Moreover, the "thou shalt," and the "thou shalt not," no less of the various theologies than of the Categorical Imperative, may from this point of view be accounted for, on the ground of the =identity= of man, so far as he is =noumenal=, with the transcendental Reality behind phaenomena. The crude threats of punishment and promises of reward, the stern Moral Law, poised in mid air,--these hypotheses, and all their varieties (whose function is in reality nothing else but to check Egoism), are seen to be due to the intellect's imperfect comprehension of, or rather, its vague groping after, the transcendental unity of life, however individualised and differentiated as a phaenomenon in Time and Space.[8] It thus becomes apparent that the position developed by Schopenhauer in the third and fourth parts of the Essay is not so much destructive, as explanatory, of the usual theories, which, if once the former be fully grasped, lose themselves in it as stars and moon in the light of day. They are at once interpreted, and shown to be no longer of importance. Similarly, all the religions of the world, "which are the Metaphysics of the people," find their _raison d'être_ in the same doctrine. The theory of an =external= _δημιουργὸς_ takes its place as the natural mode of denoting, in children's language, the =internal= metaphysical Entity, whose appearance-form, in terms of our consciousness, is called the Universe. The circle is completed; the discords vanish, and an ultimate harmony is reached. And so over the thrice-tangled skein of phaenominal existence a simplifying and integrating light is shed, showing that the _πᾱν_ is but the reflection of the _ἕν_, under the forms of our faculty of perception, namely, Time, Space, and Causality--forms, which necessarily imply plurality and change, on which, again, in the last resort the _Welt-Schmerz_ depends. "The One remains, the many change and pass; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, Stains the white radiance of Eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments."