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1022
THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
Here we have a repository in addition to the sure receptacle, and the commentator is not slow to interpret it according to his fixed principle. He would have it that the repository is the loins of the male parent. But the true sense connot be that. This would become clear if we would look into the doctrine contained in the first half of the sentence. The question is, What is meant by the sentence: “It is he who hath produced you from one soul ?" Now, the soul, being itself a self-subsisting substance or reality cannot be created by any one. Hence, if we are to interpret the above text in the sense that God is the creator of souls, the interpretation does not coincide with the conclusions of rational thought; but, if we take the one soul' to mean the genus soul, the repugnancy vanishes at once, leaving the scriptural text in complete agreement with the conclusions of sound philosophy. Therefore, it is clear that the one soul from which all other souls were produced is none other than the 'Idea,' which, in its manifested aspect, is the Word, the First Born of Christianity for, as has been already demonstrated, 'sense' is the principle whereby the Essence of Life is differentiated into an infinity of souls from beginningless eternity. This warrants our interpretation of the two terms, 'the sure receptacle and the safe repository,' to mean the two subtler bodies of the soul.
Here we may again refer to the saying of Muhammad already quoted :
"Souls before having dependence upon bodies, were like assembled armies; after that they were dispersed; and sent into bodies, Therefore, those which were acquainted before the dependence
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