indeed the second is in a sense a consequence of the first ; but this way of looking at things is so strange to the great majority of people to-day that it deserves dwelling on for a moment in order to avoid possible misunderstandings.
The fact is that people too often tend to think that if a symbolical meaning is admitted, the literal or historical sense must be rejected ; such a view can only result from unawareness of the law of correspondence which is the very foundation of all symbolism. By virtue of this law, each thing, proceeding as it does from a metaphysical principle from which it derives all its reality, translates or expresses that principle in its own fashion and in accordance with its own order of existence, so that from one order to another all things are linked together and correspond in such a way as to contribute to the universal and total harmony, which, in the multiplicity of manifestation, can be likened to a reflection of the principial unity itself." R. G.
