If there were no body, the soul could not have any procession, since
the body is the natural locality of her development. As the soul must
extend, she will beget a receiving locality, and will, consequently,
produce the body. The soul's rest is based, and depends for growth on
(the intellectual category of) rest itself. The soul thus resembles
an immense light which weakens as it becomes more distant from its
source, so that at the extremity of its radiation, it has become no
more than an adumbration. However, the soul evidently gave a form to
this adumbration from the very beginning of things. It was, indeed,
by no means suitable that what approached the soul should in no
way participate in reason[118]; consequently there came to be an
adumbration of reason in (matter), this adumbration being the soul.
The universe thus became a beautiful and varied dwelling, which was
not deprived of the presence[119] of the universal Soul by her not
totally incorporating within it. She judged that the whole universe was
worthy of her care, and she thus gave it as much "being" and beauty as
it was able to receive, without herself losing any of it, because she
manages the world while herself remaining above it in the intelligible
sphere. By so animating it, she thus grants it her presence, without
becoming its property; she dominates it, and possesses it, without
being, thereby, dominated or possessed. The universe, indeed, is in the
containing Soul, and participates therein entirely. (The universe is in
the Soul as is) a net in the sea, on all sides penetrated and enveloped
by life, without ever being able to appropriate it. So far as it can,
this net extends along with the sea, for none of its parts could be
elsewhere than it is. By nature the universal Soul is immense, because
her magnitude is not definite; so that by one and the same power she
embraces the entire body of the world, and is present throughout the
whole extension. Without it, the world-Soul would make no effort to
proceed into extension, for by herself she is all that it is her nature
to be. The magnitude of the universe therefore is determined by that
of the location of the Soul; and the limits of its extent are those
of the space within which it is animated by her. The extension of the
adumbration of the Soul is therefore determined by that of the "reason"
which radiates from this focus of light; and on the other hand, this
"reason" was to produce such an extension as its nature urged it to
produce.[120]