And as to our own soul we are to hold that it stands, in part, always in the presence of the Divine, while in part it is concerned with the things of this sphere and in part occupies a middle ground. It is one nature in graded powers; and sometimes the soul in its entirety is born along by the loftiest in itself; sometimes the less noble part is dragged down and drags the mid-soul with it, though the law is that the soul may never succumb entire.
The soul’s disaster falls upon it when it ceases to dwell in the perfect Beauty, thence to pour forth into the frame of the All whatsoever the All can hold of good and beauty, The measure of its absorption in that vision is the measure of its grade and power, and what it draws from this contemplation it communicates to the lower sphere, illuminated and illuminating always.
— Plotinus