# Faculties ## The Interior Castle Study Edition Glossary Teresa speaks often of the powers or faculties of the soul, but she is not at all clear on what they are. She learned about them vaguely through the books she read and through the confessors and learned men she consulted. These terms originated with the ancient and medieval philosophers. Observing the different forms of life activity, these philosophers deduced that since we can do certain things, we have distinguishable powers for such activities. The external and internal senses are means by which we function at the level of both sensory and material creation. We can easily conclude that since we are able to see, hear, smell, touch, and taste things from the world around us, we have the external sense powers for doing so. And since we can picture to ourselves things, such as a tree or a cat, from the world around us, we have internal sense powers or faculties for doing such things. We also have other faculties in order to deal with objects imperceptible to the senses, objects like animal, human, truth, goodness, beauty. For this work we have the spiritual faculty of intellect. Thus, we have external, internal, and spiritual faculties or powers by which we come to know in different ways the world around us.