186 Notice of the Ikhivan al safcL [Aug. 



mild-hearted brother ! (May God assist you and us, with his spirit !) 

 that wherever our brothers may be, they ought to have a private place, 

 where they assemble at fixed times, and from which strangers are 

 excluded. They are to converse on their sciences and discuss their 

 esoteric knowledge. They ought to dwell particularly on the science 

 of the soul, sense, objects of the senses, reason, and the objects of rea- 

 soning, and speculation, and on the study of the mysteries of the divine 

 books, and revelations, and of the sense of the divine law. But they 

 ought not to neglect the four mathematical scieuces, that is to say, 

 arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and theory of music. They ought, 

 however, particularly to occupy themselves with theology (and meta- 

 physics) which is the great object of life. They ought not to be pre- 

 judiced against any science or book, nor ought they to be biased against 

 any sect, for our sect comprizes all sects and all sciences, in as much as 

 it consists in speculations on all things, that exist from beginning to 

 end, both those which form the subjects of our senses, and those which 

 we can be comprehended only by our reasoning faculties, and both inter- 

 nal and external, natural and supernatural objects ; but we penetrate into 

 the essence of things deriving them from our common cause and origin ; 

 they emanate all from our world and soul with all the difference in the 

 composition of their masses, and diversity of genera, species and varie- 

 ties. We have already mentioned in the second memoir, that we de- 

 rive our knowledge particularly from four books : first, the writings of 

 sages and philosophers ; secondly, revealed books as the Pentateuch, the 

 Gospel, the Psalms, and the Qoran and other books of the prophet, the 

 meaning (but not the expression) of which was revealed to them by 

 angels. Thirdly, books on natural philosophy in which every thing is 

 described, as it is now. The subjects of these books are the order of the 

 spheres of the heavens, of the division of the zodiac, the motion of the 

 stars, the disunion of this volume, the succession of the seasons, the 

 metamorphosis of the elements, the diversity of natural bodies, viz. of 

 animals, plants and minerals and the productions of art ; these are 

 phcenomena and forms of existence. All these things contain a recon- 

 dite meaning, but men see only the outside and do not penetrate into the 

 mysteries of the works of the Creator. Fourthly, books on metaphysics 

 (or mystics), which only the pure are to touch, and which were written 

 by the hands of scribes honoured and just, Qoran 80, 15. They con- 



