SOUL-LIGHT FORMS ANIMAL NATURE.
7. The aggregate results from the presence of the soul, not indeed that the soul enters into the aggregate, or constitutes one of its elements. Out of this organized body, and of a kind of light furnished by herself, the soul forms the animal nature, which differs both from soul and body, and to which belongs sensation, as well as all the passions attributed to the animal1.
RELATION OF ANIMAL TO HUMAN NATURE.
If now we should be asked how it happened that “we” feel, we answer: We are not separated from the organism, although within us exist principles2 of a higher kind which concur in forming the manifold complex of human nature.
EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL SENSATION.
As to the faculty of sensation which is peculiar to the soul, it cannot be the power of perceiving the sense-objects themselves, but only their typical forms, impressed on the animal by sensation. These have already somewhat of the intelligible nature; the exterior sensation peculiar to the animal is only the image of the sensation peculiar to the soul; which, by its very essence is truer and more real, since it consists only in contemplating images while remaining impassible3. Ratiocination, opinion and thought, which principally constitute us4, deal exclusively with these images, by which the soul has the power of directing the organism.
DISTINCTION IN THE WHOLE ORGANISM.
No doubt these faculties are “ours,” but “we” are the superior principle which, from above, directs the organism; but in this whole we shall have to distinguish an inferior part, mingled with the body, and a superior part, which is the true man. The former (irrational soul) constitutes the beast, as for instance, the lion; the latter is the rational soul, which constitutes man. In every ratiocination, it is “we” who reason, because ratiocination is the peculiar activity (or, energy) of the soul5.