Additional Notes on the Dialogues of Plato (Volumes I–II) — Thomas Taylor
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Translation/edition: Thomas Taylor (1804)
Language: English
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Numbers in [brackets] are the edition's reference loci (Stephanus, Bekker, book.line, page...). Superscript numerals refer to the Notes at the end.


## Additional Notes on the Dialogues of Plato (Volumes I–II)


## Additional Notes on the First Alcibiades

THE FOLLOWING ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE FIRST ALCIBIADES ARE EXTRACTED FROM THE MS. COMMENTARY OF PROCLUS ON THAT DIALOGUE.
103a. Son of Clinias! you wonder, I suppose, &c.
The prefaces (τα προοιμια) of Plato’s dialogues accord with the whole scope of them; and are neither devised by Plato for the sake of dramatic allurement, since this mode of writing is very remote from the magnitude of the philosopher’s conceptions, nor are they merely historical; but each is suspended from the design of the dialogue to which it belongs.
Every thing in the dialogues of Plato, in the same manner as in the mysteries, is referred to the whole perfection of the particulars which are investigated. Agreeably to this, Plato in the very beginning of this dialogue appears to me to indicate in a beautiful manner the scope of the whole composition. For his design, as we have said, was to unfold our nature, and the whole essence according to which each of us is defined; and to unveil the Delphic mandate KNOW THYSELF through demonstrative methods. But the preface itself converts the young man to himself, and represents him as exploring his own pre-subsisting conceptions; and, at the same time that it converts him to himself, leads him to a survey, as from a watch-tower, of Socratic science. For an investigation of the cause through which Socrates alone, of all his lovers, does not change his love, but began to love him prior to others, and is not altered when the rest no longer love, evinces him to be a spectator of the whole life of Socrates. The forms of conversion therefore are triple. For every thing which is converted, is either converted to that which is worse than itself, through apostatizing from its proper perfection, or is led back to that which is better than itself, through its own life, and an energy according to nature, or it is converted to itself, according to a knowledge co-ordinate to itself, and a middle form of motion. A conversion indeed to that which is worse, is a passion of the soul whose wings suffer a defluxion, and that is now placed in oblivion both of herself, and of natures prior to herself. But a conversion both to itself and to a more excellent nature, takes place not in souls only, but in divine natures themselves, as Parmenides teaches us, when he establishes two species of conversion, and shows how a divine nature is converted to itself, and is in itself, and how it is converted to that which is prior to itself, so far as it is comprehended in another, and is united with a better nature. On this account Socrates at the end of this dialogue says, that he who is converted to and becomes a spectator of himself, will by this mean behold the whole of a divine nature, and through a conversion to himself will be led to an elevated survey of divinity, and to a conversion to that which is better than himself. These things, therefore, the preface indicates. For it leads Alcibiades from a life tending to externals to a survey of himself, and recalls him through a knowledge of himself to a love of Socratic science; since a desire to learn the cause of the conduct of Socrates is to become a lover of the pre-subsisting science which he contains.
Again, Plato signifies in the preface, besides other things, that a worthy man will always employ his knowledge on objects properly co-ordinated to that knowledge; and that he will never attempt to possess a stable, definite and immutable knowledge of things contingent and mutable, nor a dubious, indefinite, and disordered apprehension of things necessary, and which always possess a sameness of subsistence. But, according to the distinction adopted by Socrates in the Republic, he will conjointly contemplate all intelligibles with simple, uniform, and intellectual knowledge; but will survey the middle reasons of things with a scientific and dianoëtic evolution and composition. Again, with the sensitive power which is the third from truth, he will touch upon proper objects of knowledge, through instruments of sense, distinguishing in a becoming manner every object of sense. And lastly, by an assimilative power he will apprehend the images of sensibles. And indeed Timæus, distinguishing cognitions analogously to the objects of knowledge, exhorts us to judge of true beings by intelligence in conjunction with reason; but such things as are not beings, but are perpetually conversant with generation and corruption, by opinion and sense. He also adds, that the reasons pertaining to true beings cannot be confuted, and are indubitable; but those which belong to things borne along in the rapid flux of generation, are conjectural and contingent. For every where reasons imitate the things of which they are the interpreters.
In the third place, Socrates in the Cratylus says that the names of things eternal have a certain alliance with the things themselves; but that the names of things generated and corrupted are multiformly changed, and partake much of position, through the unstable lation of their subjects. If therefore the knowledge of things which subsist perpetually the same, differs from that of things contingent, and reasons are allotted an all-various mutation, and different names accord with different things, is it wonderful that Socrates, who is here discoursing concerning an unstable nature, should use the word οιμαι, I opine, or suppose? which signifies that the nature of the thing known is mutable, but does not accuse the knowledge of Socrates as indefinite, mingled with ignorance, and dubious.
104b. You have looked down on your admirers.
Alcibiades, by despising those that were unworthy of his love, and admiring those that were worthy of it, testifies his great alliance to the beautiful, and that he was abundantly prepared for the reception of virtue. But perhaps some one may be desirous to learn why elevated and grand conceptions move divine lovers, and appear to deserve diligent attention. We reply, that such manners seem to possess an alliance with divine beauty. For to despise things present as shadowy representations, and of no worth, and to investigate something prior to these, which is great and wonderful and transcends the conceptions of the multitude, is an evident argument of the parturiency of the soul about the beautiful. Hence Socrates in the Republic represents souls which are about to descend from the heavens, as choosing a commanding and magnificent life. For they still retain the echo, as it were, of the life which is there, and, in consequence of this, convert themselves to power and dominion, and despise every thing else as trifling and of no worth. But this affection is the principle of safety to souls. For to consider human concerns as small, and vile, and not worthy of serious attention, and to investigate that form of life which is exempt from multitude and inaccessible to the vulgar, is a sufficient viaticum for the pursuit of virtue.
105b. You think that if you speedily make your appearance before the Athenian
people, &c.
The design of all that has been proximately said is to purify our dianoëtic part from two-fold ignorance, and to remove all that impedes our resumption of true science. For it is impossible for things imperfect to obtain their proper perfection in any other way than by a purification of impediments; for that which purifies every where possesses this power. But the true purification of the soul is triple; one kind proceeding through the telestic art¹, concerning which Socrates speaks in the Phædrus; another through philosophy, concerning which much is said in the Phædo; for there prudence and each of the other virtues is denominated a certain purification; but the purification through this dialectic science leads to contradiction, confutes the inequality of dogmas, and liberates us from two-fold ignorance. Purification therefore being triple, Socrates here employs the third of these on Alcibiades: for those that labour under two-fold ignorance are benefited by this purification. Hence Socrates does not assert any thing of truth, till he has removed those opinions which impede the soul in her apprehension of truth. Simple ignorance indeed subsists between science and two-fold ignorance; and the first transition is from science to simple ignorance, and the proximate ascent is from simple ignorance to science. At the same time likewise this ascent separates us from opinion tending to externals, converts the soul to herself, makes her explore her own proper dogmas, remove that which impedes her knowledge, and fill up what is deficient. For, as the body when disturbed by foreign humours often corrupts its aliment, and changes the benefit arising from it into a noxious property, so the soul being disturbed through false opinion, and receiving the assistance imparted from science in a manner adapted to her own habit, produces a principle of greater false opinion and deception. The purification therefore which precedes all the arguments of Socrates is comprehended in these words; and it may be said to resemble the telestic purifications which take place previous to the operations of the mysteries, which liberate us from all the defilements we became connected with from generation, and prepare us for the participation of a divine nature. But this purification takes place according to the dialectic method, which leads us to contradiction, confutes that deception which darkens our dianoëtic part, and proceeds through more known and universal assumptions to indubitable conclusions, receiving the major propositions from common conceptions, and the minor from the consent of him with whom we converse. It also conjoins the extremes with each other through media; denies of the minor whatever is denied of the major terms; and thinks fit that such things as are present with things predicated should also be present with the subjects of its discussion.
105c. In fine, that you entertain such hopes as I have mentioned, I know with
certainty.
From hence we may rightly understand who it is that instructs, and who is instructed. For it is fit that he who instructs should accurately know the aptitudes of those that are instructed, and conformably to these should direct his attention; since every one is not to be disciplined in a similar manner. But he who is naturally a philosopher is to be led back to an incorporeal essence in one way, he who is a lover in another, and the musician in a still different way. And again, he who through the imagination of that facility of energy which belongs to a divine nature is astonished about pleasure, is to be led back in one way; he who through the desire of being sufficient to himself desires the possession of riches, in another way; and in a still different way, he who through the conception of divine power is busily employed about apparent power. For, images every where assuming the appearance of their principles draw aside unintelligent souls; but it is requisite, departing from these, to pass on to those true and real beings. And this was the mode of the Socratic doctrine, to lead up every one to the proper object of his desire. Hence, to the lover of pleasure he pointed out that which is pleasurable with purity, and unmingled with pain; for it is evident that this will be more eligible to him who pursues pleasure, than that which is mingled with its contrary. To the lover of riches he indicated where that which is truly sufficient to itself abides, and which is in no respect filled with indigence; for this must be more ardently pursued by him who aspires after self-perfection, and avoids indigence. But to the lover of dominion he showed where that which is powerful and governs is to be found, and what the nature is of the ruling form of life which is free from all subjection; for this will be considered as more honourable to the ambitious man than what is mingled with that which is to be avoided. Power therefore, self-sufficiency, and pleasure are not to be found in material things. For matter is imbecility and poverty, and is the cause of corruption and pain. But it is evident that these, if they are any where to be found, are in immaterial and separate natures. These natures therefore are the proper objects of love, and to these an ascent is to be made. After this manner, therefore, he who instructs ought to introduce discipline from the physical aptitudes in each, to each imparting safety; but he who is instructed should submit himself to his instructor, and gradually be led to the truth, departing from images and a subterranean cavern² to the light and true essence, on every side extending himself to that which is unmingled with its contrary, and dismissing that which is divisible and shadowy, but aspiring after that which is universal and impartible. For total good, as Socrates says in the Philebus, is neither desirable only, nor alone perfect, and sufficient and able to fill other things, but comprehends at once all these, the perfect, the sufficient, the desirable. For it extends all things to itself, and imparts to all well-being; but it is regarded by the multitude partially. Hence some of them, looking only to the desirable which it contains, pursue the pleasurable, which is the image of it; but others, surveying the perfect alone, are busily employed about riches; for in these the image of perfection subsists; and others tending to the sufficient are astonished about power; for power carries with it a phantasm of sufficiency. To dismiss therefore these partial apprehensions of the good, to look to its whole nature, and to be led back to its all-perfect plenitude, separates in a becoming manner those that are instructed from an association with images. P. 29. Have you knowledge in those things only which you have either learnt from
others, or found out yourself?
Plato considers Mathesis and Invention as paths of knowledge adapted to our souls. For the genera superior to our soul do not acquire their proper perfection through either of these; since they are always present, and never depart from the objects of their knowledge. Nor are natures subordinate to the human, and which are called irrational, adapted to learn any dianoëtic discipline, or to discover any thing by themselves. But the human soul containing in itself all reasons, and preassuming all sciences, is indeed darkened from generation, respecting the theory of what it possesses, and requires discipline and invention; that through discipline it may excite its intellections, and through invention may discover itself, and the plenitude of reasons which it contains. And these are the gifts of the Gods, benefiting it in its fallen condition, and recalling it to an intellectual life. For both, indeed, are derived from the Mercurial order; but Invention so far as Mercury is the son of Maia the daughter of Atlas; and Mathesis, so far as he is the messenger of Jupiter. For, unfolding the will of his father, he imparts to souls Mathesis; but so far as he proceeds from Maia, with whom Inquiry occultly resides, he bestows on his pupils Invention. But when Mathesis proceeds supernally to souls from more excellent natures, it is better than Invention; but when from co-ordinate natures, as from men exciting our gnostic power, it is then subordinate to Invention. Hence Invention has a middle subsistence adapted to the self-motive nature of the soul: for our self-vital and self-energetic powers become especially apparent through this. But Mathesis, according to that which is more excellent than human nature, fills the soul from the more divine causes of it; but, according to that which is subordinate to our nature, from things external to our essence, excites in an alter-motive manner our vital power. Indeed, that a certain knowledge of things is produced in us from more excellent natures, divine visions sufficiently indicate, in which the Gods unfold the order of wholes to souls, becoming the leaders of a progression to an intelligible essence, and enkindling those flames which conduct the soul on high. And thus much concerning Mathesis and Invention.
But investigations and doctrines are necessarily preceded by simple ignorance. For the scientific no longer investigate the truth, in consequence of having obtained the boundary of knowledge, according to science; nor yet those that are involved in twofold ignorance. For this very thing is twofold ignorance, to consider that as sufficient which is neither beautiful, nor good, nor prudent, says Diotima, in the Banquet. This arises from souls descending into generation, and being essentially full of sciences, but receiving oblivion from generation, or the regions of sense. And in consequence of possessing the reasons of things, they have as it were agitated conceptions concerning them; but being vanquished by the potion of oblivion, they are incapable of expressing their conceptions, and referring them to science. Hence they contain them indigested and scarcely respiring, and on this account they are vanquished by two-fold ignorance. For they think that they know through these innate conceptions, but they are ignorant through oblivion; and hence arise deception, and an appearance of knowledge without the reality (δοκησις). He therefore who is involved in two-fold ignorance is remote from an investigation of things, in the same manner as he is who possesses scientific knowledge. For neither is it the province of a wise man to philosophize, nor of him who labours under the disease of two-fold ignorance; but this evidently belongs to him who is established according to simple ignorance. For he who is ignorant in a two-fold respect, is according to this similar to the wise man; just as matter, as some one rightly observes, possesses a dissimilar similitude to divinity. For, as matter is without form, so also is divinity. Each likewise is infinite and unknown; though this is true of the one according to that which is better, and of the other according to that which is worse than all things. Thus therefore the man of science, and the ignorant in a two-fold respect, do not investigate any thing; the one in consequence of being wise, and as it were full of knowledge; and the other in consequence of not even assuming the principles of investigation, through the falsehood with which he is surrounded. But he who possesses simple ignorance subsists in a certain respect between the man of science and him who doubles his deception. For he in short who knows himself, and is converted to himself, is superior to him who is perfectly ignorant of himself; but he who on beholding himself does not perceive knowledge but ignorance, is inferior to the man of science. For, of these three characters, the man of two-fold ignorance is entirely unconverted to himself; the wise man is converted to himself, and through this conversion finds within himself the virtues and sciences, shining forth to the view like divine statues³; (οιον αγαλματα θεια προλαμποντα) but the man of simple ignorance is converted indeed, but beholds within ignorance, and a privation of actual science; and thus he is constituted at the beginning of mathesis and invention; either exploring himself and his own wealth, which he did not know that he possessed, or betaking himself to teachers, and by them being led to knowledge. In short, the soul according to science is assimilated to intellect, comprehending the object of knowledge in energy in the same manner as intellect comprehends the intelligible; but according to two-fold ignorance, it is assimilated to matter. For, as matter possesses all things according to mere appearance, but in reality contains nothing, and is thought to be adorned, but is not exempt from a privation of ornament; so he who possesses two-fold ignorance thinks that he knows what he does not know, and carries about with him an appearance of wisdom in things of which he is ignorant. But Socrates, when he admits that there was a time in which we did not think ourselves knowing in what we now know, is thought by some to contradict what he says in the Phædo, in which discoursing about discipline being reminiscence, he shows that possessing a knowledge of the equal, the just, the beautiful, and of every form, we cannot relate the time when we received this knowledge. To this objection we reply, that the knowledge of our souls is two-fold; the one indistinct, and subsisting according to mere conjecture, but the other distinct, scientific and indubitable. For, as he somewhere says, we appear to know all things as in a dream, but are ignorant of them according to vigilant perception; containing indeed the reasons of things essentially, and as it were breathing forth the knowledges of these, but not possessing them in energy and vigour. Of the conception therefore of forms subsisting in us essentially, there is no preceding time; for we perpetually possess it; but we can relate the time in which we acquired a knowledge of forms according to energy and a distinct subsistence.
106e. Now what the things are which you have learnt I tolerably well know, &c. That these three disciplines, says Proclus, viz. mathesis, music, and gymnastic, contribute to the whole of political virtue, is evident. For gymnastic strengthens the softness of desire, and recalls its dissipated nature to a firm tone; this desiderative part of the soul being proximate to bodies. For anger is the tone of the soul, and, being oppressed with a death-like sleep through matter, requires to be strengthened and excited. But through music the robust and savage nature of anger is softened, and rendered elegant and harmonious. But neither is gymnastic alone sufficient to erudition. For when immoderately pursued, and unaccompanied with music, it renders the manners rustic, contentious, and vehement. Nor is music alone sufficient without gymnastic: for the life of those who alone use music without the gymnic exercises becomes effeminate and soft. It is requisite therefore, as in a lyre, that there should neither be vehemence alone, nor remission, but that the whole soul should be harmonized with respect to itself from disciplinative intension and remission. But the mathematics and dialectic excite and lead upwards our rational part: for the eye of the soul, which is blinded and buried by many other studies, is resuscitated by these, and is converted to its own essence and to the knowledge of itself. And all these are Mercurial disciplines. For this God is the inspective guardian of gym- nastic exercises; and hence hermæ, or carved statues of Mercury, were placed in the Palæstræ: of music, and hence he is honoured as the lyrist (λυραιος) among the celestial constellations: and of disciplines, because the invention of geometry, reasoning, and discourse is referred to this God. He presides therefore over every species of erudition, leading us to an intelligible essence from this mortal abode, governing the different herds of souls, and dispersing the sleep and oblivion with which they are oppressed. He is likewise the supplier of recollection, the end of which is a genuine intellectual apprehension of divine natures. In well instituted polities, therefore, youth are instructed by the guardians in these disciplines: and among the Athenians certain images of these were preserved; grammar having a reference to dialectic discipline; playing on the harp pertaining to music, and wrestling to gymnastic; in which those youths that were well-born were instructed. And hence Socrates says that Alcibiades had learnt these, as having had an education adapted to a well-born youth.
This also accords with the order of the universe. For our first age partakes in an eminent degree of the lunar operations; as we then live according to a nutritive and natural⁴ power. But our second age participates of Mercurial prerogatives; because we then apply ourselves to letters, music, and wrestling. The third age is governed by Venus; because then we begin to produce seed, and the generative powers of nature are put in motion. The fourth age is solar; for then our youth is in its vigour and full perfection, subsisting as a medium between generation and decay; for such is the order which vigour is allotted. The fifth age is governed by Mars; in which we principally aspire after power and superiority over others. The sixth age is governed by Jupiter; for in this we give ourselves up to prudence, and pursue an active and political life. And the seventh age is Saturnian, in which it is natural to separate ourselves from generation, and transfer ourselves to an incorporeal life. And thus much we have discussed, in order to procure belief that letters and the whole of education are suspended from the Mercurial series.
But it is worth while to consider on what account Alcibiades refused to learn to play on wind-instruments, though this art pertains to music. It has then been said by some, that being vain of his person from his youth, he avoided that deformity of the face which is occasioned by blowing the pipe or flute. But it is better to say, that well-instituted polities are averse to the art of playing on wind-instruments; and therefore neither does Plato admit it. The cause of this is the variety of this instrument, the pipe, which shows that the art which uses it should be avoided. For instruments called Panarmonia, and those consisting of many strings, are imitations of pipes. For every hole of the pipe emits, as they say, three sounds at least; but if the cavity above the holes be opened, then each hole will emit more than three sounds. It is however requisite not to admit all music in education, but that part of it only which is simple. Further still: of these musical instruments, some are repressive, and others motive; some are adapted to rest, and others to motion. The repressive therefore are most useful for education, leading our manners into order, repressing the turbulency of youth, and bringing its agitated nature to quietness and temperance. But the motive instruments are adapted to enthusiastic energy: and hence, in the mysteries and mystic sacrifices, the pipe is useful; for the motive power of it is employed for the purpose of exciting the dianoëtic power to a divine nature. For here it is requisite that the irrational part should be laid asleep, and the rational excited. Hence, those that instruct youth use repressive instruments, but initiators such as are motive: for that which is disciplined is the irrational part; but it is reason which is initiated, and which energizes enthusiastically.
109d. How is this, friend Alcibiades, &c.
The descent of the soul into body separates it from divine souls, from whom it is filled with intelligence, power, and purity, and conjoins it with generation, and nature, and material things, from which it is filled with oblivion, wandering, and ignorance. For, in its descent, multiform lives and various vestments grow upon it, which draw it down into a mortal composition, and darken its vision of real being. It is requisite therefore that the soul which is about to be led properly from hence to that ever-vigilant nature, should amputate those second and third powers which are suspended from its essence, in the same manner as weeds, stones and shells, from the marine Glaucus; should restrain its externally proceeding impulses, and recollect true beings and a divine essence, from which it descended, and to which it is fit that the whole of our life should hasten. But the parts or powers which are in want of perfection in us, are: the irrational life, which is naturally adapted to be adorned and disciplined through manners; the proæretic⁵ part, which requires to be withdrawn from irrational appetites, and a connection with them; and besides these our gnostic power, which requires a reminiscence of true beings. For the part which recollects is different from that which is elegantly arranged through manners; and different from both these is the part which by admonitions and instructions becomes more commensurate. It is requisite, therefore, that discipline should accord with these three parts: and, in the first place, that it should perfect us through rectitude of manners; in the next place, through admonition and precepts; and, in the third place, that it should excite our innate reasons, and purify the knowledge which essentially subsists in our souls, through reminiscence. Such then are the genera, and such the order of perfection adapted to souls falling into bodies.
These things then being admitted, the third of these parts, viz. the rational nature, acquires perfection through discipline and invention. For the soul is essentially self-motive, but, in consequence of communicating with the body, participates in a certain respect of alter-motion. For, as it imparts to the body the last image of self-motion, so it receives the representation of alter-motion, through its habitude about the body. Through the power of self-motion therefore the soul acquires, and is inventive and prolific of reasons and sciences; but, through its representation of alter-motion, it requires to be excited by others. More perfect souls, however, are more inventive; but the more imperfect are indigent of external assistance. For, some are more self-motive, and are less replete with a subordinate nature; but others are less self-motive, and are more passive from a corporeal nature. As they advance however in perfection, are excited from body, and collect their powers from matter, they become more prolific, and more inventive of the things about which they were before unprolific and dubious, through the sluggishness and privation of life proceeding from matter, and the sleep of generation. We therefore, thus preserving the medium of a rational essence, can assign the causes of the more imperfect and perfect habits in the soul; and we say, that such are the paths of the perfection of souls. But those who do not preserve this medium, but either rise to that which is better, or decline to that which is worse, fall off from the truth respecting these particulars. For we do not admit their arguments who say, that the soul coming into a moist body, and being thence darkened, is stupid from the beginning⁶; but that, this moisture becoming exhaled, through the innate heat, and possessing greater symmetry, the power of intellectual prudence in the soul is rejuvenized. For this mode of perfection is corporeal and material, and supposes that the perfection of the soul is consequent to the temperament of the body; though prior to the elements, and prior to the whole of generation, the soul had a subsistence, and was a life unmingled with body and nature. Nor, again, do we assent to those who say that the soul is a portion of the divine essence⁷; that this portion is similar to the whole, and is always perfect; and that tumult and passions subsist about the animal. For those who assert these things make the soul ever-perfect, and ever-scientific, at no time requiring reminiscence, and always impassive, and free from the defilement of evil. Timæus, however, says, that our essence does not subsist entirely from the first genera, in the same manner as the souls superior to ours, but from such as are second and third. And Socrates, in the Phædrus, says that our powers are mingled with that which is contrary to good, and are filled with opposition to each other; and that, through this, sometimes the better and sometimes the worse parts are victorious. But what occasion is there to say more on this subject, since Socrates himself says, in that dialogue, that the charioteer⁸ becomes depraved, and that through his depravity many souls become lame, and many lose their wings, though the charioteering power (ηνιοχατικη δυναμις) is one of the more venerable powers of the soul? For it is this which has a reminiscence of divine natures, and which uses second and third powers as ministrant to reminiscence. These things, therefore, are clearly asserted in the Phædrus.
