William Wynn Westcott - The Collected Works

118. For they lie otherwise in that which is unbodily, than in the fantasy or to appearance.

119. Consider him that contains all things, and understand, that nothing is more capacious, than that which is incorporeal, nothing more swift, nothing more powerful, but it is most capacious, most swift and most strong.

120. And judge of this by thyself, command thy Soul to go into India, and sooner than thou canst bid it, it will be there.

121. Bid it likewise pass over the Ocean, and suddenly it will be there; Not as passing from place to place, but suddenly it will be there.

122. Command it to fly into Heaven, and it will need no Wings, neither shall anything hinder it; not the fire of the Sun, not the Aether, not the turning of the Spheres, not the bodies of any of the other Stars, but cutting through all, it will fly up to the last, and furthest Body.

123. And if thou wilt even break the whole, and see those things that are without the World (if there be any thing without) thou mayest.

124. Behold how great power, how great swiftness thou hast! Canst thou do all these things, and cannot God?

125. After this manner therefore contemplate God to have all the whole World to himself, as it were all thoughts, or intellections.

126. If therefore thou wilt not equal thy self to God, thou canst not understand God.

127. For the like is intelligible by the like.

128. Increase thy self into an immeasurable greatness, leaping beyond every Body; and transcending all Time, become Eternity and thou shalt understand God: If thou believe in thyself that nothing is impossible, but accountest thy self immortal, and that thou canst understand all things, every Art, every Science and the manner and custom of every living thing.

129. Become higher than all height, lower than all depths, comprehend in thy self, the qualities of all the Creatures, of the Fire, the Water, the Dry and Moist; and conceive likewise, that thou canst at once be everywhere in the Sea, in the Earth.

130. Thou shalt at once understand thy self, not yet begotten in the Womb, young, old, to be dead, the things after death, and all these together as also times, places, deeds, qualities, quantities, or else thou canst not yet understand God.

131. But if thou shut up thy Soul in the Body and abuse it, and say, I understand nothing, I can do nothing, I am afraid of the Sea, I cannot climb up into Heaven, I know not who I am, I cannot tell what I shall be; what hast thou to do with God; for thou canst understand none of those Fair and Good things; be a lover of the Body, and Evil.

132. For it is the greatest evil, not to know God.

133. But to be able to know and to will, and to hope, is the straight way, and Divine way, proper to the Good; and it will everywhere meet thee, and everywhere be seen of thee, plain and easy, when thou dost not expect or look for it; it will meet thee, waking, sleeping, sailing, travelling, by night, by day, when thou speakest, and when thou keepest silence.

134. For there is nothing which is not the Image of God.

135. And yet thou sayest, God is invisible, but be advised, for who is more manifest than He.

136. For therefore hath he made all things, that thou by all things mayest see him.

137. This is the Good of God, this is his Virtue, to appear, and to be seen in all things.

138. There is nothing invisible, no, not of those things that are incorporeal.

139. The Mind is seen in Understanding, and God is seen in doing or making.

140. Let these things thus far forth, be made manifest unto thee, O Trismegistus.

141. Understand in like manner, all other things by thy self, and thou shalt not be deceived.

Table of Contents

1. The Mind, O Tat, is of the very Essence of God, if yet there be any Essence of God.

2. What kind of Essence that is, he alone knows himself exactly.

3. The Mind therefore is not cut off, or divided from the essentiality of God, but united as the light of the sun.

4. And this mind in men, is God, and therefore are some men Divine, and their Humanity is near Divinity.

5. For the good Demon called the Gods immortal men, and men mortal Gods.

6. But in the brute Beasts, or unreasonable living wight [a creature]s, the Mind is their Nature.

7. For where there is a Soul, there is the Mind, as where there is Life, there is also a Soul.

8. In living Creatures therefore, that are without Reason, the Soul is Life, void of the operations of the Mind.

9. For the Mind is the Benefactor of the Souls of men, and worketh to the proper Good.

10. And in unreasonable things it co-operateth with the Nature of everyone of them, but in men it worketh against their Natures.

11. For the Soul being in the Body, is straightway made Evil by Sorrow, and Grief and Pleasure or Delight.

12. For Grief and Pleasure flow like Juices from the compound Body, where into, when the Soul entereth, or descendeth, she is moistened and tincted with them.

13. As many Souls therefore, as the Mind governeth or overruleth, to them it shows its own Light, resisting their prepossessions or presumptions.

14. As a good Physician grieveth the Body, prepossessed of a disease, by burning or lancing it for health's sake.

15. After the same manner also, the Mind grieveth the Soul, by drawing it out of Pleasure, from whence every disease of the Soul proceedeth.

16. But the great Disease of the Soul is Atheism because that opinion followeth to all Evil and no Good.

17. Therefore the Mind resisting it procureth Good to the Soul, as a Physician health to the Body.

18. But as many Souls of Men, as do not admit or entertain the Mind for their Governor, do suffer the same thing that the Soul of unreasonable living things.

19. For the Soul being a Co-operator with them, permits or leaves them to their concupiscences, whereunto they are carried by the torrent of their Appetite, and so tend to brutishness.

20. And as brute Beasts, they are angry without reason, and they desire without reason, and never cease, nor are satisfied with evil.

21. For unreasonable Angers and Desires, are the most exceeding Evils.

22. And therefore hath God set the Mind over these, as a Revenger and Reprover of them.

23. Tat. Here, O Father, that discourse of Fate or Destiny which thou madest to me, is in danger to be overthrown; For if it be fatal for any man to commit Adultery or Sacrilege or do any evil, he is punished also, though he of necessity do the work of Fate or Destiny.

24. Hermes. All things, O Son, are the work of Fate, and without it, can no bodily thing, either Good or Evil, be done.

25. For it is decreed by Fate, that he that doth any evil, should also suffer for it.

26. And therefore he doth it, that he may suffer that which he suffereth, because he did it.

27. But for the present let alone that speech, concerning Evil and Fate, for at other times we have spoken of it.

28. Now our discourse is about the Mind, and what it can do, and how it differs, and is in men such a one, but in brute Beasts changed.

29. And again, in brute Beasts it is not beneficial, but in men by quenching both their Anger and Concupiscences.

30. And of men thou must understand some to be rational or governed by reason, and some irrational.

31. But all men are subject to Fate, and to Generation, and Change, for these are the beginning and end of Fate or Destiny.

32. And all men suffer those things that are decreed by Fate.

33. But rational men, over whom as we said, the Mind bears rule, do not suffer like unto other men, but being free from viciousness, and being not evil, they do suffer evil.

34. Tat. How sayest thou this again, Father? An Adulterer, is he not evil? a Murderer, is he not evil? and so all others.