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HISTORY OF THE ROSICRUCTANS.
apparent were then complicitly contained, though in regard
to our finite faculties it can only be conceived as nothing
nihil, non finis, non ens, aleph tenebrosum, the Absolute Monad
or Unity.
Joined to the cosmical philosophy of Eobert Fludd,
there is an elaborate system of spiritual evolution, and the
foundation of both is to be sought in the gigantic hypotheses
of the Kabbalah. His angelology is derived from
the works of pseudo-Dionysius on the celestial hierarchies,
and he teaches the doctrine of the pre-existence of human
souls, which are derived from the vivifying emanation
dwelling in the Anima Mundi, the world's spiritual vehicle,
the catholic soul, which itself is inacted and preserved by
the Catholic and Eternal Spirit, sent out from the foun-
tain of life to inact and vivify all things.
These mystical speculations, whatever their ultimate
value, are sublime flights of an exalted imagination, but
they are found, in the writings of Robert Fludd, side by
side with the crudest physical theories, and the most ex-
ploded astronomical notions. He denies the diurnal revol-
ution of the earth, and considers the light of all the stars
to be derived from the one " heavenly candle " of the sun.
Rejecting the natural if inadequate explanations of
Aristotle and his successors, he presents the most extrava-
gant definitions of the nature of winds, clouds, snow, &c.
The last is described as a meteor which God draweth forth
of His hidden treasury in the form of wool, or as a creature
produced out of the air by the cold breath of the Divine
Spirit to perform his will on earth. Thunder is a noise
which is made in the cloudy tent or pavilion of Jehovah,
lightning a certain fiery air or spirit animated by the