23. Issuing thence again, certain twin channels, each enclosing its own current like a pipe, disperse air and blood (that the liquid substance may have free course when accom- panied and lightened by the motion of the heated substance) in divers directions over the whole body, breaking at every part into countless branching channels; while as the two principles of the vital powers mingle together (that alike which disperses heat, and that which supplies moisture to all parts of the body), they make, as it were, a sort of compulsory contribution from the substance with which they deal to the supreme force in the vital economy.
24. Now this force is that which is considered as residing in the cerebral membranes and the brain, from which it comes that every movement of a joint, every contraction of the muscles, every spontaneous influence that is exerted upon the individual members, renders our earthen statue active and mobile as though by some mechanism. For the most pure form of heat and the most subtle form of liquid, being united by their respective forces through a process of mixture and combination, nourish and sustain by their moisture the brain, and hence in turn, being rarefied to the most pure condition, the exhalation that proceeds from that organ anoints the membrane which encloses the brain, which, reaching from above downwards like a pipe, extending through the successive vertebre, is (itself and the marrow which is contained in it) conterminous with the base of the spine, itself giving like a charioteer the impulse and power to all the meeting-points of bones and joints, and to the branches of the muscles, for the motion or rest of the particular parts.
25. For this cause too it seems to me that it has been granted a more secure defence, being distinguished, in the head, by a double shelter of bones round about, and in the ver- tebree of the neck by the bulwarks formed by the projections of the spine as well as by the diversified interlacings of the very form of those vertebrze, by which it is kept in freedom from all harm, enjoying safety by the defence that surrounds it.
26. So too one might suppose of the heart, that it is itself like some safe house fitted with the most solid defences, fortified by the enclosing walls of the bones round about; for in rear there is the spine, strengthened on either side by the shoulder-blades, and on each flank the enfolding position of the ribs makes that which is in the midst between them difficult to injure; while in front the breast-bone and the juncture of the collar-bone serve as a defence, that its safety may be guarded at all points from external causes of danger.
27. As we see in husbandry, when the rain fall from the clouds or the overflow from the river channels causes the land beneath it to be saturated with moisture (let us suppose for our argument a garden, nourishing within its own compass countless varieties of trees, and all the forms of plants that grow from the ground, and whereof we contemplate the figure, quality, and individuality in great variety of detail); then, as these are nourished by the liquid element while they are in one spot, the power which supplies moisture to each individual among them is one in nature; but the individuality of the plants so nourished changes the A brief examination of the construction of our bodies from a medical point...
liquid element into different qualities; for the same substance becomes bitter in wormwood, and is changed into a deadly juice in hemlock, and becomes different in different other plants, in saffron, in balsam, in the poppy: for in one it becomes hot, in another cold, in another it obtains the middle quality: and in laurel and mastick it is scented, and in the fig and the pear it is sweetened, and by passing through the vine it is turned into the grape and into wine; while the juice of the apple, the redness of the rose, the radiance of the lily, the blue of the violet, the purple of the hyacinthine dye, and all that we behold in the earth, arise from one and the same moisture, and are separated into so many varieties in respect of figure and aspect and quality; the same sort of wonder is wrought in the animated soil of our being by Nature, or rather by Nature’s Lord. Bones, cartilages, veins, arteries, nerves, ligatures, flesh, skin, fat, hair, glands, nails, eyes, nostrils, ears,—all such things as these, and countless others in addition, while separated from one another by various peculiarities, are nourished by the one form of nourishment in ways proper to their own nature, in the sense that the nourishment, when it is brought into close relation with any of the subjects, is also changed according to that to which it approaches, and becomes adapted and allied to the special nature of the part. For if it should be in the neighbourhood of the eye, it blends with the visual part and is appropriately distributed by the difference of the coats round the eye, among the single parts; or, ifit flow to the auditory parts, it is mingled with the auscultatory nature, or if it is in the lip, it becomes lip; and it grows solid in bone, and grows soft in marrow, and is made tense with the sinew, and extended with the surface, and passes into the nails, and is fined down for the growth of the hair, by correspondent exhalations, pro- ducing hair that is somewhat curly or wavy if it makes its way through winding passages, while, if the course of the exhalations that go to form the hair lies straight, it renders the hair stiff and straight.
28. Our argument, however, has wandered far from its purpose, going deep into the works of nature, and endeavouring to describe how and from what materials our particular organs are formed, those, I mean, intended for life and for good life, and any other class which we included with these in our first division.
