and that there has passed over it a phase of existence in which it was far from this lower world and its accidents and its impurities, it was in it living blissfully, satisfied, neighboring the god and the immortal realities, enjoying the knowledge that makes it appear over all things and represents in it all things, then it brought down from that lofty world to this lower world, so it forgot what it used to know little by little.

And that the search for realities leads to remembering them, for the soul has forgotten the realities when it brought down from the Highest Assembly to this lower world, and whenever the soul plunged deep into this practical life and what follows it of submission to the body, its forgetfulness of the realities intensified and the rust accumulated upon it, and the work of

philosophical research is to remove this rust and to remind it of what it used to know from before, so then all realities are immortal, fixed, they are not newly produced and do not change, just as the knowledge of them is immortal, fixed, it is not newly produced and does not change, verily Plato, peace is upon him, even if he had mentioned one soul, then he indeed intended by it every soul, and according to his opinion that the souls brought down all at once, and this is the opinion of the monotheists.