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 it holds much and gives much; and is an existence outside of body; of what order and character must it be? Clearly it is what we describe as Veritable Essence。 The other order; the entire corporeal Kind; is process; it appears and it perishes; in reality it never possesses Being; but is merely protected; in so far as it has the capacity; by participating in what authentically is。     9。 (14) Over against that body; stands the principle which is self…caused; which is all that neither enters into being nor passes away; the principle whose dissolution would mean the end of all things never to be restored if once this had ceased to be; the sustaining principle of things individually; and of this kosmos; which owes its maintenance and its ordered system to the soul。     This is the starting point of motion and becomes the leader and provider of motion to all else: it moves by its own quality; and every living material form owes life to this principle; which of itself lives in a life that; being essentially innate; can never fail。     Not all things can have a life merely at second hand; this would give an infinite series: there must be some nature which; having life primally; shall be of necessity indestructible; immortal; as the source of life to all else that lives。 This is the point at which all that is divine and blessed must be situated; living and having being of itself; possessing primal being and primal life; and in its own essence rejecting all change; neither coming to be nor passing away。     Whence could such a being arise or into what could it disappear: the very word; strictly used; means that the thing is perdurable。 Similarly white; the colour; cannot be now white and now not white: if this 〃white〃 were a real being it would be eternal as well as being white: the colour is merely white but whatsoever possesses being; indwelling by nature and primal; will possess also eternal duration。 In such an entity this primal and eternal Being cannot be dead like stone or plank: it must be alive; and that with a life unalloyed as long as it remains self…gathered: when the primal Being blends with an inferior principle; it is hampered in its relation to the highest; but without suffering the loss of its own nature since it can always recover its earliest state by turning its tendency back to its own。     10。 (15) That the soul is of the family of the diviner nature; the eternal; is clear from our demonstration that it is not material: besides it has neither shape or colour nor is it tangible。 But there are other proofs。     Assuming that the divine and the authentically existent possesses a life beneficent and wise; we take the next step and begin with working out the nature of our own soul。     Let us consider a soul; not one that has appropriated the unreasoned desires and impulses of the bodily life; or any other such emotion and experience; but one that has cast all this aside; and as far as possible has no commerce with the bodily。 Such a soul demonstrates that all evil is accretion; alien; and that in the purged soul the noble things are immanent; wisdom and all else that is good; as its native store。     If this is the soul once it has returned to its self; how deny that it is the nature we have identified with all the divine and eternal? Wisdom and authentic virtue are divine; and could not be found in the chattel mean and mortal: what possesses these must be divine by its very capacity of the divine; the token of kinship and of identical substance。     Hence; too; any one of us that exhibits these qualities will differ but little as far as soul is concerned from the Supernals; he will be less than they only to the extent in which the soul is; in him; associated with body。     This is so true that; if every human being were at that stage; or if a great number lived by a soul of that degree; no one would be so incredulous as to doubt that the soul in man is immortal。 It is because we see everywhere the spoiled souls of the great mass that it becomes difficult to recognize their divinity and immortality。     To know the nature of a thing we must observe it in its unalloyed state; since any addition obscures the reality。 Clear; then look: or; rather; let a man first purify himself and then observe: he will not doubt his immortality when he sees himself thus entered into the pure; the Intellectual。 For; what he sees is an Intellectual…Principle looking on nothing of sense; nothing of this mortality; but by its own eternity having intellection of the eternal: he will see all things in this Intellectual substance; himself having become an Intellectual Kosmos and all lightsome; illuminated by the truth streaming from The Good; which radiates truth upon all that stands within that realm of the divine。     Thus he will often feel the beauty of that word 〃Farewell: I am to you an immortal God;〃 for he has ascended to the Supreme; and is all one strain to enter into likeness with it。     If the purification puts the human into knowledge of the highest; then; too; the science latent within becomes manifest; the only authentic knowing。 For it is not by running hither and thither outside of itself that the soul understands morality and right conduct: it learns them of its own nature; in its contact with itself; in its intellectual grasp of itself; seeing deeply impressed upon it the images of its primal state; what was one mass of rust from long neglect it has restored to purity。     Imagine living gold: it files away all that is earthy about it; all that kept it in self…ignorance preventing it from knowing itself as gold; seen now unalloyed it is at once filled with admiration of its worth and knows that it has no need of any other glory than its own; triumphant if only it be allowed to remain purely to itself。     11。 (16) What intelligent mind can doubt the immortality of such a value; one in which there is a life self…springing and therefore not to be destroyed?     This is at any rate a life not imported from without; not present in the mode of the heat in fire… for if heat is characteristic of the fire proper; it certainly is adventitious to the Matter underlying the fire; or fire; too; would be everlasting… it is not in any such mode that the soul has life: this is no case of a Matter underlying and a life brought into that Matter and making it into soul 'as heat comes into matter and makes it fire'。     Either life is Essential Reality; and therefore self…living… the very thing we have been seeking… and undeniably immortal: or it; too; is a compound and must be traced back through all the constituents until an immortal substance is reached; something deriving movement from itself; and therefore debarred from accepting death。     Even supposing life could be described as a condition imposed upon Matter; still the source from which this condition entered the Matter must necessarily be admitted to be immortal simply by being unable to take into itself the opposite of the life which it conveys。     Of course; life is no such mere condition; but an independent principle; effectively living。     12。 (17) A further consideration is that if every soul is to be held dissoluble the universe must long since have ceased to be: if it is pretended that one kind of soul; our own for example; is mortal; and another; that of the All; let us suppose; is immortal; we demand to know the reason of the difference alleged。     Each is a principle of motion; each is self…living; each touches the same sphere by the same tentacles; each has intellection of the celestial order and of the super…celestial; each is seeking to win to what has essential being; each is moving upwards to the primal source。     Again: the soul's understanding of the Absolute Forms by means of the visions stored up in it is effected within itself; such perception is reminiscence; the soul then must have its being before embodiment; and drawing on an eternal science; must itself be eternal。     Every dissoluble entity; that has come to be by way of groupment; must in the nature of things be broken apart by that very mode which brought it together: but the soul is one and simplex; living not in the sense of potential reception of life but by its own energy; and this can be no cause of dissolution。     But; we will be told; it tends to destruction by having been divided (in the body) and so becoming fragmentary。     No: the soul; as we have shown; is not a mass; not a quantity。     May not it change and so come to destruction?     No: the change that destroys annuls the form but leaves the underlying substance: and that could not happen to anything except a compound。     If it can be destroyed in no such ways; it is necessarily indestructible。     13。 (18) But how does the soul enter into body from the aloofness of the Intellectual?     There is the Intellectual…Principle which remains among the intellectual beings; living the purely intellective life; and this; knowing no impulse or appetite; is for ever stationary in that Realm。 But immediately following upon it; there is that which has acquired appetite and; by this accruement; has already taken a great step outward; it has the desire of elaborating order on the model of what it has seen in the Intellectual…Principle: pregnant by those Bei

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