Sense-Knowledge and Intellection. From this moment we have
peculiarly the We: before this there was only the "Ours"; but at
this stage stands the WE [the authentic Human-Principle] loftily
presiding over the Animate.

    There is no reason why the entire compound entity should not be
described as the Animate or Living-Being- mingled in a lower phase,
but above that point the beginning of the veritable man, distinct from
all that is kin to the lion, all that is of the order of the
multiple brute. And since The Man, so understood, is essentially the
associate of the reasoning Soul, in our reasoning it is this "We" that
reasons, in that the use and act of reason is a characteristic Act
of the Soul.

    8. And towards the Intellectual-Principle what is our relation? By
this I mean, not that faculty in the soul which is one of the
emanations from the Intellectual-Principle, but The
Intellectual-Principle itself [Divine-Mind].

    This also we possess as the summit of our being. And we have It
either as common to all or as our own immediate possession: or again
we may possess It in both degrees, that is in common, since It is
indivisible- one, everywhere and always Its entire self- and severally
in that each personality possesses It entire in the First-Soul [i.e.
in the Intellectual as distinguished from the lower phase of the
Soul].

    Hence we possess the Ideal-Forms also after two modes: in the
Soul, as it were unrolled and separate; in the Intellectual-Principle,
concentrated, one.

    And how do we possess the Divinity?

    In that the Divinity is contained in the Intellectual-Principle
and Authentic-Existence; and We come third in order after these two,
for the We is constituted by a union of the supreme, the undivided
Soul- we read- and that Soul which is divided among [living] bodies.
For, note, we inevitably think of the Soul, though one undivided in
the All, as being present to bodies in division: in so far as any
bodies are Animates, the Soul has given itself to each of the separate
material masses; or rather it appears to be present in the bodies by
the fact that it shines into them: it makes them living beings not
by merging into body but by giving forth, without any change in
itself, images or likenesses of itself like one face caught by many
mirrors.

    The first of these images is Sense-Perception seated in the
Couplement; and from this downwards all the successive images are to
be recognized as phases of the Soul in lessening succession from one
another, until the series ends in the faculties of generation and
growth and of all production of offspring- offspring efficient in
its turn, in contradistinction to the engendering Soul which [has no
direct action within matter but] produces by mere inclination
towards what it fashions.

    9. That Soul, then, in us, will in its nature stand apart from all
that can cause any of the evils which man does or suffers; for all
such evil, as we have seen, belongs only to the Animate, the
Couplement.

    But there is a difficulty in understanding how the Soul can go
guiltless if our mentation and reasoning are vested in it: for all
this lower kind of knowledge is delusion and is the cause of much of
what is evil.

    When we have done evil it is because we have been worsted by our
baser side- for a man is many- by desire or rage or some evil image:
the misnamed reasoning that takes up with the false, in reality fancy,
has not stayed for the judgement of the Reasoning-Principle: we have
acted at the call of the less worthy, just as in matters of the
sense-sphere we sometimes see falsely because we credit only the lower
perception, that of the Couplement, without applying the tests of
the Reasoning-Faculty.

    The Intellectual-Principle has held aloof from the act and so is
guiltless; or, as we may state it, all depends on whether we ourselves
have or have not put ourselves in touch with the Intellectual-Realm
either in the Intellectual-Principle or within ourselves; for it is
possible at once to possess and not to use.

    Thus we have marked off what belongs to the Couplement from what
stands by itself: the one group has the character of body and never
exists apart from body, while all that has no need of body for its
manifestation belongs peculiarly to Soul: and the Understanding, as
passing judgement upon Sense-Impressions, is at the point of the
vision of Ideal-Forms, seeing them as it were with an answering
sensation (i.e, with consciousness) this last is at any rate true of
the Understanding in the Veritable Soul. For Understanding, the
true, is the Act of the Intellections: in many of its manifestations
it is the assimilation and reconciliation of the outer to the inner.

    Thus in spite of all, the Soul is at peace as to itself and within
itself: all the changes and all the turmoil we experience are the
issue of what is subjoined to the Soul, and are, as have said, the
states and experiences of this elusive "Couplement."

    10. It will be objected, that if the Soul constitutes the We
[the personality] and We are subject to these states then the Soul
must be subject to them, and similarly that what We do must be done by
the Soul.