2. Again, the action of the contemplative life pertains to the intellect wherein man is at one with the Angels. But S. Denis does not apply these motions to the Angels in the same way as he does to the soul; for he says that the _circular_ motion of the Angels "corresponds to the illumination of the beautiful and the good." But of the _circular_ motion of the soul he gives several definitions, of which the first is "the return of the soul upon itself as opposed to external things"; the second is "a certain wrapping together of the powers of the soul whereby it is freed from error and from external occupation"; and the third is "the union of the soul with things superior to it." Similarly, he speaks in different terms of the _direct_ motion of the soul as compared with that of the Angels. For he says that the _direct_ motion of an Angel is "according as he proceeds to the care of the things subject to him"; while the _direct_ motion of the soul is made to consist in two things: first of all "that it proceeds to those things which are around it"; secondly, that "from external things it is uplifted to simple contemplation." And lastly, he explains the _oblique_ motion differently in each case. For he makes the _oblique_ motion of the Angels consist in this that, "while providing for those that have less than themselves, they remain in the same attitude towards God"; but the _oblique_ motion of the soul he explains as meaning that "the soul is illumined by Divine knowledge rationally and diffusely." Consequently it does not appear that the operations of contemplation are fittingly distinguished according to the aforesaid species of motion. But while man's intellect is generally the same with that of the Angels, the intellectual powers of the latter are far higher than in man. It was therefore necessary to assign the aforesaid motions to human souls and to the Angels in different fashion in proportion as their intellectual powers are not uniform. For the Angelic intellect has uniform knowledge in two respects: firstly, because the Angels do not acquire intelligible truth from the variety of compound things; and secondly, because they do not understand intelligible truth discursively, but by simple intuition. Whereas the intellect of the human soul, on the contrary, acquires intelligible truth from the things of sense, and understands it by the discursive action of the reason.