In this language, as in the Buddhist texts, the negative is treated as essential existence. _Annihilation_ comes under a similar exegesis. The positive state is essential being, but no manifestation as such. When the spirit, in Buddhistic parlance, enters _Nirvana_, it loses objective existence, but retains subjective being. To objective minds this is becoming absolute “nothing”; to subjective, NO-THING, nothing to be displayed to sense. Thus, their Nirvana means the certitude of individual immortality _in Spirit_, not in Soul, which, though “the most ancient of all things,” is still—along with all the other _Gods_—a finite emanation, in _forms_ and individuality, if not in substance. ENQ. I do not quite seize the idea yet, and would be thankful to have you explain this to me by some illustrations. THEO. No doubt it is very difficult to understand, especially to one brought up in the regular orthodox ideas of the Christian Church. Moreover, I must tell you one thing; and this is that unless you have studied thoroughly well the separate functions assigned to all the human “principles” and the state of all these _after death_, you will hardly realize our Eastern philosophy. ON THE VARIOUS “PRINCIPLES” IN MAN. ENQ. I have heard a good deal about this constitution of the “inner man” as you call it, but could never make “head or tail on’t” as Gabalis expresses it. THEO. Of course, it is most difficult, and, as you say, “puzzling” to understand correctly and distinguish between the various _aspects_, called by us, the “principles” of the real EGO. It is the more so as there exists a notable difference in the numbering of those principles by various Eastern schools, though at the bottom there is the same identical substratum of teaching. ENQ. Do you mean the Vedantins, as an instance? Don’t they divide your seven “principles” into five only?