In the midst of these glowing visions, however, Seneca is assailed by dark and gloomy thoughts. “Yes,” he cried, “all that is must perish; death comes to every living thing. Every day, every hour, reveals to man the coming of death; there is always some new lesson to remind him of the fragility he had forgotten, and from a dream of eternity to turn his thoughts to the grave.” These heights and depths of spirit led Seneca towards a new theory in which he gave a final expression of his views on the great problem of human existence. “All beings pass through definite stages; they must be born, grow and die. The stars that we see revolving above us, the earth on which we are carelessly scattered and which seems to us so solid; all is threatened and all will come to an end. Old age comes on everything; although the period is very different, the same end comes to everything. Everything that now is will cease to be; but for all that the world will not perish; it will dissolve. Dissolution is destruction for us. As a matter of fact we think of things only as they concern ourselves; our degenerate soul, incapable of detaching itself from the body, sees nothing beyond that; none the less we should endure the idea of the death of ourselves and of those near to us with a greater fortitude were we to realise that nature is a constant routine of birth and death, that all composite bodies must dissolve, that the dissolved substances reform, and that the creative power of God displays itself in this cycle of change throughout the universe.” From such a final conception of the universe he draws the consolation: “A great soul should know how to obey God and submit willingly to the order of the universe. If it be not for a better life that we are to quit this life, if not to find a home in the skies more tranquil and more brilliant, our souls, free from suffering, will return to the spirit that gave them birth and will mingle in the great all.” In other words, abandoning the image of life after death that played so consoling a part in primitive beliefs, philosophy became content to advocate resignation to the inevitable laws of nature, and to console itself with the promise of a vague return to some universal, eternal principle.