Note 90 — Chapter I · PRIMITIVE SYMBOLISM OF HISTORY

We have, unhappily, to remember that Éliphas Lévi himself wrote a great deal, and assuredly to little purpose, on the subject of squaring the circle and on perpetual motion. Elsewhere he tells us that the revolution of a square about its centre describes a circle, and thus the circle is squared. He also invented, in imagination, a clock which wound itself up in the process of running itself down, and this was perpetual motion—presumably, unless the mechanism happened to stop working or to wear itself out. The reader may settle for himself whether in these phantasies he was in hiding like an adept or pursuing like a fool.