"Every soul hath some portion of nous, reason, a man cannot
be a man without it; but as much of each soul as is mixed with flesh
and appetite is changed, and through pain and pleasure becomes
irrational. Every soul doth not mix herself after one sort; some
plunge themselves into the body, and so in this life their whole frame
is corrupted by appetite and passion; others are mixed as to some part,
but the purer part still remains without the body. It is not drawn down
into the body, but it swims above, and touches the extremest part of the
man's head; it is like a cord to hold up and direct the subsiding part
of the soul, as long as it proves obedient and is not overcome by the
appetites of the flesh. The part that is plunged into the body is
called soul. But the incorruptible part is called the nous, and the
vulgar think it is within them, as they likewise imagine the image
reflected from a glass to be in that glass. But the more intelligent,
who know it to be without, call it a Daemon." And in the same learned
work ("Isis Unveiled ") we have two Christian authorities, Irenaeus and
Origen, cited for like distinction between spirit and soul in such a
manner as to show that the former must necessarily be regarded as
separable from the latter.
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