Then, when these first two steps have been taken, S. Denis puts in the third place that uniformity, like to that of the Angels, by which the soul, laying aside all else, persists in the simple contemplation of God. And this he expresses when he says: "Then, as now made uniform, it, as a whole"--that is, as conformed (to God)--"is, with all its powers unified, led by the hand to the Beautiful and the Good."
But the _direct_ motion in the Angels cannot be understood in the sense that, by considering, they proceed from one point to another; but solely according to the order of their providential care for others--according, namely, as the superior Angels illumine the inferior through those who stand between. And this is what S. Denis means when he says that the _direct_ motion of an Angel is "according as he proceeds to the care of the things subject to him, taking in his course all things that are direct" following--that is, those things which are disposed in direct order. But to the human soul S. Denis assigns _direct_ motion in the sense that it proceeds from the exterior things of sense to the knowledge of intelligible things.
And he assigns _oblique_ motion to the Angels--a motion, that is, compounded of the _direct_ and the _circular_--inasmuch as an Angel, according to his contemplation of God, provides for those inferior to him. To the human soul, on the contrary, he assigns this same _oblique_ motion, similarly compounded of the _direct_ and the _circular_ motions, inasmuch as in its reasonings it makes use of the Divine illuminations.
3. Lastly, Richard of S. Victor[382] gives many other and different kinds of motion. For, following the analogy of the birds of the air, he says of these latter that "some at one time ascend on high, at another swoop down to earth, and they do this again and again; others turn now to the right, now to the left, and this repeatedly; others go in advance, others fall behind; some sail round and round in circles, now narrower and now wider; while others again remain almost immovably suspended in one place." From all which it would seem that there are not merely three movements in contemplation.
But all these diversities of motion which are expressed by, up and down, to right and left, backwards and forwards, and in varying circles, are reducible either to _direct_ or to _oblique_ motion, for they all signify the discursive action of the reason. For if this discursive action be from the genus to the species or from the whole to the part, it will be, as Richard of S. Victor himself explains, motion upwards and downwards. If, again, it means argumentation from one thing to its opposite, it will come under motion to right and left. Or if it be deduction from cause to effect, then it will be motion backwards and forwards. And finally, if it mean arguing from the accidents which surround a thing, whether nearly or remotely, it will be circuitous motion. But the discursive action of the reason arguing from the things of sense to intelligible things according to the orderly progress of the natural reason, belongs to _direct_ motion. When, however, it arises from Divine illuminations, it comes under _oblique_ motion, as we have already said (in the reply to the second argument). Lastly, only the immobility which he mentions will come under _circular_ motion.