Treatise on the soul

This is part 1 of my attempt at creating a cosmology that is both unique and interesting for the story I'm working on. My plan was to find a definition of the soul, and an origin for humanity, that differs from most fantasy novels, and rely on the logical consequences of these setting elements to remain original.

I would really like to know what you all think.

The world was once a planet ruled by purely physical forces, devoid of mysticism and purpose. Rocks roiled and tumbled, thunder crashed upon the hills, water flowed into the cracks of the world, plants covered the world and fire occurred where a spark would light it up. Their was magnificence only as a result of chance, and nothing in the world would recognize it.

Purpose itself existed as a presence in the world, that later scholars would call aether or ephemera, but without anything to define objectives, it was void of meaning and direction. It was the greatest dichotomy of all: purpose was pointless, in and of itself. Then, millenia before the coming of Man, predation moved the world in a glorious dance and stirred as the hunt became meant to feed, and meaning became intention. With intention, purpose was taking shape, a new force upon the world. Predators now desired.

So it was that the predators of the world drew to them Purpose like the twin moons draw upon them the waters of the world. Purpose, during these millenia, gathered in the concepts of dominance, as those predators that thrived were the ones who could dominate the others, and all lesser animals were either killed or weakened in spirit.

The world was dominated by prides of lions and packs of wolves, while the seas were the domain of sharks and orca, relentless predators all. The prey animals reigned supreme in a world seemingly made for them, and while they lacked fine object manipulation, they could use paw and claw to trace sigils and glyphs throughout the world that called upon the aether, protecting their havens from rivals and draining the will of prey and foe alike. Their preys became will-less animals bred only for slaughter.

A mistake of the jungle snakes turned around their world. The snakes were the dominant species in the jungles, and the apes were enthralled beneath them. Their dead skins would be left in the forms of the sigils which made the land theirs, and all that walked upon their jungles along with it. The snakes had discovered, however, that apes had the hands to use rocks and branches when needed, and left them enough freedom to use them in service to their reptilian masters.

Slowly, apes rebelled. No snake realized it, but very slowly, the apes started using those branches to move around the shed serpent skins just enough to disrupt their enthralling effect. As the sigils were disrupted, more and more apes became able to act under their own will, and the more autonomous they became.

When the First Revolt thundered throughout the jungles, the apes were already using sharp rocks tied to sticks, and the snakes could do nothing but hide or die. The desire for freedom sent a shock-wave through Purpose, severing its long-standing uniformity towards domination and breaking into a myriad of possible desires. This failure of the serpents ever branded them as traitors to the animal kingdom, a sobriquet even contemporary men remember.

Unable to react appropriately, the wolves and lions and crocodiles clung to the old ways of the hunt, but nothing could compare to the infinite desires of the apes, nor with their tools which became ever more sophisticated. Purpose grew into the complex web of possibilities that only men can fathom, taking myriad forms outside of the physical world's reach, mirroring, being, and feeding upon the intentions of the apes.

Those myriad intended purposes sometimes grew into larger currents of Purpose, but every ape also drew alongside it a mirrored set of desires in the aether. This set of desires is commonly referenced as a soul.

Just as sigils could control flows of Purpose in the old times, or animate forms of matter could turn pointless Purpose into a directed flow of desire that became souls, so did the apes manage to use patterns to direct the flows of aether in the other world. The drawing of a breeding pen or a city follows the same principles, an occult and oft-forgotten manner of controlling the flows of Purpose, and thus the very desires of people and animals, were penned according to the directions set in the stones and water channels. Apes made the land theirs in this way, every hamlet and every farm the mystical binding force turning the Purpose of the land into the service of the Ape.

So lived the land and Ape within it, for generations and centuries, ever expanding into the territory of the dominant predators of old.

Ape grew in abundance and power unabated, unchallenged and unsurprising, until Magisters learned that Purpose and Desire could be summoned into this world to inhabit, were a Magister skilled enough to bring him forth. But that is a story for another time.

Here it is folks, part 1 of the cosmology for the world I am creating.

What do you all think?