Qu Which is the most confused figure?
Ans Zero,—the emblem of chaos, formless mixture of the elements.
Qu What do the four devices of the Degree signify?
Ans That we are to hear, see, be silent, and enjoy our happiness.
The unit is the symbol of identity, equality, existence, conservation, and general harmony; the Central Fire, the Point within the Circle.
Two, or the duad, is the symbol of diversity, inequality, division, separation, and vicissitudes.
The figure 1 signifies the living man Iens, Iturus.
The Duad is the origin of contrasts. It is the imperfect condition into which, according to the Pythagoreans, a being falls, when he detaches himself from the Monad, or God. Spiritual beings, emanating from God, are enveloped in the duad, and therefore receive only illusory impressions.
As formerly the number ONE designated harmony, order, or the Good Principle (the ONE and ONLY GOD, expressed in Latin by Solus, whence the words Sol, Soleil, symbol of this God), the number Two expressed the contrary idea. There commenced the fatal knowledge of good and evil. Everything double, false, opposed to the single and sole reality, was expressed by the Binary number. It expressed also that state of contrariety in which nature exists, where everything is double; night and day, light and darkness, cold and heat, wet and dry, health and sickness, error and truth, one and the other sex, etc. Hence the Romans dedicated the second month in the year to Pluto, the God of Hell, and the second day of that month to the manès of the dead.
The number One, with the Chinese, signified unity, harmony, order, the Good Principle, or God; Two, disorder, duplicity, falsehood. That people, in the earliest ages, based their whole philosophical system on the two primary figures or lines, one straight and unbroken, and the other broken or divided into two; doubling which, by placing one under the other, and trebling by placing three under each other, they made the four symbols and eight Koua; which referred to the natural elements, and the primary principles of all things, and served symbolically or scientifically to express them. Plato terms unity and duality the original elements of nature, and first principles of all existence: and the oldest sacred book of the Chinese says: "The Great First Principle has produced two equations and differences, or primary rules of existence; but the two primary rules or two oppositions, namely YN and YANG, or repose and motion, have produced four signs or symbols, and the four symbols have produced the eight KOUA or further combinations."