e theology of India is underlaid with
Pantheism. "God is One because he is All." The Vedas, in speaking of the
relation of nature to God, make use of the expression that he is the
Material as well as the Cause of the universe, "the Clay as well as the
Potter." They convey the idea that while there is a pervading spirit
existing everywhere of the same nature as the soul of man, though
differing from it infinitely in degree, visible nature is essentially
and inseparably connected therewith; that as in man the body is
perpetually undergoing changes, perpetually decaying and being renewed,
or, as in the case of the whole human species, nations come into
existence and pass away, yet still there continues to exist what may be
termed the universal human mind, so for ever associated and for ever
connected are the material and the spiritual. And under this aspect we
must contemplate the Supreme Being, not merely as a presiding intellect,
but as illustrated by the parallel case of man, whose mental principle
shows no tokens except through its connexion with the body; so matter,
or nature, or the visible universe, is to be looked upon as the
corporeal manifestation of God.

[Sidenote: The nature of mundane changes.]

Secular changes taking place invisible objects, especially those of an
astronomical kind, thus stand as the gigantic counterparts both as to
space and time of the microscopic changes which we recognize as
occurring in the body of man. However, in adopting these views of the
relations of material nature and spirit, we must continually bear in
mind that matter "has no essence independent of mental perception; that
existence and perceptibility are convertible terms; that external
appearances and sensations are illusory, and would vanish into nothing
if the divine energy which alone sustains them were suspended but for a
moment."

[Sidenote: Of the soul of man.]

[Sidenote: Its final absorption in God.]

[Sidenote: Of purifying penances,]

[Sidenote: and transmigration of souls.]

As to the relation between the Supreme Being and man, the soul is a
portion or particle of that all-pervading principle, the Universal
Intellect or Soul of the World, detached for a while from its primitive
source, and placed in connexion with the bodily frame, but destined by
an inevitable necessity sooner or later to be restored and rejoined--as
inevitably as rivers run back to be lost in the ocean from which they
arose. "That Spirit,