As we have said, then, the measures of the soul are to be preserved; and the reasons concerning its perfection are neither to be referred to it from corporeal natures, nor from such as are divine; that thus we may be fit interpreters of Plato, and not distort the words of the philosopher by forcing them to a coincidence with our own opinion. Since, therefore, the soul is at one time imperfect, and is again perfected, and becomes oblivious of divine natures, and again remembers them, it is evident that time contributes to its perfection. For how could it change from folly to wisdom, and in short to virtue from vice, unless it made these mutations in time? For all mutation subsists in time. And thus much concerning the perfection of the soul in general.
From what has been said, then, we may collect that he who knows what is just passes from ignorance to a knowledge of it; and that he neither has the reason of the just always at hand, in the same manner as the natures superior to man (for we are born at first imperfect), nor again that the knowledge of it arrives to us through the mutation of the body. For our essence is not corporeal, nor composed from material genera. It remains, therefore, that either discipline or invention must precede knowledge; and Alcibiades is very properly requested to tell who was the cause of his acquiring discipline, and whence he knows what the just is, if he does know. For it is necessary, as we have often said, that discipline should be the leader of knowledge imparted by another; and a teacher, of discipline. For discipline is a motion; but all motion requires a moving cause. It requires therefore a teacher, for he is the cause of discipline. P. 37. Can you tell me, then, at what time you did not imagine yourself to know
what
things are just and what are unjust?
Proclus, in commenting on this passage, having remarked that investigation which precedes invention, excites the eye of the soul, and exercises it for the perception of truth, further observes as follows: “Again, the discourse proceeds from invention to simple ignorance; for no one would attempt to investigate that which he thinks he knows. It is necessary, therefore, that simple ignorance should be the beginning of investigation. For investigation is a desire of knowledge in things of which we suspect that we are ignorant. This being the case, it is necessary that the time should be known in which we suspected that we did not know: and hence Socrates desires Alcibiades to tell him the time in which he suspected his want of knowledge. For, as we have before observed, it is necessary that all such mutations should be measured by time. Hence the dæmoniacal Aristotle, also, here admits motion in the soul, and a mutation according to time. But that an association with the body, and a transition from vice to virtue, require time, is manifest to every one. As some however have said, that the soul when subsisting by itself does not require time for its energies, but that on the contrary it generates time; this assertion I think requires some consideration. For time is two-fold; one kind being that which is consubsistent with the natural life and corporeal motion of the universe, and another kind that which pervades through the life of an incorporeal nature. This latter time, therefore, measures the periods of divine souls, and perfects the separate energies of ours. But the former, which is extended with a life according to nature, measures that life of our souls which subsists with body, but by no means that life of the soul which lives itself by itself.”
110c. But, by Jove, I was not ignorant of that point; for I clearly saw that I was injured.
The young man here acknowledges that he has a suspicion of the knowledge of things just; and hence Socrates again asks him whether he learnt or discovered this knowledge. In consequence of this, Alcibiades confesses, that his knowledge was not acquired either by learning or invention, because he cannot mention any time of his ignorance, after which he either investigated or was taught justice. And it appears to me to be clearly shown by this, what that science is which we possess prior to all time, and what that is which is produced in time. For Socrates, looking to science in energy, inquires what was the time prior to this; but Alcibiades, possessing science essentially, through which he thinks that he knows what he does not know, cannot tell the time of its participation; for we possess it perpetually. So that, if Socrates speaks about one science, and Alcibiades about another, both these assertions are true, viz. that time precedes science, and that the time prior to its presence cannot be told: for of imperfect science there is no preceding time, but of that which subsists in energy and is perfect, there is. P. 38. Well. But I was wrong in my answers when I supposed that I had found out
that knowledge by myself, &c.
Discipline being two-fold, and at one time proceeding from more excellent causes to such as are subordinate, according to which the demiurgus in the Timæus says to the junior Gods, “Learn what I now say to you indicating my desire;” but at another time proceeding from a cause externally moving, according to which we are accustomed to inscribe certain persons as teachers; and invention ranking between these; for it is subordinate to the knowledge imparted to the soul from the Gods, but is more perfect than reminiscence externally derived;—this being the case, Alcibiades had not any conception of discipline from a more excellent cause, except so far as looking to the science essentially inherent in us, in a dormant state, which is imparted from the Gods, and by which he was led to conjecture that he accurately knew the nature of the just. But coming to invention, which has a middle subsistence in the soul which also ranks as a medium, and being likewise shaken by reasoning, and shown that he had neither investigated nor could tell the time of his ignorance, which must necessarily subsist previous to inquiry, he now again comes to the second kind of discipline, and, being dubious with respect to the truly scientific teacher of things just, flies to the multitude, and their unstable life, and considers these as the leader of the knowledge of what is just. Here therefore Socrates, like another Hercules, cutting off the Hydra’s heads, shows that every multitude is unworthy to be believed respecting the knowledge of things just and unjust. The reasoning, indeed, appears to contribute but little to the purification of the young man; but, when accurately considered, it will be found to be directed to the same end. For, in the first place, Alcibiades, being ambitious, suspended his opinion from the multitude, and about this was filled with astonishment. Socrates therefore shows him, first, that the opinion of the multitude possesses no authority in the judgment and knowledge of things; and that it is not proper for him to adhere to it, whose view is directed to the beautiful: and, in the second place, that the multitude is the cause of false opinion, producing in us from our youth depraved imaginations and various passions. Scientific reasoning therefore is necessary, in order to give a right direction to that part of us which is perverted by an association with the multitude; to apply a remedy to our passive part, and to purify that which is filled with impurity; for thus we shall become adapted to a reminiscence⁹ of science. In the third place, Socrates shows, that in each of us, as he says, there is a many-headed wild beast, which is analogous to the multitude; for this is what the people is in a city, viz. the various and material form of the soul, which is our lowest part. The present reasoning therefore exhorts us to depart from boundless desire, and to lay aside the multitude of life, and our inward people, as not being a judge worthy of belief respecting the nature of things, nor a recipient of any whole science; for nothing irrational is naturally adapted to partake of science. In the fourth place, therefore, we say, that the present reasoning does not think fit to admit into science and an intellectual life an apostacy and flight from the one, together with diversity, and all-various division; but indicates that all these should be rejected as foreign from intellect and divine union. For it is requisite not only to fly from external, but also from the multitude in the soul; nor this alone, but also to abandon multitude of every kind.
In the first place, therefore, we must fly from “the multitude of men going along in a herd,” as the oracle¹⁰ says, and must neither communicate with their lives, nor with their opinions. In the next place we must fly from multiform appetites, which divide us about body, and make us to be at different times impelled to different externals; at one time to irrational pleasures, and at another to actions indefinite, and which war on each other: for these fill us with penitence and evils. We must also fly from the senses which are nourished with us, and which deceive our dianoëtic part: for they are multiform, at different times are conversant with different sensibles, and assert nothing sane, nothing accurate, as Socrates himself says¹¹. We must likewise fly from imaginations, as figured, and divisible, and thus introducing infinite variety, and not suffering us to return to that which is impartible and immaterial; but, when we are hastening to apprehend an essence of this kind, drawing us down to passive intelligence. We must fly too from opinions; for these are various and infinite, tend to that which is external, are mingled with phantasy and sense, and are not free from contrariety; since our opinions also contend with each other, in the same manner as imaginations with imaginations, and one sense with another. But, flying from all these divisible and various forms of life, we should run back to science, and there collect in union the multitude of theorems, and comprehend all the sciences in one according bond. For there is neither sedition nor contrariety in the sciences with each other; but such as are secondary are subservient to those that are prior, and derive from them their proper principles. At the same time it is requisite here to betake ourselves from many sciences to one science, which is unhypothetical¹², and the first, and to extend to this all the rest. But after science and the exercise pertaining to it, we must lay aside compositions, divisions, and multiform transitions, and transfer the soul to an intellectual life, and simple projections¹³. For science is not the summit of knowledge, but prior to this is intellect; I do not only mean that intellect which is exempt from soul, but an illumination¹⁴ from thence, which is infused into the soul, and concerning which Aristotle says, “that it is intellect by which we know terms¹⁵,” and Timæus, “that it is ingenerated in nothing else than soul.” Ascending therefore to this intellect, we must contemplate together with it an intelligible essence; with simple and indivisible projections surveying the simple, accurate, and indivisible genera of beings. But, after venerable intellect, it is necessary to excite the supreme hyparxis or summit of the soul, according to which we are one, and under which the multitude we contain is united. For as by our intellect we pass into contact with a divine intellect, so by our unity, and as it were the flower of our essence, it is lawful to touch the first one, the source of union to all things. For the similar is every where to be comprehended by the similar; objects of science by science; intelligibles by intellect; and the most united measures of beings, by the one of the soul. And this is the very summit of our energies. According to this we become divine, flying from all multitude, verging to our own union, becoming one, and energizing uniformly. And thus proceeding through the gradations of knowledge, you may see the rectitude of the Socratic exhortation.
But if you are willing also to consider the admonition according to the objects of knowledge, fly from all sensible things; for they are divulsed from each other, are divisible, and perfectly mutable, and therefore cannot be apprehended by genuine knowledge. From these, therefore, transfer yourself to an incorporal essence: for every thing sensible has an adventitious union, and is of itself dissipated, and full of infinity. Hence also its good is divisible and adventitious, is distant from itself and discordant, and possesses its hypostasis in a foreign seat. Having therefore ascended thither, and being established among incorporeals, you will behold the order pertaining to soul above bodies, self-motive and self-energetic, and subsisting in and from itself, but at the same time multiplied, and anticipating in itself a certain representation of an essence divisible about bodies. There likewise you will see an all-various multitude of habitudes of reasons, analogies, bonds, wholes, and parts, circles characterized by the nature of soul, a variety of powers, and a perfection neither eternal nor at once wholly stable, but evolved according to time, and subsisting in discursive energies: for such is the nature of soul. After the multitude in sonls, extend yourself to intellect, and the intellectual kingdoms, that you may apprehend the union of things, and become a spectator of the nature of intellect. There behold an essence abiding in eternity, a fervid life and sleepless intellection, to which nothing of life is wanting, and which does not desire the chariot of time to the perfection of its nature. When you have surveyed these, and have also seen by how great an interval they are superior to souls, inquire whether there is any multitude there, and if intellect, since it is one, is likewise all-perfect, and if multiform as well as uniform: for you will find that it thus subsists. Having therefore learnt this, and beheld intellectual multitude, indivisible and united, betake yourself again to another principle, and prior to intellectual essences survey the unities¹⁶ of intellects, and an union exempt from wholes. Here abiding, relinquish all multitude, and you will arrive at the fountain of the good. You see then that the present reasoning affords us no small assistance, in exhorting us to fly from the multitude; and how it contributes to all the salvation¹⁷ of the soul, if we direct our attention to the multitude which pervades through all things. The most beautiful principle therefore of our perfection is to separate ourselves from external multitude, and from the multitude in the appetites of the soul, and in the indefinite motions of opinion.
From hence also it is evident that souls do not collect their knowledge from sensibles, nor from things partial and divisible discover the whole and the one; but that they call forth discipline inwardly, and correct the imperfection of the phænomena. For it is not fit to think that things which have in no respect a real subsistence should be the leading causes of knowledge in the soul; and that things which oppose each other, which require the reasonings of the soul, and are ambiguous, should precede science, which has a sameness of subsistence; nor that things which are variously mutable should be generative of reasons which are established in unity; nor that things indefinite should be the causes of definite intelligence. It is not proper, therefore, that the truth of things eternal should be received from the many, nor the discrimination of universals from sensibles, nor a judgment respecting what is good from irrational natures; but it is requisite that the soul entering within herself should investigate in herself the true and the good, and the eternal reasons of things. For the essence of the soul is full of these, but they are concealed in the oblivion produced by generation¹⁸. Hence the soul in investigating truth looks to externals, though she essentially contains it in herself, and, deserting her own essence, explores the good in things foreign to its nature. From hence, then, the beginning of the knowledge of ourselves is derived. For, if we look to the multitude of men, we shall never see the one form of them, in consequence of its being shadowed over by the multitude, division, discord, and all-various mutation of its participants; but if we convert ourselves to our own essence, we shall there survey without molestation the one reason and nature of men. Very properly, therefore, does Socrates separate far from a survey of the multitude the soul that is about to know what man truly is, and previous to a speculation of this kind purifies from impeding opinions. For multitude is an impediment to a conversion of the soul into herself, and to a knowledge of the one form of things. For, in material concerns, variety obscures unity, difference sameness, and dissimilitude similitude; since forms here do not subsist without confusion, nor are the more excellent unmingled with the baser natures. P. 38. To no good teachers have you recourse for the origin of your knowledge, &c. Proclus in commenting on this part observes: “No one ought to wonder, if, when we say that what is natural is more abundant than what is contrary to nature, and that the latter is contracted into a narrow space, but the former has dominion in the universe, yet at the same time we assert that the greater part of mankind is destitute of science, and vicious, and that but a few are scientific. For a life in conjunction with body and generation is not natural to souls; but on the contrary a separate, immaterial, and incorporeal life is properly adapted to them. When therefore they are conversant with generation, they resemble those that inhabit a pestilent region; but when they live beyond generation, they resemble, as Plato says, those that dwell in meadows. Hence, as it is not wonderful that in pestilential places the diseased should be more numerous than the healthy; in like manner we ought not to wonder that in generation souls obnoxious to passions and full of depravity abound more than those of a contrary description. But, it will be wonderful if some souls invested with these bodies, confined in these bonds, and surrounded with such mutation, should be found sober, pure, and free from perturbation. For, is it not astonishing that the soul should live immaterially in things material, and preserve itself undefiled amidst mortal natures? and that, having drunk from the envenomed cup, it should not be laid asleep by the oblivious draught? For oblivion, error, and ignorance resemble an envenomed potion, which draws down souls into the region of dissimilitude. Why therefore should you wonder that many according to life are wolves, many are swine, and many are invested with some other form of irrational animals? For the region about the earth is in reality the abode of Circe; and many souls through immoderate desire are ensnared by her enchanted bowl.” P. 39. And must not all those who have the knowledge of any thing agree together on
that subject, &c.
Proclus on this part having observed that it is requisite to consider dissension as an argument of ignorance, and concord as an argument of knowledge, for all those that know the truth do not disagree with each other, after this adds as follows: “But this to some may appear to be false; since those that accord with each other do not all of them possess a scientific knowledge of that respecting which they agree. For, in the present time, the multitude¹⁹ through the want of science accord with each other in denying the existence of the Gods. In answer to this doubt, we reply in the first place, that the depraved man cannot accord with himself; for it is necessary, being vicious, that he should be in sedition with his own life; perceiving indeed the truth through his rational nature, but through passions and material phantasies being led to ignorance and contention with himself. The atheist therefore and intemperate man, according to their dianoëtic part, which is adapted to a divine nature, and which is of a beneficent destiny, assert things temperate and divine; but, according to their desires and phantasies, they are atheistically and intemperately affected²⁰. And, in short, according to the irrational soul, they introduce war in themselves, and all-various perturbation. Every vicious man therefore is discordant with himself; and this being the case, he is much more so with others. For, how can he consent with those external to himself, who is seditiously affected towards himself? All atheistical, intemperate, and unjust men, therefore, dissent with each other, and we can never be harmoniously disposed while we are unscientific.
“This however is attended with much doubt: for, if dissension is an argument of the want of science, we must say that philosophers are unscientific, since they also disagree with each other, subvert the hypotheses of each other, and patronize different systems. This doubt may be dissolved by saying that dissension is two-fold, one kind being the dissonance of the ignorant, both with themselves and with each other, and the other of the ignorant with the scientific; for both these belong to the ignorant, but by no means to the scientific, since they accord with themselves²¹. Nor do the scientific disagree with the unscientific; for, on the contrary, they perfect and adorn them, and call them upwards to their own order; but it is the unscientific who separate themselves from the scientific. For through the dissonance in themselves they dissent from those that are better than themselves. Those that are endued with knowledge, therefore, and those that are deprived of it, do not disagree with each other; nor, in short, must it be said that the scientific differ. Hence the doubt is very far from affecting true philosophers: for these through similitude and sameness are united to each other; and being allotted a knowledge entirely exempt from the unscientific, neither are they discordant with them.
“But the cause of the concord of the scientific is, first, the definite nature of things, and the criteria of knowledge, being the same with all men; and secondly, because, in the first principles of things, intellect is united to itself, and hence every thing which participates of intellect participates of unity. Science therefore is an illumination of intellect, but concord of the one: for it is a union of things different. And hence it is necessary that those which participate of the same science should accord with each other; for dissension and discord fall off from the one.” P. 42. Are you sensible that what you said last was not fairly said, Alcibiades? &c. If the principal end of this dialogue is to lead us to the knowledge of ourselves, and to show that our essence consists in forms and reasons, that it produces all sciences from itself, and knows in itself every thing divine, and the forms of nature; the present passage, which evinces that the cause of all the preceding answers and conclusions is in Alcibiades, must greatly contribute to this end. For the soul does not possess an adventitious knowledge of things, nor, like an unwritten tablet, does it externally receive the images of divine ideas. Now, therefore, Alcibiades begins to know himself, and also to know that he is converted to himself; and knowing his own energy and knowledge, he becomes one with the thing known. This mode of conversion, therefore, leads the soul to the contemplation of its essence. Hence it is necessary, that the soul should first receive a knowledge of herself; in the second place, that she should consider the powers which she is allotted; and, in the third place, how she is impelled to ascend from things more imperfect as far as to first causes. Alcibiades, therefore, is now converted through energy to energy, and, through this, to that which energizes. For, at the same time, the subject becomes apparent, which is generative of its proper energies. But, again, through energy he is converted to power, and through this again to essence: for powers are nearer to essence, and finally connect energy with essence. Hence, all these become one and concur with each other, essence being in energy, and energy becoming essential; for essence becomes intellectual in energy, and energy becomes connate to essence according to its perfection.
Again: since ignorance is involuntary to all men, and especially an ignorance of themselves and of things the most honourable; hence, to antient and wise men, the method through arguments, which places false opinions parallel to such as are true²², appeared to be most useful for the purpose of liberating the soul from this ignorance; since it unfolds the discord of false, and the concord of true opinions with each other. For, when the passions are shown to be in opposition with opinions, and, again, the passions with each other, and after the same manner opinions, then the depravity of ignorance becomes most conspicuous; and he who is ignorant perceives his own calamity, and rejoices to be liberated from so great an evil. When therefore any one is not only convinced by arguments that he is ignorant in things of the greatest consequence, but is also confuted by himself, then he in a still greater degree rejoices in and embraces the confutation, and multiplies the remedy produced by it. If, therefore, Socrates in his dialectic conversations evinces that it is the same person who answers and is interrogated, and that the answers do not proceed from the interrogator who appears to confute; it is perfectly evident that he who is thus confuted is confuted by himself, and does not suffer this externally; so that this mode of cure is most appropriate. For by how much the more familiar it appears, by so much the more is the weight and pain of it diminished, and its gentleness and benefit extended; since every thing familiar or domestic is more efficacious as a remedy.
In the third place, we again say that irrational animals are governed by external impulse, being deprived of the power of governing and preserving themselves; but the human soul through its self-motive and self-energetic peculiarity is naturally adapted to energize about itself, to move itself, and to impart to itself good. The confutation therefore which originates from ourselves is adapted to the essence of the soul; and the reasoning which evinces that he who answers is the same with the speaker, evidently accords with our essence and energies. For our purification is not effected externally, but originates inwardly from the soul herself. For all evil is external and adventitious to the soul; but good is internal, as the soul is naturally boniform; and by how much the more perfect she becomes, by so much the more does she receive a self-moved life, since she becomes externally moved through body being suspended from her nature, and through a corporeal sympathy. Hence, whatever she receives externally remains situated out of her, as a phantasm, and an object of sense; but those things alone reside in her which operate from herself in herself, and which are produced by her. She is therefore purified by herself; since reason also beginning from itself ends in itself. But, if he who answers is confuted, he who is confuted is purified; and he who is purified purifies himself according to the idiom of the essence of the soul; he who answers, certainly purifies himself, and is liberated from ignorance, applying confutation to himself, which accords with the self-motive nature of the soul.
Further still: this reasoning sufficiently confirms the doctrine, that disciplines are reminiscences; for this is a great argument in favour of such a dogma, that those who answer, assert all things from themselves; and sufficiently proves that souls draw forth reasons from themselves, only require an exciting cause, and are not unwritten tablets receiving figures externally, but are ever written, the writer subsisting in the recesses of the soul. All men, however, cannot read what is written, their inward eye being buried in the oblivion of generation, through which also they become defiled with the passions. An ablation therefore of that which darkens is alone requisite; but there is no occasion for external and adventitious knowledge. For, the soul contains in herself the gates of truth, but they are barred by terrene and material forms. If therefore any one shall accurately demonstrate that souls are indeed moved by other things, but that they draw forth from themselves scientific answers, he will from this evince the truth of the Platonic assertion, that the soul knows all things, and only requires to be externally excited in order to answer scientifically.
After another manner, likewise, the proposed theorem is adapted to Socrates. For, to purify one who requires such assistance, himself through himself, is the work of a dæmoniacal power; since dæmons do not act upon us externally, but govern us inwardly, as from the stern of a ship. Nor do they purify us as bodies, which are allotted an alter-motive nature, but they take care of us as self-motive beings. For thus they extend to us communications of good, and purifications from the passions. Socrates therefore, who with respect to Alcibiades ranks in the order of a good dæmon, shows him that he is confuted by no other than himself.
113b. In those assertions, was it not said that Alcibiades, &c.
