2nJ S. N» 57., Jan. 3L '67.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



83 



Elsewhere he thus speaks of the Golden Chain : 



" The Progressions of Beings are completed thro' Simi- 

 litude. But the terminations of the higher orders are 

 united to the beginnings of second orders. And one 

 Series and indissoluble Order extends from on high, 

 through the surpassing goodness of The First Cause 

 and his unical power. For because indeed He is One, He 

 is tlie supplier of Union ; but because He is The Good, 

 He constitutes things similar to Him, prior to such as are 

 dissimilar. And thus all things are in continuity with each 

 other. For if this continuity were broken there would 

 not be union."— Theol. Plat. b. vi. ch. ii. vol. ii. p. 7. 



" Everything which proceeds from a certain thing es- 

 sentially 'is converted to that from which it proceeds. All 

 conversion is effected through the similitude of the things 

 converted to that to which they are converted. Every- 

 thing whicli proceeds from a certain thing and is con- 

 verted to it, has a circular energy." — Elements of Theol. 

 prop. 31—33. p. 325. 



" All the powers of Divine natures having a supernal 

 origin, and proceeding through appropriate media, ex- 

 tend as far as to the last of things. Hence also, in last 

 natures, there are representations of such as are lirst, and 

 all things sympathize with all." — lb. prop. 140. 



This Golden Chain of Sympathy, this occult, 

 all-pervading, all-connecting Influence* is the 

 source of all Magic, and is called by a variety 

 of names, such as The Vital Magnetical Series, 

 Jacob's Ladder, Anima Muiidi, Mercurius Philo- 

 sophorum. The Magicians Fi?-e, &c. The Chain, 

 as we find it in the most ancient philosophers, 

 may be thus shortly concatenated: Omnia ex Uno, 

 Omnia in Uno, Omnia ad Uitum^ Omnia per Me- 

 dium, et, Omnia in Omnibus. 



"Everything," says Plato (Protag. 260.), "resembles 

 every other thing in some respect." 



Thus, too, Hippocrates : 



" Svppoia fiia, cu/xTrvoia ftia, iravra (TVfuraflea.' 

 " There is one Conflux, one Conspiration, and all things 

 sympathize with all."- 



And Macrobius (in Somn. Scip. lib. i. cap. xlv.) : 



" Invenietur pressius intuenti a summo Deo usque ad 

 ultimam rerum faecem, una mutuis se vinculis religans et 

 iiusquam interrupta Catena." — "There will be found on a 

 closer inspection, from the Supreme God down to the 

 lowest dregs of things, one uninterrupted Chain of Con- 

 nexion, mutually binding them together." 



All Beings, said the Ancients, aspire to rise in 

 the Scale of E.xistence : All by scale ascend to 

 Unity : and All grow more perfect as they grow 

 higher. 



Proclus, in his remarkable Dissertation on 

 Magic, confirms what I have said. I can quote 

 but a few lines : 



" In the same manner as lovers gradually advance from 

 that beauty which is apparent in sensible forms, to that 

 which is Divine : so the Ancient Priests, when they con- 

 sidered that there is a certain alliance and Sympathy in 

 natural things to eacli other, and of things visible to in- 



* "That Magnetic Chain which is extended a non 

 gradu ad non gradum : that Ladder of Celsus and of 

 Zoroaster which reaches from Tartarus to the highest 

 Heaven." — Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, p. 338. 



visible powers, and discovered that all things subsist in 

 all, they fabricated a sacred science from this mutual 

 Sympathy and Similarity." * 



Oswald CroUius, the Paracelsist, observes : 



" Plato's Rings and Homer's Chaines are nothing but a 

 Divine Series and Order serving Providence, a graduall 

 and concatenate Sympathy of Things. Tins visible and 

 invisible Fellowship of Nature is that Golden Chaine 

 so much commended, this is the marriage of heaven and 

 riches, these are Plato's Rings, this is that dark and close 

 Phylosophy so hard to be known in the most inward and 

 secret parts of Nature, for tlie gaining whereof Demo- 

 critus, Pythagoras, Plato, Apollonius, &c. have travelled 

 to the Brachmans and Gymuosophists in the Indies, and 

 to Hermes his pillars in Egypt. This was that which the 

 most ancient Phylosophers studied,' &c. — The Admoni- 

 tory Preface, trans, by Pinnell, Lond. 1657, p. 31. 



Sir Thos. Brown remarks : 



" In a wise supputation, all things begin and end in 

 the Almightj'. There is a nearer way to Heaven than 

 Homer's Chain ; an easy logick may conjoin a heaven 

 and earth in one argument, and, with less than a sorites, 

 resolve all things to God. For though we christen effects 

 by their most sensible and nearest causes, yet is God the 

 true and infallible Cause of all ; whose concourse, though 

 it be general, yet doth it subdivide itself into the parti- 

 cular actions of every thing, and is that Spirit, by which 

 each singular essence not only subsists, but performs its 

 operation." — Rel. Med., § xviii. 



Of the Golden Chain of Laws N. Culverwell 

 says : 



" Obligation is the very form and essence of a Law ; 

 Now every Law obligat in Nomine Dei; but so glorious a 

 name did never binde to anything that was wicked and 

 unequal. Hoi' SIkhiov tjSv, koI nav SCxaiov Mc^eAi/u.oi', and that 

 only is countenanced from Heaven. The Golden Chain of 

 Laws, 'tis indeed tied to the Chair of Jupiter, and a com- 

 mand is onely vigorous as it issues out, either immedi • 

 ately or remotely, from the great Sovereign of the World. 

 So that TO 6v is the sure bottome and foundation of every 

 Law." — A Discourse of the Light of Nature. Oxf. 1669, 

 p. 19. 



Sir John Davies, in his noble poem on the Im- 

 mortality of the Soul, thus speaks of God's "Eter- 

 nal Law :" 



" Could Eve's weak hand extended to the tree, 

 In sunder rend that Adamantine Cluiin, 

 Whose Golden Links, effects and causes be ; 

 And which to God's own Chair doth fix'd remain. 



" Oh could we see how Cause from Cause doth spring ! 

 How mutuall}'^ they linked and folded are ! 

 And hear how oft one disagreeing string 

 The harmony doth rather make than mar ! " &c.t 



§ viii. St. 7. 



Of the Golden Chain of Religion, Lactantius 

 says : 



" Nomen Religionis a vinculo pietatis esse deductum 



* This Dissertation is only extant in Latin. Taylor 

 has translated the entire piece, and appended it to his 

 edition of Jamblichus' Life of Pythagoras, Lond. 1818, 

 p. 298. 



t Coleridge apparently had these lines in view while 

 writing on the same subject (The Origin of Evil ; and, 

 Original Sin) in his Aids. See vol. i. pp. 203. 209. 



