12. How does it happen that we possess principles that are so elevated,
almost in spite of ourselves, and for the most part without busying
ourselves about them? For there are even men who never notice them.
Nevertheless these principles, that is, intelligence, and the principle
superior to intelligence, which ever remains within itself (that is,
the One), these two principles are ever active. The case is similar
with the soul. She is always in motion; but the operations that go
on within her are not always perceived; they reach us only when they
succeed in making themselves felt. When the faculty that is active
within us does not transmit its action to the power that feels, this
action is not communicated to the entire soul; however, we may not be
conscious thereof because, although we possess sensibility, it is not
this power, but the whole soul that constitutes the man.[261] So long
as life lasts, each power of the soul exercises its proper function by
itself; but we know it only when communication and perception occur. In
order to perceive the things within us, we have to turn our perceptive
faculties towards them, so that (our soul) may apply her whole
attention thereto.[262] The person that desires to hear one sound
must neglect all others, and listen carefully on its approach. Thus we
must here close our senses to all the noises that besiege us, unless
necessity force us to hear them, and to preserve our perceptive faculty
pure and ready to listen to the voices that come from above.