It is rightly said by the Stoics, that the man who is void of erudition accuses others, and not himself, as the causes of his infelicity; but that he who has made some advances in knowledge refers to himself the cause of all that he does or says badly; and that he who is properly disciplined, neither accuses himself nor others; since he does not neglect any thing that is requisite, but is himself the leader of appropriate invention. For these things are now clearly indicated to us in Alcibiades; since, labouring under two-fold ignorance, he does not accuse himself, but Socrates: but afterwards, when he is transferred to simple ignorance, he accuses himself of dissension, and not his leader; and if he ever became scientific, he would neither accuse himself nor another; for then nothing in him would be dissonant and unharmonized, but all the motions of his soul would be clear, all would be effable, all intellectual. For discord in the multitude with themselves very properly happens, because they receive some things from sense, others from the phantasy, and others from opinion; some things from anger, and others from desire. For such like passions in men are not only excited from dogmas, as the Stoics say; but, on the contrary, on account of such passions and appetites, they change their opinions, and receive such as are depraved in the place of such as are worthy. These therefore, from many principles and powers of a worse condition, receiving in themselves multiform motions, possess a soul dissentient and unharmonized. But the scientific from one principle prior to themselves receive the whole of knowledge: for intellect imparts to them principles; and true dogmas are the progeny of intellect, subsisting in conjunction with simplicity. From such a uniform principle, therefore, all things accord with each other.
Indeed, what is now said by Socrates very seasonably follows what has been demonstrated, and is referred to Alcibiades himself, representing him as accusing himself. For, in order to produce the most striking confutations, the antients ascribed to other persons the most severe assertions; and this method they adopted in common. Thus Homer refers the reproving of Achilles to Peleus²³, and Demosthenes the reprehending of the Athenians to the Greeks in common: and in like manner Plato refers to laws and philosophy the reproving of his hearers. For confutations are diminished when they are transferred to others who are absent from us. But when he who confutes is not another, but a man confutes himself, then the confutation appears, to the confuted, to be much less painful. This therefore Socrates effects. For he represents Alcibiades confuted by Alcibiades; mitigating by this method the vehemence of the reproof, and unfolding the alliance of the reprover to the reproved.
Proclus concludes his comment on this passage, as follows: “That ignorance is a mania of an extended duration, and especially two-fold ignorance, is a paradox, but is at the same time most true. For, as he who is insane is ignorant both of himself and others, this also is the case with him who labours under two-fold ignorance. And, as to the insane a physician is of no use though present, so neither is the man of science, when present, beneficial to the doubly ignorant. For these think that they are no less knowing than the truly scientific; and as the Athenian guest says, they inflame their soul with insolence, in consequence of thinking that they do not want the assistance of any one, and that they may act in every respect in the same manner as the scientific.”
113d. For I suppose that justice and interest are not the same thing, &c.
The dogma, that the just is the same with the profitable, contains the whole of moral philosophy. For those who suppose these to be different, must necessarily admit, that felicity receives its completion from externals; since, in these, the profitable appears very often to be separated from the just. But those who consider both to be the same, and acknowledge that the true good of man is in the soul, must necessarily refer each of us to soul. Hence Socrates thinks, that this is the beginning of the whole of the philosophy concerning the end of man, and of the knowledge of ourselves. But the Epicureans and Stoics, who place the end of man in a life according to nature, and those who give completion to our good from things necessary, as the Peripatetics, cannot genuinely preserve the sameness of the just and the profitable. And, in like manner, this cannot be effected by those who make man to be an animated body, or a composite from body and soul. For some fly from wounds and death unjustly, that the animal may be saved; since the good of every animal consists in a subsistence according to nature; so that, in this case, the profitable differs from the just. But those who place the end of man in soul unindigent of corporeal possessions, and who assert that man is a soul using the body as an instrument, these admit that the just is the same with the profitable: for they place both in the soul, and separate the passions of the instruments from those by whom they are employed.
113e. Suppose interest to be a thing ever so different from justice, &c.
Proclus in commenting on this part observes, that souls express the forms of those things to which they conjoin themselves. “Hence (says he), when they are assimilated to intellect, they vindicate to themselves sameness and immutability, both in their dogmas and in their life; but when they become agglutinated to generation, they always pursue what is novel and puerile, at different times are led to different opinions, and have no perception of the stable reasons of the soul. But when Socrates says, ‘One must bring you a pure and immaculate proof²⁴;’ this, which is a metaphor taken from garments, indicates, that souls of a naturally more excellent disposition possessing a conception of the immaculate purity of the gods, and carrying this about them in images, are studious of apparent purity; since the essence of divine vestments is undefiled, and an immaterial purity, in which it is requisite souls should be instructed, purifying their connate vehicles, and preserving their garments uncontaminated by generation, and not being wholly attentive to the purity of their external vestments.
114b. Why, my good friend, suppose me to be the assembly and the people, &c.
Proclus here observes, that it is the province of the same science to persuade one person and many; which assertion is, as it were, a certain hymn and encomium of science. For the great excellence of science is evident in this, that according to an imitation of intellect the same science fills an individual, and, at the same time, all that receive it; that it is indivisible, and, being established in itself, perfects all its participants; and that, like intellect, it communicates itself to all, and is separate from each. These things evince that our essence is separate from body, and abides in itself, since science, which is our perfection, is allotted such a power. For corporeal powers diminish themselves in their communications; but science, remaining one and the same, sufficient to itself and undiminished, imparts itself, in a similar manner, to one and to many. Thus, too, the soul is present to the whole body and all its parts, though one part participates it in a different manner from another.
This is said, because Alcibiades just before had said, “No harm, I think, will come to me that way,” according to opinion, and not according to science. For the οι μαντικοι, or the prophetic, are doxastic²⁵, and not scientific; but those that are not only μαντικοι but μαντεις, prophets, are scientific, and possess something better than human science. It also indicates, that the impulses of more naturally excellent souls are excited in a certain respect by more excellent natures. Hence they accomplish much good contrary to expectation, though energizing without science.
114e. Tell me then, do you say, that some just actions are advantageous, &c.
The proposed inquiry concerning things just and profitable, whether they are the same, or are divided from each other according to the diversity of subjects, contributes to the whole of philosophy, and adheres to the whole truth of things. For all ethical discussion and the invention of the end of man depend on this dogma, and the speculation of our essence becomes through this especially apparent. For, if the just is, in reality, the same with the profitable, and these are not separated from each other, our good will consist in virtue alone; and neither will the particulars which are beheld about the body contribute any thing as goods to the felicity of human life; nor, by a much greater reason, will things external to the body procure the full perfection of good; but one only good is established in souls themselves, unmingled, pure, immaterial, and is neither filled with corporeal nor with external goods or evils. But if there is something just, as according to Alcibiades there is, but unprofitable, and again something profitable but unjust, then apparent goods, such as health and riches, must necessarily give completion to a happy life. For mankind perform many things for the sake of these, and, surveying the good which they contain, abandon the love of justice. And to these, indeed, those who for the sake of what is just despise the flourishing condition of the body, and the acquisition of wealth, appear to act justly, and in a manner laudable, to the multitude, but by no means profitably, because they do not perceive that the profitable is stably seated in the soul herself, but consider it as situated in things scattered, and which have an external subsistence, and are necessary rather than good. But these men give phantasy and sense the precedency to intellect and science.
Again: if the just is the same with the profitable, according to the assertion of Socrates, then the essence of man will be defined according to the soul herself; but the body will neither be a part of us, nor will give completion to our nature. For, if the body gives completion to the man, the good of the body will be human good, and the beautiful will be useless not only to the body, but to the man; but the prerogatives of the parts, and such things as are contrary, will pervade to the nature of the whole, since the whole will be allotted its being in the parts. The passions of the instruments, however, do not change the habits of those that use them, though they are often impediments to their energies. So that, if the just is the same with the profitable, where the just is, there also will the profitable be. But the just subsists in the soul, so that the profitable also will be in the soul. But where our good particularly resides, there also we possess our being. For our essence is not in one thing, and our perfection according to another, but where the form of man is, there also is the perfection of man. In soul therefore is the man. For every being possesses the good conjoined with its essence; since the first being²⁶ is for the sake of the good, and subsists about the good. Where being therefore is to all things, there also well-being resides. But it is impossible for man to be body, and to possess his perfection in something else external to body. It is likewise impossible that man should be both body and soul, and that human good should at the same time be defined according to soul alone.
Further still: the desire of good preserves those by whom it is desired: for, as Socrates says in the Republic, good preserves, and evil corrupts every thing. If therefore, possessing good in the soul, we also in soul possess our being, the desire of good will be natural to us; but if our good is in soul, but our being consists from body and soul conjoined, it must necessarily happen that we shall desire the corruption of ourselves, if good is immaterial and external to the body. However, as nothing, so neither does he who doubts the truth of this position desire his own destruction. That the proposed inquiry therefore contributes to moral philosophy, and to the invention of the nature of man, is, I think, perfectly apparent.
That it also affords wonderful auxiliaries to theology we shall learn, if we call to mind that the just contains the whole essence of souls; for, these having their subsistence according to all analogies²⁷ conformably to justice, it is evident that these distinguish its essence and powers. But, again, the beautiful characterizes an intellectual essence. Hence, as Aristotle²⁸ says, intellect is lovely and desirable; for all things that participate of intellect are beautiful; and matter, which of itself is void of beauty, because it is formless, at the same time that it is invested with figures and forms, receives also the representations of the power of beauty. Lastly, the good characterizes the whole of a divine essence. For every thing divine according to a divine hyparxis is good; since the Gods are the causes of being; and if they cause all things to subsist about themselves, they are essentially good, and illuminate all things with good. The good therefore is bound in souls according to the just, through the beautiful; and every order of souls is united to the Gods through intellectual essences as media; so that an incorporeal nature is one and uniform, and the whole of it verges to the good; but division is in the images of this nature, which are not able to express primary causes according to their indivisible essence. From these things therefore it is evident that the present demonstration contributes in no small degree to theology, and, as I may say, to the whole of philosophy.
But the whole syllogism which collects that the just is profitable is as follows: Every thing just is beautiful: Every thing beautiful is good: Every thing just, therefore, is good. But the good is the same with the profitable: Every thing just, therefore, is profitable. This syllogism is primarily in the first figure, comprehending the minor in the major terms, and evincing the major terms reciprocating with the minor. For, again, beginning from the good, we shall be able to form the same conclusion. Every thing good is beautiful: Every thing beautiful is just: Every thing good, therefore, is just. But the profitable is the same with the good: The just, therefore, is the same with the profitable.
In the first principles of things, indeed, the good is exempt from the beau- tiful, and the beautiful is placed above justice. For the first of these is prior to intelligibles, established in inaccessible retreats: the second subsists occultly in the first of intelligibles²⁹, and more clearly in the extremity of that order³⁰: and the third of these subsists uniformly in the first order of intellectuals³¹, and secondarily at the extremity of the intellectual progression of Gods. And, again, the good subsists in the Gods, the beautiful in intellects, and the just in souls. Whence the just is indeed beautiful, but not every thing beautiful is just. And every thing beautiful is good, but the fountain of all good is expanded above all beauty. And the just indeed is good, being conjoined with the good through beauty as the medium; but the good is beyond both. Thus also you will find, by looking to the last of things, that the material cause, although it is good, is base, and void of beauty: for it participates indeed of the one, but is destitute of form. And a sensible nature possesses indeed a representation of beauty, but not of justice. For, as Socrates says in the Phædrus, “there is no splendour of justice and temperance in these sensible similitudes; but beauty has alone this privilege, that it is the most apparent, and the most lovely of all things.” Hence where the just is, there also is the beautiful; and where the beautiful, there also is the good, whether you are willing to look to the first principles, or to the illuminations of them as far as to the last of things. For all things participate of the good; for it is the principle of all: but the beautiful is alone received by the participants of form; and the just by those natures alone that participate of soul. But in the middle centre of all things, such as the soul is, all these are connected with each other, the good, the beautiful, the just. And the good of it is beautiful, and the just is at the same time beautiful and good.
Nor is the assertion true in this triad only, but also in many other particulars. Thus, for instance, in the principles of things being is beyond life, and life is beyond intellect³². And again, in the effects of these, not every thing which participates of being participates also of life, nor every thing which participates of life participates also of intellect; but, on the contrary, all intellectual natures live, and are, and vital natures partake of being. All these however are united with each other in the soul. Hence, being in it is life and intellect; life is intellect and essence; and intellect is essence and life. For there is one simplicity in it, and one subsistence; nor are life and intelligence there adventitious; but its intellect is vital and essential, its life is essentially intellectual, and its essence is vital and intellectual. All things therefore are every where in it, and it is one from all things. According to the same reasoning, therefore, its good is replete with beauty and justice; its beauty is perfect and good, and entirely just; and the just in it is mingled with beauty and good. The subject indeed is one, but the reasons³³ are different. And again, neither must we consider the identity of those three according to reasons, nor their difference according to the subject; but we must preserve the reasons of them different from each other, and the subject one, because every where these three are consubsistent with each other, according to the energies of the soul. For, as the reasons of the virtues are different, but it is one thing which partakes of them all, and it is not possible to participate of justice and be destitute of temperance, or to participate of these without the other virtues; in like manner this triad is united with itself, and every thing good is at the same time full of the beautiful, and the just, and each of the latter is introduced in conjunction with the former. Hence Socrates conjoins the just with the good, through the beautiful: for this is their medium and bond. But the most beautiful bond, says Timæus, is that which makes itself and the things bound eminently one. The beau- tiful, therefore, much more than any other bond collects and unites those two, the just and the good. And thus much concerning the whole demonstration.
If, however, other demonstrations are requisite of this proposition, which says, Every thing just is beautiful, let us make it more evident through many arguments. Since therefore the soul is a multitude, and one part of it is first, another middle, and another last, when do we say that justice is produced in the soul? Is it when the middle, or the last part, endeavours to rule over the better part, or when the first governs the middle, and the middle the last? But, if when the worse rule over the more excellent, the worse will not be naturally such: for that to which dominion belongs is naturally more excellent, and more honourable. If, therefore, it is impossible that the same thing can be naturally better and worse, it is necessary that the just should then be beheld in souls themselves, when that which is best in them governs the whole life, and the middle being in subjection to the better part, has dominion over the last part. For then each of the parts ranks according to its desert, the one governing with royal authority, another acting as a satellite, and another ministering to the powers of the more excellent. The just therefore is naturally distributive of that which is adapted to each of the parts of the soul. It is also the cause to each of performing its proper duty, and of possessing its proper rank, and thus preserves good order about the whole soul. But order and symmetry are naturally beautiful. Justice, therefore, is the source of beauty to the soul, and is itself beautiful.
The just however is two-fold; one consisting in contracts, and which regards arithmetical equality, and the other in distributions, and which entirely requires geometric equality. In contracts, therefore, it observes arithmetical equality, that we may not act unjustly by our associate, receiving from him more than is proper; but by fitly distributing unequal things to such as are unequal, it observes geometric equality, so that such as is the difference of persons with respect to each other, such also may be the difference as to worth of the things distributed, to each other. Every thing just, therefore, is, as we have said, equal; but every thing equal is beautiful. For the unequal is base, and void of symmetry, since it is also incongruous. Every thing just, therefore, is beautiful.
In the third place, beauty no otherwise subsists in bodies, than when form rules over matter; for matter is void of beauty and base; and when form is vanquished by matter, it is filled with baseness, and a privation of form in consequence of becoming similar to the subject nature. If, therefore, in the soul our intellectual part ranks in the order of form, but our irrational part, of matter (for intellect and reason belong to the coordination of bound³⁴, but the irrational nature to that of infinity, since it is naturally without measure and indefinite)—this being the case, it necessarily follows that beauty must be perceived in the soul when reason has dominion, and the irrational forms of life are vanquished by reason and prudence. The just, indeed, gives empire to reason, and servitude to the irrational nature. For it distributes to each what is fit; dominion to the ruling power, and servile obedience to the ministrant part; since the artificer of the universe subjected to us the irrational nature, and prepared it as a vehicle to our reason. The just therefore is naturally beautiful, and is the cause of beauty to the soul.
In the fourth place, the just is perfect and definite; since the unjust is imperfect and indefinite, wanders infinitely and never stops, and secretly withdraws itself from the boundary of justice. The just, therefore, introduces measure and bound to whatever it is present to, and renders all things perfect. Hence it is the source of beauty to the soul: for the beautiful is connate with the perfect and the measured, because deformity subsists with the unmeasured and the indefinite. The just, therefore, is at one and the same time perfect, moderate, bounded, and beautiful; and these are not naturally separated from each other.
In the fifth place, the demiurgus adorned this universe by justice; for he bound it with the most beautiful of bonds, and rendered it indissoluble through the power of this analogy, which holds all its parts together, and makes it every where friendly to itself. But that which is similar to the universe, the most beautiful of things visible, is certainly itself beautiful. The just, therefore, is also according to this reasoning beautiful, from the nature of which it is by no means disjoined.—That every thing just, therefore, is beautiful, is from hence apparent.
The proposition consequent to this, that every thing beautiful is good, Socrates extends, but Alcibiades does not admit. This was owing to his considering the beautiful to be beautiful by position, and not by nature. Hence he also grants that the just is beautiful; for it is thus considered by the multitude, and separates the beautiful from the good. For to the former of these he gives a subsistence merely from opinion, asserting that the beautiful is the becoming, and what is generally admitted: but to the latter he gives a subsistence according to truth; for he does not say that the good is from position. This proposition, therefore, that every thing beautiful is good, we shall show to be in every respect true. This then is apparent to every one, that the beautiful is naturally lovely, since last beauty which is borne along in images is lovely, and agitates souls at the first view of it, in consequence of retaining a vestige of divine beauty. For this privilege, says Socrates in the Phædrus, beauty alone possesses, to be the most apparent and the most lovely of all things. Indeed, the beautiful (το καλον) is naturally lovely, whether it is so denominated δια το καλειν, because it calls others to itself, or δια το κηλειν, because it charms those that are able to behold it. Hence also love is said to lead the lover to beauty. But every thing lovely is desirable; for love is a robust and vehement desire of something. And whatever loves desires something of which it is indigent. But every thing desirable is good, whether it is truly or only apparently good. For many things which are not good are desirable, because they appear as good to those that desire them. It is clearly therefore shown by Socrates, in the Meno, that he who knows evil, such as it is in its own nature, cannot desire it. Every thing desirable therefore is good; and if it be principally desirable, it will also be principally good. But if it be only apparently desirable, such also will be its good. In short, in each of the terms this is to be added, viz. the apparent, or the true. For, if a thing is apparently beautiful, it is also apparently lovely and desirable, and its good is conjoined with beauty of such a kind. But if it is naturally beautiful, it is also naturally lovely and desirable. What then in this case will the desirable be? Shall we say, evil? But it is impossible when known that it should be desirable by any being; for all beings desire good. But there is no desire of evil, nor yet of that which is neither good nor evil; for every thing of this kind is performed for the sake of something else, and is not the end of any thing. But every thing desirable is an end; and, if any thing evil is desirable, it must be so because it appears to be good. In like manner, if any thing not beautiful is beloved, it is loved because it appears to be beautiful. If, therefore, every thing beautiful is lovely, but every thing lovely is desirable, and every thing desirable is good, hence every thing beautiful is good. And, reciprocally, every thing good is desirable.
—This then is immediately evident. Every thing desirable is lovely: for love and desire are directed to the same object; but they differ from each other according to the remission or vehemence of the desire; since Socrates, also, in the Banquet, leads love to the good through the beautiful, and says that the good is lovely, as well as the beautiful. If therefore every good is desirable, every thing desirable is lovely, and every thing lovely is beautiful (for love is proximate to beauty), hence every thing good is beautiful. Let no one therefore say that the good is above beauty nor that the lovely is two-fold; for we do not now discourse concerning the first principles of things, but concerning the beautiful and the good which are in us. The good, therefore, which is in us, is at the same time both desirable and lovely.
— Hence we obtain the good through love, and a vehement pursuit of it. And if any one directs his attention to himself, he will perfectly perceive that this good excites in us a more efficacious love than sensible beauty. The good therefore is beautiful. Hence Diotima, in the Banquet, advises lovers to betake themselves, after sensible beauty, to the beauty in actions and studies, in the sciences and virtues, and, having exercised the amatory eye of the soul in these, to ascend from thence to intellect, and the primary and divine beauty which is there. Hence too we say that in these the good of the soul consists. For what is there in us more beautiful than virtue or science? Or what more base than the contraries to these?
115a. But what as to actions which are beautiful, &c.
The multitude falsely think that wounds and death are evils. For what among these can be an evil to us whose essence consists in soul? since neither do the passions of instruments change the virtues of those that use them. Neither, therefore, does the carpenter, if his saw happens to be blunted, lose his art; nor, if our felicity consisted in the carpenter’s art, should we call any one unhappy who was deprived of his saw; since, as the soul has an instrument, so also we may perceive other instruments of the body, through which the body moves things external to it, the defects of which do not injure the good habit of the body. After the same manner, therefore, the passions of the body do not pervade to the soul; so that death, though it is an evil of the body, yet is not an evil of the soul. Hence, if the beauty of action is in the soul, and the evil of it in something else, it has not yet been shown that the same thing is beautiful and evil.
Again, we may also logically prove that the essential is one thing, and the accidental another; and Socrates chooses this mode of solution as more known to the young man. For a brave action is essentially beautiful, but evil, if it is so, accidentally, because it happens to him who acts bravely to die. For let death, if you will, be among the number of evils; yet a brave action, so far as it is brave and therefore beautiful, is not evil, but it is evil only accidentally. The beautiful, therefore, is one thing, and evil another; nor is a thing so far as beautiful shown to be evil, but only accidentally on account of death. We may also say that he is ignorant of the essence of man who separates the good from the beautiful, and places the former in one thing, and the latter in another, referring the good to body, and the beautiful to the energy of the soul. Socrates, however, does not adopt this solution, because he has not yet demonstrated that our essence is separate from body. To a man therefore such as Alcibiades, who thought that the body gives completion to our essence, it was not yet possible to say that death, whether it is an evil or not, ought to be defined as one of the things accidental to man, and that he ought not to confound the good of the body with the good of man, nor refer the evil of the instrument to him by whom it is used.
And thus much from the invaluable commentary of Proclus on this dialogue. The intelligent reader will doubtless regret with me that this Manuscript Commentary is nothing more than a fragment, as it scarcely extends to more than a third part of the Dialogue. From the indefatigable genius of Proclus, there can be no doubt but that he left it entire; but, like most of his other writings which are extant, it has been dreadfully mutilated either by the barbarous fraud of monks, or the ravages of time. The reader will not, I trust, hesitate to pronounce that the former of these may have been the cause of this mutilation, when he is informed that an impostor, who calls himself Dionysius the Areopagite, and who for many centuries was believed to have been contemporary with St. Paul, has in his Treatise on the Divine Names stolen entire chapters from one of the works of Proclus, one copy of which only is fortunately preserved in manuscript. This assertion I am able to prove.

