h some inert point of resistance. This point of resistance
has the effect of action in itself, and you attribute to _it_ all the
eddies and ripples produced. You _must_ see that your own immobility is
the cause of the phenomena of life which give you your apparent
existence;--our individuality to you may be just as much the effect of
your personality; you find us only responsive to your own mental state."

I was conscious of a sophistry somewhere, but could not, for the life of
me, detect it. I thought of the Tempter; I almost feared to listen to
another word; but the daemon seemed so fair, so rational, and, above all,
so confident of truth, that I could not entertain my fears.

"But," said I, finally, "if my personality is owing to my physical
circumstances, to my body and its immobility, what is the body itself
owing to?"

"All physical or organic existence is owing to the antagonism between
certain particles of matter, fixed and resistant, and the all-pervading,
ever-flowing spirit; the different inertiae conflict, and end by
combining in an organic being, since neither can be annihilated or
transmuted. Perhaps we can tell you, by-and-by, how this antagonism
commences; at present, you would scarcely be able to comprehend it
clearly."

This I felt, for I was already getting confused with the questions that
occurred to me as to the relations between spirit and matter.

I asked once more, "Have you never been personal, as I am?--have you
never had a body and a name?"

"Perhaps," was the reply,--"but it must have been long since; and the
trifling circumstances which you call life, with all their direct and
recognizable effects, pass away so soon, that it is impossible to recall
anything of it. There seems a kind of consciousness when we have
something to act against, as against your mind at the present moment;
but as to name, and all that kind of distinctiveness, what is the use of
it where there is no possibility of confusion or mistake as to identity?
We have said that we are spirit; and when we say that spirit is one and
matter one, we have gone behind personal identity."

"But," asked I, "am I to lose my individual existence,--to become
finally merged in a universal impersonality? What, then, is the object
of life?"

"You see the plants and animals all around you growing up and passing
away,--each entering its little orbit, and sweeping through this sphere
of cognizance back again to the same mystery it emer