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Dirt is matter in the wrong place.
Thought is mind in the wrong place.
Matter is mind; so thought is dirt.
Thus argued he, the Wise One, not mindful that all place is wrong.
For not until the PLACE is perfected by a T saith he PLACET.
The Rose uncrucified droppeth its petals; without the Rose the Cross is a dry stick.
Worship then the Rosy Cross, and the Mystery of Two-in-One.
And worship Him that swore by His holy T that One should not be One except in so far as it is Two.
I am glad that Laylah is afar; no doubt clouds love.
COMMENTARY (ΝΖ)
The title of the chapter suggest the two in one, since the ornithorhynchus is both bird and beast; it is also an Australian animal, like Laylah herself, and was doubtless chosen for this reason.
This chapter is an apology for the universe.
Paragraphs 1-3 repeat the familiar arguments against reason in an epigrammatic form.
Paragraph 4 alludes to Liber Legis I, 52; "place" implies space; denies homogeneity to space; but when "place" is perfected by "t" — as it were, Yoni by Lingam — we get the word "placet", meaning "it pleases".
Paragraphs 6 and 7 explain this further; it is necessary to separate things, in order that they might rejoice in uniting. See Liber Legis I, 28-30, which is paraphrased in the penultimate paragraph.
In the last paragraph this doctrine is interpreted in common life by a paraphrase of the familiar and beautiful proverb, "Absence makes the heart grow fonder". (PS. I seem to get a subtle after-taste of bitterness.)
(It is to be observed that the philosopher having first committed the syllogistic error quaternis terminorum, in attempting to reduce the terms to three, staggers into non distributia medii. It is possible that considerations with Sir Wm. Hamilton's qualification (or quantification (?)) of the predicate may be taken as intervening, but to do so would render the humour of the chapter too subtle for the average reader in Oshkosh for whom this book is evidently written.)