"In those days, the occult sciences were cultivated with ardor well calculated to surprise the incredulous minds of our own sovereignly analytical age; perhaps they may detect in this historical sketch the germ of the positive sciences, widely studied in the nineteenth century, but without the poetic grandeur which was ascribed to them by the audacious investigators of the sixteenth century; who, instead of devoting their energy to industry, magnified art and made thought fruitful. The patronage universally accorded to art by the sov- ereigns of that time was justified, too, by the mar- vellous creations of inventors who started in quest of the philosopher's stone and reached amazing re- sults." — Balzac, Catherine de' Medici
Honoré de Balzac, Sur Catherine de Médicis :
— Hé! bien, sire, en ôtant Dieu de ce monde, que reste-t-il?
L’homme! Examinons alors notre domaine?
Le monde matériel est composé d’éléments, ces éléments
ont eux-mêmes des principes. Ces principes se résolvent
en un seul qui est doué de mouvement. Le nombre TROIS est
la formule de la création: la Matière, le Mouvement, le Produit!
— La preuve? Halte-là, s’écria le roi.
Illustration by Frederick Alfred Rhead of Vanity Fair,
page 96 in the John Bunyan classic Pilgrim's Progress
(New York, The Century Co., 1912)