29. For our purpose was to show that the seminal cause of our constitution is neither a soul without body, nor a body without soul, but that, from animated and living bodies, it is generated at the first as a living and animate being, and that our humanity takes it and cherishes it like a nursling with the resources she herself possesses, and it thus grows on both sides and makes its growth manifest correspondingly in either part:—for it at once displays, by this artificial and scientific process of formation, the power of soul that is inter- woven in it, appearing at first somewhat obscurely, but afterwards increasing in radiance concurrently with the perfecting of the work.
30. And as we may see with stone-carvers—for the artist’s purpose is to produce in stone the figure of some animal; and with this in his mind, he first severs the stone from its kindred A brief examination of the construction of our bodies from a medical point...
matter, and then, by chipping away the superfluous parts of it, advances somehow by the intermediate step of his first outline to the imitation which he has in his purpose, so that even an unskilled observer may, by what he sees, conjecture the aim of his art; again, by working at it, he brings it more nearly to the semblance of the object he has in view; lastly, producing in the material the perfect and finished figure, he brings his art to its conclusion, and that which a little before was a shapeless stone is a lion, or a man, or whatsoever it may be that the artist has made, not by the change of the material into the figure, but by the figure being wrought upon the material. If one supposes the like in the case of the soul he is not far from probability; for we say that Nature, the all-contriving, takes from its kindred matter the part that comes from the man, and moulds her statue within herself. And as the form follows upon the gradual working of the stone, at first somewhat indistinct, but more perfect after the completion of the work, so too in the moulding of its instrument the form of the soul is expressed in the substratum, incompletely in that which is still incomplete, perfect in that which is perfect; indeed it would have been perfect from the beginning had our nature not been maimed by evil. Thus our community in that generation which is subject to passion and of animal nature, brings it about that the Divine image does not at once shine forth at our formation, but brings man to perfection by a certain method and sequence, through those attributes of the soul which are material, and belong rather to the animal creation. 31. Some such doctrine as this the great apostle also teaches us in his Epistle to the Corinthians, when he says, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, Mae not that the soul which arises in the man is different from that which we know to be in the boy, and the I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things childish intellect fails while the manly intellect takes its being in us; but that the same soul displays its imperfect condition in the one, its perfect state in the other.
32. For we say that those things are alive which spring up and grow, and no one would deny that all things that participate in life and natural motion are animate, yet at the same time one cannot say that such life partakes of a perfect soul,—for though a certain animate operation exists in plants, it does not attain to the motions of sense; and on the other hand, though a certain further animate power exists in the brutes, neither does this attain perfection, since it does not contain in itself the grace of reason and intelligence.
33. And even so we say that the true and perfect soul is the human soul, recognized by every operation; and anything else that shares in life we call animate by a sort of customary misuse of language, because in these cases the soul does not exist in a perfect condition, but only certain parts of the operation of the soul, which in man also (according to Moses’ mystical account of man’s origin) we learn to have accrued when he made himself like this sensuous world. Thus Paul, advising those who were able to hear him to lay hold on perfec- A brief examination of the construction of our bodies from a medical point...
tion, indicates also the mode in which they may attain that object, telling them that they must “put off the old man,” and put on the man “which is renewed after the image of Him that created him!”*.”
34. Now may we all return to that Divine grace in which God at the first created man, when He said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness”; to Whom be glory and might for ever and ever. Amen.
On the Soul and the Resurrection.
On the Soul and the Resurrection.
Argument.
The mind, in times of bereavement, craves a certainty gained by reasoning as to the existence of the soul after death.
First, then: Virtue will be impossible, if deprived of the life of eternity, her only advantage.
But this is a moral argument. The case calls for speculative and scientific treatment.
How is the objection that the nature of the soul, as of real things, is material, to be met?
Thus; the truth of this doctrine would involve the truth of Atheism; whereas Atheism is refuted by the fact of the wise order that reigns in the world. In other words, the spirituality of God cannot be denied: and this proves the possibility of spiritual or immaterial existence: and therefore, that of the soul.
But is God, then, the same thing as the soul?
No: but man is “a little world in himself;” and we may with the same right conclude from this Microcosm to the actual existence of an immaterial soul, as from the phenomena of the world to the reality of God’s existence.
