want them; for if they should perish, the Bodies would perish, because
these Essences are the Principles of these Bodies. In like manner, as if
a Privation of that ONE TRUE BEING could be suppos'd (far be it from
him, for there is no God but him) all these Essences would be remov'd
together with him, and the Bodies too, and all the sensible World,
because all these have a mutual Connection.

§ 96. Now, tho' the Sensible World follows the Divine World, as a Shadow
does the Body, and the Divine World stands in no need of it, but is free
from it, and independent of it, yet notwithstanding this, it is absurd
to suppose a Possibility of its being annihilated, because it follows
the Divine World: But the Corruption of this World consists in its being
chang'd, not annihilated. And that glorious Book[27] spake, where there
is no mention made of _Moving the Mountains, and making them like the
World, and Men like Fire-flyes, and darkning the Sun and Moon; and
Eruption of the Sea, in that day when the Earth shall be chang'd into
another Earth, and the Heavens likewise_. And this is the Substance of
what I can hint to you at present, concerning what _Hai Ebn Yokdhan_
saw, when in that glorious State. Don't expect that I should explain it
any farther with Words, for that is even impossible.

§ 97. But as for what concerns the finishing his History, that I shall
tell you, God willing. After his return to the sensible World, when he
had been where we have told you, he loath'd this present Life, and most
earnestly long'd for the Life to come; and he endeavour'd to return to
the same State, by the same means he had sought it at first, till he
attain'd to it with less trouble than he did at first, and continu'd in
it the second time longer than at the first. Then he return'd to the
Sensible World; and then again endeavour'd to recover his Station, which
he found easier than at the first and second time, and that he continu'd