It is content to explain the origin and course of development of the world, the solar or, at most, the sidereal system which falls under our own observation.
This polygon falls under the definition of a reciprocal figure given by Clerk Maxwell, if we consider the frame as a point in equilibrium under the external forces.
The Latin Church, which, by combining the tradition of the Roman centralized organization with a great elasticity in practice and in the interpretation of doctrine, had hitherto been the moulding force of civilization in the West, is henceforth more or less in antagonism to that civilization, which advances in all its branches - in science, in literature, in art - to a greater or less degree outside of and in spite of her, until in its ultimate and most characteristic developments it falls under the formal condemnation of the pope, formulated in the famous Syllabus of 1864.
The whole capital of a society falls under the same two heads.
In short, Gnosticism, in all its various sections, its form and its character, falls under the great category of mystic religions, which were so characteristic of the religious life of decadent antiquity.