A Definition of the soul is then given, for the sake of clearness in the succeeding discus- sion. It is a created, living, intellectual being, with the power, as long as it is provided with organs, of sensuous perception. For “the mind sees,” not the eye; take, for instance, the meaning of the phases of the moon. The objection that the “organic machine” of the body produces all thought is met by the instance of the water-organ. Such machines, if thought were really an attribute of matter, ought to build themselves spontaneously: whereas they are a direct proof of an invisible thinking power in man. A work of Art means mind: there is a thing perceived, and a thing not perceived.
But still, what is this thing not perceived?
If it has no sensible quality whatever—Where is it?
The answer is, that the same question might be asked about the Deity (Whose existence is not denied).
Then the Mind and the Deity are identical?
Not so: in its substantial existence, as separable from matter, the soul is like God; but this likeness does not extend to sameness; it resembles God as a copy the original.
As being “simple and uncompounded” the soul survives the dissolution of the composite body, whose scattered elements it will continue to accompany, as if watching over its property till the Resurrection, when it will clothe itself in them anew.
The soul was defined “an intellectual being.” But anger and desire are not of the body either. Are there, then, two or three souls?— Answer. Anger and desire do not belong to the Argument.
essence of the soul, but are only among its varying states; they are not originally part of ourselves, and we can and must rid ourselves of them, and bring them, as long as they con- tinue to mark our community with the brute creation, into the service of the good. They are the “tares” of the heart, while they serve any other purpose.
But where will the soul “accompany its elements”?— Hades is not a particular spot; it means the Invisible; those passages in the Bible in which the regions under the earth are al- luded to are explained as allegorical, although the partizans of the opposite interpretation need not be combated.
But how will the soul know the scattered elements of the once familiar form? This is answered by two illustrations (not analogies). The skill of the painter, the force that has united numerous colours to form a single tint, will, if (by some miracle) that actual tint was to fall back into those various colours, be cognizant of each one of these last, e.g. the tone and size of the drop of gold, of red, &c.; and could at will recombine them. The owner of a cup of clay would know its fragments (by their shape) amidst a mass of fragments of clay vessels of other shapes, or even if they were plunged again into their native clay. So the soul knows its elements amidst their “kindred dust”; or when each one has flitted back to its own primeval source on the confines of the Universe.
But how does this harmonize with the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus?
The bodies of both were in the grave: and so all that is said of them is in a spiritual sense. But the soul can suffer still, being cognizant, not only of the elements of the whole body, but of those that formed each member, e.g. the tongue. By the relations of the Rich Man are meant the impressions made on his soul by the things of flesh and blood.
But if we must have no emotions in the next world, how shall there be virtue, and how shall there be love of God? For anger, we saw, contributed to the one, desire to the other.
We shall be like God so far that we shall always contemplate the Beautiful in Him. Now, God, in contemplating Himself, has no desire and hope, no regret and memory. The moment of fruition is always present, and so His Love is perfect, without the need of any emotion. So will it be with us. God draws “that which belongs to Him” to this blessed passionlessness; and in this very drawing consists the torment of a passion-laden soul. Severe and long- continued pains in eternity are thus decreed to sinners, not because God hates them, nor for the sake alone of punishing them; but “because what belongs to God must at any cost be preserved for Him.” The degree of pain which must be endured by each one is necessarily proportioned to the measure of the wickedness.
God will thus be “all in all”; yet the loved one’s form will then be woven, though into a more ethereal texture, of the same elements as before. (This is not Nirvana.)
Here the doctrine of the Resurrection is touched. The Christian Resurrection and that of the heathen philosophies coincide in that the soul is reclothed from some elements of the Universe. But there are fatal objections to the latter under its two forms: Argument.
Transmigration pure and simple; The Platonic Soul-rotation.
The first— 1. Obliterates the distinction between the mineral or vegetable, and the spiritual, world. 2. Makes it a sin to eat and drink.
Both— 3. Confuse the moral choice.
4, Make heaven the cradle of vice, and earth of virtue.
5. Contradict the truth that they assume, that there is no change in heaven.
6. Attribute every birth to a vice, and therefore are either Atheist or Manichzan. 7. Make a life a chapter of accidents.
8. Contradict facts of moral character.
God is the cause of our life, both in body and soul.
But when and how does the soul come into existence?
The how we can never know.
There are objections to seeking the material for any created thing either in God, or outside God. But we may regard the whole Creation as the realized thoughts of God. (Anti- cipation of Malebranche.)
