(1) Verily, at that time the world was undifferentiated. It became differentiated just by name and foim, as the saying is: differentiated just by name and form, as the saying is: ' He has such a name, such a form.' He entered in here, even to the fingernail-tips, as a razor would be hidden in a razor-case, or fire in a fire-holder.' Him they see not, for [as seen] he Is incomplete. When breathing, he becomes breath (prdnd) by name; when speaking, voice; when seeing, the eye; when hearing, the ear; when thinking, the mind: these are merely the names of his acts. Whoever worships one or another of these — he knows not; for he is the earliest occurrence of a favorite simile of the later Vedanta; cf. for example, £ankara on the Brahma-Sutras 3. 2. 6 ' as fire is latent in firewood or in covered embers.* But the meaning of m&vambJiara is uncertain. Etymologically the word is a compound signifying * all-bearing.' As such it is an unambiguous appellation of the earth at AV 12. I 6. The only other occurrence of its adjectival -use that is cited in BR. is AV. 2. 16. 5, where the commentator substantiates his rendering the meaning ( fire ' (A V Tr. p. 60-61), and in his criticism of Bohtlingk's translation of this Upamshad (AJP n. 432) suggests that ' vtivambhara may perhaps here mean some kind of insect, in accordance with its later use,' and * since the point of comparison is the invisibility of the things encased ' proposes the translation * or as a vitvambhara in a vtfvam&kara-uest. But Professor Lanman adds to Whitney's note on AV. a. 16. 5 (AV, Tr. p. 60- j); 'I think, nevertheless, that fire may be meant.' The same simile recurs at Kaush. 4. 20. incomplete with one or another of these. One should worship with the thought that he is just one's self (atman\ for therein all these become one That same thing, namely, this self, is the trace (fadaniyd) of this All, for by it one knows this All. Just as, verily, one might find by a footprint (^r),thus— - He finds fame and praise who knows this.

(12) Think of a sound passing through the air and carrying a word; an ear within range catches and comprehends; and the sound and word will strike upon any other ear you may imagine within the intervening void, upon any that attends; from a great distance many eyes look to the one object and all take it fully; all this, because eye and ear exist. In the same way, what is apt for soul will possess itself of soul, while from the one identical presence another will derive something else.

Now the sound was diffused throughout the air not in sections but as one sound, entire at every point of that space. So with sight: if the air carries a shape impressed upon it this is one undivided whole; for, wherever there be an eye, there the shape will be grasped; even to such as reject this particular theory of sight, the facts of vision still stand as an example of participation determined by an identical unity.

The sound is the clearer illustration: the form conveyed is an entirety over all the air space, for unless the spoken word were entire at every point, for every ear to catch the whole alike, the same effect could not be made upon every listener; the sound, evidently, is not strung along the air, section to section. Why, then, need we hesitate to think of soul as a thing not extended in broken contact, part for part, but omnipresent within the range of its presence, indwelling in totality at every point throughout the All?

Entered into such bodies as are apt to it, the soul is like the spoken sound present in the air, before that entry, like the speaker about to speak- though even embodied it remains at once the speaker and the silent.

No doubt these illustrations are imperfect, but they carry a serviceable similitude: the soul belongs to that other Kind, and we must not conceive a part of it embodied and a part intact; it is at once a self-enclosed unity and a principle manifested in diversity.

Further, any newcoming entity achieving soul receives mysteriously that same principle which was equally in the previously ensouled; for it is not in the dispensation that a given part of soul situate at some given point should enter here and there; what is thought of as entering was always a self-enclosed entire and, for all the seeming entry, so remains; no real entry is conceivable. If, then, the soul never entered and yet is now seen to be present- present without waiting upon the participant- clearly it is present, here too, without breach of its self-inclusion. This can mean only that the participant came to soul; it lay outside the veritable reality but advanced towards it and so established itself in the kosmos of life. But this kosmos of life is a self-gathered entire, not divisible into constituent masses but prior to mass; in other words, the participation is of entire in entire. Any newcomer into that kosmos of life will participate in it entire. Admitting, then, that this kosmos of life is present entire in the universe, it must be similarly entire in each several entity; an identity numerically one, it must be an undivided entire, omnipresent.

