The Star in the West

202 THE STAR IN THE WEST 1 thought . Science will say that intelligence is last , and that matter slowly evolves into animal life ; in fact, that matter (A ) is first, and intelligence (B ) is second . The idealists and sankhyâs will put intelligence (B ) first , and the series will run B ,A , B ,A ,B ,A . Both , however , are indicating the same chain ; but Crowley, like the philosophers of the Vedanta , strides beyond both intellect and matter to find an “ I ” (purusha) or self, which is beyond all intellect , and of which in tellect is but the borrowed light , as Patanjali says in one of his yoga aphorisms : “ The seer is intelligence only , and though pure , sees through the colouring of the intellect .” In “ Pentecost ," Crowley writes : You know for me the soul is nought Save a new phantom in the thought , That thought itself impermanent , Save as a casual element With such another may combine To form now water and now wine ; The element itself may be Changeless to all eternity , But compounds ever fluctuate With time or space or various state . ( Ask chemists else !) So I must claim Spirit and matter are the same Or else the prey of putrefaction .? And we intend to take it as such , otherwise , like This is the earlier Fichtean Crowley , though he has already passed through Schelling to Hegel , and grouped this triad in one , as it were Fichte in excelsis ; not the middle , who has called the triad “ Schelling ."; still less the latter , who , perceiv ing the antinomies of reason , dismisses alike the data and con clusions of all the sciences with an all - embracing scepticism , while he devotes life to the perfecting of an instrument by whose aid we may eventually be able to make a fresh start . 2 Sword of Song , Pentecost , vol . ii, p . 170 . 1