it has not existed in vain. No cloud ever yet
formed on the sky without leaving an imperishable impression on the
earth, for while it yet existed there was not a plant whose growth was
not delayed, whose substance was not lessened. And of such a cloud the
production of which we have watched, how often has it happened to us to
witness its melting away into the untroubled air. From the untroubled
air it came, and to the pure untroubled air it has again returned.

Now such a cloud is made up of countless hosts of microscopic drops,
each maintaining itself separate from the others, and each, small though
it may be, having an individuality of its own. The grand aggregate may
vary its colour and shape; it may be the scene of unceasing and rapid
interior movements of many kinds, yet it presents its aspect unchanged,
or changes tranquilly and silently, still glowing in the light that
falls on it, still casting its shadow on the ground. It is an emblem of
the universe according to the ancient doctrine, showing us how the
visible may issue from the invisible, and return again thereto; that a
drop too small for the unassisted eye to see may be the representative
of a world. The spontaneous emergence and disappearance of a cloud is
the emblem of a transitory universe issuing forth and disappearing,
again to be succeeded by other universes, other like creations in the
long lapse of time.

[Sidenote: As to the soul--a part of the divinity.]

(3.) Of the nature of the soul. From the material quality assigned to
the soul by the early Ionian schools, as that it was air, fire, or the
like, there was a gradual passage to the opinion of its immateriality.
To this, precision was given by the assertion that it had not only an
affinity with, but even is a part of God. Whatever were the views
entertained of the nature and attributes of the Supreme Being, they
directly influenced the conclusions arrived at respecting the nature of
the soul.

[Sidenote: Its immortality and final absorption.]

Greek philosophy, in its highest state of development, regarded the soul
as something more than the sum of the moments of thinking. It held it to
be a portion of the Deity himself. This doctrine is the necessary
corollary of Pantheism. It contemplated a past eternity, a future
immortality. It entered on such inquiries as whether the number of souls
in the universe is constant. As upon the foregoing point, so upon this:
there was a complete analogy bet