5. The magnitude of the Soul does not consist in being a corporeal
mass; for every corporeal mass is small, and reduces to nothing, if
it be made to undergo a diminution. As to the magnitude of the Soul,
nothing can be removed from it; and if something were removed, she
would not lose anything. Since, therefore, she cannot lose anything,
why fear that she should be far from something? How could she be far
from something since she loses nothing, since she possesses an eternal
nature, and is subject to no leakage? If she were subject to some
leakage, she would advance till where she could leak; but as she cannot
leak at all (for there is no place where or into which she could leak),
she has embraced the universe, or rather, she herself is the universe,
and she is too great to be judged according to physical magnitude.
We may say that she gives little to the universe; but she gives it
all it can receive. Do not consider the universal Being (Essence)
as being smaller, or as having a smaller mass (than our universe);
otherwise, you would be led to ask yourself how that which is smaller
can unite with that which is greater. Besides, one should not predicate
comparative smallness of the universal Essence, nor compare, in regard
to mass, that which has no mass with that which has; that would be
as if somebody said that the science called medicine is smaller than
the body of the doctor. Neither attribute to the universal Essence an
extent greater (than that of our universe); for it is not in extension
that the soul is greater than the body. What shows the veritable
magnitude of the soul, is that, when the body increases, the same soul
which formerly existed in a smaller mass is present in this whole mass
that has become greater; now it would be ridiculous to suppose that
the soul increases in the same manner as a corporeal mass.