basis of all this we conclude that the soul, where thinking happens, is
part of nature.”
[ 6 ] Other philosophers among them did not disagree but shed fur-
ther light on the issue by saying, “Souls came into being when the ether
in the great chaos formed a ball. In the highest realm the ether divided
into countless individual forms. These forms pour down into people
when they begin to think on a level that is purer than air. These forms are
then called souls.”
Another philosopher said, “I’ll grant you that the individual forms
made out of ether in the highest realm were countless. Nevertheless the
number of people born since the world was created has exceeded the num-
ber of forms. How then could there be enough of these ethereal forms? So
I thought to myself that the souls that go out through people’s mouths
when they die come back to the same people after several thousand years.
The people go back, therefore, and live a similar life to the one they had
before. As we know, many of the wise believe in reincarnation and things
like that.”
Other conjectures besides these were tossed out by the rest, but they
were too insane for me to even mention.
[ 7 ] A few minutes later the priest came back. The philosopher who
had previously said that God created the universe now told the priest
what the group had decided about the soul.
In response the priest told them, “What you have said is exactly what
you thought in the world. You don’t even realize that you’re not in that
world—you are in another one called the spiritual world! All whose posi-
tions in favor of nature have limited them to their bodies and senses are
unaware that they are not in the same world where they were born and
raised. There they were in a body made of physical matter; here they are
in a body made of spiritual substance. People made of spiritual substance
see themselves and others around them in exactly the same way that peo-
ple made of physical matter see themselves and others around them. This
is because substance comes before matter.
“Since you think, speak, see, smell, and taste things in much the
same way as you did in the physical world, you believe that nature is
the same here. Nature in this world, though, is just as different and dis-
tant from the nature in that world as spiritual substance is from physi-
cal matter or something primary is from something secondary. As the
nature in the world where you used to live is comparatively dead, so
§79 god the creator & creation 111