“quickned with near Union With God, that now wish’d for vitalitie Is so encreas’d, that infinitely sh’ has fun Herself, her deep’st desire unspeakably hath wonne. “And deep desire is the deepest act, The most profound and centrall energie, The very selfnesse of the soul, which backt With piercing might, she breaks out, forth doth flie From dark contracting death, and doth descrie Herself unto herself; so thus unfold That actual life she straightwayes saith, is I.” (Stz. 35, 36.) In the “Psychathanasia” the Plotinian doctrines of the immanent unity of The One and of the mystical union of the soul with it are not so much present as positive arguments incorporated in the sequence of thought, but are felt as controlling ideas in the mind of the writer. The reason for this lies in the fact that in the argument of Plotinus (IV. vii) these two truths of his philosophy are not specifically elaborated. To More, however, as indeed to all students of Plotinian metaphysics, these are the significant ideas of his system. More thus brings them in at opportune times throughout his argument in “Psychathanasia.” The conception of the ever present unity of The One in all things is the fundamental idea in the first division of his thought. The tenacity with which he clings to this doctrine is remarkable. His argument had brought him to the point where he had shown that all life—of plants and animals, as well as of men—was immortal. What, then, is the state of the plantal and animal soul after death? (I. ii. 49–53.) More does not answer directly, but replies that although men cannot know this, it is not permitted to reason it down. “But it’s already clear that ’tis not right To reason down the firm subsistencie Of things from ignorance of their propertie.” (I. ii. 59.) Consequently when he comes to consider man’s immortality, he says that all the preceding argument—the general reflection on the “self-motion and centrall stabilitie” of the soul—may be dismissed as needless. “Onely that vitalitie, That doth extend this great Universall, And move th’ inert Materialitie Of great and little worlds, that keep in memorie.” (II. i. 7.) It is because of the firm conviction with which he holds to the conception of the pervading unity of The One that he expands the idea at length in the third and fourth cantos of the first book. The second idea, that of the mystical union of the individual soul with The One, is an incentive to More’s thought and feelings throughout the course of his entire argument. From the fact that the soul can dive as deep as matter, and rise to the height of a blissful union with God, he derives the necessary inspiration for his “mighty task.”