(4) For where there is a duality, as it were, there one sees another; there one smells another; there one tastes another; there one speaks to another; there one hears another; theie one thinks of another; there one touches another; there one understands another. But where everything has become just one's own self, then whereby and whom would one see? then whereby and whom would one smell? then whereby and whom would one taste? then whereby and to whom would one speak? then whereby and whom would one hear? then whereby and of whom would one think? then whereby and whom would one touch? then whereby and whom would one understand? whereby would one understand him by means of whom one understands this All? That Soul (Atman) is not this, it is not that (neti, neti). It is unseizable, for it can not be seized; indestructible, for it can not be destroyed; unattached, for it does not attach itself; is unbound, does not tremble, is not injured. Lo, whereby would one understand the understander? Thus you have the instruction told to you, Maitreyl. Such, lo, indeed, is immortality.' After speaking thus, Yajnavalkya departed, 1 La

(1) The One is all things and no one of them; the source of all things is not all things; all things are its possession- running back, so to speak, to it- or, more correctly, not yet so, they will be.

But a universe from an unbroken unity, in which there appears no diversity, not even duality?

It is precisely because that is nothing within the One that all things are from it: in order that Being may be brought about, the source must be no Being but Being's generator, in what is to be thought of as the primal act of generation. Seeking nothing, possessing nothing, lacking nothing, the One is perfect and, in our metaphor, has overflowed, and its exuberance has produced the new: this product has turned again to its begetter and been filled and has become its contemplator and so an Intellectual-Principle.

That station towards the one establishes Being; that vision directed upon the One establishes the Intellectual-Principle; standing towards the One to the end of vision, it is simultaneously Intellectual-Principle and Being; and, attaining resemblance in virtue of this vision, it repeats the act of the One in pouring forth a vast power.

This second outflow is a Form or Idea representing the Divine Intellect as the Divine Intellect represented its own prior, The One.

This active power sprung from essence is Soul.

Soul arises as the idea and act of the motionless Intellectual-Principle- which itself sprang from its own motionless prior- but the soul's operation is not similarly motionless; its image is generated from its movement. It takes fulness by looking to its source; but it generates its image by adopting another, a downward, movement.

This image of Soul is Sense and Nature, the vegetal principle.

Nothing, however, is completely severed from its prior. Thus the human Soul appears to reach away as far down as to the vegetal order: in some sense it does, since the life of growing things is within its province; but it is not present entire; when it has reached the vegetal order it is there in the sense that having moved thus far downwards it produces- by its outgoing and its tendency towards the less good- another hypostasis or form of being just as its prior (the loftier phase of the Soul) is produced from the Intellectual-Principle which yet remains in untroubled self-possession.

(12) To return: How is that Power present to the universe?

As a One Life.

Consider the life in any living thing; it does not reach only to some fixed point, unable to permeate the entire being; it is omnipresent. If on this again we are asked How, we appeal to the character of this power, not subject to quantity but such that though you divide it mentally for ever you still have the same power, infinite to the core; in it there is no Matter to make it grow less and less according to the measured mass.

Conceive it as a power of an ever-fresh infinity, a principle unfailing, inexhaustible, at no point giving out, brimming over with its own vitality. If you look to some definite spot and seek to fasten on some definite thing, you will not find it. The contrary is your only way; you cannot pass on to where it is not; you will never halt at a dwindling point where it fails at last and can no longer give; you will always be able to move with it- better, to be in its entirety- and so seek no further; denying it, you have strayed away to something of another order and you fall; looking elsewhere you do not see what stands there before you.

But supposing you do thus "seek no further," how do you experience it?

