The steps towards the highest peak of human excellence are compared, after Neoplatonist example, to the degrees in intensity of light, as we proceed from darkness, in which it is entirely absent, to shadow, then to the colours in their order from black to white, next to the brightness diffused from polished or transparent bodies, the rays outflowing from the sun, finally to the sun itself, in which light _is_ most truly and most vividly itself.[496] First of all it is needful for the soul to turn to the light, "by act of _conversion_ to present the light of intelligence to its eyes, so to regain its lost virtue, to strengthen its sinews, to terrify and put to rout its enemies,"--the lower, sense-feelings and passions. The conversion seems to arise as by an act of grace from above; or, to express this in other words, the soul or spirit tends towards that with which it has greatest affinity, as the sun-flower tends towards the sun, and this affinity in the human soul is Love.[497] The symbol of love is fire, for love converts the object of love into the lover, as fire is of all elements the most active, the most potent to transform others into itself.[498] It is the divine in man that makes him or impels him to love God as He is in reality, and the goal or aim of that love is to take God into himself, to become one with God. No really divine or heroic love can ever rest satisfied in anything but spiritual beauty. For there are three kinds of love, as there are three kinds of Platonic rapture--the contemplative, the practical, the idle or voluptuous. One from the perception of corporeal form and beauty rises to the thought of the spiritual and divine; another enjoys the vision of beauty for itself, and for the grace of the spirit that is reflected in the grace of the body; while still another enjoys only the material pleasure that beauty provides; the last is the love of barbarous natures, incapable of raising themselves to love that which is really worthy of love.[499] [Sidenote: Beauty.]