3. Consider now the human soul which[167] undergoes numberless ills
while in the body, eking out a miserable existence, a prey to griefs,
desires, fears, sufferings of all kinds, for whom the body is a tomb,
and the sense-world a "cave" or "grotto." This difference of opinions
about the condition of the universal Soul and the human soul is not
contradictory, because these two souls do not have the same reasons
for descent into a body. To begin with, the location of thought, that
we call the intelligible world,[168] contains not only the entire
universal Intelligence, but also the intellectual powers, and the
particular intelligences comprised within the universal Intelligence;
since there is not only a single intelligence, but a simultaneously
single and plural intelligence. Consequently, it must also have
contained a single Soul, and a plurality of souls; and it was from the
single Soul, that the multiple particular and different souls had to be
born, as from one and the same genus are derived species that are both
superior and inferior, and more or less intellectual. Indeed, in the
intelligible world, there is, on one hand, the (universal) Intelligence
which, like some great animal, potentially contains the other
intelligences. On the other hand, are the individual intelligences,
each of which possess in actualization what the former contains
potentially. We may illustrate by a living city that would contain
other living cities. The soul of the universal City would be more
perfect and powerful; but nothing would hinder the souls of the other
cities from being of the same kind. Similarly, in the universal Fire,
there is on one hand a great fire, and on the other small fires, while
the universal Being is the being of the universal Fire, or rather, is
the source from which the being of the universal Fire proceeds.