2. Consider the following answers. To begin with, the assertion that
souls conform (to each other), because they attain the same objects,
and the reduction of them to a single kind, implicitly denies that
they are parts (of the universal Soul). We might better say that the
universal Soul is one and identical, and that each soul is universal
(that is, that she conforms to the universal Soul, because she
possesses all the latter's powers). Now, assertion of the unity of
the universal Soul defines her as being something different (from
individual souls); namely, a principle which, specially belonging
neither to one nor the other, neither to an individual, nor to a
world, nor to anything else, itself carries out what is carried out by
the world and every living being. It is right enough to say that the
universal Soul does not belong to any individual being, inasmuch as she
is (pure) being; it is right enough that there should be a Soul which
is not owned by any being, and that only individual souls should belong
to individual beings.