In that you have entered into the All, no longer content with the part; you cease to think of yourself as under limit but, laying all such determination aside, you become an All. No doubt you were always that, but there has been an addition and by that addition you are diminished; for the addition was not from the realm of Being- you can add nothing to Being- but from non-Being. It is not by some admixture of non-Being that one becomes an entire, but by putting non-Being away. By the lessening of the alien in you, you increase. Cast it aside and there is the All within you; engaged in the alien, you will not find the All. Not that it has to come and so be present to you; it is you that have turned from it. And turn though you may, you have not severed yourself; it is there; you are not in some far region: still there before it, you have faced to its contrary.

It is so with the lesser gods; of many standing in their presence it is often one alone that sees them; that one alone was alone in the power to see. These are the gods who "in many guises seek our cities"; but there is That Other whom the cities seek, and all the earth and heaven, everywhere with God and in Him, possessing through Him their Being and the Real Beings about them, down to soul and life, all bound to Him and so moving to that unity which by its very lack of extension is infinite.

(1) Out of the water and out of the moon the divine Breath enters him. Verily, that is the divine Breath which, whether moving or not moving, is not perturbed, nor injured. He who knows this becomes the Self of all beings. As is that divinity [i.e. Prajapati], so is he. As all beings favor that divinity, so to him who knows this all beings show favor. Whatever sufferings creatures endure, these remain with them. Only good goes to him. Evil, verily, does not go to the gods. Breath, the unfailing power in a person: like the unwearying world-breath, wind

(2) ... For in any one science the reduction of the total of knowledge into its separate propositions does not shatter its unity, chipping it into unrelated fragments; in each distinct item is talent the entire body of the science, an integral thing in its highest Principle and its last detail: and similarly a man must so discipline himself that the first Principles of his Being are also his completions, are totals, that all be pointed towards the loftiest phase of the Nature: when a man has become this unity in the best, he is in that other realm; for it is by this highest within himself, made his own, that he holds to the Supreme.

At no point did the All-Soul come into Being: it never arrived, for it never knew place; what happens is that body, neighbouring with it, participates in it: hence Plato does not place Soul in body but body in Soul. The others, the secondary Souls, have a point of departure- they come from the All-Soul- and they have a Place into which to descend and in which to change to and fro, a place, therefore, from which to ascend: but this All-Soul is for ever Above, resting in that Being in which it holds its existence as Soul and followed, as next, by the Universe or, at least, by all beneath the sun.

The partial Soul is illuminated by moving towards the Soul above it; for on that path it meets Authentic Existence. Movement towards the lower is towards non-Being: and this is the step it takes when it is set on self; for by willing towards itself it produces its lower, an image of itself- a non-Being- and so is wandering, as it were, into the void, stripping itself of its own determined form. And this image, this undetermined thing, is blank darkness, for it is utterly without reason, untouched by the Intellectual-Principle, far removed from Authentic Being.

As long as it remains at the mid-stage it is in its own peculiar region; but when, by a sort of inferior orientation, it looks downward, it shapes that lower image and flings itself joyfully thither.

(3) If this principle is the Authentic Existent and holds unchanging identity, does not go forth from itself, is untouched by any process of becoming or, as we have said, by any situation in place, then it must be always self-gathered, never in separation, not partly here and partly there, not giving forth from itself: any such instability would set it in thing after thing or at least in something other than itself: then it would no longer be self-gathered; nor would it be immune, for anything within which it were lodged would affect it; immune, it is not in anything. If, then, not standing away from itself, not distributed by part, not taking the slightest change, it is to be in many things while remaining a self-concentrated entire, there is some way in which it has multipresence; it is at once self-enclosed and not so: the only way is to recognise that while this principle itself is not lodged in anything, all other things participate in it- all that are apt and in the measure of their aptitude.

