he ever knew the fact at all, that the planet Uranus is next
to Saturn, and revolves about the sun in eighty-four years; and that
Saturn is next to Jupiter, and takes twenty-nine and a half years to
make one complete revolution in its orbit; while Jupiter performs his
revolution in twelve years; the uneducated masses of Babylon and
Greece, having impressed on their minds that Uranus was the father
of Saturn, and Saturn that of Jupiter, considering them furthermore
deities as well as all their satellites and attendants, we may perhaps
infer from it, that while Europeans only discovered Uranus in 1781, a
curious coincidence is to be noticed in the above myths.
We have but to open the most common book on astrology, and
compare the descriptions embraced in the Fable of the Twelve
Houses with the most modern discoveries of science as to the nature
of the planets and the elements in each star, to see that without any
spectroscope the ancients were perfectly well acquainted with the
same. Unless the fact is again regarded as “a coincidence,” we can
learn, to a certain extent, of the degree of the solar heat, light, and
nature of the planets by simply studying their symbolic
representations in the Olympic gods, and the twelve signs of the
zodiac, to each of which in astrology is attributed a particular quality.
If the goddesses of our own planet vary in no particular from other
gods and goddesses, but all have a like physical nature, does not
this imply that the sentinels who watched from the top of Bel’s tower,
by day as well as by night, holding communion with the euhemerized
deities, had remarked, before ourselves, the physical unity of the
universe and the fact that the planets above are made of precisely
the same chemical elements as our own. The sun in Aries, Jupiter, is
shown in astrology as a masculine, diurnal, cardinal, equinoctial,
easterly sign, hot and dry, and answers perfectly to the character
attributed to the fickle “Father of the gods.” When angry Zeus-Akrios
snatches from his fiery belt the thunderbolts which he hurls forth
from heaven, he rends the clouds and descends as Jupiter Pluvius in
torrents of rain. He is the greatest and highest of gods, and his
movements are as rapid as lightning itself. The planet Jupiter is
known to revolve on its axis so rapidly that the point of its equator
turns at the rate of 450 miles a minute. An immense excess of
centrifugal force at the equator is believed to have caused the planet
to become extremely flattened at the poles; and in Crete the
personified god Jupiter was represented without ears. The planet
Jupiter’s disk is crossed by dark belts; varying in breadth, they
appear to be connected with its rotation on its axis, and are
produced by disturbances in its atmosphere. The face of Father
Zeus, says Hesiod, became spotted with rage when he beheld the
Titans ready to rebel.
In Mr. Proctor’s book, astronomers seem especially doomed by
Providence to encounter all kinds of curious “coincidences,” for he
gives us many cases out of the “multitude,” and even of the
“thousands of facts [sic].” To this list we may add the army of
Egyptologists and archæologists who of late have been the chosen
pets of the capricious Dame Chance, who, moreover, generally
selects “well-to-do Arabs” and other Eastern gentlemen, to play the
part of benevolent genii to Oriental scholars in difficulties. Professor
Ebers is one of the latest favored ones. It is a well-known fact, that
whenever Champollion needed important links, he fell in with them in
the most various and unexpected ways.
Voltaire, the greatest of “infidels” of the eighteenth century, used to
say, that if there were no God, people would have to invent one.
Volney, another “materialist,” nowhere throughout his numerous
writings denies the existence of God. On the contrary, he plainly
asserts several times that the universe is the work of the “All-wise,”
and is convinced that there is a Supreme Agent, a universal and
identical Artificer, designated by the name of God.[443] Voltaire
becomes, toward the end of his life, Pythagorical, and concludes by
saying: “I have consumed forty years of my pilgrimage ... seeking the
philosopher’s stone called truth. I have consulted all the adepts of
antiquity, Epicurus and Augustine, Plato and Malebranche, and I still
remain in ignorance.... All that I have been able to obtain by
comparing and combining the system of Plato, of the tutor of
Alexander, Pythagoras, and the Oriental, is this: Chance is a word
void of sense. The world is arranged according to mathematical
laws.”[444]
It is pertinent for us to suggest that Mr. Proctor’s stumbling-block is
that which trips the feet of all materialistic scientists, whose views he
but repeats; he confounds the physical and spiritual operations of
nature. His very theory of the probable inductive reasoning of the
ancients as to the subtile influences of the more remote planets, by
comparison with the familiar and potent effects of the sun and moon
upon our earth, shows the drift of his mind. Because science affirms
that the sun imparts physical heat and light to us, and the moon
affects the tides, he thinks that the ancients must have regarded the
other heavenly bodies as exerting the same kind of influence upon
us physically, and indirectly upon our fortunes.[445] And here we
must permit ourselves a digression.
How the ancients regarded the heavenly bodies is very hard to
determine, for one unacquainted with the esoteric explanation of
their doctrines. While philology and comparative theology have
begun the arduous work of analysis, they have as yet arrived at
meagre results. The allegorical form of speech has often led our
commentators so far astray, that they have confounded causes with
effects, and vice versa. In the baffling phenomenon of force-
correlation, even our greatest scientists would find it very hard to
explain which of these forces is the cause, and which the effect,
since each may be both by turns, and convertible. Thus, if we should
inquire of the physicists, “Is it light which generates heat, or the latter
which produces light?” we would in all probability be answered that it
is certainly light which creates heat. Very well; but how? did the great
Artificer first produce light, or did He first construct the sun, which is
said to be the sole dispenser of light, and, consequently, heat?
