By no forcible separation, which would be followed by a new junction, but only by prolonged internal effort is the soul so set free from the world of sense, as to be able to have a vision of its ancient home while still in the body, and to return to it at death.

Small, therefore, as is the consideration bestowed by Neo-Platonism on the affairs of practical life, it has no disposition to shirk the burden of them.
One other peculiar aim, the highest of all, is proposed to the soul in the Alexandrian philosophy.

It is peculiar, because to be understood only in connexion with the metaphysics and cosmology of the system.

In the theory of Emanation, the primordial One or Good emits the Nous wherein the Ideas are immanent; the Nous, in turn, sends forth the Soul, and the Soul, Matter or nature; the gradation applying to man as well as to the Universe.

Now, to each of these principles, there is a corresponding subjective state in the inner life of man.