Thus, we either cancel all that we have affirmed and the principles laid down, and deny the existence of any such Nature, or, that being impossible, we return to our first position:

The One, numerically identical, undistributed, an unbroken entire, yet stands remote from nothing that exists by its side; but it does not, for that, need to pour itself forth: there is no necessity either that certain portions of it enter into things or again that, while it remains self-abiding, something produced and projected from it enter at various points into that other order. Either would imply something of it remaining there while the emanant is elsewhere: thus separated from what has gone forth, it would experience local division. And would those emanants be, each in itself, whole or part? If part, the One has lost its nature, that of an entire, as we have already indicated; if whole, then either the whole is broken up to coincide point for point with that in which it is become present or we are admitting that an unbroken identity can be omnipresent.

This is a reasoning, surely, founded on the thing itself and its essential nature, not introducing anything foreign, anything belonging to the Other Order.

(2) It can be demonstrated that soul must, necessarily, be of just this nature and that there can be no other soul than such a being, one neither wholly partible but both at once.

If it had the nature of body it would consist of isolated members each unaware of the conditions of every other; there would be a particular soul- say a soul of the finger- answering as a distinct and independent entity to every local experience; in general terms, there would be a multiplicity of souls administering each individual; and, moreover, the universe would be governed not by one soul but by an incalculable number, each standing apart to itself. But, without a dominant unity, continuity is meaningless.

The theory that "Impressions reach the leading-principle by progressive stages" must be dismissed as mere illusion.

In the first place, it affirms without investigation a "leading" phase of the soul.

What can justify this assigning of parts to the soul, the distinguishing one part from another? What quantity, or what difference of quality, can apply to a thing defined as a self-consistent whole of unbroken unity?

Again, would perception be vested in that leading principle alone, or in the other phases as well?

If a given experience bears only on that "leading principle," it would not be felt as lodged in any particular members of the organism; if, on the other hand, it fastens on some other phase of the soul- one not constituted for sensation- that phase cannot transmit any experience to the leading principle, and there can be no sensation.

Again, suppose sensation vested in the "leading-principle" itself: then, a first alternative, it will be felt in some one part of that , the other part excluding a perception which could serve no purpose; or, in the second alternative, there will be many distinct sensitive phases, an infinite number, with difference from one to another. In that second case, one sensitive phase will declare "I had this sensation primarily"; others will have to say "I felt the sensation that rose elsewhere"; but either the site of the experience will be a matter of doubt to every phase except the first, or each of the parts of the soul will be deceived into allocating the occurrence within its own particular sphere.

If, on the contrary, the sensation is vested not merely in the "leading principle," but in any and every part of the soul, what special function raises the one rather than the other into that leading rank, or why is the sensation to be referred to it rather than elsewhere? And how, at this, account for the unity of the knowledge brought in by diverse senses, by eyes, by ears?

On the other hand, if the soul is a perfect unity- utterly strange to part, a self-gathered whole- if it continuously eludes all touch of multiplicity and divisibility- then, no whole taken up into it can ever be ensouled; soul will stand as circle-centre to every object , and the entire mass of a living being is soulless still.

There is, therefore, no escape: soul is, in the degree indicated, one and many, parted and impartible. We cannot question the possibility of a thing being at once a unity and multi-present, since to deny this would be to abolish the principle which sustains and administers the universe; there must be a Kind which encircles and supports all and conducts all with wisdom, a principle which is multiple since existence is multiple, and yet is one soul always since a container must be a unity: by the multiple unity of its nature, it will furnish life to the multiplicity of the series of an all; by its impartible unity, it will conduct a total to wise ends.

In the case of things not endowed with intelligence, the "leading-principle" is their mere unity- a lower reproduction of the soul's efficiency.

This is the deeper meaning of the profound passage , where we read "By blending the impartible, eternally unchanging essence with that in division among bodies, he produced a third form of essence partaking of both qualities."

Soul, therefore, is, in this definite sense, one and many; the Ideal-Form resident in body is many and one; bodies themselves are exclusively many; the Supreme is exclusively one.

