There are three primordial elements--water, earth, and wind. Fire, according to the Is̱ẖrāqīs, is only burning wind. The combinations of these elements, under various heavenly influences, assume various forms--fluidity, gaseousness, solidity. This transformation of the original elements, constitutes the process of "making and unmaking" which pervades the entire sphere of the not-light, raising the different forms of existence higher and higher, and bringing them nearer and nearer to the illuminating forces. All the phenomena of nature--rain, clouds, thunder, meteor--are the various workings of this immanent principle of motion, and are explained by the direct or indirect operation of the Primal Light on things, which differ from one another in their capacity of receiving more or less illumination. The Universe, in one word, is a petrified desire; a crystallised longing after light. But is it eternal? The Universe is a manifestation of the illuminative Power which constitutes the essential nature of the Primal Light. In so far, therefore, as it is a manifestation, it is only a dependent being, and consequently not eternal. But in another sense it is eternal. All the different spheres of being exist by the illuminations and rays of the Eternal light. There are some illuminations which are directly eternal; while there are other fainter ones, the appearance of which depends on the combination of other illuminations and rays. The existence of these is not eternal in the same sense as the existence of the pre-existing parent illuminations. The existence of colour, for instance, is contingent in comparison to that of the ray, which manifests colour when a dark body is brought before an illuminating body. The Universe, therefore, though contingent as manifestation, is eternal by the eternal character of its source. Those who hold the non-eternity of the Universe argue on the assumption of the possibility of a complete induction. Their argument proceeds in the following manner:-- (1). Everyone of the Abyssinians is black. ⁂ All Abyssinians are black. (2). Every motion began at a definite moment. ⁂ All motion must begin so. But this mode of argumentation is vicious. It is quite impossible to state the major. One cannot collect all the Abyssinians past, present, and future, at one particular moment of time. Such a Universal, therefore, is impossible. Hence from the examination of individual Abyssinians, or particular instances of motion which fall within the pale of our experience, it is rash to infer, that all Abyssinians are black, or all motion had a beginning in time. Psychology.