Now when the Creator had framed the soul according to his will,
he formed within her the corporeal universe, and brought the two
together, and united them centre to centre. The soul, interfused
everywhere from the centre to the circumference of heaven, of
which also she is the external envelopment, herself turning in
herself, began a divine beginning of never-ceasing and rational
life enduring throughout all time. The body of heaven is visible,
but the soul is invisible, and partakes of reason and harmony,
and being made by the best of intellectual and everlasting
natures, is the best of things created. And because she is
composed of the same and of the other and of the essence, these
three, and is divided and united in due proportion, and in her
revolutions returns upon herself, the soul, when touching
anything which has essence, whether dispersed in parts or
undivided, is stirred through all her powers, to declare the
sameness or difference of that thing and some other; and to what
individuals are related, and by what affected, and in what way
and how and when, both in the world of generation and in the
world of immutable being. And when reason, which works with equal
truth, whether she be in the circle of the diverse or of the
same—in voiceless silence holding her onward course in the sphere
of the self-moved—when reason, I say, is hovering around the
sensible world and when the circle of the diverse also moving
truly imparts the intimations of sense to the whole soul, then
arise opinions and beliefs sure and certain. But when reason is
concerned with the rational, and the circle of the same moving
smoothly declares it, then intelligence and knowledge are
necessarily perfected. And if any one affirms that in which these
two are found to be other than the soul, he will say the very
opposite of the truth.