The procession of intelligence consists in descending to things that
occupy the lowest rank, and which have an inferior nature,[183] for
Intelligence could not rise to the superior Nature. Obliged to act
outside of itself, and not being able to remain self-enclosed, by a
necessity and by a law of its nature, intelligence must advance unto
the soul where it stops; then, after having communicated of itself to
that which immediately follows it, intelligence must return to the
intelligible world. Likewise, the soul has a double action in her
double relation with what is below and above her. By her first action,
the soul manages the body to which she is united; by the second, she
contemplates the intelligible entities. These alternatives work out,
for individual souls, with the course of time; and finally there occurs
a conversion which brings them back from the lower to the higher
natures.
THE UNIVERSAL SOUL, HOWEVER, IS NOT DISTURBED BY THE URGENCIES BELOW
HER.
The universal Soul, however, does not need to busy herself with
troublesome functions, and remains out of the reach of evils. She
considers what is below her in a purely contemplative manner, while at
the same time remaining related to what is above her. She is therefore
enabled simultaneously on one side to receive, and on the other to
give, since her nature compels her to relate herself closely with the
objects of sense.[184]