(4) Hence, through these things such a corporeal-formed division as you introduce, is demonstrated to be false. It is, indeed, especially necessary not to propose any thing of this kind; but if this should appear to you to be requisite, yet you must not think, that what is false deserves to be discussed. For such a discussion does not exhibit a copiousness of arguments; but he wearies himself in vain, who, proposing things that are false, endeavours afterwards to subvert them, as things that are not true. For how is it possible that an essence, which is of itself incorporeal, and which has nothing in common with the bodies that participate of it, should be distinguished from other things by corporeal qualities? How can that which is not locally present with bodies, be separated by corporeal places? And how can that which is not inclosed by the partible circumscriptions of subjects, be partibly detained by the parts of the world? What, also, is that which can prevent the Gods from being every where? And what can restrain their power from extending as far as to the celestial arch? For to effect this, must be the work of a more powerful cause, which is able to inclose and circumscribe them in certain parts.

(3) It is necessary, therefore, to admit a thing of this kind in partial souls. For such as is the life which the soul received, prior to its insertion in a human body, and such as the form which it readily exerted; such also is the organical body which it has suspended from itself, and such the consequent corresponding nature, which receives the more perfect life of the soul. But with respect to more excellent natures, and which, as wholes, comprehend the principle [of parts] in these, inferior are produced in superior natures; bodies, in incorporeal essences; things fabricated, in the fabricators; and, being circularly comprehended in, are directed and governed by, them. Hence, the circulations of the celestial bodies, being primarily inserted in the celestial circulations of the etherial soul, are perpetually inherent in them; and the souls of the worlds [ i. e. of the spheres], being extended to their intellect, are perfectly comprehended by it, and are primarily generated in it. Intellect, also, both that which is partial and that which is universal, is in a similar manner comprehended in the genera that are more excellent than intellect. Since, therefore, second are always converted to first natures, and superior are the leaders of inferior essences, as being the paradigms of them, hence essence and form accede to subordinate from superior natures, and things posterior are primarily produced in such as are more excellent; so that order and measure are derived from primary to secondary beings, and the latter possess that which they are from the former. But the contrary must not be admitted, viz. that peculiarities emanate from things less excellent to the natures which precede them.

(3) But neither does the [rational] soul, when it accedes to body, either itself suffer, or the reasons which it imparts to the body. For these reasons are forms , and being simple and uniform, they receive no perturbation in themselves, and no departure from their proper mode of subsistence. That which remains, therefore [or the participant of the rational soul], becomes the cause of suffering to the composite. Cause, however, is not the same with its effect. Hence, as soul is the first origin of generable and corruptible composite animals, but is itself by itself ingenerable and incorruptible; thus, also, though the participants of the soul suffer, and do not wholly [ i. e. truly] possess life and existence, but are complicated with the indefiniteness and diversity of matter, yet the soul is itself by itself immutable, as being essentially more excellent than that which suffers, and not as possessing impassivity, in a certain deliberate choice, which verges both to the impassive and the passive, nor as receiving an adscitious immutability in the participation of habit or power.

(1) The hostile opposition, therefore, in the things that are now proposed, may be easily dissolved by demonstrating the dignity of wholes with respect to parts, and by recalling to your recollection the exempt transcendency of the Gods above men. But what I mean is this, that the soul, which ranks as a whole, presides over all the mundane body, and that the celestial Gods ascend, as into a vehicle, into a celestial body, neither receiving any injury from thence, nor any impediment in their intellections. But to a partial soul, the communion with body is noxious in both these respects. If, therefore, some one perceiving this, should nevertheless introduce such a doubt as the following, that if the body is a bond to our soul, it will also be a bond to the soul of the universe, and that if a partial soul is converted to the body on account of generation, in a similar manner the power of the Gods is converted to generation; in answer to this every one may reply, that he who thus doubts does not know how much superior beings transcend men, and wholes parts. Since, therefore, the objections pertain to things different from each other, they do not produce any ambiguity.

(12) First, the compacted, figured body is indivisible and incorruptible, and not to be felt by man's hands; for it is constituted or composed out of the divine power, and that power is so knit and bound together that it can never be destroyed again.

(2) These, also, may now be divided according to the difference of commixture. For mundane vapours are mingled with dæmons, and are unstably borne along, contrary to the motion of the world. Genesiurgic compositions of pneumatic substances are mingled with heroes, about which substances, also, they are moved. The archons of the world remain invariably the same, exhibiting the mundane nature which they possess. But the archons of matter are full of material substances. And souls are filled with an abundance of stains and foreign spirits, together with which, when they become visible, each of these genera presents itself to the view.

(19) But when the Spirit of the four Elements parts, then the right Soul (which was breathed into Adam) stands in its Principle; for it is so subtle, that it cannot be comprehended; it goes through Flesh and Bones, also through Wood and Stone, and P stirs none of them.

(34) Now [Reason's] Question is; How has Eve received the Soul from Adam? Behold, when God's harsh Fiat took the Rib out of Adam, then it attracted out of all Essences also to it, and the Fiat imaged [formed, imagined, or impressed] itself together therein, [that it might] continually and eternally stay therein. But now the Tincture in Adam was not yet extinguished, but the Soul of Adam sat yet wholly with Might and Virtue [or Power] in the Tincture; only the Virgin was departed: And therefore now the Fiat took the Tincture, and the [sour] harsh Essences mingled [or qualified] with the [sour] harsh Fiat; for it, (viz. the Fiat) and the [Sourness or] Harshness in the Essences, are one Kind of Essence.

(4) It is round earthly lives that this unorder doth exist. For that the bodies of the heavenly ones preserve one order allotted to them by the Father as their rule; and it is by the restoration of each one [of them] this order is preserved indissolute. The "restoration" of bodies on the earth is thus their composition, whereas their dissolution restores them to those bodies which can never be dissolved, that is to say, which know no death. Privation, thus, of sense is brought about, not loss of bodies.

