Plotinus

“ On the contrary this very motion is its eternal attainment.
Or, better; the Soul is ceaselessly leading the Cosmos towards itself: the continuous attraction communicates a continuous movement—not to some outside space but towards the Soul and in the one sphere with it, not in the straight line (which would ultimately bring the moving body outside and below the Soul) , but in the curving course in which the moving body at every stage possesses the Soul that is attracting it and bestowing itself upon it. ”

“ And it may very well be that even in us the Spirit which dwells with the Soul does thus circle about the divinity. For since God is omnipresent the Soul desiring perfect union must take the circular course: God is not stationed.
Similarly Plato attributes to the stars not only the spheric movement belonging to the universe as a whole but also to each a revolution around their common centre; each—not by way of thought but by links of natural necessity—has in its own place taken hold of God and exults. ”

“ There is a lowest power of the Soul, a nearest to earth, and this is interwoven throughout the entire universe: another phase possesses sensation, while yet another includes the Reason which is concerned with judgement: this higher phase holds itself to the spheres, poised towards the Above but hovering over the lesser Soul and giving forth to it an effluence which makes it more intensely vital.
The lower Soul is moved by the higher which, besides encircling and supporting it, actually resides in whatsoever part of it has thrust upwards and attained the spheres. ”

“ The lower then, ringed round by the higher and answering its call, turns and tends towards it; and this upward tension communicates motion to the material frame in which it is involved: for if a single point in a spheric mass is in any degree moved, without being drawn away from the rest, it moves the whole, and the sphere is set in motion. Something of the same kind happens in the case of our bodies: the unspatial movement of the Soul—in happiness, for instance, or at the idea of some pleasant event—sets up a spatial movement in the body. ”

“ If, on the other hand, the cosmic circuit is due to the Soul, we are not to think of a painful driving (wearing it down at last) ; the Soul does not use violence or in any way thwart nature, for ‘Nature’ is no other than the custom the All-Soul has established. ”

“ The answer is that forthright movement is maintained only pending arrival at the place for which the moving thing is destined: where a thing is ordained to be, there it seeks, of its nature, to come for its rest; its motion is its tendence to its appointed place. ”