This is how this participation takes place for the parts of this
universe (that is, the bodies). Being situated as it were on the
confines of the intelligible world, the soul often gives the body
something of herself; for, by her power (or potentiality), she is the
neighbor of the body; and finding herself close to it, she enters
into dealings therewith by virtue of a law of her nature; but this
intercourse is of evil, and to enfranchise herself from the body is
good. Why? Because if the soul be not the (property or slave) of the
body in this intercourse, she, nevertheless, unites herself to it, and
though she were universal, she becomes individual; for her activity
no longer is exclusively confined to the intelligible world, although
(she still, by nature) belong thereto. It is as if someone, who was an
expert in a whole science, confined himself to a single proposition
thereof; whereas a person who possesses a whole science should
naturally consider its entirety, and not a mere part of it. Likewise
the soul, which belonged entirely to the intelligible world, and which
partially blended her particular essence with the total Essence,
withdrew out of the universal Essence, and became individual essence,
because the body to which she confines her activities is only a part
of this universe. It is as if the fire, endowed with the ability of
burning everything, was reduced to burn out some small object, although
it possessed power of universal scope. Indeed, when the particular
soul is separated from the body, she is no longer particular (in
actualization); on the contrary, when she has separated herself from
the universal Soul, not by passing from one locality to another, but
by applying her activity (to a part of this universe, to a body), she
becomes particular (in actualization), though she remain universal in
another manner (in potentiality); for when the soul presides over no
body she is truly universal, and is particular only in potentiality.