an cease to be.[129]
The body is in the soul, rather than the soul in the body. The soul
creates the body by imposing form on matter, which in itself is
No-thing, pure indetermination, and next door to absolute
non-existence.[130] Space and time are only forms of our thought. The
concepts formed by the soul, by classifying the things of sense, are
said to be "Ideas unrolled and separate," that is, they are conceived
as separate in space and time, instead of existing all together in
eternity. The nature of the soul is triple; it is presented under
three forms, which are at the same time the three stages of perfection
which it can reach.[131] There is first and lowest the animal and
sensual soul, which is closely bound up with the body; then there is
the logical, reasoning soul, the distinctively _human_ part; and,
lastly, there is the superhuman stage or part, in which a man "thinks
himself according to the higher intelligence, with which he has become
identified, knowing himself no longer as a man, but as one who has
become altogether changed, and has transferred himself into the higher
region." The soul is thus "made one with Intelligence without losing
herself; so that they two are both one and two." This is exactly
Eckhart's doctrine of the _funkelein_, if we identify Plotinus'
[Greek: Nous] with Eckhart's "God," as we may fairly do. The soul is
not altogether incarnate in the body; part of it remains above, in the
intelligible world, whither it desires to return in its entirety.

The world is an image of the Divine Mind, which is itself a reflection
of the One. It is therefore not bad or evil. "What more beautiful
image of the Divine could there be," he asks, "than this world, except
the world yonder?" And so it is a great mistake to shut our eyes to
the world around us, "and all beautiful things.[132]" The love of
beauty will lead us up a long way--up to the point when the love of
the Good is ready to receive us. Only we must not let ourselves be
entangled by sensuous beauty. Those who do not quickly rise beyond
this first stage, to contemplate "ideal form, the universal mould,"
share the fate of Hylas; they are engulfed in a swamp, from which they
never emerge.

The universe resembles a vast chain, of which every being is a link.
It may also be compared to rays of light shed abroad from one centre.
Everything flowed from this centre, and everything desires to flow
back towards it. God draws all men and all thing