If now we should be asked how it happened that "we" feel, we answer: We are not separated from the organism, although within us exist principles[297] of a higher kind which concur in forming the manifold complex of human nature.
EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL SENSATION.
As to the faculty of sensation which is peculiar to the soul, it cannot be the power of perceiving the sense-objects themselves, but only their typical forms, impressed on the animal by sensation. These have already somewhat of the intelligible nature; the exterior sensation peculiar to the animal is only the image of the sensation peculiar to the soul; which, by its very essence is truer and more real, since it consists only in contemplating images while remaining impassible.[298] Ratiocination, opinion and thought, which principally constitute us,[299] deal exclusively with these images, by which the soul has the power of directing the organism.
DISTINCTION IN THE WHOLE ORGANISM.
No doubt these faculties are "ours," but "we" are the superior principle which, from above, directs the organising but in this whole we shall have to distinguish an inferior part, mingled with the body, and a superior part, which is the true man. The former (irrational soul) constitutes the beast, as for instance, the lion; the latter is the rational soul, which constitutes man. In every ratiocination, it is "we" who reason, because ratiocination is the peculiar activity (or, energy) of the soul.[300]
INDIVIDUAL RELATION WITH COSMIC INTELLECT.
8. What is our relation with the Intelligence? I mean not the habit imparted to the soul by the intellect, but the absolute Intelligence;[301] which, though above us, is also common to all men, or peculiar to each of them; in other words, is simultaneously common and individual. Common because it is indivisible, one and everywhere the same; particular because each soul possesses it entirely in the first or rational soul. Likewise, we possess the ideas in a double manner; in the soul they appear developed and separate; in the intelligence they exist all together.[302]
INDIVIDUAL RELATION WITH GOD AND COSMIC SOUL.
What is our relation with God? He hovers over the intelligible nature, and real being; while we, being on the third rank as counted from thence, are of the undivided universal Soul, which[303] is indivisible because she forms part of the upper world, while she is divisible in regard to the bodies. She is indeed divisible in regard to the bodies, since she permeates each of them as far as they live; but at the same time she is indivisible because she is one in the universe.