The when may be determined. Objections to the existence of soul before body have been given above. But soul is necessary to life, and the embryo lives.
Therefore soul is not born after body. So body and soul are born together.
As to the number of souls, Humanity itself is a thought of God not yet completed, as these continual additions prove. When it is completed, this “progress of Humanity” will cease, by there being no more births: and no births, no deaths.
Before answering objections to the Scriptural doctrine of the Resurrection, the passages that contain it are mentioned: especially Psalm cxviii. 27 (LXX.).
The various objections to it, to the Purgatory to follow, and to the Judgment, are then stated; especially that A man is not the same being (physically) two days together. Which phase of him, then, is to rise again, be tortured (if need be), and judged?
They are all answered by a Definition of the Resurrection, i.e. the restoration of man to his original state. In that, there is neither age nor infancy; and the “coats of skins” are laid aside.
When the process of purification has been completed, the better attributes of the soul appear—imperishability, life, honour, grace, glory, power, and, in short, all that belongs to human nature as the image of Deity.
On the Soul and the Resurrection.
On the Soul and the Resurrection.
Basil, great amongst the saints, had departed from this life to God; and the impulse to mourn for him was shared by all the churches. But his sister the Teacher was still living; and so I journeyed to her!/46 , yearning for an interchange of sympathy over the loss of her brother. My soul was right sorrow-stricken by this grievous blow, and I sought for one who could feel it equally, to mingle my tears with. But when we were in each other’s presence the sight of the Teacher awakened all my pain; for she too was lying in a state of prostration even unto death. Well, she gave in to me for a little while, like a skilful driver, in the ungov- ernable violence of my grief; and then she tried to check me by speaking, and to correct with the curb of her reasonings the disorder of my soul. She quoted the Apostle’s words about the duty of not being “grieved for them that sleep”; because only “men without hope” have such feelings. With a heart still fermenting with my pain, I asked— 1747 Vow can that ever be practised by mankind? There is such an instinctive and deepseated abhorrence of death in all! Those who look on a death-bed can hardly bear the sight; 1746 Gregory himself tells us, in his life of S. Macrina, that he went to see her after the Council of Antioch. (This and Basil’s death occurred in the year 379: so that this Dialogue was probably composed in 380.) “The interval during which the circumstances of our times of trials prevented any visits had been long.” He goes on to say (p. 189 B.); “And that she might cause me no depression of spirits, she somehow subdued the noise and concealed the difficulty of her breathing, and assumed perfect cheerfulness: she not only started pleasant topics herself, but suggested them as well by the questions which she asked. The conversation led naturally to the mention of our great Basil. While my very soul sank and my countenance was saddened and fell, she herself was so far from going with me into the depths of mourning, that she made the mention of that saintly name all op- portunity for the most sublime philosophy. Examining human nature in a scientific way, disclosing the divine plan that underlies all afflictions, and dealing, as if inspired by the Holy Spirit, with all the questions relating to a future life, she maintained such a discourse that my soul seemed to be lifted along with her words almost beyond the compass of humanity, and, as I followed her argument, to be placed within the sanctuary of heaven.” Again (p. 190 B): “And if my tract would not thereby be extended to an endless length, I would have reported everything in its order; i.e. how her argument lifted her as she went into the philosophy both of the soul, and of the causes of our life in the flesh, and of the final cause of Man and his mortality, and of death and the return thence into life again. In all of it her reasoning continued clear and consecutive: it flowed on so easily and nat- urally that it was like the water from some spring falling unimpeded downwards.”
1747 Two grounds are here given why this practice of grief for the departed is difficult to give up. One lies in the natural abhorrence of death, showing itself in two ways, viz. in our grief over others dying, and in recoiling from our own death, expressed by two evenly balanced sentences, oUte tOv OPWVTWV...01C te dv...; in the latter a second ovte might have been expected; but such an anacoluthon is frequent in dialogue. Oehler is wrong in On the Soul and the Resurrection.
and those whom death approaches recoil from him all they can. Why, even the law that controls us puts death highest on the list of crimes, and highest on the list of punishments. By what device, then, can we bring ourselves to regard as nothing a departure from life even in the case of a stranger, not to mention that of relations, when so be they cease to live? We see before us the whole course of human life aiming at this one thing, viz. how we may continue in this life; indeed it is for this that houses have been invented by us to live in; in order that our bodies may not be prostrated in their environment’”*® by cold or heat. Agri- culture, again, what is it but the providing of our sustenance? In fact all thought about how we are to go on living is occasioned by the fear of dying. Why is medicine so honoured amongst men? Because it is thought to carry on the combat with death to a certain extent by its methods. Why do we have corslets, and long shields, and greaves, and helmets, and all the defensive armour, and inclosures of fortifications, and iron-barred gates, except that we fear to die? Death then being naturally so terrible to us, how can it be easy for a survivor to obey this command to remain unmoved over friends departed?
