The Indians infer the existence of “a universal cause which is undistinguishable, while determinate things are finite,” and on this account there must be a cause permeating through them. Even intelligence is an effect of this cause, which is the soul in so far as it is creative in this identity with nature after its abstraction from it. Effect proceeds from cause, yet, on the other hand, this last is not independent, but goes back into universal cause. General destruction is postulated along with what is called the creation of the three worlds. Just as the tortoise stretches out its limbs and then draws them back again within its shell, the five elements, earth, &c., which constitute the three worlds, are in the general ruin and dissolution of things which takes place within a certain time, again drawn back in the reverse order to that in which they emerged from the original principle, because they return, step by step, to their first cause—that is, to what is highest and inseparable, which is Nature. To this the three qualities, goodness, passion, and darkness, are attributed; the further attributes of these determinations may be very interesting, but they are understood in a very superficial way. For it is said that nature operates through the admixture of these three qualities; each thing has all three within itself, like three streams which flow together; it also works by means of modifications, just as water which is soaked in through the roots of plants and led up into the fruit, obtains a special flavour. There are hence only the categories of admixture and of modification present. The Indians say:—“Nature has these three qualities in her own right as her forms and characteristics; other things have them only because they are present in them as effects of the former.”