## Additional Notes on the Republic


### Book I

328a. Are they to have torches, and give them to one another?
In the Panathenæan, Hephæstian, and Promethean festivals, it was customary for young men to run with torches or lamps: and in this contest he alone was victorious, whose lamp remained unextinguished in the race. As a lamp or torch, therefore, from the naturally ascending nature of fire, may be considered as a proper image of our rational part, this custom perhaps was intended to signify that he is the true conqueror in the race of life, whose rational part is not extinguished, or, in other words, does not become dormant in the career.
328a. Note. This nocturnal solemnity was the lesser Panathenæa.
As in the greater Panathenæa the veil of Minerva was carried about in which the Giants were represented vanquished by the Olympian Gods, so in the lesser Panathenæa another veil was exhibited, in which the Athenians, who were the pupils of Minerva, were represented victorious in the battle against the inhabitants of the Atlantic island³⁵. These festivals signified the beautiful order which proceeds into the world from intellect, and the unconfused distinction of mundane contrarieties. The veil of Minerva is an emblem of that one life or nature of the universe, which the Goddess weaves by those intellectual vital powers which she contains. The battle of the Giants against the Olympian Gods signifies the opposition between the last demiurgic powers of the universe (or those powers which partially fabricate and proximately preside over mundane natures) and such as are first. Minerva is said to have vanquished the Giants, because she rules over these ultimate artificers of things by her unifying powers. And the battle of the Atlantics against the Athenians represents the distribution of the world according to the two coordinate oppositions of things. And as in this battle the Athenians were victorious, so in the universe the better coordination subdues the worse. See Procl. in Tim. p. 26, and Schol. Græc. in Plat. p. 143.
329e. The Seriphian.
Seriphus, one of the islands of the Cyclades, and a city in it; whence its inhabitants were called Seriphians. Schol. Græc. in Plat. p. 144.
330e. As Pindar says.
These verses of Pindar are only to be found in the fragments ascribed to him.
334b. Thrasymachus.
This Thrasymachus was a sophist, and is mentioned by Aristotle in the last book of his Sophistical Arguments. Nothing can more clearly show the Herculean strength of the reasoning which Socrates here employs, than that it was able to tame this savage sophist. The ability of effecting this renders Socrates truly great.

### Book II

379b. Is not God essentially good?
It is well observed by Proclus (in Plat. Polit. p. 355.), that when Plato says in this place, God is essentially good, he means every God; for the addition of the article either alone signifies transcendency, as when we say the poet (ὁ ποιητης), assigning this prerogative to the chief of poets, or the whole multitude, as when we say the rational man, adding the article as a substitute for every. Since Plato therefore says ὁ θεος αγαθος, he either means the first, or every God. But that he does not means the first only, is evident from his concluding after this, that every God is as much as possible most beautiful and excellent. This also shows the ignorance of modern scribblers, who pretend that Plato secretly ridiculed the doctrine of polytheism; which the reader must always remember signifies the existence of divine natures, the progeny of, and consequently subordinate to, one supreme deity.

### Book III

398a. And we should send him to some other city, pouring oil on his head, and
crowning him with wool.
The Greek Scholium on this part is as follows: παροιμια επι των απο της χρειας αφιεμενων· και γαρ επι των ἑορτων εοικασιν ὁι ανθρωποι μυρῳ κατα της κεφαλης καταχεισθαι, ὡς αν σχολαζοντες απο των εργων, και μονον σχολαζοντες θυμηδιᾳ· και παλιν, τοις απο δουλειας μεταγομενοις επ’ ελευθεριαν, εριου καταγμα κατα της κεφαλης, ενδεσμουμενον το επισημον. Αλλως· μυρου καταχεειν των εν τοις ἁγιωτατοις ἱεροις αγαλματων θεμις ην, εριῳ τε στεφειν αυτα, και τουτο κατα τινα ἱερατικον νομον, ὡς ὁ μεγας Προκλος φησιν. i. e. “This is a proverb applied to those who are dismissed from business. For in festivals men poured oil on their head, as then resting from their usual avocations, and being alone at leisure for delight. Slaves also, when manumitted, wore wool rolled round their head, as a sign of their manumission. Or thus: It was lawful to pour oil on the statues in the most holy temples, and to crown them with wool, and this according to a certain sacred law, as the great Proclus says.” P. 258. But the God when he formed you, mixed gold in the formation of such of
you as are able to govern, &c.
Plato here alludes to the different ages of mankind, which are celebrated by Hesiod, in his Works and Days, and which signify the different lives passed through by the individuals of the human species. Among these, the golden age indicates an intellectual life. For such a life is pure, impassive, and free from sorrow; and of this impassivity and purity gold is an image, from never being subject to rust or putrefaction. Such a life, too, is very properly said to be under Saturn, because Saturn, as will be shown in the notes to the Cratylus, is an intellectual God. By the silver age a rustic and natural life is implied, in which the attention of the rational soul is entirely directed to the care of the body, but without proceeding to the extremity of vice. And by the brazen age, a dire, tyrannic, and cruel life, is implied, which is entirely passive, and proceeds to the very extremity of vice.

