But if even the body holds such a high position as to make all its instincts and functions, if properly regulated, a service of God, and to destine it for a glorious future of eternal bliss and rejoicing in God, we can easily imagine what a high place the soul must occupy in the system of Nachmanides. To be sure it is a much higher one than that to which philosophy would fain admit her. A beautiful parable of the Persian poet Yellaladeen (quoted by the late Mr. Lowell) narrates that “One knocked at the beloved’s door, and a voice asked from within, ‘Who is there?’ and he answered, ‘It is I.’ Then the voice said, ‘This house will not hold me and thee,’ and the door was not opened. Then went the lover into the desert and fasted and prayed in solitude, and after a year he returned and knocked again at the door, and again the voice asked ‘Who is there?’ and he said ‘It is thyself’; and the door was opened to him.” This is also the difference between the two schools—the mystical and the philosophical—with regard to the soul. With the rationalist the soul is indeed a superior abstract intelligence created by God, but, like all His creations, has an existence of its own, and is thus separated from God. With the mystic, however, the soul is God, or a direct emanation from God. “For he who breathes into another thing (Gen. ii. 7) gives unto it something of his own breath (or soul),” and as it is said in Job xxxii. 8, “And the soul of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” This emanation, or rather immanence—for Nachmanides insists in another place that the Hebrew term employed for it, _Aziluth_,(84) means a permanent dwelling with the thing emanating—which became manifest with the creation of man, must not be confounded with the moving soul (or the _Nephesh Chayah_),(85) which is common to man with all creatures. It may be remarked here that Nachmanides endows all animals with a soul which is derived from the “Superior Powers,” and its presence is proved by certain marks of intelligence which they show. By this fact he tries to account for the law prohibiting cruelty to animals, “all souls belonging to God.” Their original disposition was, it would seem, according to Nachmanides, peaceful and harmless. About them frisking played All beasts of earth, since wild, and of all chase In wood or wilderness, forest or den. It was only after man had sinned that war entered into creation, but with the coming of the Messiah, when sin will disappear, all the living beings will regain their primæval gentleness, and be reinstituted in their first rights.