Applying this conception to the universe, we rise to Intelligence,
recognizing therein the demiurgic creator of the world. It was
in receiving from it its shapes by the intermediation of another
principle, the universal Soul, that the (material) substances became
water, air, earth and fire. On the one hand, the Soul shapes the
four elements of the world;[116] on the other, she receives from
Intelligence the (seminal) reasons,[117] as the souls of the artists
themselves receive from the arts the reasons which they work out.[118]
In Intelligence, therefore, there is a part which is the form of the
soul; it is intelligence considered, as shape. There is another which
imparts shape, like the sculptor who gives the metal the shape of
the statue, and which in itself possesses all it gives.[119] Now the
(shapes) which the Intelligence imparts to the soul connect with the
truth as closely as possible, while those which the soul imparts to the
body are only images and appearances.[120]