### Book IV

The following extract from the exposition of the more difficult questions in the Republic, by Proclus, (p. 407) will, I doubt not, from its great excellence be very acceptable to the reader. It is concerning the demonstrations in the fourth book of the Republic, that there are three parts of the human soul, and four virtues in it. The scientific accuracy of division, solidity of judgment, and profundity of conception which Proclus has displayed in this discussion can never be sufficiently admired; and it was not without reason, though doubtless without much acquaintance with the works of this wonderful man, that a certain scurrilous writer³⁶, who appears to be a man of no science, moderately learned, and an indifferent poet, calls him the animated rival of Plato.
“I here consider virtue not ambiguously, and in the same manner as when we ascribe virtues to things inanimate, but that which is properly so denominated. This therefore we say is vital, is the perfection of life, and is the cause of well-being, and not of being to those by whom it is possessed. But since life is two-fold, one kind being gnostic, and the other orectic, or appetitive, virtue will be a certain perfection both of the orectic and of the gnostic form of life. Hence it is requisite that there should not be one virtue only, nor yet more than one of the same species, the one not being so divided as similar parts are divided from each other, differing only in quantity; but it is necessary that there should be many and dissimilar virtues. For such as is the condition of subjects, such also must be their perfections. Hence the virtues of things differing in species must also be specifically different; but of things possessing the same species, there is one specific virtue: for there is one perfection of one essence, whether the cause of being is the same with that of well-being to things, since such as is the being which it imparts, such also is the well-being, or whether it is different. Hence Socrates in his Republic makes a distribution into three genera, viz. into guardians, auxiliaries, and mercenaries, before he indicates what the different kinds of virtue are in the best polity; and before he distributes the virtues analogously in one soul, he shows that there are three parts of the soul essentially different, viz. reason, anger, and desire, knowing that perfections themselves are changed together with the diversities of subjects, and on this account that there are many virtues dissimilar in species.
“To these things also it is requisite to add, for the purpose of facilitating the objects of discussion, that there is one perfection and energy of a thing considered by itself, and another according to its habitude to something else; so that the hyparxis of a thing (or the summit of its essence) is different from the proximity or alliance which it has with another. For there is not the same perfection of man, and of a man who is a despot, as neither is man the same with a despot; nor is it the same thing to behold the soul simply, and the soul as governing the body. Hence it is not the same thing to consider the essential and the relative perfection of a thing. Neither, therefore, must we consider the energy of a thing essentially originating from itself, and solely directed to itself in the same manner as the energy of that which governs or is governed; for government, and the being governed, are certain habitudes. Nothing indeed hinders but that the same thing may perform a certain action, not as governing or as governed, but as possessing a certain essence by itself, and an energy which it is allotted consequent to its essence. Thus for instance, the rational power in us when it lives cathartically³⁷, performs its proper work theoretically, being naturally adapted thus to live according to its essence; but in this case it does not perform the office of a governor, as the irrational parts contribute nothing to that energy which is directed to itself. Rightly, therefore, does Socrates show that every governing art imparts good to the governed; so that when the rational part extends good to itself alone, purifying and investigating itself, it does not then possess the life of a governor. Thus also when anger acts conformably to its nature, being alone moved as an appetite avenging incidental molestations, it does not then preserve the habitude of that which is governed, with respect to reason, but alone acts as anger: for the desire of vengeance is the work of anger, and not to energize in obedience to reason. In like manner the desiderative part of the soul, when it immoderately aspires after pleasure, then lives according to its own nature: for this is the work of desire, to love pleasure, not some particular, but every, pleasure, and this not as governed by reason, whose province it is to measure its appetite. So that each of these three may be said to act after this manner, when each performs its proper work, without any reference to a governing principle.
“Since however all the parts are conjoined with each other, and give completion to one life, it is necessary to consider them according to their relative energy, and thus to perceive the virtue and the vice of each. Hence we must define political virtue to be a habit perfective of the relative life of the parts of the soul; and its contrary, political vice, to be a habit corruptive of the vital habitude of the parts to each other. Beginning from hence also, it is requisite to see that, in the different kinds of polities, the life of every individual is two-fold, one pertaining to himself, and the other relative; and again, that in these virtue and vice have a similar subsistence. For let the guardian be one who contemplates real beings, and ascends by intellectual energy as far as to the good itself. He therefore so far as man performs an energy adapted to himself, but abandons a governing life. Hence Socrates does not permit him to abide in such an energy, but brings him down again to a providential care of the city, that he may be a true guardian, leaving a life according to intellect as his last energy. Again, let the auxiliary, because he is the lord of all in the city, pay no attention to the governors, but act in every thing according to casual impulse, and use his power immoderately. This man indeed, as a soldier, will accomplish the energy which is adapted to him; for this consists in fighting; but he will no longer act as one governed. For it is requisite that the governed should look to the conceptions of the governor. Hence the soldier when obedient to the governor, preserves the virtue proper to one governed, but when he opposes the governor, he corrupts his own relative virtue. Lastly, let the mercenary be one who only lives for himself, and who is alone busily employed in the acquisition of wealth. This man therefore performs his proper work, so far as he is what he is said to be, a mercenary, but he has not yet the vice or the virtue of one governed. But if he becomes a member of political society, and ranks as one who is governed, he will now live with habitude to this: and when he is obedient to the governors according to this habitude, and accumulates wealth conformably to their will, and after the manner which they define, he will possess virtue adapted to a governed mercenary; but when he deviates from the will of the governors, and does not observe their mandates, he is, so far as one governed, a depraved mercenary. In the political genera, therefore, there is a two-fold proper work, one essential, and the other relative, as in the parts of the soul. But, if in both there are, governors and the governed, virtues and vices, it is requisite to consider how the virtues and vices in the one subsist with relation to those in the other, and to show that the virtues and vices of the soul presubsist as the paradigms of those in the political genera. For, the parts of the soul energizing internally, render the soul better or worse; but proceeding externally, and terminating in actions, they adorn the political genera, or fill them with disorder. Hence Socrates very properly makes a transition from the parts in one soul to those in whole polities, as proceeding to things more known. For it is not possible to know in a proper manner all the inward habits of souls, and all their inward abiding energies, in any other way than by their externally proceeding energies. This then is evident. For, the guardian governing the auxiliaries, energizes externally, imitating inward reason governing anger. And, in a similar manner, the auxiliary governs the mercenary tribe, imitating in his external energy, the inward dominion of anger over desire. All dominions therefore are habitudes, both those belonging to the soul, and those that are political; but the external are imitations of the internal; and the former are secondary energies of the latter, which are primary. The true political science, therefore, subsists about the habitudes of the soul, this being that which adorns both the governors and the governed; or rather it is one habit possessing two-fold energies, the inward governing and being governed, and the external adorning political affairs.
“These things being determined, let us now consider how we shall introduce all the four virtues; and let us endeavour to make it apparent to the learner that they are four. Since, therefore, there are three parts of the soul (for from hence we must begin); but these have not an equal order, one being allied to intellect, another being naturally adapted to body, and another being arranged in the middle of both; hence, that alone governs which is naturally allied to intellect, viz. reason, and, which itself spontaneously knows, intellect; and that is alone governed, which, according to its proper order, is allied to body. This is the desiderative part of the soul, which aspires after corporeal possessions, just as reason desires intellectual good. But the irascible part is that which both governs and is governed. This part, because it is irrational, is present also with irrational animals, like the desiderative part, is destitute of knowledge, and naturally requires to be governed by that which is allied to intellect; but, because it is always present with, when desire opposes reason, it is more allied to the rational part than desire, which is more remote from reason, and remarkably sympathizes with the body. For this always adheres to the body, and never abandons its life; but anger often despises the body and a life in conjunction with it, aspiring after another object of desire, which does not pertain to the body. These then, being three, one of which, reason, ought to govern only, but another, as body, to be governed only, and another to govern, and at the same time to be governed, according to an order in the middle of the extremes,—hence, the governors are two, the one primary, and the other secondary, and the things governed according to the same reasoning are also two. It is requisite, therefore, that the part which alone and primarily governs should possess one virtue perfective of governing habitude; but that the part which governs secondarily, and is governed primarily, should possess two-fold virtues perfective of two habitudes. For, as the perfections of different hyparxes are different, so also the perfections of different habitudes. But it is necessary that the part which is alone governed should possess one perfective virtue. Reason, therefore, which, as we have shown, ought only to govern, has for its ruling virtue prudence, according to which it bounds both for itself and others the measures of actions. Desire, which ought only to be governed, has for its virtue temperance, according to which it measures its appetites, converting itself to reason, from which it receives a rational impulse, through custom and discipline. But anger, which naturally governs and is governed, possesses, so far as it governs, fortitude, through which it humiliates the desiderative part, and preserves itself invulnerable from its attacks; but, so far as it is governed, it possesses temperance, through which it also desires to be disciplined by the measures of reason. If reason, however, as governing both, and as the cause of conversion to itself, and of their submitting to measure, comprehends the principle which it imparts to them, this principle will be temperance, beginning indeed from reason, but ending in desire through anger as a medium; and thus the harmony diapason³⁸ will be produced from the three, viz. from reason, anger, and desire. But of these, anger being the middle, in one part produces the symphony called diatessaron³⁹, and in another that which is denominated diapente⁴⁰; the symphony of reason to anger forming the diapente, and that of anger to desire the diatessaron. This latter the Pythagoræans denominate a syllable, as not being a perfect symphony; but they assert that the diapente ought rather to be called a symphony than this; just as we must assert that anger has a greater symphony with reason, than desire has with anger, though the interval between the latter is less than that which subsists between the former: for both these are appetites, but the other two are reason and appetite. There is more symphony, therefore, between anger and reason, though the interval is greater, than between desire and anger, though the interval is lesser. For, as we have before observed, anger naturally co-arranges itself with reason, and is more disposed to league with it in battle than with desire, when reason and desire war on each other. And hence, a greater symphony must be assigned to anger and reason, than to desire and anger. But from all these it must be said that a diapason is produced, which the Pythagoræans denominate by far the sweetest and the purest of all symphonies. For this, indeed, is truly a symphony, since among all others it alone possesses the peculiarity of which Timæus speaks, viz. that the motions of the sharper sounds ceasing, embrace those that are more flat, and embracing them conjoin the beginning with the end, and produce one motion gradually terminating from the sharp in the flat. Since, therefore, of all symphonies the diapason is alone allotted this perogative, it will be adapted to the harmony of the soul, pervading through all the parts, conjoining the superior with the inferior motions, connascently harmonizing the intensions of the one with the remissions of the other, and truly producing one life from many. And thus in the way of digression we have shown how Socrates denominates temperance the harmony diapason.
“But if prudence is alone the virtue of the governor, but temperance is the virtue of the governed, and both temperance and fortitude form the virtue of that which governs and is at the same time governed, it is evident that the remaining virtue, justice, must belong to all the parts, to one as governing, to another as that which is governed, and to another as that which both governs and is governed; so that through this each part energizes according to its proper order, the one as governing, the other as governed, and a third as both. And here it may be inquired how anger, since it both governs and is governed, has the virtue of temperance in common with desire so far as it is governed, but has not any virtue in common with reason so far as it governs, but possesses fortitude as its proper virtue. To this it may be replied, that there is, as we have said, a greater interval between anger and reason, according to essence, than between desire and anger, though when reason and desire oppose each other, anger is by no means the ally of the latter, but takes the part of the former. But it does this through the pertinacity of desire, through which it often contumaciously excites reason against desire, and not through any alliance with reason. So that on this account it has a common virtue with desire, so far as it is governed, but a different virtue from reason, so far as governing. For the governing power of anger is perfectly different from that of reason, which begins its government from itself. For reason first governs itself, and adorns itself, prior to other things, and does not suffer its proper appetite to remain dubious, and to tend to that which is worse. After this, it measures the appetites of the irrational parts, and recalls them to its own judgment and appetite. But anger is not governed by itself, but supernally issues its mandates to the worst part alone. For, that which is irrational is never at any time able to govern itself, nor to bound and be converted to itself. That anger, however, is more allied to desire than to reason, according to Plato, is evident: for both these are from the same fathers⁴¹, but reason is the offspring of a different father; both are mortal, and rise and perish in conjunction, but reason is immortal; both are destitute of knowledge, but reason is naturally gnostic. As therefore to be governed is common both to anger and desire, for so far as both are irrational, and require to be adorned by another, they are governed, hence they possess a common virtue which converts them to a desire of that which governs. But as the government of reason is different from that of desire in the manner above mentioned, as governors they possess a different ruling virtue; the one gnostic, for it is reason; the other vital, for it is appetite. When, therefore, appetite governs appetite, there is need of fortitude in order to preserve appetite uninjured; but when reason rules over appetite, there is need of prudence, preparing reason to judge rightly.
And on this account prudence is the ruling virtue of reason, whose province it is to know and to judge rightly, and to govern natures which possess the power of judging. Fortitude is the ruling virtue of anger, which is alone vital, and is destitute of judgment, but is an appetite wishing to have dominion over a worse appetite, the opposition of which it cannot endure. But if, as we have before observed, there is a greater interval between the higher than between the lower of these, and a greater harmony arises from the former than the latter, it is by no means wonderful: for the brevity of life obscures the harmony; since in natures whose life is more extended it is greater, and in those whose life is less extended it is evidently less. We have therefore shown that the virtues are only four, and what is the work of each. It will now, therefore, be manifest how they are to be arranged in republics. For it is evident that prudence must be especially placed in the governor who consults for the good of the city. For, of what can he who consults be in greater need than of prudence, the province of which is to perceive the good and ill in every action? But in the warring and guardian genus fortitude is requisite. For fame calls those men brave who intrepidly endure dangers, resist adversaries, and despise death. That they may subdue, therefore, all those that endeavour to subvert the republic, it is fit that they should be brave; but they ought to receive the measures of their energies from those that are the true governors, and in this be temperate, looking to their will. And in him who ranks in the last place, and provides all that is necessary, temperance is requisite, lest, being inflated by affluence, he should arrogate to himself dominion, thinking that he is sufficient to himself with respect to felicity, and should thus despise the governors, in consequence of an abundance in things necessary imparting a representation of good. Temperance, therefore, is requisite to this character, that he may be obedient to the governors, and may submit to them; as in the universe, according to Timæus, necessity follows intellect. But, all of them thus receiving their proper virtue, the one acting prudently, the other temperately, and the other bravely, the employment of justice will now be known. For it prepares each, in the coordination with each other, to do its own work alone, and not, by engaging in employments foreign to its nature, to usurp the prerogatives of others, but to live in such a manner as the political science enjoins. So that the guardian may not attempt to engage in war or in agriculture, thus falling into a life unworthy of himself; nor the auxiliary to undertake the province of the merchant or the governor; nor the mercenary to occupy the place of the auxiliary or the guardian, because he provides arms for the former and necessaries for the latter. So that in the political genera all the virtues have the same relation to each other as those in the parts of the soul.
These things, therefore, being admitted, let us consider how Socrates again transfers his discourse to the virtues in the political genera, and says, that he is willing to behold, as it were, in larger, what is written in smaller letters: for virtue in the habitation of one soul is more impartible than in cities, and the virtues of a whole city are images of those in one soul; and reason, as he says, requires that things more impartible in power should have dominion over those which are extended into a numerous division, and that things less according to number should yield to the power of things more according to quantity. In the political genera, therefore, Socrates wishing to behold all the virtues, in the first place orderly arranges the political genera,—I say orderly, because he first considers men solely employed about necessaries, without war, unskilled in discipline, living according to nature, satisfied with as little as possible, and conducting themselves temperately: and, in the second place, he shows that when their possessions are increased, they are necessarily led through their external enemies to direct their attention to military affairs. In consequence of this, he shows that discipline then becomes necessary, men passing from a physical to a defensive life, as they could not otherwise defend themselves when unjustly injured by their neighbours. It is requisite, therefore, that there should be those who may fight in defence of the husbandmen; for the same person cannot accomplish both these, since an aptitude for agriculture is different from an aptitude for war. But as aptitudes differ, so also perfections, and it is requisite that every one should be perfected according to his own nature, if he is not to possess an adulterated and unnatural life. To which we may add, that if one and the same person were a soldier and a husbandman, he could not attend to the seasons of his proper works, being compelled to take up arms when he ought to cultivate the land, to plough or plant when he should engage in war, to carry rural instead of warlike implements, the spade for the shield, and to be in want of necessaries by neglecting the concerns of agriculture. If, therefore, the auxiliary is one person, and he who attends to the necessaries of life another, two political genera must be established, the auxiliary and the mercenary, the latter supplying things necessary, and the former defending both himself and the other. But each of these requires a different discipline, for the manners of each are different. Socrates, therefore, instructs us in a two-fold kind of discipline, one pertaining to the soul, and the other to the body. For soldiers require a robust body, in order to endure the necessary labours of war. And as there are two kinds of discipline, one according to music and the other according to gymnastic, it appears to me that Socrates considers those to be most adapted to universal government, whose nature is more adapted to music, and who are better skilled in it than others. For it makes us more prudent, teaching us concerning gods, dæmons, heroes, and illustrious men; but this gymnastic is unable to effect. Of the truth of which I consider this to be an argument, that the whole polity, as Socrates says, is dissolved, not through a neglect of gymnastic, but of music. So that we shall not err in asserting, that those who are naturally adapted, and are more propense to music than others, are chosen as guardians by Socrates, though he alone says that the most excellent characters are to be chosen as governors, but does not add in what it is that they are most excellent.
Socrates, therefore, having established these three genera, in order to give completion to the city, indicates whence we may call the city wise, whence brave, temperate, and just. And the guardian genus, indeed, on account of its being most musical, possesses the science of good and ill; for, as we before observed, it has learnt from the discipline of music in what manner it is requisite to be wise respecting superior natures, and respecting human felicity. Hence, he says, poets also are to be compelled to compose such verses as have a tendency to these types. And if it also learns the mathematical disciplines and dialectic, it will be in a still greater degree wise and scientific. The auxiliary genus, on account of its living in arms, and in the exercise and study of warlike affairs, especially possesses fortitude. And the mercenary genus requires temperance: for an affluence of things necessary is especially in want of this virtue, since an abundance of these leads to an intemperate life. These three genera therefore mutually according with each other, and preserving their own energy with respect to governing and being governed, justice is the result of such a subsistence. For all men, as well those that praise as those that revile justice, say that just conduct consists in not desiring the possessions of others. Hence its enemies reprobate it, because it is content with its own property, when at the same time it ought to possess all things. And thus far, indeed, Socrates, considering justice as the founder of cities, does not reprobate its accusers: for they say that justice is that which is beautiful by law; and they honour it as a thing necessary; since no one is willing to be injured contrary to the laws, because this is the extremity of evils. But, according to these men, to act unjustly is the greatest good; and justice, having a middle subsistence, is neither good nor evil, but necessary. As we have said, therefore, though Socrates considers justice as a plenitude of good, yet he does not reprobate its accusers: for it is admitted to be that which is beautiful by law. Now, therefore, inculcating that it is truly good, and that it is beautiful by nature, he adds, that it also imparts strength to the other virtues: for each through this performs its own proper work, and none of the rest preserves a city so much as this. It is shown therefore by Socrates, that a permutation of the pursuits of the guardian, the auxiliary, and the mercenary, is the most perfect destruction of a polity.