(3) He who, dwelling in all things, yet is other than all things, whom all things do not know, whose body all things are, who controls all things from within — He is your Soul, the Inner Controller, the Immortal. — Thus far with reference to material existence. Now with reference to the self. —

(6) But must it not draw on some source external to its essence, if it is to be conditioned, not only by Being, but by being an entity of a particular character? But if it is conditioned by a particular character, and this character is external to its essence, its essence does not comprise all that makes it Soul; its individuality will determine it; a part of Soul will be essence, but not Soul entire.

Furthermore, what being will it have when we separate it from its other components? The being of a stone? No: the being must be a form of Being appropriate to a source, so to speak, and a first-principle, or rather must take the forms appropriate to all that is comprised in Soul's being: the being here must, that is, be life, and the life and the being must be one.

One, in the sense of being one Reason-Principle? No; it is the substrate of Soul that is one, though one in such a way as to be also two or more- as many as are the Primaries which constitute Soul. Either, then, it is life as well as Substance, or else it possesses life.

But if life is a thing possessed, the essence of the possessor is not inextricably bound up with life. If, on the contrary, this is not possession, the two, life and Substance, must be a unity.

Soul, then, is one and many- as many as are manifested in that oneness- one in its nature, many in those other things. A single Existent, it makes itself many by what we may call its motion: it is one entire, but by its striving, so to speak, to contemplate itself, it is a plurality; for we may imagine that it cannot bear to be a single Existent, when it has the power to be all that it in fact is. The cause of its appearing as many is this contemplation, and its purpose is the Act of the Intellect; if it were manifested as a bare unity, it could have no intellection, since in that simplicity it would already be identical with the object of its thought.

(2) For where there is a duality (dvaita), as it were (iva\ there one sees another; there one smells another; there one hears another; there one speaks to another; there one thinks of another; there one understands another. Where, verily, everything has become just one's own self, then whereby and whom would one smell? then whereby and whom would one see? then whereby and whom would one hear? then whereby and to whom would one speak? then whereby and on whom would one think? then whereby and forth whom would one understand? Whereby would one under- stand him by whom one understands this All? Lo, whereby would one understand the understander? '

(9) The elements in their totality, as they stand produced, may be thought of as one spheric figure; this cannot be the piecemeal product of many makers each working from some one point on some one portion. There must be one cause; and this must operate as an entire, not by part executing part; otherwise we are brought back to a plurality of makers. The making must be referred to a partless unity, or, more precisely, the making principle must be a partless unity not permeating the sphere but holding it as one dependent thing. In this way the sphere is enveloped by one identical life in which it is inset; its entire content looks to the one life: thus all the souls are one, a one, however, which yet is infinite.

It is in this understanding that the soul has been taken to be a numerical principle, while others think of it as in its nature a self-increasing number; this latter notion is probably designed to meet the consideration that the soul at no point fails but, retaining its distinctive character, is ample for all, so much so that were the kosmos vaster yet the virtue of soul would still compass it- or rather the kosmos still be sunk in soul entire.

Of course, we must understand this adding of extension not as a literal increase but in the sense that the soul, essentially a unity, becomes adequate to omnipresence; its unity sets it outside of quantitative measurement, the characteristic of that other order which has but a counterfeit unity, an appearance by participation.

The essential unity is no aggregate to be annulled upon the loss of some one of the constituents; nor is it held within any allotted limits, for so it would be the less for a set of things, more extensive than itself, outside its scope; or it must wrench itself asunder in the effort to reach to all; besides, its presence to things would be no longer as whole to all but by part to part; in vulgar phrase, it does not know where it stands; dismembered, it no longer performs any one single function.

Now if this principle is to be a true unity- where the unity is of the essence- it must in some way be able to manifest itself as including the contrary nature, that of potential multiplicity, while by the fact that this multiplicity belongs to it not as from without but as from and by itself, it remains authentically one, possessing boundlessness and multiplicity within that unity; its nature must be such that it can appear as a whole at every point; this, as encircled by a single self-embracing Reason-Principle, which holds fast about that unity, never breaking with itself but over all the universe remaining what it must be.

