2. It is to this (universal) Soul especially that may be applied
these words of Plato:[317] "The general Soul cares for all that is
inanimate." The other (individual) souls are in different conditions.
"The Soul (adds Plato), circulates around the heavens successively
assuming divers forms"; that is, the forms of thought, sense or growth.
The part which dominates in the soul fulfills its proper individual
function; the others remain inactive, and somehow seem exterior to
them. In man, it is not the lower powers of the soul that dominate.
They do indeed co-exist with the others. Neither is it always the
best power (reason), which always dominates; for the inferior powers
equally have their place. Consequently, man (besides being a reasonable
being) is also a sensitive being, because he possesses sense-organs.
In many respects, he is also a vegetative being; for his body feeds
and grows just like a plant. All these powers (reason, sensibility,
growth), therefore act together in the man; but it is the best of them
that characterizes the totality of the man (so that he is called a
"reasonable being"). On leaving the body the soul becomes the power she
had preponderatingly developed. Let us therefore flee from here below,
and let us raise ourselves to the intelligible world, so as not to fall
into the pure sense-life, by allowing ourselves to follow sense-images,
or into the life of growth, by abandoning ourselves to the pleasures
of physical love, and to gormandizing; rather, let us rise to the
intelligible world, to the intelligence, to the divinity!