Likewise it is men too weak for speculation who, in action, seek a shadow of speculation and reason. Not being capable of rising to speculation, and because of their soul-weakness not being able to grasp that which in itself is intelligible, and to fill themselves therewith, though however desiring to contemplate it, these men seek, by action, to achieve that which they could not obtain by thought alone. Thus we find that action is a weakness or result of contemplation, when we act, or desire to see, or to contemplate, or to grasp the intelligible, or try to get others to grasp it, or propose to act to the extent of our ability. It is a weakness, for, after having acted, we possess nothing of what we have done; and a consequence, because we contemplate something better than we ourselves have made. What man indeed who could contemplate truth would go and contemplate its image? This is the explanation of the taste for manual arts, and for physical activity[183] (as thought Aristotle). B. CONTEMPLATION. THE PROCESSION OF THE WORLD-SOUL. 5. (4). After having spoken of nature, and having explained how generation is a sort of contemplation, let us pass to the Soul that occupies a rank superior to nature. This is what we have to say about her. By her contemplative action, by her ardent desire to learn and to discover, by the fruitfulness of her knowledge, and her resulting need to produce, the Soul, her totality having become an object of contemplation, gave birth to some other object; just as science, on fructifying, by instruction begets a lesser science in the soul of the young disciple who possesses the images of all things, but only in the state of obscure theories, of feeble speculations, which are incapable of self-sufficiency. The higher and rational part of the Soul ever dwells in the higher region of the intelligible world, and is, by this intelligible world, ever illuminated and fructified[184]; while the lower ("natural and generative power") participates in what the superior part has received, by immediately participating in the intelligible; for life ever proceeds from life, and its actualization extends to everything, and is present everywhere. In her procession, the universal Soul allows her superior part to remain in the intelligible world; for, if she detached herself from this superior part, she would no longer be present everywhere; she would subsist only in her lower extremities. Besides, the part of the Soul that thus proceeds out of the intelligible world is inferior to what remains within it. Therefore, if the Soul must be present and must assert her sphere of activity everywhere, and if that which occupies the superior rank differs from that which occupies the inferior; if, besides, her activity proceeds either from contemplation or action---though indeed originally from contemplation--because contemplation precedes the action which could not exist without contemplation; in this state