The unity is in this way saved from the local division of the things in which it appears; and, of course, existing before all that is in place, it could never be founded upon anything belonging to that order of which, on the contrary, it is the foundation; yet, for all that they are based upon it, it does not cease to be wholly self-gathered; if its fixed seat were shaken, all the rest would fall with the fall of their foundation and stay; nor could it be so unintelligent as to tear itself apart by such a movement and, secure within its own being, trust itself to the insecurity of place which, precisely, looks to it for safety.

(2) But One, because He is uniquely all, as beseems an excess of unique Oneness, and is Cause of all without departing from the One. For there is no single existing being, which does not participate in the one, but as every number participates in an unit, and one dual and one decade is spoken of, and one half, and one third and tenth, so everything, and part of everything participates in the one, and by the fact that the One is, all existing things are. And the Cause of all is not One, as one of many, but before every one and multitude, and determinative of every one and multitude. For there is no multitude which does not partake in some way or other of the one. Yea, that which is many by parts, is one in the whole; and the many by the accidents, is one by the subject; and the many by the number or the powers, is one by the species, and the many by the species, is one by the genus; and the many by the progressions, is one by the source. And there is no single thing which does not participate in some way in the one, which uniformly pre-held in the uniqueness throughout all, all and whole, all, even the things opposed. And indeed, without the one there will not be a multitude, but without the multitude there will be the one, even as the unit previous to every multiplied number; and, if any one should suppose, that all things are united to all, the All will be one in the whole.

(2) 'That Being (i. e. that which had produced fire, water, and earth) thought, let me now enter those three beings (fire, water, earth) with this living Self (gîva âtmâ) , and let me then reveal (develop) names and forms.

(4) These reflections should show that there is nothing strange in that reduction of all souls to one. But it is still necessary to enquire into the mode and conditions of the unity.

Is it the unity of origin in a unity? And if so, is the one divided or does it remain entire and yet produce variety? and how can an essential being, while remaining its one self, bring forth others?

Invoking God to become our helper, let us assert, that the very existence of many souls makes certain that there is first one from which the many rise.

Let us suppose, even, the first soul to be corporeal.

Then the many souls could result only from the splitting up of that entity, each an entirely different substance: if this body-soul be uniform in kind, each of the resultant souls must be of the one kind; they will all carry the one Form undividedly and will differ only in their volumes. Now, if their being souls depended upon their volumes they would be distinct; but if it is ideal-form that makes them souls, then all are, in virtue of this Idea, one.

But this is simply saying that there is one identical soul dispersed among many bodies, and that, preceding this, there is yet another not thus dispersed, the source of the soul in dispersion which may be thought of as a widely repeated image of the soul in unity- much as a multitude of seals bear the impression of one ring. By that first mode the soul is a unit broken up into a variety of points: in the second mode it is incorporeal. Similarly if the soul were a condition or modification of body, we could not wonder that this quality- this one thing from one source- should be present in many objects. The same reasoning would apply if soul were an effect of the Conjoint.

We, of course, hold it to be bodiless, an essential existence.

(3) 'This (body) indeed withers and dies when the living Self has left it; the living Self dies not. 'That which is that subtile essence, in it all that exists has its self. It is the True. It is the Self, and thou, Svetaketu, art it.' 'Please, Sir, inform me still more,' said the son. 'Be it so, my child,' the father replied.

(7) To Real Being we go back, all that we have and are; to that we return as from that we came. Of what is There we have direct knowledge, not images or even impressions; and to know without image is to be; by our part in true knowledge we are those Beings; we do not need to bring them down into ourselves, for we are There among them. Since not only ourselves but all other things also are those Beings, we all are they; we are they while we are also one with all: therefore we and all things are one.

