Thus, although the soul have a divine nature (or "being"), though she
originate in the intelligible world, she enters into a body. Being a
lower divinity, she descends here below by a voluntary inclination, for
the purpose of developing her power, and to adorn what is below her. If
she flee promptly from here below, she does not need to regret having
become acquainted with evil, and knowing the nature of vice,[177]
nor having had the opportunity of manifesting her faculties, and to
manifest her activities and deeds. Indeed, the faculties of the soul
would be useless if they slumbered continuously in incorporeal being
without ever becoming actualized. The soul herself would ignore what
she possesses if her faculties did not manifest by procession, for
everywhere it is the actualization that manifests the potentiality.
Otherwise, the latter would be completely hidden and obscured; or
rather, it would not really exist, and would not possess any reality.
It is the variety of sense-effects which illustrates the greatness of
the intelligible principle, whose nature publishes itself by the beauty
of its works.