as a whole picture, as one, that life was naturally ascribed to some one comprehensive form of deity, to one great god. The meditation of the priests finally brought them to the result that the dust, earth, and ashes, into which men, animals, and plants fell and disappeared could be neither the cause and seat of their own life, nor of the general life. Behind the material and the phenomenon, which could be grasped and seen by the senses, must lie the dim and secret source of existence; behind the external side must be another, inward, immaterial, and invisible. Thus not man only, but all nature, fell into two parts, body and soul. As behind the body of men, so also behind the perishable outward side of nature, there seemed to live a great soul, penetrating through all phenomena, the source and fountain of their being. The priests discovered that behind all the changing phenomena there must exist a single breath, a soul, Atman--it is also called Mahanatma, Paramatman, _i.e._ "the great soul"[164]--and this must be the creative, sustaining, divine power, the source and seat of the life which we behold at one time rising in gladness, at another sinking in exhaustion. This world-soul was amalgamated with Brahman and denoted by that name. In and behind the prayers and sacred acts an invisible spirit had been discovered, which gave them their power and efficacy, and this holy spirit ruled over the deities, inasmuch as it compelled them to listen to the prayers of men. Behind, above, and in the gods, the nature of the Holy was all-powerful; and it was the divine, the highest form of deity. The same spirit must be sought for behind the great and various phenomena of the life of nature. There must be the same spirit ruling in both spheres, a spirit which existed at once in heaven and on earth, which gave force to the prayers of the Brahmans, and summoned into life the phenomena of nature, and caused the latter to move in definite cycles, which was also the highest god and the lord of the gods. Thus the sacred spirit ruling over the gods became extended into a world-soul, penetrating through all the phenomena of nature, inspiring and sustaining life.