(10) This Elementary Soul survives the dissolution of the physical body of the individual to which it belonged, and under certain conditions and circumstances it may become visible to living persons as the "ghost" of the deceased person. When the Elementary Soul has been "sloughed off" by the higher vehicles of the Soul (after the physical "death"), and has also been released by the partial or complete disintegration of the physical body, it is really but a "shell" having for form and shape of the latter, and is almost lifeless, although held together by the cohesive forces of the fast-dying vibrations. In such cases it possesses neither intelligence nor consciousness beyond that concerned in holding its substance together and to all intents and purposes can be regarded as nothing more than a mass of cloudy vapor assuming the form of a human being , and destined to become speedily disintegrated on its own plane.

(2) In addition to these things, also, how can the energies of a partible soul which is detained in body, become essence, and be by themselves separate out of soul? Or how can the powers which are divided about, be separated from bodies, though they have their very being in bodies? And who is it that liberating them from a corporeal condition of subsistence, again collects the corporeal dissolution, and causes it to coalesce in one thing? For thus a thing of this kind will be a dæmon, who will have an existence prior to his being constituted. This assertion, likewise, is attended with certain common doubts. For how can divination be produced from things which have no divining power? And how can soul be generated from things which are without soul? And, in short, how can things which are more perfect be the progeny of such as are more imperfect? The mode, likewise, of production appears to me to be impossible. For it is impossible that essence should be produced through the motions of the soul, and through the powers which are in bodies. For from things which are without essence, it is impossible that essence should be generated.

(44) Now if the Spirit of the Soul remains unregenerated in its first Principle, which it has inherited out of the Eternity, with the Beginning of its Life, then also (at the Breaking [or Deceasing] of its Body) there proceeds out of its eternal Mind such

(14) And now when we consider how the temporary and transitory Life is generated, we find that the Soul is a Cause of all the it there would not be one Member [to, or] of the Life of Man generated. For when we search [into] the Beginning and Kindling of Life, we find strongly with clear Evidences all Manner of [Faculties or] Members; so that when the clear Light of the Soul kindles, then the Fiat stands in very great Joy, and in the Twinkling of an Eye does in the Matrix separate the Pure from the Impure, of which the Tincture of the Soul in the Light is the Worker, which there renews it, but the Fiat creates it.

(57) But seeing the soul, all the while the body had been in death, remained hidden in the word, and seeing the same word also holdeth the earth in the astral birth in the love, therefore it [the soul] qualifieth, mixeth or uniteth through the word, all the time of its hiddenness and secrecy, also with its mother the body, according or as to the astral birth or geniture in the earth, and so body and soul in the word were never separated the one from the other, but live jointly and equally together in God.

(20) But the Soul was breathed into Man, merely out of the original Birth of the Father by the moving Spirit, (understand, the Holy Ghost which goes forth from the Father out of the Light of the Father:) Which original Birth is before the Light of Life, which is in the four Anguishes, out of which the Light of God is kindled, wherein is the Original of the Name of God; and therefore the Soul is God's own Essence or Substance.

(132) But the qualifying or fountain spirits in the mass could not presently be kindled thereby from the soul; for the soul stood only in the seed in the mass, hidden with the Heart of God in its heaven, till the Creator breathed upon the mass; and then the qualifying or fountain spirits kindled the soul also, and then both body and soul lived equally together.

(1) After another manner, also, this doubt may be dissolved. For in men, indeed, who are detained in matter, bodies deprived of life produce a certain stain; because that which is not alive inserts a certain defilement in that which is living, in the same manner as the impure in that which is pure, and that which is in privation in that which is in habit; and also because that which is dead produces a certain pollution, through a physical aptitude to a worse condition, in consequence of having possessed the power of dying. But a dead body cannot produce any defilement in a dæmon who is perfectly incorporeal, and does not receive any corruption. For it is necessary that he should transcend a corruptible body, and not participate of any representation of corruption from it. And thus much in answer to the contrariety of the doubt.

(34) Timaeus: which was one day to be existent, whereby He made it smooth and even and equal on all sides from the center, a whole and perfect body compounded of perfect bodies, And in the midst thereof He set Soul, which He stretched throughout the whole of it, and therewith He enveloped also the exterior of its body; and as a Circle revolving in a circle He established one sole and solitary Heaven, able of itself because of its excellence to company with itself and needing none other beside, sufficing unto itself as acquaintance and friend. And because of all this He generated it to be a blessed God. Now as regards the Soul, although we are essaying to describe it after the body,

(46) But the Angels and the Devils, as also the Soul of Man, are merely and purely out of the same Spirit. The Devils and the Angels, in the Time of their Corporization, continued therein; and the Soul of Man, in the Time of the creating of the Body, [is] breathed in from the Spirit of God, in the Root of the third Principle, and now continues therein, in Eternity, inseparately and immoveably in the eternal Substance or Essence of GOD. And as little as the pure eternal Birth and the indissoluble Band of the Father ends or vanishes, so little also will such a Spirit have an End.

(2) And therefore it is that I call the powers of a soul, some principal, and some secondary. Not because a soul is divisible, for that may not be: but because all those things in the which they work be divisible, and some principal, as be all ghostly things, and some secondary, as be all bodily things. The two principal working powers, Reason and Will, work purely in themselves in all ghostly things, without help of the other two secondary powers. Imagination and Sensuality work beastly in all bodily things, whether they be present or absent, in the body and with the bodily wits. But by them, without help of Reason and of Will, may a soul never come to for to know the virtue and the conditions of bodily creatures, nor the cause of their beings and their makings.