6 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
only.a shadow without substance; for it has no
conductor, but sinks down and suffers itself to be
driven and led like a dead thing,—such as is to be
compared to a shadow, which is led along without
essence.
4. Thus an unessential will is a dumb existence
without comprehension or life; and yet is a figure
in the unfathomable eternal nothing, for it is
attached to the corporeal things.
5. Now, as the will without essence is dumb and
without being, so in the essence it is a being and
image according to the essences, which is fashioned
after the essences; for the life of the will is generated
from the essences.
6. Thus life is the essences5 son, and the will,
wherein life's figure stands, is the essences' father;
for no essence can arise without will. For in the
will is originated desire, in which the essences take
their rise.
7. Seeing then the first will is an ungrounded-
ness, to be regarded as an eternal nothing, we
recognize it to be like a mirror, wherein one sees
his own image; like a life, and yet it is no life,
but a figure of life and of the image belonging to life.
8. Thus we recognize the eternal Unground out
of Nature to be like a mirror. For it is like an eye
which sees, and yet conducts nothing in the seeing
wherewith it seesr; for seeing is without essence,