SOULS DEVELOP MANIFOLDNESS JUST AS INTELLIGENCE DOES.
We have thus succeeded in establishing the most important point of the discussion, namely, that all souls proceed from a single Soul, that from being one they become manifold, as is the case with the intelligences, divided in the same way, and similarly undivided. The Soul that dwells in the intelligible world is the one and indivisible reason (born) of intelligence, and from this Soul proceed the particular immaterial "reasons," in the same manner as on high (the individual intelligences proceed from the one and absolute Intelligence).
WHY SHOULD CREATION BE PREDICATED OF THE UNIVERSAL SOUL AND NOT OF THE HUMAN?
6. If there be similarity between the universal Soul and the individual souls, how does it happen that the former created the world, while the others did not do so, though each of them also contain all things within herself, and since we have already shown that the productive power can exist simultaneously in several beings? By explaining its "reason" we can thus examine and discover how the same nature ("being") can act or experience, or act and experience, in a different manner in different beings.
THE WORLD-SOUL ALONE CREATES BECAUSE SHE REMAINS NEAREST THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD.
How and why did the universal Soul make the universe, while the individual souls only manage a part thereof? That is not more surprising than to see, among men who possess the same knowledge, some command a greater number, and others a lesser. This is the case because there is a great difference between souls. Some, instead of separating from the universal Soul, have remained in the intelligible world, and still contain the body (of the universal), while others, when the body (of the universe) already existed, and while the universal Soul, their sister, governed it, accepted destinies assigned them by fate, as if (the universal Soul) had prepared for them dwellings to receive them.[106] Besides, the universal Soul contemplates universal Intelligence, and the individual souls rather contemplate individual intelligences. These souls might indeed possibly have also been capable of making the universe; but that is no longer possible to them now that the universal Soul has already done it, and has preceded them. Besides, the very same question would have arisen even if an entirely different soul had first made the universe. Perhaps it is better to state that if the universal Soul has created the universe, it is chiefly because she is more closely related to intelligible entities, for the souls that are nearest thereto are the most powerful. Maintaining themselves in this quiet region, they act with greater facility; for to act without suffering is the sign of a greater power. Thus the power depending on the intelligible world abides within itself, and by abiding within itself, produces. The other souls, descending towards the body, withdraw from the intelligible world, and fall into the abyss (of matter). Perhaps also the element of manifoldness within them, finding itself drawn towards the lower regions, along with it dragged the conceptions of those souls, and made them descend hither. Indeed the distinction of the second or third rank for souls must be understood in this sense that some are nearer, and some further from the intelligible world. Likewise, among us, all souls are not equally disposed in regard to this world. Some succeed in uniting with it, others approach it by their aspirations; others do not quite succeed, because they do not all use the same faculties, and some use the first, others the second, and some the third, though they all equally possess all faculties.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INDIVIDUAL AND UNIVERSAL SOULS.
7. That is what seems true to us. As to the Philebus passage (quoted in the first section), it might mean that all souls were parts of the universal Soul. That, however, is not its true meaning, as held by some. It only means what Plato desired to assert in this place, namely, that heaven is animate. Plato proves this by saying that it would be absurd to insist that heaven has no soul, when our body, which is only a part of the body of the universe, nevertheless has a soul; but how could a part be animate, unless the whole was so also? It is especially in the Timaeus[107] that Plato clearly expresses his thought. After having described the birth of the universal Soul, he shows the other souls born later from the mixture made in the same vase from which the universal Soul was drawn. He asserts that they are similar to the universal Soul, and that their difference consists in that they occupy the second or third rank. That is further confirmed by this passage of the Phaedrus[108]: "The universal Soul cares for what is inanimate." Outside of the Soul, indeed, what power would manage, fashion, ordain and produce the body? It would be nonsense to attribute this power to one soul, and not to another. (Plato) adds (in substance): "The Perfect Soul, the Soul of the universe, hovering in the ethereal region, acts on the earth without entering into it, being borne above him as in a chariot. The other souls that are perfect share with it the administration of the world." When Plato speaks of the soul as having lost her wings, he is evidently distinguishing individual souls from the universal Soul. One might also conclude that our souls are part of the universal Soul from his statement that the souls follow the circular movement of the universe, that from it they derive their characteristics, and that they undergo its influence. Indeed, they might very easily undergo the influence exercised by the nature of the special localities, of the waters and the air of the towns they inhabit, and the temperament of the bodies to which they are joined. We have indeed acknowledged that, being contained in the universe, we possess something of the life-characteristic of the universal Soul, and that we undergo the influence of the circular movement of the heavens. But we have also shown that there is within us another (rational) soul, which is capable of resistance to these influences, and which manifests its different character precisely by the resistance she offers them. The objection that we are begotten within the universe may be answered by the fact that the child is likewise begotten within its mother's womb, and that nevertheless the soul that enters into its body is distinct from that of its mother. Such is our solution of the problem.