If, therefore, justice is a standard to each of the other virtues, which the accusers of justice acknowledge to be naturally beautiful, as, for instance, to prudence, for all men naturally desire its possession, and those that blame prudence either blame it prudently, and in this case prudence is not to be blamed, rightly blaming itself, or they blame it imprudently, and in this case prudence is not blameable, not being rightly blamed,—this being admitted, it necessarily follows that justice is naturally good in the same manner as prudence, and that it is not beautiful only by law. Socrates, having indicated these particulars respecting the virtues in the political genera, passes on to the virtues of the parts of the soul, which we have said are prior to these, and discourses in a three-fold respect concerning them. For, in the first place, he shows that the diversities of men arise from no other cause than the difference in their lives; and that neither does the difference in one city, nor in whole nations, originate from any thing else than from a diversity in the life pertaining to the soul: for it is not, says he, either from an oak, or a rock, viz. it is not from the lowest nature, of which an oak is the image⁴², nor from an inanimate and solid body, so far as body, for this is indicated by a rock. And the Greeks indeed have a greater aptitude to wisdom (when we speak of the whole nation), the Thracians are more irascible, and the Phœnicians more mercenary than either of these. But this arises from the soul, through which in some nations reason has dominion, in others anger, and in others desire. For the character of individuals arises from their life, and a whole nation is denominated rational or irascible from that part of the soul which principally flourishes in it. They possess these diversities, therefore, either from the body or from the soul. They cannot, however, possess them from the body: for men become hot or cold, white or black, from the body, but not prudent, or brave, or temperate, or the contraries of these. It is from the soul, therefore, that they derive these distinguishing characteristics. And this is what Socrates first demonstrates.
Some one however, perhaps, may say that the differences in souls are corporeal; for they follow the temperaments of the body, though these different powers are in the soul. It is evident, however, that he who makes this assertion grants that these diversities are in souls, though they blossom forth in consequence of the soul following the temperaments of bodies. The reasoning of Socrates therefore remains, and these lives originate from the soul, though they should be rooted in the temperament of the body. We should however be careful not to subject the soul to the nature of the body: for, in the undisciplined⁴³, the powers of the soul follow the temperaments; but nature, as Plato says in the Phædo, formed the soul to govern, and the body to be governed, in order that the whole of the desiderative or irascible part might not be co-passive with the temperaments. But, in those that are well disciplined, the powers of the soul govern the temperament, so that it either is not moved by it from the beginning, or, if moved, it renders the excitation inefficacious. Socrates, therefore, as I have said, shows, in the first place, that in souls themselves there are diversities with respect to these forms of life; and, in the second place, he demonstrates as necessary to the proposed object of inquiry, that in the soul the rational, the irascible, and the desiderative parts are not one thing. But this was necessary that he might show that those three political characters are analogous to these three parts of the soul, and that both differ from each other by the same boundaries of life. This therefore he demonstrates in the second place, previously assuming as a thing universally acknowledged, that it is impossible for the same thing, according to the same, and with reference to the same, to do or suffer contraries; but that this may be accomplished by the same thing in a different respect. Thus, the same thing may be heated and refrigerated, be at rest and be moved, impart heat and cold, according to different parts. And the same thing, not with reference to the same but to different things, may be able to do and suffer contraries. Thus, the same thing may be capable of being illuminated and darkened with reference to other things, being illuminated by one thing and darkened by another. Thus, too, the same thing may be the cause of increase and diminution, according to the same, i. e. so far as it is the same, with reference to different things; as nutriment, which, at the same time that it nourishes the members of the body, is itself diminished.
This being granted, Socrates considers the lives of the continent and incontinent, in which either reason and anger, or reason and desire, oppose each other. For these things take place in those who generously contend in battle through a love of honour, though desire is averse to the undertaking, and from the impulse of hunger urges to flight, but reason at the same time persuades to endurance. But, prior to these, this opposition is seen in the diseased, reason admonishing them not to drink if the body is hot with a fever, but desire calling on them to drink, and the two parts thus opposing each other. Prior to both these, however, it is seen in those that are injured, but do not revenge the injury, though they are incited to vengeance by anger, as in the instance which Homer presents us with in Ulysses, when he says,
Endure, my heart! thou heavier ills hast borne.
In short, reason and anger may at the same time suffer contraries with respect to the same, when, in consequence of an injury being sustained, the latter persuades to vengeance, and the former to endurance. Reason therefore and anger are not the same: for it is impossible that the same thing can do or suffer contraries, according to the same with relation to the same. Again, reason and desire exclaim contraries, as in the instance above mentioned, with respect to drinking in a fever; but it is impossible for the same thing to do or suffer contraries according to the same with reference to the same. Reason therefore and desire are not the same. Again, anger and desire, with respect to the same thing, speak oppositely in those engaged in battle, and oppressed with hunger; but as the same thing cannot be contrarily affected with respect to the same, anger and desire are not the same. Hence these three differ from each other essentially.
Perhaps, however, some one may say that the irrational motions are energies, and another perhaps may say that they are passions; and I have heard some asserting that these motions when moderately moved are energies, but, when immoderately moved, passions. The position, however, which we have established as universally adopted, comprehends the motions of these. So that, if it should be said, one of these acts, and the other suffers, and that action and passion oppose each other, it is evident that the motions themselves must much more differ from each other: for a contrary effect is the cause of a contrary passion. So that, if any passion has an effect contrary to that of any other, the passion of the one will be contrary to that of the other. But what shall we say concerning the love of riches, and the love of pleasure? Whether do these essentially differ, or have they the same essence, but are different orective powers? For that these oppose each other, is testified by the avaricious man and the glutton; for the latter is continually gratifying himself with whatever may satisfy his appetite, and the former lives sparingly, and suffers the pain of hunger, that he may not diminish his wealth. If therefore these essentially differ, why do we not make four parts of the soul? But if these, though they oppose each other, and suffer contraries, do not essentially differ, neither will the others necessarily differ, because they are passive to contraries.
In thus doubting, however, we forget that desire is called by Socrates a many-headed beast, because the irrational life is both one and many, as being proximate to the body, which is entirely manifold and divisible; just as that which is allied to the rational⁴⁴ intellect is more impartible than any other of the parts belonging to the soul. The desiderative part, therefore, is essentially one and many; and on this account possesses warring powers proceeding from different essences, that through this it may be connascent with body: for this also consists from contraries. Hence this part is one, so far as it possesses one appetite, the love of body, according to which it also differs from the rational parts. For the irascible part is adverse to body, in consequence of aspiring after victory and honour, and through these often casting aside the body, and despising a life in conjunction with it. Nor is the rational part a lover of body, because the object of its appetite is true good. It remains therefore that the desiderative part alone is attached to body, whether it aspires after pleasures or riches: for both these are corporeal. For we are compelled, as Socrates says in the Phædo, to accquire riches, in consequence of being subservient to the body and the desires of the body; and the lover of riches never despises the body, though it may sometimes happen that he may die through his attention to wealth. So that the desiderative part, so far as it is simply a lover of body, is one; but, so far as it is a lover of riches and pleasure, is not one. Hence Plato does not say that it is many animals, but calls it one animal having many heads, and living at different times according to its different heads, but being always a lover of body. The desiderative part therefore is, as we have said, the third, as the rational part which aspires after intellect is the first, and the irascible which desires power ranks as a medium. For power subsists between intellect and the summit of essence; and a representation of this summit proceeds into the third part of the soul; whence he who alone participates of this is a lover of body. A representation of power is seen in the part prior to this; and hence this part desires power: but the image of intellect is apparent in the first part; and hence reason aspires after intellection. The last part of the soul therefore is a lover of body, and is solely intent to the preservation of the body.
Since, however, body is two-fold, one being that in which the soul sub- sists, and the other that by which it is preserved, as the soul is incapable in its present state of being preserved by itself, hence it has two-fold appetites, one of leading into a natural condition the body in which it resides, and according to this appetite it becomes a lover of pleasure, all pleasure being an introduction to nature; but the other of these appetites leads it to procure that of which its containing body is indigent; and according to this appetite it becomes a lover of riches, the acquisition of wealth being desired for the sake of paying attention to the body. It is necessary, therefore, that these powers should always accord with each other,—I mean that the one should desire the preservation of the body in which it resides, and that the other should desire things necessary to its safety. But since one of these appetites aspires after that path which is natural to the body, instead of preserving it, hence through a love of pleasure it destroys it, and defiles it with ten thousand stains; but the other desires riches, not for the purpose of satisfying the necessary wants of the body, but as a principal good. This being the case, these appetites pursue different ends, which oppose each other because they are material. Hence the one by its own destruction contributes to the increase of the other. For the infinite appetite of pleasure is attended with a consumption of wealth, and an increase of wealth requires a diminution of things which contribute to the pleasures of the body. Here, therefore, in a contention concerning ends as principal goods, these appetites differ from each other. For the appetite of desire is not directed to one thing, viz. that the body may subsist according to nature, but to two things, the affluence of one of which is accomplished through the indigence of the other. Since then the end of these appetites is one according to nature, hence Socrates establishes one part of the soul in desire, though it is many-headed, which is not the case, as we have shown, with reason and anger.
Having therefore given an essential division to the parts of the soul, let us, in the third place, consider how Socrates here disposes the four virtues. If then he had been willing to speak in a manner more known to the multitude, he would have said, that prudence is the virtue of reason, fortitude of anger, justice of the desire of riches, and temperance of the love of pleasure. But now, as he thought proper to distribute them in a manner inaccessible to the multitude, and to show the analogy in the political genera to the virtues, he evinces that prudence is a habit perfective of that which alone ought to govern the other parts of the soul; and that fortitude is a habit perfective of that which should govern secondarily in it. And having established these two principal virtues, he says that the other virtues belong to the two ruling parts. Hence, he asserts that temperance is a habit which leads the governed into concord with the governors, with respect to governing; so that the last part may consent with the other two, and the middle with the one part prior to it. But he says that justice is a habit which prescribes to each of the parts, both the governing and governed, its proper work. For it is necessary that they should accord with each other, some in governing, and others in being governed; and that the actions of some should be adapted to governors, and of others to the governed. For to govern and to be governed, are beheld in a certain form of life which justice imparts, distributing to the governor that which is alone adapted to him, to consult for the governed, and to the governed to be obedient to the governor. After this manner Socrates discourses concerning the virtues, and it is evident that they must necessarily be such and so many.
One thing therefore only remains to be considered, viz. whence it becomes manifest, that there are only three parts of the soul which are the recipients of these virtues. For that these essentially differ from each other, Socrates has shown; but that there are these parts only, and neither more nor less, requires some consideration; since, if there are more than three, we shall also be in want of other virtues. It is admitted then, that if there are two things which possess contrary properties, there will be three media, as is proved to be the case in the elements⁴⁵, two of these being received from that which has a more proximate situation, and one from the remaining element which is more remote. This being assumed, let us see what are the peculiarities of reason and body. Reason therefore is impartible, but body partible: reason is intellective, but body is destitute of intelligence. And these things are assumed, one from the essence of reason, another from life, and another from knowledge. Hence anger is impartible indeed; for it is simple in its nature, and on this account exhibits one polity. It also possesses an appetite of power, yet is not intellective; but through the privation of intelligence is assimilated to body. But desire consists of many parts as well as body, and is multiform; and hence it is called a many-headed beast, and contributes to many polities. It is also orective, but not of the same things with anger, and is destitute of knowledge. It is necessary, therefore, that anger should be proximate to reason, but communicating in two peculiarities, in one with reason, and in the other with body; but that desire should be proximate to body. There are besides three things in these; two in which they agree,—appetite, and a privation of intellect; and one in which they differ,—the impartible, and the possession of many parts. Hence there is not any other part between the body and soul besides these.
It may however appear, that Socrates does not leave these parts only when he says, “Each of us is well affected when each of these three parts performs its proper office, and they are coharmonized with each other through temperance, and when this is the case with any other parts which may subsist between these.” For by this he may seem, as I have said, not to leave these parts only, but to admit that there is something in us which neither aspires after honour nor riches, but subsists between these. However, Socrates, when he indicates this, does not mean to assert that the lives of the soul are unmingled; as, for instance, that a life according to reason is unmingled with the other parts; that a life according to anger has no communion with the extremes; and that a life according to desire alone is not mingled with those prior to it; but that there are certain lives between these.
—Thus, some lead a life both according to reason and anger, being lovers of learning, and at the same time ambitious. Others live according to anger and desire, being both lovers of honours and riches; and either pursue honours that they may become rich, or scatter abroad their riches that through these they may be honoured by those that admire wealth: just as those prior to these either pursue disciplines that they may be honoured for their learning,—or honour, that, being honoured by those that possess disciplines, they also may partake of them. These then are the forms of life between reason and anger, and anger and desire; and are not other parts of the soul, but become, from the mixture of these, various instead of simple. For each of those three parts is itself by itself simple; one part being alone a lover of discipline, despising all honour, and every thing corporeal, and being coordinated to one thing, the knowledge of truth; but another part is ambitious and savage, despises body as a shadow, and is insatiable of one thing alone, honour; and the third part, desire, is alone attentive to body, and the things pertaining to body, but considers those honours and disciplines to be nothing more than trifles. These, therefore, being simple and unmingled, Socrates says that the lives of the soul which are mingled from these subsist between them, all which, together with the unmingled, ought to be harmonized through the best harmony, that it may be the measure of the appetite of disciplines, of honours, and of the care of the body; and that the appetite also of the other parts may become consonant, and may not dissent from reason. We must not therefore think that Socrates indicates the natures of other parts which contribute to the perfection of political virtue, but the mixture of these, and the generation of more various forms adapted to political characters.
From what has been demonstrated, therefore, it is evident that the soul is neither one, nor divided into more than the above-mentioned parts, except that the sensitive nature is different from all these. It is different from reason, because it is irrational, and is present with irrational animals; and it differs from the two irrational parts, because these are orective, but the sensitive nature is gnostic. Sense, indeed, is present with beings to whom appetite is unknown, as, for instance, to celestial natures: but the orective part necessarily requires sense; for appetites are accompanied with the senses. Hence an animal is characterized by the sensitive, and not by the orective nature. For sense is present with all animals. And hence, too, Timæus says that plants have a sensation of what is pleasant and painful, and therefore he thinks proper to call them animals: for every thing which partakes of life is an animal. Sense, therefore, as I have said, being different from the three parts of the soul, is placed under all of them⁴⁶.
Again: let us now consider whether the imaginative is entirely the same with the sensitive power. So far, therefore, as this power is directed in its energies to externals, it is sensitive; but so far as it possesses in itself what it has seen or heard, or the types which it has received from any other sense, it exerts the power of memory. Such then is imagination. Socrates also in the Philebus, when he says that the painter in us is different from the scribe, who through the senses writes in the soul imitations of the passions which the senses announce, no longer energizing after the same manner with sense, but itself by itself exciting the types received from them,— when he asserts this, he indicates, by arranging the painter according to the phantastic power, but the scribe according to the common sense, that these are essentially different from each other. In the Theætetus, also, he clearly separates that which judges concerning sensible impressions, from sense in which the seals of sensibles are expressed. But whether these essentially differ from each other or not, this is evident, that memory and sense are different, though the essence of these is divided about one subject which possesses an essential multitude; and that memory is nearer to reason than sense, because it receives types from the former as well as from the latter; sense receiving no impressions from reason. And thus much concerning things useful to political virtue, and to those that are instructed in it.
As I know, however, that Porphyry in his mixt Problems relates a certain conversation between Medius the Stoic and Longinus respecting the parts of the soul, I do not think it proper to let it pass unnoticed. Medius therefore having made the soul to consist of eight parts, and having divided it into that which governs, into the five senses, into that which is spermatic, and lastly into that which is vocal, Longinus asked him, why he divided the soul, being one, into eight parts? And Medius, in reply, asked Longinus, why, according to Plato, he made the soul, which is one, to be triple? This then deserves to be considered. For it is evident that the inquiry is not the same with the Stoics, who make the soul to consist of eight, as with Plato, who distributes it into three parts. For the Stoics make corporeal differences of parts; and hence it may be reasonably objected to them, how the soul is one, since it is divided into eight parts, without any connecting bond? But Plato, since he asserts that the soul is incorporeal. and incorporeal natures are united to each other without confusion, is not involved in the same doubt respecting the union of its three parts. Plato may also be defended after another manner by saying that, according to him, reason is of a more divine essence, but the irrational part of a much inferior nature; and that the former connects and adorns, but that the latter is connected and adorned; just as form when conjoined with matter introduces unity, and we do not require any thing else which may unite these to each other. Reason, therefore, possessing the order of form, unites the irrational life, and no other third conjoining nature is required. If, likewise, according to Plato⁴⁷, the junior Gods produce the irrational part, and the demiurgus the rational, there can no longer be any doubt respecting the source of union to reason and the irrational nature. And thus much in defence of Plato, in answer to the noble Medius.
In the last place, appetite and knowledge are contained in the rational soul. And its appetite is either directed to being, or to generation, through which it ascends to real being, and falls again into the regions of sense. The former appetite, therefore, is philosophic, and the latter is enamoured with generation. In like manner, with respect to its knowledge, that which pertains to the circle of sameness⁴⁸ is the knowledge of intelligibles, but that which pertains to the circle of difference is the knowledge of sensibles. Hence, through these the soul elevates herself to the vision of the former, and investigates the nature of the latter. The irrational powers, therefore, are images of these, the orective of the rational appetites, and the gnostic of rational knowledges. Imaginative or phantastic is indeed the image of intelligible, and sensitive of doxastic knowledge. Thus, too, the appetite of the irascible part is an image of re-elevating appetite, and of the desiderative part, of that appetite which produces generation: for this supervenes body, in the same manner as the former embraces generation. And anger despises body, but looks to honour, the good of incorporeal natures. The phantasy being a figured intellection of intelligibles, wills to be the knowledge of certain things; but sense is conversant with the same object as opinion, viz. a generated nature.

