THE STERILITY OF NATURE INDICATED BY CASTRATION.
That name indicates the difference between matter and a mother. To those who, refusing to be satisfied with superficialities, insist on thoroughness, they thus signified in as precise a manner as possible (without lifting the veil of) obscurity, that matter was sterile, although feminine also to extent at least that matter receives, without contributing to, the act of generation. They indicated it by this, that the (Galli) who surround Cybele are not women, but neither are they men, possessing no power of generation; for by castration they have lost a faculty that is characteristic only of a man whose virility is intact.
[FOURTH ENNEAD, BOOK THREE.]
Psychological Questions.
A. ARE NOT ALL SOULS PARTS OR EMANATIONS OF A SINGLE SOUL?[99]
PSYCHOLOGY OBEYS THE PRECEPT "KNOW THYSELF," AND SHOWS HOW WE ARE TEMPLES OF THE DIVINITY.
1. Among the questions raised about the soul, we purpose to solve here not only such as may be solved with some degree of assurance, but also such as may be considered matters of doubt, considering our researches rewarded by even only a definition of this doubt. This should prove an interesting study. What indeed better deserves careful examination and close scrutiny than what refers to the soul? Among other advantages, the study of the soul has that of making known to us two order of things, those of which she is the principle, and those from which she herself proceeds. This examination will be in line with the divine precept to "know ourselves."[100] Before seeking to discover and understand the remainder, it is no more than right first to apply ourselves to finding out the nature of the principle that embarks in these researches[101]; and as we are seeking what is lovable, we will do well to contemplate the most beautiful of spectacles (that of our own intellectual nature); for if there be a duality, in the universal (Soul), so much more likely will there be a duality in individual intelligences. We should also examine the sense in which it may be said that souls are sanctuaries of the divinity; but this question will not admit of solution till after we have determined how the soul descends into the body.