The soul's attachment to the forms of species rather than the species themselves only occurred because of its initial forgetfulness of the realm of the Intellect upon its arrival in the world of sense. By contemplating these meanings and remembering them, its recovery from sickness and its transition to intellect after ignorance are achieved; thus, it returns to the contemplation of the true meanings and the eternal, everlasting, and perpetual life.

O soul: Contemplate my words and understand them. Know that the Intellect is to the soul like a father, and Nature is like a wife; and the soul has two directions toward which it inclines.

At times, it inclines toward the Intellect due to the affinity that exists between a father and a son; and this is the true, natural Intellect.

At other times, it inclines toward Nature like a lover who is infatuated with his wife; and this is the accidental, fleeting intellect.

Consider, O soul, the man when he is alone with his wife: how she meets him with playful jest, laughter, and flattery, speaking to him with the softest and most delicate of words. Yet, what she displays outwardly is not as she is inwardly, for she only does this to enslave him, to use him for her own purposes, and to lead him directly into perils.

Look, O soul, at the action of the wife—how she offers honey mixed with a deadly poison of evil consequence.