3. When the soul departs from the intelligible world; when instead of
continuing to form a unity with it, she wishes to become independent,
to become distinct, and to belong to herself; when she inclines
towards the things here below, then she remembers herself. The memory
of intelligible things hinders her from falling, that of terrestrial
things makes her descend here below, and that of celestial things makes
her dwell in heaven. In general, the soul is and becomes what she
remembers. Indeed, to remember is to think or imagine; now, to imagine
is not indeed to possess a thing, but to see it and to conform to it.
If the soul see sense-things, by the very act of looking at them she
somehow acquires some extension. As she is things other than herself
only secondarily, she is none of them perfectly. Placed and established
on the confines of the sense and intelligible worlds, she may equally
move towards either.