12. There is a contradiction between our own former opinion that the
soul cannot sin, and the universally admitted belief that the soul
commits sins, expiates them, undergoes punishments in Hades, and that
she passes into new bodies. Although we seem to be in a dilemma,
forcing us to choose between them, it might be possible to show they
are not incompatible.
PHILOSOPHIC SEPARATION REFERS NOT ONLY TO BODY, BUT TO PASSIBLE
ACCRETIONS.
When we attribute infallibility to the soul, we are supposing her to be
one and simple, identifying the soul with soul essence. When, however,
we consider her capable of sin, we are looking at her as a complex, of
her essence and of another kind of soul which can experience brutal
passions. The soul, thus, is a combination of various elements; and it
is not the pure soul, but this combination, which experiences passions,
commits sins, and undergoes punishments. It was this conception of the
soul Plato was referring to when he said:[313] "We see the soul as we
see Glaucus, the marine deity," and he adds, "He who would know the
nature of the soul herself should, after stripping her of all that is
foreign to her, in her, especially consider her philosophic love for
truth; and see to what things she attaches herself, and by virtue of
whose affinities she is what she is." We must, therefore, differentiate
the soul's life acts from that which is punished, and when we speak of
philosophy's separation of the soul, we mean a detaching not only from
the body, but also from what has been added to the soul.