In the mean time, Karlson had taken an ephemeral fly from a neighboring elm, to which it had clung, in order to cast off its super body before death. The ephemera should not be an embodiment of our immortality,[15] but of our unfolding; for, unlike other insects, after all its transformations, and when already furnished with wings, it changes its shape once more before death. He held it before us, and said: "In my opinion, a philosophical ephemera would argue thus. What! I should have uselessly accomplished all my various changes, and the Creator had no other intention in calling me from the egg to the grub, then to a chrysalis, and at last to a flying being, whose wings must burst another covering before death, with this long range of spiritual and corporeal developments, he should have had no other aim than a six hours' existence, and the grave must be the only goal of so long a long a course?" The Chaplain opportunely answered, "Your argument proves against yourself, for it is _petitio principii_ to presuppose mortality amongst ephemera." I confess I am an enemy to these relative conclusions, because they take as much from truth as they give to eloquence, for contrary opinions can be proved by them. To one whose eyes are hurt by a grain of sand, I can prove that he is comparatively happy, as there are many in the world who suffer from sand-blisters and gravel; and also that he is unfortunate, as Sultanic eyes are never pressed by anything harder than Circassian eyelids--or two rosy lips. Thus I can make the world immense in comparison to bullets, grains of poison, or round puddings, or minute, if placed beside Jupiter, the sun, or the milky-way. If the ephemera on the ladder of existence would turn its back on the brilliant development of the beings above it, and only count the important ones on the steps beneath it, it would increase in its own importance. In short, our oratorical fantasy continually mistakes the distinction between more and less for that of something or nothing; but every relative conclusion must be based on something positive, which only eternal eyes, which can measure the whole range of innumerable degrees, can truly weigh. Indeed, there must be some bodily substance, and were it even the earth; for every comparison, every measurement, presupposes a fixed, unchanging standard. Therefore, the ephemeral development is a true one, and the conclusions on it are the same as on a seraphic one. The difference in the degrees can only bring forth _relative_, not _opposite_ conclusions. And here, in this letter--for in print I would not dare to do it--I will acknowledge a doubt. No one has ever _seen_ the steps of the ladder of beings above us,--no one has _counted_ those beneath us. What if the former were less, the latter greater, than we have hitherto imagined. The eternal promotion of souls from angels to archangels, in short, the nine philosophical hierarchies have only been asserted, but not proved.