In order to find an answer to the question, "What is plurality?" the Ismā‘īlia refer to what they consider a metaphysical axiom--"that from one only one can proceed". But the one which proceeds, is not something completely different from which it proceeds. It is really the Primal one transformed. The Primal Unity, therefore, transformed itself into the First Intellect (Universal Reason); and then, by means of this transformation of itself, created the Universal soul which, impelled by its nature to perfectly identify itself with the original source, felt the necessity of motion, and consequently of a body possessing the power of motion. In order to achieve its end, the soul created the heavens moving in circular motion according to its direction. It also created the elements which mixed together, and formed the visible Universe--the scene of plurality through which it endeavours to pass with a view to come back to the original source. The individual soul is an epitome of the whole Universe which exists only for its progressive education. The Universal Reason incarnates itself from time to time, in the personality of the "Leader" who illuminates the soul in proportion to its experience and understanding, and gradually guides it through the scene of plurality to the world of eternal unity. When the Universal soul reaches its goal, or rather returns to its own deep being, the process of disintegration ensues. "Particles constituting the Universe fall off from each other--those of goodness go to truth (God) which symbolises unity; those of evil go to untruth (Devil) which symbolises diversity"[63:1]. This is but briefly the Ismā‘īlian Philosophy--a mixture, as S̱ẖarastānī remarks, of Philosophical and Manichaean ideas--which, by gradually arousing the slumbering spirit of scepticism, they administered, as it were, in doses to the initiated, and finally brought them to that stage of spiritual emancipation where solemn ritual drops off, and dogmatic religion appears to be nothing more than a systematic arrangement of useful falsehoods. [63:1] S̱ẖarastānī: Cureton's ed: p. 149.