Coelum Terrae

The kabbalist said: [New translation of the Latin:] “The house of the sanctuary here below is arranged according to the house of the sanctuary above.” [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “The building of the sanctuary here below is framed according to that of the sanctuary above.” Here we have two worlds, visible and invisible, and two universal natures, visible and invisible, from which those worlds proceeded. The passive universal nature was made in the image of the active universal nature. The correspondence between the two worlds, or sanctuaries, consists in the original correspondence of their principles. There are many Platonists—and the last century has supplied them with some apish disciples—who speak very boldly about the likenesses between lower and higher things. But if we examine their rubbish thoroughly, it amounts to a collection of petty sympathies: the heliotrope and the sun, iron and the lodestone, the wound and the weapon. It is excellent sport to hear them crow from their perch on these paltry particulars, as though they knew the universal magnet that binds this great frame together and moves all its members to mutual sympathy.