We might further consider whether, inasmuch as opinion originates
in a higher principle (of the soul), this principle does not remain
immovable because it is the form of harmony, while the cause of the
movement plays the role of the musician, and the parts caused to
vibrate by the affection, that of the strings; for it is not the
harmony, but the string that experiences the affection; and even if
the musician desired it, the string would not vibrate unless it were
prescribed by the harmony.
PASSIONS ARE PRODUCED BY EXTERNAL IMAGES; AND THEIR AVOIDANCE IS THE
TASK OF PHILOSOPHY.
5. If then, from the very start, the soul undergo no affections,
what then is the use of trying to render her impassible by means of
philosophy? The reason is that when an image is produced in the soul
by the affective part, there results in the body an affection and a
movement; and to this agitation is related the image of the evil which
is foreseen by opinion. It is this affection that reason commands us to
annihilate, and whose occurrence even we are to forestall, because when
this affection occurs, the soul is sick, and healthy when it does no
occur. In the latter case, none of these images, which are the causes
of affections, form within the soul. That is why, to free oneself
from the images that obsess one during dreams, the soul that occupies
herself therewith is to be wakened.[47] Again, that is why we can say
that affections are produced by representations of exterior entities,
considering these representations as affections of the soul.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESS INVOLVED IN PURIFYING THE SOUL, AND SEPARATING
SOUL FROM BODY.
But what do we mean by "purifying the soul," inasmuch as she could not
possibly be stained? What do we mean by separating (or, weaning) the
soul from the body? To purify the soul is to isolate her, preventing
her from attaching herself to other things, from considering them, from
receiving opinions alien to her, whatever these (alien) opinions or
affections might be, as we have said; it consequently means hindering
her from consideration of these phantoms, and from the production of
their related affections. To "purify the soul," therefore, consists in
raising her from the things here below to intelligible entities; also,
it is to wean her from the body; for, in that case, she is no longer
sufficiently attached to the body to be enslaved to it, resembling a
light which is not absorbed in the whirlwind (of matter[48]), though
even in this case that part of the soul which is submerged does not,
on that account alone, cease being impassible. To purify the affective
part of the soul is to turn her from a vision of deceitful images; to
separate her from the body, is to hinder her from inclining towards
lower things, or from representing their images to herself; it means
annihilating the things from which she thus is separated, so that she
is no longer choked by the whirlwind of the spirit which breaks loose
whenever the body is allowed to grow too strong; the latter must be
weakened so as to govern it more easily.