These questions may appear at first glance indicative of ignorance;
but, perhaps, if we ponder them deeply, they will assume another
appearance. In Genesis, the “Lord” first creates light, and three days
and three nights are alleged to pass away before He creates the
sun, the moon, and the stars. This gross blunder against exact
science has created much merriment among materialists. And they
certainly would be warranted in laughing, if their doctrine that our
light and heat are derived from the sun were unassailable. Until
recently, nothing has happened to upset this theory, which, for lack
of a better one, according to the expression of a preacher, “reigns
sovereign in the Empire of Hypothesis.” The ancient sun-
worshippers regarded the Great Spirit as a nature-god, identical with
nature, and the sun as the deity, “in whom the Lord of life dwells.”
Gama is the sun, according to the Hindu theology, and “The sun is
the source of the souls and of all life.”[446] Agni, the “Divine Fire,” the
deity of the Hindu, is the sun,[447] for the fire and sun are the same.
Ormazd is light, the Sun-God, or the Life-giver. In the Hindu
philosophy, “The souls issue from the soul of the world, and return to
it as sparks to the fire.”[448] But, in another place, it is said that “The
Sun is the soul of all things; all has proceeded out of it, and will
return to it,”[449] which shows that the sun is meant allegorically here,
and refers to the central, invisible sun, GOD, whose first
manifestation was Sephira, the emanation of En-Soph—Light, in
short.
“And I looked, and behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a
great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it,”
says Ezekiel (i. 4, 22, etc.), “ ... and the likeness of a throne ... and
as the appearance of a man above upon it ... and I saw as it were
the appearance of fire and it had brightness round about it.” And
Daniel speaks of the “ancient of days,” the kabalistic En-Soph,
whose throne was “the fiery flame, his wheels burning fire.... A fiery
stream issued and came forth from before him.”[450] Like the Pagan
Saturn, who had his castle of flame in the seventh heaven, the
Jewish Jehovah had his “castle of fire over the seventh
heavens.”[451]
 If the limited space of the present work would permit we might
easily show that none of the ancients, the sun-worshippers included,
regarded our visible sun otherwise than as an emblem of their
metaphysical invisible central sun-god. Moreover, they did not
believe what our modern science teaches us, namely, that light and
heat proceed from our sun, and that it is this planet which imparts all
life to our visible nature. “His radiance is undecaying,” says the Rig-
Veda, “the intensely-shining, all-pervading, unceasing, undecaying
rays of Agni desist not, neither night nor day.” This evidently related
to the spiritual, central sun, whose rays are all-pervading and
unceasing, the eternal and boundless life-giver. He the Point; the
centre (which is everywhere) of the circle (which is nowhere), the
ethereal, spiritual fire, the soul and spirit of the all-pervading,
mysterious ether; the despair and puzzle of the materialist, who will
some day find that that which causes the numberless cosmic forces
to manifest themselves in eternal correlation is but a divine
electricity, or rather galvanism, and that the sun is but one of the
myriad magnets disseminated through space—a reflector—as
General Pleasonton has it. That the sun has no more heat in it than
the moon or the space-crowding host of sparkling stars. That there is
no gravitation in the Newtonian sense,[452] but only magnetic
attraction and repulsion; and that it is by their magnetism that the
planets of the solar system have their motions regulated in their
respective orbits by the still more powerful magnetism of the sun, not
by their weight or gravitation. This and much more they may learn;
but, until then we must be content with being merely laughed at,
instead of being burned alive for impiety, or shut up in an insane
asylum.
The laws of Manu are the doctrines of Plato, Philo, Zoroaster,
Pythagoras, and of the Kabala. The esoterism of every religion may
be solved by the latter. The kabalistic doctrine of the allegorical
Father and Son, or Πατηρ and Λογος is identical with the
groundwork of Buddhism. Moses could not reveal to the multitude
the sublime secrets of religious speculation, nor the cosmogony of
the universe; the whole resting upon the Hindu Illusion, a clever
mask veiling the Sanctum Sanctorum, and which has misled so
many theological commentators.[453]
The kabalistic heresies receive an unexpected support in the
heterodox theories of General Pleasonton. According to his opinions
(which he supports on far more unimpeachable facts than orthodox
scientists theirs) the space between the sun and the earth must be
filled with a material medium, which, so far as we can judge from his
description, answers to our kabalistic astral light. The passage of
light through this must produce enormous friction. Friction generates
electricity, and it is this electricity and its correlative magnetism which
forms those tremendous forces of nature that produce in, on, and
about our planet the various changes which we everywhere
encounter. He proves that terrestrial heat cannot be directly derived
from the sun, for heat ascends. The force by which heat is effected is
a repellent one, he says, and as it is associated with positive
electricity, it is attracted to the upper atmosphere by its negative
electricity, always associated with cold, which is opposed to positive
electricity. He strengthens his position by showing that the earth,
which when covered with snow cannot be affected by the sun’s rays,
is warmest where the snow is deepest. This he explains upon the
theory that the radiation of heat from the interior of the earth,
positively electrified, meeting at the surface of the earth with the
snow in contact with it, negatively electrified, produces the heat.
Thus he shows that it is not at all to the sun that we are indebted
for light and heat; that light is a creation sui generis, which sprung
into existence at the instant when the Deity willed, and uttered the
fiat: “Let there be light;” and that it is this independent material agent
which produces heat by friction, on account of its enormous and
incessant velocity. In short, it is the first kabalistic emanation to
which General Pleasonton introduces us, that Sephira or divine
Intelligence (the female principle), which, in unity with En-Soph, or
divine wisdom (male principle) produced every thing visible and
invisible. He laughs at the current theory of the incandescence of the
sun and its gaseous substance. The reflection from the photosphere
of the sun, he says, passing through planetary and stellar spaces,
must have thus created a vast amount of electricity and magnetism.
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