Tratado 28 (IV, 4, 17) – THE INTELLECTUAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE WORLD-SOUL, AND SOULS OF STARS, EARTH AND MEN (Guthrie)

THE INTELLECTUAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE WORLD-SOUL, AND SOULS OF STARS, EARTH AND MEN.

17. Why are the thoughts and rational aspirations in us different (from what they are in the universal Soul) ? Why is there in us posteriority in respect to time (as we conceive things in a successive manner, while the universal Soul conceives them simultaneously) ? Why do we have to question ourselves (about this) ? Is it because several forces are active in us, and contend for mastery, and there is no single one which alone commands? Is it because we successively need various things to satisfy our needs, because our present is not determined by itself, but refers to things which vary continually, and which are outside of ourselves? Yes, that is the reason why our determinations change according to the present occasion and need. Various things come from the outside to offer themselves to us successively. Besides, as several forces dominate in us, our imagination necessarily has representations that are various, transient, modified by each other, and hindering the movements and actions characteristic of each power of the soul. Thus, when lust arises in us, imagination represents to us the desired object, warns us, and instructs us about the passion born of lust, and at the same time begs of us to listen to it, and to satisfy it. In this state, the soul floats in uncertainty, whether it grant to the appetite the desired satisfaction, or whether she refuse it. Anger, for instance, excites us to vengeance, and thereby produces the same uncertainty. The needs and passions of the body also suggest to us varying actions and opinions; as do also the ignorance of the true goods, the soul’s inability to give a certain judgment, while in this hesitating condition, and the consequences which result from the mingling of the things we have just mentioned. Still our own highest part makes judgments more certain than those reached by the part common (to the soul and to the body), a part that is very uncertain, being a prey to diversity of opinions.

SOULS, ACCORDING TO MORALIZATION, RESEMBLE VARIOUS FORMS OF GOVERNMENT.

Right reason, on descending from the higher realms of the soul into the common part, is by this mingling weakened, although it is not naturally weak; thus, in the tumult of a numerous assembly, it is not the wisest counsellor whose word carries weight; but on the contrary, that of the most turbulent and quarrelsome, and the tumult they make forces the wise man to stay seated, powerless and vanquished, by the noise. In the perverse man, it is the animal part that rules; the diversity of influences which overcome this man represents the worst of governments (the rule of the mob). In the commonplace man, things happen as in a republic where some good element dominates the remainder, which does not refuse to obey. In the virtuous man, there is a life which resembles the aristocracy, because he manages to withdraw from the influence of the commonplace part, and because he listens to what is best in himself. Finally, in the best man, completely separated from the common part, reigns one single principle from which proceeds the order to which the remainder is subject. It would seem therefore that there were two cities, the one superior, and the other inferior, which latter derives its order from the former. We saw that the universal Soul was a single identical principle which commands uniformly; but other souls, as we have just explained, are in a very different condition. Enough of this.