Soul in its Relation to Nous (IV)

V. 3. 7
(Armstrong Selections from the Enneads)

[Soul is directed to and is like Nous in its inward part; but even in that part of it which is directed to the outside world, and in its external activities, it keeps a sort of likeness to Nous.]

Once again, then, Nous is a self-contained activity, but soul has what we may call an inward part, which is that of it which is directed to Nous, and a part outside Nous which is directed to the outside world. By the one it is made like that from which it came, by the other, even though it has been made unlike, it becomes like, here below too, both in its action and its production. For even while it is active it contemplates, and when it produces it produces Forms (a kind of completed acts of intellect). So all things are traces of thought and Nous; they proceed according to their original pattern; those which are near imitate Nous better, and the remotest keep an obscure image of it.