The Heroic Enthusiasts (Gli Eroici Furori) Part the Second

The second part of The Heroic Enthusiasts which I am now sending to the press is on the same subject as the first, namely the struggles of the soul in its upward progress towards purification and freedom, and the author makes use of lower things to picture and suggest the higher. It is interesting to note that in the first part of The Heroic Enthusiasts (page 122), Bruno makes a distinct allusion to the power of steam, and in the second part, one might almost think, that in using the number nine in connexion with the blind men, he intended a reference to electricity, for we read in The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky, There exists an universal agent unique of all forms and of life, that is called Od, Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative, like day and night; it is the first light in creation; and the first light of the primordial Elo-him—the A-dam, —male and female, or, (scientifically) Electricity and Life. Its universal value is nine, for it is the ninth letter of the alphabet and the ninth door of the fifty portals or gateways, that lead to the concealed mysteries of being Od is the pure life-giving Light or magnetic fluid. I will close this short notice with a sentence from an article in the Nineteenth Century, September, 1889, entitled Criticism as a trade.