When we look outside of that on which we depend we ignore our unity; looking outward we see many faces; look inward and all is the one head. If man could but be turned about by his own motion or by the happy pull of Athene- he would see at once God and himself and the All. At first no doubt all will not be seen as one whole, but when we find no stop at which to declare a limit to our being we cease to rule ourselves out from the total of reality; we reach to the All as a unity- and this not by any stepping forward, but by the fact of being and abiding there where the All has its being.

(4) But how explain beings by the side of Being, and the variety of intelligences and of souls, when Being has the unity of omnipresent identity and not merely that of a species, and when intellect and soul are likewise numerically one? We certainly distinguish between the soul of the All and the particular souls.

This seems to conflict with our view which, moreover, for all its logical necessity, scarcely carries conviction against our mental reluctance to the notion of unity identically omnipresent. It would appear more plausible to suppose a partition of the All-the original remaining undiminished- or, in a more legitimate phrase, an engendering from the All.

Thus the Authentic would be left self-gathered, while what we think of as the parts- the separate souls- would come into being to produce the multiple total of the universe.

But if the Authentic Being is to be kept unattached in order to remove the difficulty of integral omnipresence, the same considerations must apply equally to the souls; we would have to admit that they cannot be integrally omnipresent in the bodies they are described as occupying; either, soul must be distributed, part to body's part, or it is lodged entire at some one point in the body giving forth some of its powers to the other points; and these very powers, again, present the same difficulty.

A further objection is that some one spot in the body will hold the soul, the others no more than a power from it.

Still, how account for the many souls, many intelligences, the beings by the side of the Being?

No doubt the beings proceed from the Priors in the mode only of numerical distinction and not as concrete masses, but the difficulty remains as to how they come to constitute the plenitude of the material universe.

This explanation by progression does not clear the problem.

We are agreed that diversity within the Authentic depends not upon spatial separation but sheerly upon differentiation; all Being, despite this plurality, is a unity still; "Being neighbours Being"; all holds together; and thus the Intellectual-Principle remains an integral, multiple by differentiation, not by spatial distinction.

Soul too? Souls too. That principle distributed over material masses we hold to be in its own nature incapable of distribution; the magnitude belongs to the masses; when this soul-principle enters into them- or rather they into it- it is thought of as distributable only because, within the discrimination of the corporeal, the animating force is to be recognised at any and every point. For soul is not articulated, section of soul to section of body; there is integral omnipresence manifesting the unity of that principle, its veritable partlessness.

Now as in soul unity does not debar variety, so with Being and the Beings; in that order multiplicity does not conflict with unity. Multiplicity. This is not due to the need of flooding the universe with life; nor is the extension of the corporeal the cause of the multiplicity of souls; before body existed, soul was one and many; the many souls fore-existed in the All not potentially but each effectively; that one collective soul is no bar to the variety; the variety does not abrogate the unity; the souls are apart without partition, present each to all as never having been set in opposition; they are no more hedged off by boundaries than are the multiple items of knowledge in one mind; the one soul so exists as to include all souls; the nature of such a principle must be utterly free of boundary.

(33) For all Things are come to be Something out of Nothing: And every Creature has the Center, or the Circle of the Birth of Life in itself; and as the Elements lie hid in one another in one only Mother, and none of them comprehends the other, though they are Members one of another, so the created Creatures are hidden and invisible to one another. For every Creature looks but into its Mother that is fixed [or predominant] in it. The material Creature sees a material Substance, but an immaterial Substance (as the Spirits in the Fire and in the Air) it sees not; as the Body sees not the Soul, which yet dwells in it; or as the third Principle does not comprehend, nor apprehend the second Principle wherein God is; though indeed itself is in God, yet there is a Birth between: As it is with the Spirit of the Soul of Man, and the elementary Spirit in Man, the one being the Case, [Chest,] or Receptacle of the other; as you shall find, about the Creation of Man.