Symbolism is the intuitive means of overcoming the limitations of reason.? Here Schwaller explains how true progress in human thought can be made only if we call upon the "symbolizing" faculty of intelligence, developed and refined in the temple culture of ancient Egypt and reflected in its hieroglyphs.

The first part of the book, written in a single, uninterrupted flow of inspiration, takes the form of answers from the word of nature to questions posed by the rational mind. The second part of the book consists of philosophical reflections on the first and proposes the practice of imagination as a way of evolutionary development. Many traditions have spoken of a "higher consciousness," but Schwaller de Lubicz's attempt to formulate in modern terms an alchemical science of qualities, functions, analogies and signatures is unique.

We lack direct consciousness of Space and Time. We can know of them only indirectly by mass, force, and energy, and by the intermediary of phenomena such as may be tested by our five senses. Without direct awareness of Space or Time, human beings lack two "senses" necessary for the knowledge of all causes. From this imperfection, of which we are always being made aware, is born our need to simplify. Thus we reduce everything to fundamental properties, without paying any attention to the underlying universal organization, the effects of which are all around us.
The result is that the science of numbers, the most wonderful guide to the constant creation of the universe, remains an enormous hypothesis so long as its use has not awakened in us the higher consciousness of a universal order. By deepened knowledge of things and their process of becoming, we must come to recognize Numbers as a truth, and to experience with our senses the living relation of a cause to an effect, this relation being truer and more real than the effect could ever be.
Published in 1917 under the author's given name of Rene Schwaller, "A Study of Numbers" is the first expression of the teachings we have come to associate with his later and better known name, R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz. It is a masterly account of the living, universal, qualitative, and casual reality of numbers.
Starting from the irreducible one, Schwaller deals with the unfolding of creation through the cycles of polarization, ideation, and formation. Topics covered include: numbers, values, and relations; the disengagement of numbers; the harmonic basis of numbers; the development of values; and the establishment of harmony.