His
relatives, however, bore it off to the funeral pyre; and on the
twelfth day, lying there, he returned to life, and he told them
what he had seen in the other world. Many wonders he related
concerning the dead, for example, with their rewards and
punishments: but what had impressed him as most wonderful of all
was the great spindle of Necessity, reaching up to Heaven, with
the planets revolving around it in graduated whorls of width and
spread: yet all concentric and so timed that all complete the
full circle punctually together--'The Spindle turns on the knees
of Necessity; and on the rim of each whorl sits perched a Siren
who goes round with it, hymning a single note; the eight notes
together forming one harmony.'
Now as--we have the divine word for it--upon two great
commandments hang all the law and the prophets, so all
religions, all philosophies, hang upon two steadfast and
faithful beliefs; the first of which Plato would show by the
above parable.
It is, of course, that the stability of the Universe rests upon
ordered motion--that the 'firmament' above, around, beneath,
stands firm, continues firm, on a balance of active and
tremendous forces somehow harmoniously composed.
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