=274.= The principate, as it is of divine origin[56], and destined, as we shall see, to be re-absorbed in the deity, may rightly be called god: it is a god making its settlement and home in a human body[57]: it keeps watch within over the moral principle[58]. In the language of paradox we may say to each man, ‘You are a god[59].’ Of this principle we see the proof in that man interests himself in things divine[60], and in it we find the first incentive to a lofty morality[61]. As however the deity is not conceived in human form, and is not subject to human weaknesses, there comes a point at which, in the study of the human principate, we part company with the divine; and this point we reach both when we consider the principate with regard to its seven distinctly human manifestations, and when we consider its possible degradation from the standard of health and virtue. We now turn to the seven parts or powers of the human soul which are subordinate to the reasoning faculty. [Sidenote: Powers of the principate.] =275.= The first five powers of the principate are those which are recognised in popular philosophy as the ‘five senses.’ To materialistic philosophers nothing is plainer than that these are functions of the body; is it not the eye which sees, and the ear which hears[62]? This the Stoic denies. The eye does not see, but the soul sees through the eye as through an open door. The ear does not hear, but the soul hears through the ear. Sensation therefore is an activity of the principate, acting in the manner already described in the chapter on ‘Reason and Speech[63].’ The soul is actively engaged, and sends forth its powers as water from a fountain; the sense-organs are passively affected by the objects perceived[64]. Subject to this general principle, sensation (αἴσθησις, _sensus_) may be variously defined. It is ‘a spirit which penetrates from the principate to the sensory processes’; it includes alike the mind-picture (φαντασία, _visum_), that is, the first rough sketch which the mind shapes when stimulated by the sense-organ; the assent (συγκατάθεσις, _adsensus_), which the mind gives or refuses to this sketch; and the final act of comprehension (κατάληψις, _comprehensio_) by which this assent is sealed or ratified[65]. Of these the middle stage is the most important, so that we may say paradoxically ‘sense is assent[66].’ Only in a secondary and popular way can we use the word sensation to denote the physical apparatus of the sensory organs (αἰσθητήρια), as when we say of a blind man ‘he has lost the sense of sight[67].’ [Sidenote: The five senses.]