Note 78 — Chapter VI · THE STUDY OF NATURE. FUNDAMENTAL POSITIONS.

(2) Difference between God and the world only relative. Still this distinction does not depend only upon our way of looking at things, but it is founded in the nature of things. Primary force, as such, primary fire, primary reason, constitute what is primarily God. Things into which this primary substance has changed itself are only divine in a derivative sense. Hence deity, which is ultimately identical with the whole of the world, may again be described as a part of the world, as the leading part (τὸ ἡγεμονικόν), as the Soul of the world, as the all-pervading fiery Breath.78 The distinction, however, is only a relative one. What is not immediately divine is nevertheless divine derivatively, as being a manifestation of primary fire; and if the soul of the world is not identical with the body, at least it pervades every part of that body.79 It is a distinction, too, which applies only to a part of the conditions of the world. At the end of every period, the sum of all derivative things reverts to the unity of the divine Being, and the distinction between what is originally and what is derivatively divine, in other words, the distinction between God and the world, ceases.