Why, what is the especial pain you feel, asked the Teacher, in the mere necessity itself of dying? This common talk of unthinking persons is no sufficient accusation.
What! is there no occasion for grieving, I replied to her, when we see one who so lately lived and spoke becoming all of a sudden lifeless and motionless, with the sense of every bodily organ extinct, with no sight or hearing in operation, or any other faculty of apprehen- sion that sense possesses; and if you apply fire or steel to him, even if you were to plunge a sword into the body, or cast it to the beasts of prey, or if you bury it beneath a mound, that dead man is alike unmoved at any treatment? Seeing, then, that this change is observed in all these ways, and that principle of life, whatever it might be, disappears all at once out of sight, as the flame of an extinguished lamp which burnt on it the moment before neither remains upon the wick nor passes to some other place, but completely disappears, how can such a change be borne without emotion by one who has no clear ground to rest upon? We hear the departure of the spirit, we see the shell that is left; but of the part that has been separated we are ignorant, both as to its nature, and as to the place whither it has fled; for neither earth, nor air, nor water, nor any other element can show as residing within itself this force that has left the body, at whose withdrawal a corpse only remains, ready for dis- solution.
giving to the second te an intensive force, i.e. “much more.” The other ground lies in the attitude of the law to- wards death. 1748 Reading nepi€xovtt: the same word is used below, “as long as the breath within was held in by the enveloping substance” (see p. 432, note 8). Here it means “the air”: as in Marcus Antoninus, Lib. iv. 39.
On the Soul and the Resurrection.
Whilst I was thus enlarging on the subject, the Teacher signed to me with her hand'7”, and said: Surely what alarms and disturbs your mind is not the thought that the soul, instead of lasting for ever, ceases with the body’s dissolution!
I answered rather audaciously, and without due consideration of what I said, for my passionate grief had not yet given me back my judgment. In fact, I said that the Divine ut- terances seemed to me like mere commands compelling us to believe that the soul lasts for ever; not, however, that we were led by them to this belief by any reasoning. Our mind within us appears slavishly to accept the opinion enforced, but not to acquiesce with a spontaneous impulse. Hence our sorrow over the departed is all the more grievous; we do not exactly know whether this vivifying principle is anything by itself; where it is, or how it 1750 about the real 1750 about the real is; whether, in fact, it exists in any way at all anywhere. This uncertainty state of the case balances the opinions on either side; many adopt the one view, many the other; and indeed there are certain persons, of no small philosophical reputation amongst the Greeks, who have held and maintained this which I have just said.
Away, she cried, with that pagan nonsense! For therein the inventor of lies fabricates false theories only to harm the Truth. Observe this, and nothing else; that such a view about the soul amounts to nothing less than the abandoning of virtue, and seeking the pleasure of the moment only; the life of eternity, by which alone virtue claims the advantage, must be despaired of.
And pray how, I asked, are we to get a firm and unmovable belief in the soul’s continu- ance? I, too, am sensible of the fact that human life will be bereft of the most beautiful orna- ment that life has to give, I mean virtue, unless an undoubting confidence with regard to this be established within us. What, indeed, has virtue to stand upon in the case of those persons who conceive of this present life as the limit of their existence, and hope for nothing beyond?
Well, replied the Teacher, we must seek where we may get a beginning for our discussion upon this point; and if you please, let the defence of the opposing views be undertaken by yourself; for I see that your mind is a little inclined to accept such a brief. Then, after the conflicting belief has been stated, we shall be able to look for the truth.
1749 Reading katacetoaoa tH XE1pi, instead of the vox nihili wetacetoaca of the two Paris Editions, which can be accounted for by peta being repeated in error from petagév. The question which this gesture accompanied is one to which it would be very appropriate. The reading adopted is that of the Codex Uffenbach, and this phrase, kataoetetv Ti} XEtpl, is unimpeachable for “commanding silence,” being used by Polybius, and Xenophon (without xeipi). Wolf and Krabinger prefer this reading to that of most of the Codd., xataotyroaoa: and doubtless Sifanus read it (“manu silentio imperato”).