### Book V

479c. The riddle of children about the Eunuch striking the bat.
This, according to the Greek Scholiast on this part, was the riddle of Clearchus, and is as follows: A man and not a man, seeing and yet not seeing, struck and yet did not strike, a bird and not a bird, sitting and not sitting, on a tree and yet not on a tree. That is, a Eunuch blind of one eye struck with a pumice stone the wing of a bat perched on a reed.

## Additional Notes on the Timæus

EXTRACTED FROM THE COMMENTARIES OF PROCLUS ON THAT DIALOGUE.
27d. The former of these is, indeed, apprehended by intelligence in con- junction with reason. LET us, in the first place, consider how manifold intelligence is, and collect by reasoning its various progressions. The first intelligence, therefore, is intelligible, which passes into the same with the intelligible, and is in no respect different from it. This is essential intelligence and essence itself, because every thing in the intelligible subsists after this manner, viz. essentially and intelligibly. The second is that which conjoins intellect with the intelligible, possessing an idiom connective and collective of the extremes, and being life and power; filling, indeed, intellect from the intelligible, in which also it establishes intellect. The third is the conjoined intelligence in a Divine intellect itself, being the energy of intellect, through which it embraces the intelligible which it contains, and according to which it understands and is what it is: for, it is energy and intelligence itself, not indeed intelligible, but intellectual intelligence. The intelligence of partial intellects possesses the fourth order; for each of these contains all things partially, viz. intellect, intelligence, the intelligible, through which it is conjoined with wholes, and understands the whole intelligible world. The fifth intelligence is that of the rational soul; for as the rational soul is called intellect, so its knowledge is intelligence, viz. a transitive intelligence, with which time is connate. In the sixth place, you may rank, if you please, phantastic knowledge, which is by some denominated intelligence, and the phantasy itself is called a passive intellect, because it knows whatever it knows inwardly, and accompanied with types and figures. For it is common to all intelligence to possess the objects of its knowledge inwardly, and in this it differs from sense. But the highest kind of intelligence is the thing known itself. The second is that which sees the first totally, and is the thing known secondarily. The third is the thing known partially, but perceives wholes through that which is partial. The fourth sees wholes indeed, but partially, and not collectively. And the fifth is a vision accompanied with passivity. Such, therefore, are the diversities of intelligence.
At present, however, neither phantastic intelligence must be assumed; for this is not naturally adapted to know true being, because it is indefinite, and knows the imaginable accompanied with figures. Eternal being, however, is unfigured; and, in short, no irrational knowledge is capable of beholding being itself, since neither is it naturally adapted to perceive universal. Nor does Plato here signify the intelligence in the rational soul; for this does not possess collective vision, and that which is coordinated with eternal natures, but proceeds according to time. Nor yet are total intelligences to be here understood; for these are exempt from our knowledge; but Timæus coordinates intelligence with reason. The intelligence, therefore, of a partial intellect must now be assumed; for it is this in conjunction with which we once saw true being. For as sense is below the rational soul, so intelligence is above it. For a partial intellect is proximately established above our essence, which it also elevates and perfects; and to which we convert ourselves when we are purified through philosophy and conjoin our intellectual power with its intelligence. This partial intellect is participated by all other proximate dæmoniacal souls, and illuminates ours, when we convert ourselves to it, and render our reason intellectual. It is this intellect which Plato in the Phædrus calls the governor of the soul, and says that it alone understands true being, which is also perceived in conjunction with this intellect, by the soul which is nourished with intellect and science. In short, as every partial soul is essentially suspended from a certain dæmon, and every dæmon has a dæmoniacal intellect above itself, hence, every partial soul will have this intellect ranked prior to itself as an impartible essence. Of this intellect, therefore, the first participant will be a dæmoniacal soul, but the second, the partial souls under this, which likewise makes them to be partial. It also appears that the intellect immediately above every dæmon, so far as it is a whole and one, is the intellect of the dæmon which proximately participates it, but that it also comprehends the number of the souls which are under it, and the intellectual paradigms of them. Every partial soul, therefore, will have as an indivisible essence its proper paradigm, which this intellect contains, and not simply the whole intellect, in the same manner as the dæmon which is essentially its leader. Hence, the impartible belonging to every partial soul, may be accurately defined to be the idea of that soul, comprehended in the one intellect which is destined to be the leader of the dæmoniacal series, under which every such soul is arranged. And thus it will be true that the intellect of every partial soul is alone supernally established among eternal entities, and that every such soul is a medium between the impartible above it and the partible nature below it. This, then, is the intelligence prior to the soul, and which the soul participates when its intellectual part energizes intellectually. Hence, in the latter part of this dialogue, Plato says, that this intelligence is in the Gods, but that it is participated by a few only of the human race.
It likewise appears that Plato, unfolding the knowledge of eternal being, calls it at first intelligence, but he also conjoins with intelligence reason. For, when reason understands perpetual being, as reason it energizes transitively, but as perceiving intellectually it energizes with simplicity, understands each particular so far as simple at once, but not all things at once, but passing from one to another, at the same time intellectually perceiving every thing which it transitively sees, as one and simple.
In the next place, let us consider what reason is, and how it is connate with intelligence. Reason, therefore, is threefold, doxastic, scientific, and intellectual. For since there are in us opinion, the dianoëtic part, and intellect, which last is the summit of the dianoëtic part, and since the whole of our essence is reason, in each of these parts reason must be differently considered. But neither is opinion naturally adapted to be conjoined with the intelligence of intellect in energy; for, on the contrary, it is conjoined with irrational knowledge, since it only knows that a thing is, but is ignorant of the why. Nor is the dianoëtic part, so far as it proceeds into multitude and division, capable of recurring to an intellect above the human soul, but on the contrary, it is separated through the variety of its reasons from intellectual impartibility. It remains, therefore, that the summit of the soul, and that which is most characterized by unity in the dianoëtic part, must be established in the intelligence of a partial intellect, being conjoined with it through alliance. This, then, is the reason which understands in us intelligibles, and an energy which Socrates in the Republic calls intelligence, in the same manner as he calls the dianoëtic power a knowledge subsisting between intelligibles and objects of opinion. In a subsequent part of this dialogue, Plato says, that this reason, together with science, is ingenerated in the soul when revolving about the intelligible. Science, however, has a more various energy, exploring some things by others; but the energy of intellect is more simple, surveying beings by an immediate projection of its visive power. This highest, therefore, and most indivisible part of our nature, Plato now denominates reason, as unfolding to us intellect and an intelligible essence. For, when the soul abandons phantasy and opinion, together with various and indefinite knowledge, and recurs to its own impartibility, according to which it is rooted in a partial intellect, and when recurring it conjoins its own energy with the intelligence of this intellect, then, together with it, it understands eternal being, its energy being both one and twofold, and sameness and separation subsisting in its intellections. For then the intelligence of the soul becomes more collected, and nearer to eternal natures, that it may apprehend the intelligible together with intellect, and that our reason, like a lesser, may energize in conjunction with a greater, light.
But how is true being comprehended by a partial intellect, or by reason? For true being is superior to all comprehension, and contains in itself all things with an exempt transcendency. In answer to this it may be replied, that intellect possessing its own intelligible, is on this account said to comprehend the whole of an intelligible essence; but reason, through an intellect coordinate to itself receiving conceptions of real beings, is thus through these said to comprehend being. Perhaps, also, it may be said that reason running round the intelligible, and energizing, and being moved as about a centre, thus beholds it; intelligence, indeed, knowing it without transition and impartibly, but reason circularly energizing about its essence, and evolving the united subsistence of all things which it contains.
Let us, in the next place, consider what opinion is. According to Plato, then, the doxastic power comprehends the reasons of sensibles, knows the essence of these, and that they are, but is ignorant of the cause of their existence: the dianoëtic power, at the same time, knowing both the essences and the causes of sensibles, but sense having no knowledge of either. For it is clearly shown in the Theætetus that sense is ignorant of essence, being perfectly unacquainted with the cause of what it knows. Hence it is necessary that opinion should be ranked in the middle, and that it should know the essences of sensibles through the reasons or productive principles which it contains, but be ignorant of their causes. For in this right opinion differs from science, that it alone knows that a thing is, science being able to speculate the cause of its subsistence. Sense follows opinion, and is a medium between the organ of sense and opinion. For the organ of sense apprehends sensibles with passivity; and on this account it is destroyed when they are excessive. But opinion possesses a knowledge unattended with passion. Sense participates in a certain respect of passion, but has also something gnostic, so far as it is established in the doxastic nature, is illuminated by it, and becomes invested with reason, being of itself irrational. In this the series of gnostic powers is terminated, of which intelligence is the leader, being above reason and without transition. But reason has the second order, which is the intelligence of our soul, and transitively passes into contact with intelligibles. Opinion is in the third rank, being a knowledge of sensibles. And the fourth in gradation is sense, which is an irrational knowledge of sensibles. For the dianoëtic power subsisting between intelligence and opinion, is gnostic of middle forms, which require an apprehension more obscure than that of intelligence, and more clear than that of opinion. Hence opinion must be placed next to reason, because it possesses gnostic reasons of essences, but is otherwise irrational, as being ignorant of causes. But sense must be considered as entirely irrational. For, in short, each of the senses knows the passion subsisting about the animal from a sensible nature. Thus, for instance, with respect to an apple, the sight knows that it is red from the passion about the eye; the smell, that it is fragrant from the passion about the nostrils; the taste, that it is sweet; and the touch, that it is smooth. What then is it which says that this thing which thus affects the different senses, is an apple? It is not any one of the partial senses; for each of these knows one particular thing pertaining to the apple, but does not know the whole. Nor yet is this effected by the common sense; for this alone distinguishes the differences of the passions; but does not know that the thing which possesses such an essence is the whole. It is evident, therefore, that there is a certain power better than the senses, which knowing the whole prior to those things which are as it were parts, and beholding the form of this whole, is impartibly connective of these many powers. Plato calls this power opinion; and on this account he denominates that which is sensible, the object of opinion.
Further still, as the senses frequently announce to us things different from what they are in reality, what is it which judges in us, and says, that the sight, when it asserts that the diameter of the sun is no more than a foot in length, is deceived, and that this also is the case with the taste of the diseased, when honey appears to it to be bitter? For it is perfectly evident that in these, and all such like cases, the senses announce their passion, and are not entirely deceived. For they assert the passion which is produced about the instruments of sense, and which is such as they announce it to be; but that which declares the cause, and forms a judgment of the passion, is different. There is therefore a certain power of the soul which is better than sense, and which no longer knows sensibles through an organ, but through itself, and corrects the gross and inaccurate information of sense. This power which subsists as reason with respect to sense, is irrational with respect to the knowledge of true beings; but sense is simply and not relatively irrational. Hence Socrates in the Republic shows, that opinion is a medium between knowledge and ignorance. For it is a rational knowledge, but is mingled with irrationality, in consequence of knowing sensibles in conjunction with sense. Sense, however, is irrational alone; in the first place, because it subsists in irrational animals, and is characteristic of every irrational life; and in the second place, because contrary to all the parts of the irrational soul, it is incapable of being persuaded by reason. For the irascible and desiderative parts, submit to reason, are obedient to its commands, and receive from it instruction. But sense, though it should ten thousand times hear reason asserting, that the sun is geater than the earth, would at the same time see it of the dimension of a foot, and would not announce it to us in any other way. In the third place, sense is irrational alone, because it does not know that which it perceives: for it is not naturally adapted to perceive the essence of it. Thus, for instance, it does not know what a white thing is, but it knows that it is white through passion. It is also distributed about the instrument of sense, and on this account therefore is irrational. In the fourth place, this is true of sense, because it is the boundary of all the series of knowledge, possesses an essence most remote from reason and intellect, belongs to things external, and makes its apprehension through body: for all these particulars indicate its irrational nature. Every thing generated, therefore, is apprehended by opinion, in conjunction with sense; the latter announcing the passions, and the former producing from itself the reasons of generated natures, and knowing their essences. And as reason, when in contact with intelligence, sees the intelligible, so opinion, coordinated with sense, knows that which is generated. For the soul being of a middle essence, fills up the medium between intellect and an irrational nature: for by her summit, or the vertex of the dianoëtic part, she is present with intellect, and by her extremity she verges to sense. Hence Timæus, in the former conjunction, ranked intelligence before reason, as being more excellent; but in the second conjunction he places opinion before sense. For there reason is posterior to intelligence, as being a lesser intellect; but here opinion is prior to sense, as being rational sense. Opinion, however, and reason bound the whole extent of the rational essence; but as the great Plotinus says, intellect is our king, and sense our messenger. And reason indeed, together with intellect, sees the intelligible; but by itself it speculates the middle reasons of things. Opinion, together with sense, sees that which is generated; but by itself it considers all the forms which its own essence contains. P. 474. It was generated. For this universe is visible, and has a body,
&c.
As the demiurgus of wholes looking to himself, and always abiding after his accustomed manner, produces the whole world totally, collectively, or at once, and with an eternal sameness of energy, so Timæus being converted to himself, lays down the whole theory, recurring to intellect from the dianoëtic power, and proceeding into reasoning from intellect. Doubting therefore, and interrogating himself, he energizes according to the self-moved nature of the soul; but answering, he imitates the projection of intellect. In the first place, therefore, he comprehends the dogma in one word γεγονεν, it was generated, and enunciates the conclusion prior to the demonstration, directly after the manner of those that energize enthusiastically, who perceive the whole collectively, and contract in intellect the end previous to the digression, in consequence of seeing all things at once. But in the second place syllogizing, he descends from intellect to logical evolutions, and an investigation through demonstration of the nature of the world. In a perfectly divine manner, therefore, he indicates from hypotheses the whole form of the universe. For if the world is visible and tangible, and has a body, but that which is visible, tangible, and has a body, is sensible, and that which is sensible, and the object of opinion in conjunction with sense, is generated: the world therefore is generated. And this he shows demonstratively from the definition: since geometricians also use demonstrations of this kind. And thus much concerning the form of these words.
It is however evident that Timæus, in giving a certain generation to the world, establishes it at the same time remote from temporal generation. For if the world has a certain, and not every principle of generation, but that which is generated from time has the principle of all generation, the world is not generated from time. Further still, let us attend to the wonderful hypotheses of Atticus, who says, that what according to Plato was moved in a confused and disordered manner is unbegotten; but that the world was generated from time. Since then Plato admits that there is a cause of generation, let us see what he asserts it to be. For the world is sensible and tangible. Whether therefore was every thing sensible generated from time, or not every thing? For if every thing, that which was moved in a confused and disordered manner was also generated from time: for he says, that this likewise was visible. But if not every thing, the reasoning is unsyllogistic, according to Atticus, and concludes nothing. Unless indeed Atticus should say that the world is visible and tangible, but that what was moved in a confused and disordered manner is not now visible, but was so prior to the fabrication of the world, since Plato thus speaks, “Every thing which was visible, being moved in a confused and disordered manner;” but here he says, “The world is visible and tangible, and has a body.” Plato therefore shows that every thing which is visible and tangible is generated, but not every thing which was so. Should Atticus then thus speak, (for the man is skilful in taking up one word in the place of another,) we must say, that in the definition of what is generated, there is nothing of this kind, but it is simply said, that every thing generated is the object of opinion, in conjunction with irrational sense; so that if any thing is perfectly sensible, it will also be generated. But every thing visible is sensible, so that what was moved with confusion and disorder was generated. Nor is it proper to say that it was unbegotten according to time, but that the universe was generated in time; since either both were generated, or both are unbegotten. For both are similarly called visible and generaed by Plato. But if both were generated, prior to this the world was changed into disorder: for generation to a contrary is entirely from a contrary. And if the maker of the world is good, how is it possible that he should not harmonize it beautifully; or that having beautifully harmonized it, he should destroy it? But if he was not good, how not being good, did he make it to be orderly and elegantly arranged? For to effect this is the work of a beneficent artificer. But if being visible and generated, it is not generated according to time, it is not necessary immediately to assign to the universe a temporal generation, because it is said to be visible and generated. And thus much in reply to Atticus.
Let us however return to our principles, and inquire whether the world always was, as being eternal, or is not eternal, but consubsistent with time, and whether it is self-subsistent, or produced by another. Such then is the inquiry. The answer to which is, that it was produced by another, and is consubsistent with time. But a thing of this kind is generated. For if it has a composite form, it has generation in consequence of its composition. And if it alone subsists from another cause, it is generated, as not producing itself. And if it is eternal, it has its whole subsistence coextended with time. For it was fabricated with reference to something else, and it was generated as a flowing image of real being. As therefore that which is composite is to that which is simple, and as time is to eternity, so is generation to essence. If then a simple and uniform essence is eternal, an essence composite, multiform, and conjoined with time, is generation. Hence Plato divinely inquires, whether the world originated from a certain principle. For that which was once generated, originated from a temporal, fabricative, final, material, and formal principle. For principle being predicated multifariously, that which is produced in time originates according to all these modes. But the world originated from a certain, and not from every principle. What then was this principle? It was not temporal: for that which originates from this, is also allotted the principle of its generation from all the others. It originated indeed from that most leading and proper principle, the final, as Plato himself teaches us in the course of this Dialogue. For it was generated through the good, and this is the principle of generation from which it originated. In the first place, therefore, he shows that the world is generated, from its composition: for it is tangible and visible. These then are the extremities of the universe: for heaven is visible, but earth is tangible; and the visible is in earth, so far as it participates of light, and the tangible in heaven, so far as a terrene nature is comprehended in it according to cause. In short he says that the world has a body, that we may also take into account the middle perfections of the universe. And in this Plato speaks agreeably to the oracle, which says, “The world is an imitation of intellect, but that which is fabricated possesses something of body.” So far therefore as the universe has something corporeal, it is generated, for according to this it is both visible and tangible. But every thing visible and tangible is sensible: for sense is touching and seeing. But that which is sensible is the object of opinion, as being mingled with dissimilars, and as incapable of preserving the purity of intelligible forms. And every thing of this kind is generated, as having a composite essence. Plato therefore does not subvert the perpetuity of the universe, as some have thought he does, following Aristotelic hypotheses: and that this is true, we may easily learn as follows.
Time, says Plato, was generated together with heaven, or the universe. If therefore time is perpetual, the universe also is perpetual. But if time has a temporal beginning, the universe also has a temporal beginning; though it is of all things most absurd that time should have a beginning. But the advocates for the temporal origin of the world say, that time is twofold, one kind being disordered, and the other proceeding according to number; since motion is twofold, one disordered and confused, and the other orderly and elegant; and time is coordinate with each of these motions. But it is possible indeed for body to be moved equably or unequably, but impossible to conceive time equable and unequable: for thus the essence of time would be a composite. Though, indeed, why do I thus speak? for when motion is unequable, time is equable. Now, therefore, there are also many motions, some more swift, and others more slow, and one of which is more equable than another, but of all of them there is one continued time, proceeding according to number. Hence it is not right to make this twofold time. But if time is one and continued, if it is unbegotten, the universe also is unbegotten, which is consubsistent with time. But if time is generated, an absurdity will ensue; for time will require time in order to its being generated, and this when it has not yet a being; since when time was generated, time was not yet.
Further still, Plato conjoins the soul of the universe, immediately on its generation with the body of the universe, and does not give to it a life prior to that of the corporeal nature. Soul however ranks, according to him, among perpetual beings. If therefore soul is consubsistent with body, but soul has a perpetual subsistence, body also is perpetual according to Plato: for that which is consubsistent with a perpetual nature is unbegotten.
Again, Timæus here says, that the soul is generated, but Socrates in the Phædru s says, that it is unbegotten. Hence he calls that which is clearly unbegotten according to time, after another manner begotten. Again, Plato calls the world incorruptible, in the same manner as those who contend that it was generated in time. But in the Republic he clearly asserts, or rather the Muses and not Plato, that every thing which is generated according to time is corruptible. But from these things you may understand what I say: for the world is shown by them to be unbegotten. For if the world is incorruptible, but nothing generated according to time is incorruptible, the world is not generated according to time. But why is a syllogism of this kind necessary, since Plato clearly says in the Laws, that time is infinite according to the past, and that in this infinity myriads on myriads of fertile and barren periods of mankind have taken place? Or rather, that we may reason from what we have at hand, Plato a little before, in this very dialogue, says, “that in those places where neither intense cold nor immoderate heat prevails, the race of mankind is always preserved, though sometimes the number of individuals is increased, and sometimes suffers a considerable diminution. But if the race of mankind always is, the universe also must necessarily be perpetual.
Again, therefore, if the demiurgus of the universe ranks among eternal beings, he does not at one time fabricate, and at another not; for he would not possess a sameness of subsistence, nor an immutable nature. But if he always fabricates, that which he produces always is. For what could be his intention, after having been indolent for an infinite time, in converting himself to fabrication? Shall we say that he apprehended it was better so to do? Was he then ignorant before that this was better or not? For if he was ignorant, he will, though a pure and divine intellect, be deprived of knowledge, which is absurd to suppose. But if he knew that it was better, why did he not before begin to generate and make the world? In another respect also, those appear to me to sin against the demiurgus of the universe, who say that the world once was not. For if the world once had no existence, the demiurgus once did not make it: since that which is made and the maker subsist together. But if he once did not make, he was then a maker in capacity; and if in capacity, he was then imperfect, and afterwards perfect, when he made the world. If, however, prior and posterior subsist about him, it is evident that he does not rank among beings who eternally energize, but among those that energize according to time, passing from not making to making. However, he produces time. How therefore, possessing an energy indigent of time, did he through this energy produce time? For he once made time, of which notwithstanding he is in want, in order that he may make time.
How therefore may the world be said to be generated? We reply, as that which always is to be generated, and always will be generated. For a partial body not only is to be generated, but there was a time when it was generated. But all heaven, or the universe, alone subsists in the being to be generated, or in becoming to be, and is not at the same time that which was generated. For as the solar light proceeds from its proper fountain, so the world is always generated, and always produced, and is as it were always advancing into being. P. 474. To discover therefore the Artificer and Father of this Universe,
&c.
Father and artificer differ with respect to each other, so far as the former is the cause of being, and the supplier of union, but the latter of powers, and a multiform essence; and so far as the former stably comprehends all things in himself, but the latter is the cause of progression and generation; and so far as the former signifies ineffable and divine Providence, but the latter a copious communication of reasons or productive principles. But this uni- verse signifies corporeal masses, the whole spheres, and those things which give completion to each. It also signifies the vital and intellectual powers which are carried in the corporeal masses. It likewise comprehends all mundane causes, and the whole divinity of the world, about which the number of mundane gods proceeds. The one intellect, divine soul, and whole bulk of the universe, and its conjoined, divine, intellectual, psychical, and corporeal number, since every monad has a multitude coordinate with itself, are also to be assumed in the place of the world. For the universe signifies all these. Perhaps too the addition of this is significant of the world being in a certain respect sensible and partial. For the whole of an intelligible nature cannot be denominated this, because it comprehends all intellectual forms. But to the visible universe the particle τοδε, or this, is adapted, in consequence of its being allotted a sensible and material nature. It is difficult therefore, as he says, to find the artificer of this universe. For since, with respect to invention, one kind proceeds from things first according to science, but another from things secondary according to reminiscence, invention from things first may be said to be difficult, because the discovery of the powers which are situated between, is the province of the highest theory, but that from things secondary is still more difficult. For, in order to behold from these the essence of the demiurgus, and the powers which he contains, it is necessary to survey the whole nature of his productions. We must therefore behold all the apparent parts of the world, and its unapparent powers, according to which the sympathy and antipathy of the parts in the universe subsist; and prior to these stable physical reasons and natures themselves, both the more partial and the more total, material and immaterial, divine and dæmonical, and those of mortal animals. And further still, we must survey the genera of life, the eternal and the mortal, the undefiled and the material, the total and the partial, the rational and the irrational, and all the completions pertaining to essences more excellent than ours, through which every thing between the gods and a mortal nature is bound together. We must also be able to perceive all various souls, and different numbers of gods, according to different parts of the universe, together with the ineffable and effable impressions of the world, through which it is conjoined with the father. For he who, without surveying these, attempts the vision of the demiurgus, will, through imperfection, be deprived of the intellectual perception of the father of the universe. But it is not lawful for any thing imperfect to be united with that which is all perfect. It is necessary, indeed, that the soul becoming an intellectual world, and assimilated in her power to the whole and intelligible world, should approach near to the maker of the universe, and through this approximation become familiar with him, through continuity of intellectual projection. For an uninterrupted energy about any thing calls forth and resuscitates our essential reasons. But through this familiarity the soul, being stationed at the gate of the father, will become united with him. For the discovery of him is this, to meet with him, to be united with him, to associate alone with the alone, and to see him with immediate vision, the soul for this purpose withdrawing herself from every other energy. The discovery therefore of the father of the universe is such as this, and not that which is effected by opinion; for such a discovery is dubious, and not very remote from the irrational life. Nor yet is it scientific; for this is syllogistic and composite, and does not come into contact with the intellectual essence of the intellectual demiurgus. But the discovery of which Plato now speaks subsists according to immediate visive projection (κατα την επιβολην την αυτοπτικην), a contact with the intelligible, and an union with the demiurgic intellect. For this may be properly denominated difficult, whether as laborious, and appearing to souls after all the journey of life⁴⁹, or as the true labour of souls. For after the wandering of generation and purification from its stains, and after the light of science, intellectual energy, and the intellect which is in us, will shine forth, establishing as in a port the soul in the father of the universe, purely seating her in demiurgic intellections, and conjoining light with light, not such as that of science, but more beautiful, intellectual, and uniform than this. For this is the paternal port, and the discovery of the father, viz. an undefiled union with him.
But when Plato says, “it is impossible to reveal him through the ministry of discourse to all men,” it perhaps indicates the custom of the Pythagoreans, who preserved in secrecy assertions respecting divine natures, and did not speak concerning them to the multitude. For, as the Elean guest in the Sophista says, “The eyes of the multitude are not sufficiently strong to look to truth.” This also, which is a much more venerable assertion, may perhaps be said, that it is impossible for him who has discovered the father of the universe, to speak of him, such as he has seen him. For this discovery was not effected by the soul speaking, but by her being initiated in divine mysteries, and converting herself to the divine light; nor was it in consequence of her being moved according to her proper motion, but from her becoming silent, according to that silence which leads the way. For since the essence of other things is not naturally adapted to be enunciated through names, or through definition, or even through science, but by intelligence alone, as Plato says in his seventh Epistle, after what other manner is it possible to discover the essence of the demiurgus than intellectually? Or how, having thus discovered him, can that which is seen be told through nouns and verbs, and communicated to others? For a discursive energy, since it is attended with composition, is incapable of representing a uniform and simple nature. But here some one may say, Do we not assert many things concerning the demiurgus, and other gods, and concerning the one itself, the principle of all things? We reply that we speak concerning them, but we do not speak the αυτο, or the very thing itself, which each of them is. And we are able indeed to speak of them scientifically, but not intellectually: for this, as we have said before, is to discover them. But if the discovery is a silent energy of the soul, how can speech flowing through the mouth be sufficient to lead into light that which is discovered, such as it truly is?
