68 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
sink down through the anguish of fire into death,
and bud forth in the light. That depends on its
choice. Where it yields up itself, there it must
be; for its fire must have substance, that it may
have something to feed upon.
4. Will the spirit eat of its first mother the sour-
ness, that is, will it give to its fire for food the fierce
essentiality in the centre, or the light's essentiality
in the light-world, that is all in its own power ;
whatever its fire receives, in the property thereof
does it burn.
5. In the dark property it burns in the dark,
harsh, stern source, and sees in itself as a flash; it
has only the mirror of darkness, and sees in the
darkness. In the light's property it catches the
gentleness of the light, in which the light-fire
burns, and sees in the light-world. All is nigh
unto spirit, and yet it can see in no other world or
property save in that wherein its fire burns ; * of
that world is the spirit only susceptible, it sees
nothing in the other world ; it has no eyes for that.
It remains to it an eternal hiddenness, unless it has
been in another world and gone out from thence,
and given itself to another fire, as the devils did,
who have indeed a knowledge of the light-world,
but no feeling or seeing thereof; the light-world
is nigh to them, but they know it not.
6. And now we are to recognize life's perdition,
which comes about in the first Principle. Them