 The future is also the culmination and the perfection of the present. Existence is in motion towards perfection. The existence of a thing is associated with its perfected form in the future. In this sense, the afterlife is merely a relative concept. As we have seen, it is the intellect and the faculty of imagination that are the distinguishing features that constitute individual survival. Contrary to most philosophers before him, matter is not the principle of individuation and therefore individual identity and personhood can exist divorced from matter, and the soul is immaterial, as are the bodies of the afterlife (Mulla Sadra 2001–5, IX: 311).