on into the kingdom of man; but throughout
its traversing it was subject to transformation and not annihilation.
Death, therefore, is applicable to a change or transference from one
degree or condition to another. In the mineral realm there was a spirit of
existence; in the world of plant life and organisms it reappeared as the
vegetative spirit; thence it attained the animal spirit and finally
aspired to the human spirit. These are degrees and changes but not
obliteration, and this is a rational proof that man is everlasting,
ever-living. Therefore, death is only a relative term implying change. For
example, we will say that this light before me, having reappeared in
another incandescent lamp, has died in the one and lives in the other.
This is not death in reality. The perfections of the mineral are
translated into the vegetable and from thence into the animal, the virtue
always attaining a superlative degree in the upward change. In each
kingdom we find the same virtues manifesting themselves more fully,
proving that the reality has been transferred from a lower to a higher
form and kingdom of being. Therefore, nonexistence is only relative and
absolute nonexistence inconceivable. This rose in my hand will become
disintegrated and its symmetry destroyed, but the elements of its
composition remain changeless; nothing affects their elemental integrity.
They cannot become nonexistent; they are simply transferred from one state
to another.

Through his ignorance man fears death, but the death he shrinks from is
imaginary and absolutely unreal; it is only human imagination.

The bestowal and grace of God have quickened the realm of existence with
life and being. For existence there is neither change nor transformation;
existence is ever existence; it can never be translated into nonexistence.
It is gradation; a degree below a higher degree is considered as
nonexistence. This dust beneath our feet, as compared with our being, is
nonexistent. When the human body crumbles into dust, we can say it has
become nonexistent; therefore, its dust in relation to living forms of
human being is as nonexistent, but in its own sphere it is existent, it
has its mineral being. Therefore, it is well proved that absolute
nonexistence is impossible; it is only relative.

The purpose is this: that the everlasting bestowal of God vouchsafed to
man is never subject to corruption. Inasmuch as He has endowed the
phenomenal world with being, it