4. Purification may be either identical with the above-defined virtue,
or virtue may be the result of purification. In this case, does virtue
consist of the actual process of purification, or in the already
purified condition? This is our problem here.
The process of purification is inferior to the already purified
condition; for purity is the soul's destined goal. (Negative) purity
is mere separation from extraneous things; it is not yet (positive)
possession of its prize. If the soul had possessed goodness before
losing her purity, mere purification would be sufficient; and even in
this case the residuum of the purification would be the goodness, and
not the purification. What is the residuum? Not goodness; otherwise,
the soul would not have fallen into evil. The soul therefore possesses
the form of goodness, without however being able to remain solidly
attached thereto, because her nature permits her to turn either to the
good, or the evil. The good of the soul is to remain united to her
sister intelligence; her evil, is to abandon herself to the contrary
things. After purifying the soul, therefore, she must be united to the
divinity; but this implies turning her towards Him. Now this conversion
does not begin to occur after the purification, but is its very result.
The virtue of the soul, therefore, does not consist in her conversion,
but in that which she thereby obtains. This is the intuition of her
intelligible object; its image produced and realized within herself; an
image similar to that in the eye, an image which represents the things
seen. It is not necessary to conclude that the soul did not possess
this image, nor had any reminiscence thereof; she no doubt possessed
it, but inactively, latently, obscurely. To clarify it, to discover her
possessions, the soul needs to approach the source of all clearness.
As, however, the soul possesses only the images of the intelligibles,
without possessing the intelligibles themselves, she will be compelled
to compare with them her own image of them. Easily does the soul
contemplate the intelligibles, because the intelligence is not foreign
to her; when the soul wishes to enter in relations with them, all the
soul needs to do is to turn her glance towards them. Otherwise, the
intelligence, though present in the soul, will remain foreign to her.
This explains how all our acquisitions of knowledge are foreign to us
(as if non-existent), while we fail to recall them.