1750 toac...cdnAta. This is Krabinger’s reading (for tows...) detAia in the Parisian Editions) with abundant ms. authority.
On the Soul and the Resurrection.
When she made this request, and I had deprecated the suspicion that I was making the objections in real earnest, instead of only wishing to get a firm ground for the belief about the soul by calling into court!”*! first what is aimed against this view, I began— Would not the defenders of the opposite belief say this: that the body, being composite, must necessarily be resolved into that of which it is composed? And when the coalition of elements in the body ceases, each of those elements naturally gravitates towards its kindred element with the irresistible bias of like to like; the heat in us will thus unite with heat, the earthy with the solid, and each of the other elements also will pass towards its like. Where, then, will the soul be after that? If one affirm that it is in those elements, one will be obliged to admit that it is identical with them, for this fusion could not possibly take place between two things of different natures. But this being granted, the soul must necessarily be viewed as a complex thing, fused as it is with qualities so opposite. But the complex is not simple, but must be classed with the composite, and the composite is necessarily dissoluble; and dissolution means the destruction of the compound; and the destructible is not immortal, else the flesh itself, resolvable as it is into its constituent elements, might so be called immor- tal. If, on the other hand, the soul is something other than these elements, where can our reason suggest a place for it to be, when it is thus, by virtue of its alien nature, not to be discovered in those elements, and there is no other place in the world, either, where it may continue, in harmony with its own peculiar character, to exist? But, ifa thing can be found nowhere, plainly it has no existence.
The Teacher sighed gently at these words of mine, and then said; Maybe these were the objections, or such as these, that the Stoics and Epicureans collected at Athens made in answer to the Apostle. I hear that Epicurus carried his theories in this very direction. The framework of things was to his mind a fortuitous and mechanical affair, without a Providence penetrating its operations; and, as a piece with this, he thought that human life was like a 1751 dvtiMIMtOVTWV TIPdG TOV OKOMOV TobTOV UmoKANOEvtwv: the reading of the Parisian Editions. But the preponderance of ms. authority is in favour of bnexAvOévtwv, “si que ad hoc propositum opponuntur soluta fuerint,” Krabinger. The force of 70 will then be “by way of rejoinder.” The idea in okomov seems to be that of a butt set up to be shot at. All the mss. but not the Paris Editions, have the article before dvtimintotwv: but it is not absolutely necessary, for Gregory not unfrequently omits it before participles, when his meaning is general, i.e. “Everything that,” &c.
1752 wo tvxata, K.t.A. It is better to connect this directly with Epicurus himself, than to refer it, by bracketing the preceding sentence (with Oehler), to his followers. Macrina infers from the opinions known to her of Epi- curus, what he must have said about the human soul: i.e. that it was a bubble; and then what his followers probably said. There is no evidence that Epicurus used this actual figure: still Gregory may be recording his very words.—Lucian (Charon, 68) enlarges on such a simile: and his @kbpopov pvonua, as a description of man, is reproduced by Gregory himself in Orat. de Beatitud. p. 768 D.
On the Soul and the Resurrection.
bubble, existing only as long as the breath within was held in by the enveloping substance!”™’, inasmuch as our body was a mere membrane, as it were, encompassing a breath; and that on the collapse of the inflation the imprisoned essence was extinguished. To him the visible was the limit of existence; he made our senses the only means of our apprehension of things; he completely closed the eyes of his soul, and was incapable of seeing anything in the intel- ligible and immaterial world, just as a man, who is imprisoned in a cabin whose walls and roof obstruct the view outside, remains without a glimpse of all the wonders of the sky. Verily, everything in the universe that is seen to be an object of sense is as an earthen wall, forming in itself a barrier between the narrower souls and that intelligible world which is ready for their contemplation; and it is the earth and water and fire alone that such behold; whence comes each of these elements, in what and by what they are encompassed, such souls because of their narrowness cannot detect. While the sight of a garment suggests to any one the weaver of it, and the thought of the shipwright comes at the sight of the ship, and the hand of the builder is brought to the mind of him who sees the building, these little souls gaze upon the world, but their eyes are blind to Him whom all this that we see around us makes manifest; and so they propound their clever and pungent doctrines about the soul’s evanishment;—body from elements, and elements from body, and, besides, the im-