the moving principle, and for that reason of an azure color, studded with spots of gold, (the stars) devouring his tail—­that is, folding and unfolding himself eternally, like the revolutions of the spheres; sometimes by that of a man, having his feet joined together and tied, to signify immutable existence, wrapped in a cloak of all colors, like the face of nature, and bearing on his head a sphere of gold,**** emblem of the sphere of the stars; or by that of another man, sometimes seated on the flower of the lotos borne on the abyss of waters, sometimes lying on a pile of twelve cushions, denoting the twelve celestial signs.  And here, Indians, Japanese, Siamese, Tibetans, and Chinese, is the theology, which, founded by the Egyptians and transmitted to you, is preserved in the pictures which you compose of Brama, of Beddou, of Somona-Kodom of Omito.  This, ye Jews and Christians, is likewise the opinion of which you have preserved a part in your God moving on the face of the waters, by an allusion to the wind*5 which, at the beginning of the world, that is, the departure of the sun from the sign of Cancer, announced the inundation of the Nile, and seemed to prepare the creation.”

     * See the Pythagorean, Ocellus Lacunus.

     ** Vide Oedip.  Aegypt.  Tome ii., page 205.

*** This comparison of the sun with the yolk of an egg refers:  1.  To its round and yellow figure; 2.  To its central situation; 3.  To the germ or principle of life contained in the yolk.  May not the oval form of the egg allude to the elipsis of the orbs?  I am inclined to this opinion.  The word Orphic offers a farther observation.  Macrobius says (Som.  Scrip. c. 14. and c. 20), that the sun is the brain of the universe, and that it is from analogy that the skull of a human being is round, like the planet, the seat of intelligence.  Now the word Oerph signifies in Hebrew the brain and its seat (cervix):  Orpheus, then, is the same as Bedou or Baits; and the Bonzes are those very Orphics which Plutarch represents as quacks, who ate no meat, vended talismans and little stones, and deceived individuals, and even governments themselves.  See a learned memoir of Freret sur les Orphiques, Acad. des Inscrp. vol. 25, in quarto.

     **** See Porphyry in Eusebus.  Proep.  Evang., lib. 3, p. 115.

     5 The Northern or Etesian wind, which commences regularly
     at the solstice, with the inundation.

VII.  Seventh System.  Worship of the SOUL of the WORLD, that is to say, the Element of Fire, vital Principle of the Universe.