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plus 1, and 5 plus 2, and 4 plus 3, and so on; as well as 'the
root of 49', 'half 14' and the like. They even distinguished 4
plus 3 from 3 plus 4. Each number also represented an idea or
group of ideas on all sorts of planes. It would have been quite
possible to discuss dressmaking in terms of pure number. To give
an example of the way in which their minds thought, consider the
number three. Three, in so far as it gives the first plane
figure, suggests superficies; with regard to the dimensions of
space, solidity. Three itself is therefore 'that ineffably holy
thing in which the superficies is the solid'. Of course hundreds
of other ideas must be added to this; and to grasp and harmonize
them all in one colossal supra-rational idea was the constant
task of every mathematician. The upshot of this was that all
numbers above 33 were regarded as spurious, illusionary; they had
no real existence of their own*; they were temporary compounds,
unreal in very much the same sense as our square root of 1. They
were always expressed by graphic formulae, like our own organic
compounds. To take an example, the number 156 was regarded as a
sort of efflorescence of the number 7; it was never written but
as 77 plus [(7+7)/7] plus 77. Again 11 was usually written 3 plus
5 plus 3. It was always the aim to find symmetry in these
expressions, and also 'to find an easy way to 1'. This last is
difficult to explain.
Eleven was their great 'Key of Magic'. It is a twofold number
in 'the act of becoming 1'. Thirty-seven was the essence of 1
inasmuch as multiplying it by 3 gives 111, three ones, which
divided again by 3 in another manner, yield 1. "One would rather
think of 48 as 37 plus 11 than as 4 times 12" is the statement of
an elementary text-book dating from the earliest days of Atlas.
It was a sort of moral duty to teach the mind to think in this
manner.
The number 7 was the 'perfect number' with them as with us,
but for very different reasons. It was the link between Earth and
Venus, for one thing; I cannot explain why. It was 'the number of
Atla', and the 'house of success' (two being the 'house of
battle'). It was also grace, softness, ease, healing and 'joy of
Zro' as well as 'play of phosphorus'. Many mathematicians,
however, attacked it with rigour; there was at one time an almost
general consent to replace it by 8, and its 'rapture-combination'
31, by 33. Despite the intense preoccupation with such ideas,
mathematics as we know them had reached a perfection which if it
does not surpass that of our own civilization, fails principally
because of its theorems, handed down to Euclid and Pythagoras,
although imperfectly, formed a springboard whence we might leap.
The initiation of children was also a matter reserved for the
High House. Weaned at three months, the children were tended by
the lower classes until the age of puberty, an occurrence which
fitted them at once for initiation. A legate from the High House
was sent for, and in his presence the child was brought,
acquainted with Zro by its father and mother, and full
instruction in 'working' was further conferred by any member of
the 'house' who chose to do so, this in practice meaning by
everybody. The ceremonies were frequently long and exhausting;
children often enough died in the course of them. This was not
regarded as a serious calamity; some schools of magicians even
pretended to rejoice. The representatives of the High House had a
prior right to the parents of the child; at times he conducted
the initiation in person, a high honour, but invariably fatal. On
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