The subject given most coverage in the extant Arabic Plotinus materials is the soul. Unsurprisingly, on this topic too it is worth comparing and contrasting our text to the original Plotinus. Like its source, the Arabic Plotinus recognizes various types or levels of soul. The paraphrase is notably faithful to the idea of a world soul, which tends to drop out of the cosmologies of other Arabic philosophers (including already al-Kindi). It has been pointed out that the text maintains a clear distinction between world soul and intellect. This is a point of contrast with Porphyry and thus an additional reason to reject the idea that our text represents a Porphyrian reworking of Plotinus (see D’Ancona 1999).