All this was brought into a theologico-scientific relation, then and afterward, with the three dimensions of space; with the three divisions of time--past, present, and future; with the three realms of the visible world--sky, earth, and sea; with the three constituents of man--body, soul, and spirit; with the threefold enemies of man--the world, the flesh, and the devil; with the three kingdoms in nature--mineral, vegetable, and animal; with "the three colours"-- red, yellow, and blue; with "the three eyes of the honey-bee"-- and with a multitude of other analogues equally precious.

The sacred power of the number seven was seen in the seven golden candlesticks and the seven churches in the Apocalypse; in the seven cardinal virtues and the seven deadly sins; in the seven liberal arts and the seven devilish arts, and, above all, in the seven sacraments.

And as this proved in astrology that there could be only seven planets, so it proved in alchemy that there must be exactly seven metals.

The twelve apostles were connected with the twelve signs in the zodiac, and with much in physical science.
The seventy-two disciples, the seventy-two interpreters of the Old Testament, the seventy-two mystical names of God, were connected with the alleged fact in anatomy that there were seventy-two joints in the human frame.
Then, also, there were revived such theologic and metaphysical substitutes for scientific thought as the declaration that the perfect line is a circle, and hence that the planets must move in absolute circles--a statement which led astronomy astray even when the great truths of the Copernican theory were well in sight; also, the declaration that nature abhors a vacuum--a statement which led physics astray until Torricelli made his experiments; also, the declaration that we see the lightning before we hear the thunder because "sight is nobler than hearing." In chemistry we have the same theologic tendency to magic, and, as a result, a muddle of science and theology, which from one point of view seems blasphemous and from another idiotic, but which none the less sterilized physical investigation for ages.

That debased Platonism which had been such an important factor in the evolution of Christian theology from the earliest days of the Church continued its work.