ENQ. Do you not lay yourself open to the accusation of preaching annihilation by the language you yourself use? You have just spoken of the Soul of man returning to its primordial elements.
THEO. But you forget that I have given you the differences between the various meanings of the word “Soul,” and shown the loose way in which the term “Spirit” has been hitherto translated. We speak of an _animal_, a _human_, and a _spiritual_, Soul, and distinguish between them. Plato, for instance, calls “rational SOUL” that which we call _Buddhi_, adding to it the adjective of “spiritual,” however; but that which we call the reincarnating Ego, _Manas_, he calls Spirit, _Nous_, etc., whereas we apply the term _Spirit_, when standing alone and without any qualification, to Atma alone. Pythagoras repeats our archaic doctrine when stating that the _Ego_ (_Nous_) is eternal with Deity; that the soul only passed through various stages to arrive at divine excellence; while _thumos_ returned to the earth, and even the _phren_, the lower _Manas_, was eliminated. Again, Plato defines _Soul_ (Buddhi) as “the motion that is able to move itself.” “Soul,” he adds (Laws X.), “is the most ancient of all things, and the commencement of motion,” thus calling Atma-Buddhi “Soul,” and _Manas_ “Spirit,” which we do not.
“Soul was generated prior to body, and body is posterior and secondary, as being according to nature, ruled over by the ruling soul.” “The soul which administers all things that are moved in every way, administers likewise the heavens.”
“Soul then leads everything in heaven, and on earth, and in the sea, by its movements—the names of which are, to will, to consider, to take care of, to consult, to form opinions true and false, to be in a state of joy, sorrow, confidence, fear, hate, love, together with all such primary movements as are allied to these.... Being a goddess herself, she ever takes as an ally _Nous_, a god, and disciplines all things correctly and happily; but when with _Annoia_—not _nous_—it works out everything the contrary.”
In this language, as in the Buddhist texts, the negative is treated as essential existence. _Annihilation_ comes under a similar exegesis. The positive state is essential being, but no manifestation as such. When the spirit, in Buddhistic parlance, enters _Nirvana_, it loses objective existence, but retains subjective being. To objective minds this is becoming absolute “nothing”; to subjective, NO-THING, nothing to be displayed to sense. Thus, their Nirvana means the certitude of individual immortality _in Spirit_, not in Soul, which, though “the most ancient of all things,” is still—along with all the other _Gods_—a finite emanation, in _forms_ and individuality, if not in substance.
