On" Geometrical And Other Symbols.

the papers on wing and other symbols , already more than once referred to . * We must now , therefore , look a little more closely , if we can , into the particular style of that architecture of the heart of man of wliich the Freemasons mystically speak ; and of Avhich the ancient treat , in their temple mysteries of self-knoAvledge ,- —the inward man , —or the iiosce teipsum ; since it is here we must seek for a thorough and satisfactory solution of the symbolical riddle .

What ! a psychological disquisition m the Builder ! Perhaps even a metaphysical one ! "Well ! if any of those professional and other readers of the Builder who take an interest in such subjects as the hexalpha on Prince Albert's Manchester monument , and the masons' marks ( including the hexalpha ) on so many

churches , want , or would wish to have , an explanation of the true meaning aud origin of symbols ; and if that explanation plainly , and relevantly , involve at least a passing glance into the " architecture " of the "inward man , " and cannot be got at without such an introvertive glance ; what would they have ? An

explanation without the explanation ? Hamlet without Hamlet ? If they do not prefer to remain in professional ignorance of any such explanation of the symbols used , or which have been used , by architects and builders , as well as by Freemasons and magicians , and also bChristian religioniststhey must rouse

y , up their own " inward man , " —look " within " their own anatomical or architectural outlines for a moment , — where , alone , the true church , or temple , stands ; and whence , alone , the paradisical " kingdom of heaven

within" them , and "the lord for the body , " can " come ; " —and so they may judge for themselves in this great question of the nosae teipsum .- for this , in truth , is the question on which all such symbols directly bear : the tenets and the symbols cannot otherwise be harmonized;—and he Avho resti \ 'ely and

inconsequently expects to be made to comprehend the original meaning and purpose of these symbols of the inward man without the necessity of taking a passing glance into his own wonderful nature , as " the house of God , " — "the temple of the Holy Ghost , " —the church of which Christ ia the Arch Keystone , or

"Headstone of the Corner , " —must be an unreasoning mortal , with a soul awanting in depth , however expanded in circumference -, and had better rest satisfied without the explanation sought for , and pass on to some other subject . At the same timeI am quite sensible of the

im-, propriety of anything really like " a psychological disquisition in the Builder ,, " even were it on the merescore of limits alone : and , ' although such an attempt as the present , in a publication like this , is surrounded with many other difficulties ; I am well atvare that — however crippling to the argument , —I must confine

myself , with the utmost and most restrictive abstinence , to the merest psychological indications in its support . Nevertheless , if , as I have already hinted , an explanation of such symbols as those treated of be desirable , AvhateA'er is relevant to that explanation ought to be admissible , as far as limits will alloAV ; and the present inquiry is only one of many instances which to

go show that it is hard to say Avhat subject it may not be relevant or requisite for a thorough architect , professionally , or as such , to deal with or consider ; or for the Builder to treat of , as one not beyond its province , even as a strictly professional paper ; far leis as a publication of miscellaneous aud popular

interest , adapted to spread abroad architectural and other art-ideas among the public generally . In my first series of letters on Symbols and the ancient doctrines involved in them , and more especially at the close of these letters , it may be remembered , I had worked outfrom such doctrines ( bhel

, y p , however , of the psychological key to be now given ) , one general conclusion : that the mental nature of man Avas evidently regarded in these doctrines as being twofold , and antithetical , or reversible and alternative , as life-principles , human and divine , or Soul and Spirit , in conjunction ; and—by sciential induction from the

mythological and mystical doctrines , —Concentroradiative , or Radio-concentrative , in potential form , ' This conclusion was based upon such modifications of ancient doctrines as that of the Rosicrucians , — their Compound or human life , and their Elementary or spirit life , in the ideal conjunction of " a Rosicrucian marriage , " being equivalent to a Concentro-radiative

nature , in Avhich the Compound or human life was the Concentrative and the Elementary or spirit life the Radiative;—and that of the Buddhists , in which the concretive state of pravritti Avas the Concentrative or human state , or "this life " of the Passe Buddha ,, and the dissolvative state of Nirvrifcti or Nirvana the

Radiative or divine state of " the Buddha " himself ; —that of the Brahmins , in which the plastic state of prakriti was equivalent to the pravritti or concretive state of the Buddhists and the compounds life of the Rosicrucians , or the concentrative , concretive , and human life ; aud the state of " Brahm" or divine

absorption , to the Nirvritti of the Buddhists and the elementary life of the Rosicrucians , or the Radiative , dissolutive , or spirit life;—and also that of the primitive Greeks and Druids , in Avhich the twofold Apollo , comprising a creative and destructive principle in one human form , indicated the same concentro-radiative

nature in the noblest and most fully developed form of the God-man or man-God—human , or concentrative , and yet radiative or divine , in alternate reversal ; the normal and undeA'eloped type and precursor of which two-fold and alternative nature , in the present state , or duality of states , of man ' s imperfect form—

-Avhether regarded as fallen from a past , or as not yefe matured into a future , state of development—ia the alternate reversal of the two states of waking and sleep , —waking as the concentrative , and sleep as the radiative ; although the pure and exalted radiative , like the fairy queen Titania , " strikes more dead than common sleep , " as Oberon has it in "Midsummer Night ' s Dream ; and is hence more able to

" -Dissolve me into ecstasies , And bring all heaven before mine eyes , " as Milton sings in " II Penseroso . "