After this, Proclus, following, as he says, the light of science, investi- gates who the demiurgus of the universe is, and in what order of things he ranks. For Numenius the Pythagorean (says he), celebrating three gods, calls the first father, the second maker, and the third work or effect (ποιημα), for the world, according to him, is the third god; so that with Numenius there is a two-fold demiurgus, viz. the first and second god, but that which is fabricated is the third divinity. Numenius, however, in thus speaking, in the first place, does not act rightly in connumerating the good with these causes. For the good, or the supreme principle of things, is not naturally adapted to be conjoined with certain things, nor to possess an order secondary to any thing. But with Plato father is here ranked after artificer. Further still, he coarranges that which is exempt from all habitude, viz. the ineffable cause of all, with the natures under, and posterior to, him. But these things ought to be referred to subordinate natures, and all habitude should be taken away from that which is first. That which is paternal therefore in the universe cannot be adapted to the first principle of things. And, in the third place, it is not right to divide father and artificer, since Plato celebrates one and the same divinity by both these names. For one divine fabrication, and one fabricator and father, are every where delivered by Plato.
With respect to Harpocration, it would be wonderful if he were consistent with himself in what he says concerning the demiurgus. For this man makes the demiurgus two-fold, and calls the first god Heaven and Saturn, the second Jupiter and Zena, and the third Heaven and the World. Again, therefore, transferring the first god into another order, he calls him Jupiter, and the king of the intelligible world; but he calls the second, the Ruler; and the same divinity according to him is Jupiter, Saturn, and Heaven. The first god therefore is all these, though Plato in the Parmenides takes away from the one, or the first god, every name, all discourse, and every habitude. We indeed do not think it proper to call the first even father; but with Harpocration the first is father, son, and grandson.
Again Atticus, the preceptor of Harpocration, directly makes the demiurgus to be the same with the good, though the demiurgus is called by Plato good (αγαθος), but not the good (ταγαθον). The demiurgus is also denominated by Plato intellect; but the good is the cause of all essence, and is beyond being, as we learn from the 6th book of the Republic. But what will he say respecting the paradigm, to which the demiurgus looks in fabricat ing the world? For it is either prior to the demiurgus, and so according to Atticus there will be something more antient than the good; or it will be in the demiurgus, and so that which is first will be many, and not the one; or it will be after the demiurgus, and so the good, which it is not lawful to assert, will be converted to things posterior to itself, and will intellectually apprehend them.
After these men, Plotinus the philosopher places a two-fold demiurgus, one in the intelligible world, and the other the governor of the universe. And he says rightly: for in a certain respect the mundane intellect is the demiurgus of the universe. But the father and artificer, whom he places in the intelligible, is transcendently the demiurgus; Plotinus calling every thing between the one and the world intelligible: for there, according to him, the true heaven, the kingdom of Saturn, and the intellect of Jupiter, subsist. Just as if any one should say that the sphere of Saturn, that of Jupiter, and that of Mars, are contained in the heavens: for the whole of an intelligible essence is one many, and is one intellect comprehending many intelligibles. And such is the doctrine of Plotinus.
In the next place, Amelius (the disciple of Plotinus) makes a triple demiurgus, three intellects, and three kings, one that is, the second that hath, and the third that sees. But these differ, because the first intellect is truly that which is; but the second is indeed the intelligible which it contains, yet has that which is prior to itself, participates entirely of it, and on this account is the second. And the third is indeed likewise the intelligible which it contains; for every intellect is the same with its conjoned intelligible; but it contains that which is in the second, and sees the first: for that which it possesses is obscure in proportion to its distance from the first. According to Amelius, therefore, these three intellects and artificers are the same as the three kings with Plato, and as Phanes, Heaven, and Saturn, with Orpheus; and that which is especially the demiurgus according to him is Phanes. To Amelius, however, it is proper to say, that Plato is every where accustomed to recur from multitude to the unities from which the order in the many proceeds; or rather prior to Plato, from the very order of things themselves, the one is always prior to multitude, and every divine order begins from a monad. For it is indeed requisite that a divine number should proceed from a triad⁵⁰, but prior to the triad is the monad. Where therefore is the demiurgic monad, that there may be a triad from it? And how is the world one, not being fabricated by one cause? For it is requisite by a much greater priority that the cause of the world should be united and be monadic, that the world may become only-begotten. Let there then be three artificers; but who is the one prior to the three; looking indeed to one paradigm, but making the word only-begotten? It is not proper, therefore, that the demiurgic number should begin from a triad but from a monad.
After Amelius, Porphyry, thinking to accord with Plato, calls the supermundane soul the demiurgus, and the intellect of this soul to which he is converted, animal-itself, as being according to him the paradigm of the demiurgus. It is requisite, therefore, to inquire of Porphyry, in which of his writings Plotinus makes soul to be the demiurgus, and how this accords with Plato, who continually denominates the demiurgus a god and intellect, but never calls him soul? How likewise does Plato call the world a god? And how does the demiurgus pervade through all mundane natures? For all things do not participate of soul; but all things partake of demiurgic providence. And divine fabrication indeed is able to generate intellect and gods; but soul is not naturally adapted to produce any thing above the order pertaining to soul. I omit to observe that it is by no means certain that Plato knew any imparticipable soul.
To Porphyry succeeds the divine Jamblichus, who having written largely against the opinion of Porphyry, and subverting it as being Plotinean, delivers to us his own theology, and calls all the intelligible world the demiurgus. If therefore he means that all things subsist demiurgically in the demiurgus, both being itself, and the intelligible world, he accords with himself, and also with Orpheus, who says,
All that exists in confluent order lies
Within the belly of the mighty Jove.
Nor is it in any respect wonderful that each of the gods should be the universe, but at the same time each differently from the rest; one demiurgically, another according to connecting comprehension (συνοχικως), another immutably, and another in a still different manner according to a divine idiom. But if Jamblichus means that the whole extent between the world and the one is the demiurgus, this indeed is worthy of doubt, and we may reply to the assertion from what he himself has taught us. For where are the kings prior to Jupiter, who are the fathers of Jupiter? Where are the kings mentioned by Plato, whom Jamblichus arranges above the world, and about the one? And how can we say that eternal being itself is the first being, but that the demiurgus is the whole intelligible order, who is himself also eternal being as well as animal itself? For shall we not thus be compelled to say that the demiurgus is not eternal being; unless so far as he also is comprehended together with other eternal beings? But that Jamblichus himself, though most prolific in these things, has in some of his other writings more accurately celebrated the demiurgic order, may be inferred from this, that in speaking concerning the fabrication of Jupiter in the Timæus, after the intelligible triads, and the three triads of gods in the intellectual hebdomad, he assigns the third order in these processions to the demiurgus. For he says that these three gods are also celebrated by the Pythagoreans, who denominate the first of these intellects, and which comprehends in itself total monads, simple, indivisible, boniform, abiding in and united with itself, and consider it as possessing such like signs of transcendency. But they say that the most beautiful signs of the middle intellect, and which collects together the completion of such like natures, are that which is prolific in the gods, that which congregates the three intellects, replenishes energy, is generative of divine life, and is the source of progression and beneficence to every thing. And they inform us that the most illustrious tokens of the third intellect, which fabricates wholes, are prolific progressions, fabrications and connected comprehensions of total causes, whole causes bounded in forms, and which emit from themselves all fabrications, and other prerogatives similar to these. It is proper, therefore, to judge from these assertions, what the Jamblichean theology is concerning the demiurgus of wholes.
After him Theodorus⁵¹, following Amelius, says, that there are three artificers; but he does not arrange them immediately after the one, but at the extremity of the intelligible and intellectual gods. He likewise calls one of these essential intellect, another intellectual essence, and another the fountain of souls; and says that the first is indivisible, the second is distributed into wholes, and that the third has made a distribution into particulars. Again, therefore, we may say the same things to him as we said to the noble Amelius, that we acknowledge these to be three gods, or analogous to these, but not also three artificers; but we say that one of these is the intelligible of the demiurgus, the second his generative power, and the third that which is truly demiurgic intellect. But it is requisite to consider whether the fountain of souls is to be arranged as the third: for power belongs to the middle, as he also says, and hence the fountain of souls should be partially, and not universally, denominated the fountain of life. For the fountain of souls is only one of the fountains in this middle; since life is not in souls only, nor in animated natures alone, but there is also divine and intellectual life prior to that of the soul, which they say, proceeding from this middle, emits a diversity of life from distributed channels. Such then, in short, are the dogmas of antient interpreters respecting the demiurgus.
Let us now, therefore, briefly relate the conceptions of our preceptor on this subject, and which we think accord in a very eminent degree with those of Plato. The demiurgus, therefore, according to him, possesses the extremity⁵² of the intellectual divine monads, and the fountains of life, emitting from himself total fabrication, and imparting dominion to the more partial fathers of wholes. He is likewise immovable, being eternally established on the summit of Olympus, and ruling over two-fold worlds, the supercelestial and celestial, and comprehending the beginning, middle, and end of all things. For of every demiurgic distribution, one kind is of wholes with a total subsistence, another of wholes with a partial subsistence, another of parts with a total⁵³, and another of parts with a partial subsistence. But fabrication being fourfold, the demiurgic monad binds in itself the total providence of wholes, but a demiurgic triad is suspended from it which governs parts totally, and distributes the power of the monad⁵⁴; just as in the other, or partial fabrication, a monad is the leader of a triad which orderly distributes wholes partially, and parts partially. But all the multitude of the triad revolves round the monad, is distributed about it, divides its fabrications, and is filled from it. If these things then are rightly asserted, the demiurgus of wholes is the boundary of the intellectual gods, being established indeed in the intelligible, but full of power, according to which he produces wholes, and converts all things to himself. Hence Timæus call him intellect, and the best of causes, and says that he looks to an intelligible paradigm, that by this he may separate him from the first intelligible gods; but by calling him intellect, he places him in an order different from that of the gods, who are both intelligible and intellectual: and by the appellation of the best of causes, he establishes him above all other supermundane fabricators. He is, therefore, an intellectual god exempt from all other fabricators. But if he was the first⁵⁵ deity in the intellectual order, he would possess a permanent characteristic, abiding after his accustomed mode: for this is the illustrious prerogative of the first intellectual god. If he was the second⁵⁶ deity of this order he would be particularly the cause of life; but now in generating soul, he energizes indeed together with the crater, but is essentially intellect. He is therefore no other than the third⁵⁷ of the intellectual fathers: for his peculiar work is the production of intellect, and not the fabrication of body. For he makes body, yet not alone, but in conjunction with necessity; but he makes intellect through himself. Nor is it his peculiar work to produce soul: for he generates soul together with the crater; but he alone both gives subsistence to and causes intellect to preside over the universe.
As he is therefore the maker of intellect, he very properly has also an intellectual order. Hence he is called by Plato, fabricator and father; and is neither father alone, nor fabricator alone, nor again, father and fabricator. For the extremes are father⁵⁸ and fabricator; the former possessing the summit of intelligibles, and subsisting prior to the royal series, and the latter subsisting at the extremity of the order; and the one being the monad of paternal deity, and the other being allotted a fabricative power in the universe. But between both these are, father and at the same time artificer, and artificer and at the same time father. For each of these is not the same; but in the one the paternal, and in the other the fabricative has dominion; and the paternal is better than the fabricative. Hence the first of the two media is more characterized by father; for, according to the Oracle, “he is the boundary of the paternal profundity, and the fountain of intellectual natures.” But the second of the media is more characterized by cator: for he is the monad of total fabrication. Whence also I think that the former is called Metis (μητις) but the latter Metietes (μητιετης); and the former is seen, but the latter sees. The former also is swallowed up, but the latter is satiated with the power of the former; and what the former is in intelligibles, that the latter is in intellectuals; for the one is the boundary of the intelligible, and the other of the intellectual gods. Likewise concerning the former Orpheus says, “The father made these things in a dark cavern;” but concerning the latter, Plato says, “Of whom I am the demiurgus and father.” And in his Politicus he reminds us of the doctrine of the demiurgus and father; because the former of these divinities is more characterized by the paternal, and the latter by the demiurgic peculiarity. But every god is denominated from his idiom, though at the same time he comprehends all things. And the divinity indeed, who is alone the maker or artificer, is the cause of mundane natures; but he who is both artificer and father is the cause of supermundane and mundane natures. He who is father and artificer is the cause of intellectual, supermundane, and mundane natures; and he who is father alone is the cause of things intelligible, intellectual, supermundane and mundane. Plato, therefore, thus representing the demiurgus, leaves him ineffable and without a name, as subsisting prior to wholes, in the allotment of the good. For in every order of gods there is that which is analogous to the one; and of this kind is the monad in every world. But Orpheus also gives him a name as being thence moved; and in this he is followed by Plato in other parts of his writings: for the Jupiter with him, who is prior to the three sons of Saturn, is the demiurgus of universe.
After the absorption, therefore, of Phanes, the ideas of all things appeared in Jupiter, as the theologist (Orpheus) says:
Hence with the universe great Jove contains
Heav’n’s splendid height, and æther’s ample plains;
 The barren sea, wide-bosom’d earth renown’d,
Ocean immense, and Tartarus profound;
Fountains and rivers, and the boundless main,
With all that nature’s ample realms contain;
And gods and goddesses of each degree,
All that is past, and all that e’er shall be;
Occultly, and in confluent order lie
In Jove’s vast womb, the ruler of the sky.
But being full of ideas, through these he comprehends wholes in himself, which also the theologist indicating, adds,
Jove is the first and last, high thund’ring king;
Middle and head, and all things spring from Jove.
King Jove the root of earth and heav’n contains:
One power, one dæmon is the source of all.
For in Jove’s royal body all things lie,
Fire, earth, and water, æther, night, and day.
Jupiter, therefore, comprehending wholes, at the same time gives subsistence to all things in conjunction with Night. Hence to Jupiter thus inquiring,
Tell me how all things will as one subsist,
Yet each its nature separate preserve?
Night replies,
All things receive enclos’d on ev’ry side,
In æther’s wide ineffable embrace:
Then in the midst of æther place the heav’n,
In which let earth of infinite extent,
The sea, and stars, the crown of heav’n, be fixt.
And Jupiter is instructed by Night in all the subsequent mundane fabrication: but after she has laid down rules respecting all other productions, she adds,
But when around the whole your pow’r has spread
A strong coercive bond, a golden chain
Suspend from æther.
viz. a chain perfectly strong and indissoluble, proceeding from nature, soul and intellect. For being bound, says Plato, with animated bonds, they became animals,
——the golden chain suspend from æther.
The divine orders above the world⁵⁹ being denominated Homerically a golden chain. And Plato, emulating Homer, says in this dialogue, “that the demiurgus binding intellect in soul, and soul in body, fabricated the universe, and that he gave subsistence to the junior gods, through whom also he adorns the parts of the world.” If therefore it is Jupiter who possesses one power, who swallows Phanes in whom the intelligible causes of wholes primarily subsist, who produces all things according to the admonitions of Night, and who confers dominion both on other gods and the three sons of Saturn, he it is who is the one and whole demiurgus of the universe, possessing the fifth order among those gods that rank as kings, as is divinely shown by our preceptor in his Orphic conferences, and who is coordinate with Heaven and Phanes; and on this account he is artificer and father, and each of these totally.
But that Plato also has these conceptions concerning the mighty Jupiter is evident from the appellations which he gives him in the Cratylus, evincing that he is the cause and the supplier of life to all things: for, says he, that through which life is imparted to all things is denominated by us δια and ζηνα. But in the Gorgias, he coordinates him with the sons of Saturn, and at the same time gives him a subsistence exempt from them, that he may be prior to the three, and may be participated by them, and establishes Law together with him, in the same manner as Orpheus. For, from the admonitions of Night, according to Orpheus, Law is made the assessor of Jupiter, and is established together with him. Further still, Plato in his Laws, conformably to the theologist, represents total Justice as the associate of Jupiter: and in the Philebus he evinces that a royal soul and a royal intellect presubsist in Jupiter according to the reason of cause; agreeably to which he now also describes him as giving subsistence to intellect and soul, as unfolding the laws of fate, and producing all the orders of mundane gods and animals, as far as to the last of things; generating some of these by himself alone, and others through the celestial gods as media. In the Politicus also he calls Jupiter the demiurgus and father of the universe, in the same manner as in this dialogue, and says that the present order of the world is under Jupiter, and that the world is governed according to fate. The world, therefore, living a life under the domionion of Jupiter, has Jupiter for the demiurgus and father of its life. The divine poet Homer likewise represents him fabricating on the summit of Olympus, (“Hear me, all ye gods and goddesses!”) and converting the two-fold coordinations of divinities to himself. Through the whole of his poetry, too, he calls him the supreme of rulers, and the father of men and gods, and celebrates him with all demurgic conceptions. Since, therefore, according to all the Grecian theology, the fabrication of the universe is ascribed to Jupiter, what ought we to think respecting these words of Plato? Is it not that the deity which is celebrated by him as artificer and father is the sovereign Jupiter, and that he is neither father alone, nor father and artificer? For the father was the monad, as the Pythagoreans say: but he is this very order of gods, the decad, at which number proceeding from the retreats of the monad arrives, this being a universal recipient, venerable, circularly investing all things with bound, immutable, unwearied, and which they call the sacred decad. After the paternal monad, therefore, and the paternal and at the same time fabricative tetrad, the demiurgic decad proceeds; being immutable indeed, because immutable deity is consubsistent with it, but investing all things with bound, as being the supplier of order to things disordered, and of ornament to things unadorned, and illuminating souls with intellect, as being itself intellect totally; body with soul, as possessing and comprehending the cause of soul; and producing things which are truly generated as middle and last, in consequence of containing in itself demiurgic being.
35b. In the first place, he received one part from the whole, &c. After Proclus has discussed every thing pertaining to the mathematical speculation of the psychogonic⁶⁰ diagram, an epitome of which we have given in the Introduction to this dialogue, he proceeds to a more principal and profound explanation of this part of the Timæus, as follows: In the first place, says he, we think it proper to speak about the division of the soul, according to which it is divided in these ratios, and likewise to remove whatever may be an impediment to us in apprehending the truth concerning it. Let no one therefore think that this division is corporeal, for we have before shown that the medium of the soul is exempt from body, and from the whole of that essence which is divided about it. Nor let any one who admits that it is better than body suppose that it ought to be divided after the same manner as the extremes and intervals by which body is measured. For things which possess interval, are not totally through the whole of themselves present to themselves, and when divided are not able to preserve an unconfused union. But soul, participating of an impartible destiny, is united to itself, and exhibits all the same elements subsisting in all the same. Nor again, let any one suppose that this is a section of number. For soul is indeed number, but not that which subsists according to quantity, but that which is essential, self-begotten, uniform, and converted to itself. Nor let any one compare the presence of these ratios in all things to spermatic reasons: for those are imperfect, corporeal and material, and are in every respect surpassed by the immaterial and pure essence of the reasons of the soul. Nor yet let any one assimilate the above-mentioned parts to the theorems of science, in consequence of each possessing the whole: for we do not now consider the knowledge, but the essence of the soul. Nor is it proper to think that diversities of essences are similar to the distinctions of habits: for the latter are all-variously diversified in those that possess them, but the former are established with a sameness of subsistence in demiurgic boundaries. It is requisite, therefore, to suspend the primary principle of the psychogonic division from a demiurgic cause, and from those perfect measures which eternally presubsist in beings, and to which the demiurgus also looking divides the soul. For as he divides this universe by intelligible paradigms, so also he separates the essence of the soul by the most beautiful boundaries, assimilating it to more antient and principal causes. The mode, therefore, of division is immaterial, intellectual, undefiled, perfective of the essence of the soul, generative of the multitude it contains, collective through harmony into one order, and connective of things divided; at the same time being the cause of the unmingled purity in the soul, and producing a confluent communion of reasons. And the demiurgus appears indeed to consume the whole by dividing it into parts: and thus, after a manner, Timæus also asserts; for he says, that the demiurgus consumed the whole from which he separated these parts. But as he had previously said that soul is not only partible, but also impartible, it is requisite to preserve both, and to consider that while the wholeness remains impartible, a division into multitude is produced: for if we take one of these only, I mean the section, we shall make it only indivisible. The whole, therefore, is divided together with the whole remaining impartible; so that it equally participates of both. Hence it is well observed by the dæmoniacal Aristotle, that there is something impartible in partible natures, by which they are connected⁶¹; so that it is much more necessary that something impartible should remain in things whose nature is not only partible, but also impartible. For if it should not remain, that which consists from both will be alone partible. But that it is necessary that the whole should remain in the generation of the parts is evident; since the demiurgus is an eternal fabricator. But he constituted the soul one whole prior to its division: for he does not produce at one time and destroy at another; but he always produces every thing, and this eternally; and makes that which is produced to remain such as it is. The wholeness, therefore, is not destroyed in giving subsistence to the parts, but remains and precedes⁶² the parts. For he did not produce the parts prior to the whole, and afterwards generate the whole from these; but, on the contrary, produced the whole first, and from this gave subsistence to the parts. Hence the essence of the soul is at the same time a whole and possesses parts, and is one and multitude. And such is the division which Timæus assumes in the soul.
But let the mode of its explanation accord with the essence of the soul, being remote from apparent harmony, but recurring to essential and immaterial harmony, and sending us from images to paradigms. For the symphony which flows into the ears, and consists in sounds and pulsations, is entirely different from that which is vital and intellectual. Let no one therefore stop at the mathematical speculation of the present passage, but let him excite in himself a theory adapted to the essence of the soul. Not let him think that we should look to intervals, or differences of motions; for these things are very remote, and are by no means adapted to the proposed object of inquiry; but let him consider the assertions essentially, and examine how they indicate the medium pertaining to the soul, and how they exhibit demiurgic providence. In the first place, therefore, since wholeness is triple, one being prior to parts, another subsisting from parts, and another in each of the parts, that wholeness of the soul which is now delivered is that which subsists prior to parts; for the demiurgus made it one whole prior to all division, which, as we have said, remains such as it is, without being consumed in the production of the parts: for to be willing to dissolve that which is well harmonized is the province of an evil artificer. He would however dissolve it, if he consumed the whole in the parts. But Plato insinuates that wholeness which consists from parts, when he represents the demiurgus consuming the whole mixture in the section of the essence of the soul, and renovating the whole of it through the harmony of its parts; this whole receiving its completion from all according parts. And a little further on he will teach us that wholeness which subsists in each of its parts, when he divides the whole soul into certain circles, and attributes all the above-mentioned ratios to them, which he has already rendered apparent; for he says that the three are in each of the parts, in the same manner as in the whole. Every part, therefore, is in a certain respect a triadic whole, after the same manner as the whole. Hence it is necessary that the soul should have three wholenesses, because it animates the universe, which is a whole of wholes, each of which is a whole as in a part. As it therefore animates in a two-fold respect, viz. both that which is a whole, and those wholes which are as parts, it requires two wholenesses; and it transcends the natures which are animated, possessing something external to them, so as, in the language of Timæus, to surround the universe as with a veil. Hence by the wholeness prior to parts it entirely runs above the universe, and by the other two connects it, and the natures which it contains; these also subsisting as wholes.
In the next place, we must observe that Plato, proceeding from the beginning to the end, preserves that which is monadic and also that which is dyadic in the soul: for he reduces its hyparxis into essence, sameness, and difference, and bisects number, beginning from one part, into the double and triple; and contemplating the media, he comprehends two in one, and according to each of these unfolds two-fold ratios, the sesquialter and sesquitertian, and again cuts these into sesquioctaves and remainders (λειμματα). In what follows also, he divides one length into two, and one figure of the soul into two periods; and, in short, he very properly never separates the dyadic from the monadic; for to intellect the monadic alone is adapted, on which account it is also impartible, but to body the dyadic; and hence, in the generation of a corporeal nature, he begins from the duad of fire and earth, and arranges two other genera of elements between these. But soul subsisting between body and intellect is at the same time a monad and a duad; and this because in a certain respect it equally participates of bound and infinity; just as intellect is allied to bound, but body more accords with infinity, through its subject matter, and its division ad infinitum. And if after this manner some have referred the impartible and partible to the monad and indefinite duad, they have spoken agreeably to things themselves; but if they have considered the soul to be number in no respect differing from monadic numbers, their assertions have been utterly discordant with the essence of the soul. It is therefore at the same time both a monad and duad, resembling by the monadic, intellectual bound, and by the dyadic, infinity; or by the former being the image of the impartible, and by the latter the paradigm of partible natures. This also should be considered, that Timæus here speaks of a two-fold work of the demiurgus: for he divides the soul into parts, and harmonizes the divided portions, and renders them accordant with each other. But in so doing he at the same time energizes both Dionysiacally and Apolloniacally. For to divide and produce wholes into parts, and to preside over the distribution of species, is Dionysiacal; but to perfect all things harmoniously is Apolloniacal. As the demiurgus, therefore, comprehends in himself the cause of both these gods, he divides and harmonizes the soul: for the hebdomad is a number common to both these divinities; since theologists say that Bacchus was divided into seven parts, and they ascribe the heptad to Apollo, as the power that connects all symphonies; for in the monad, duad, and tetrad, from which the hebdomad is composed, the disdiapason first consists. Hence they call the god, the leader of the hebdomad, and assert that the seventh day is sacred to him: for they say that on that day Apollo was born from Latona, in the same manner as Diana on the sixth day. This number, therefore, in the same manner as the triad, accedes to the soul from superior causes; the triad indeed from intelligible, but the hebdomad from intellectual⁶³ causes. But the hebdomad is derived from these gods, that the division into seven parts may be a sign of the Dionysiacal series, and of that dilaceration which is celebrated in fables. For it is requisite that the soul participating a Dionysiacal intellect, and, as Orpheus says, carrying the god on her head, should be divided after the same manner as he is divided; and that the harmony which she possesses in these parts should be a symbol of the Apolloniacal order. For in the fables⁶⁴ respecting this god, it is Apollo who collects and unites the lacerated members of Bacchus, according to the will of his father.
In the next place, three middles are assumed, which not only in the soul, but also every where shadow forth the daughters of Themis, who are three, as well as these middles: for the geometrical middle is the image of Eunomia; and hence in the Laws Plato says, that she governs polities, and is the judgment of Jupiter, adorning the universe, and comprehending in herself the truly political science. But the harmonic middle is the image of Justice, which distributes a greater ratio⁶⁵ to greater, and a lesser to lesser terms, this being the employment of Justice. And the arithmetical middle is the image of Peace: for it is she, as he also says in the Laws, who attributes to all things the equal according to quantity, and makes people preserve peace with people, for the solid proportion prior to these is sacred to their mother Themis, who comprehends all the powers of these. And thus much generally respecting these three middles.
That we may, however, speak of them more particularly, it is requisite to observe that they are unific and connective of the essence of the soul, viz. they are unions, analogies, and bonds. Hence Timæus also calls them bonds. For above, he says, that the geometric middle is the most beautiful of bonds, and that the others are contained in this; but every bond is a certain union. If, therefore, these middles are bonds, and bonds are unions of the things bound, the consequence is evident. These therefore pervade through the whole essence of the soul, and cause it to be one from many wholes, as they are allotted a power which can bind various forms. But these being three, the geometric binds every thing which is essential in souls: for essence is one reason⁶⁶ which pervades through all things, and connects things first, middle, and last, in the same manner as in the geometric middle there is one and the same ratio which perfectly pervades through three terms. The harmonic middle connects all the divided sameness of souls, imparting a communion of reasons to the extremes, and a kindred conjunction; this sameness which it connects being more apparent in more total, but less apparent in more partial souls. And the arithmetic middle binds the all-various difference of the progression of the soul, and is less inherent in things greater according to order, but more in such as are lesser. For difference has dominion in more partial natures, just as sameness has in such as are more total and more excellent. Those middles also may be compared with each other, in the same manner as sameness and difference: and as essence is the monad of these, so the geometric middle of those. The geometric middle therefore is the union of all the essences which are comprehended in the thirty-four terms. The harmonic is the union of equally numerous identities, and the arithmetic of differences; all these middles at the same time being extended through all the terms. For how could a certain whole be produced from them, unless they were as much as possible united with each other, essentially indeed by one of these, but variously by the other two? Hence these two become the supplement of the geometric middle, just as sameness and difference contribute to the consummation of essence; for in consequence of their possessing contrariety to each other, the geometric middle conciliates their dissension, and unites their interval. For the harmonic middle, as we have said, distributes greater ratios to greater, and lesser to lesser terms: since it evinces that things greater and more total according to essence are more comprehensive, and transcend in power subject natures. But the arithmetic middle, on the contrary, distributes lesser ratios to greater terms, and greater ratios to lesser terms⁶⁷. For difference prevails more in subordinate natures, as, on the contrary, the dominion of sameness is more apparent in superior than in inferior natures. And the geometric middle extends the same ratio to all the terms, illuminating union to things first, middle, and last, through the presence of essence to all things. The demiurgus, therefore, imparts to the soul three connective unions, which Plato calls middles, because they appear to bind the middle order of the universe. For the geometric collects the multitude of essences, and unites essential progressions; since one ratio is an image of union. But the harmonic binds total identities and their hyparxes into one communion; and the arithmetic conjoins first, middle, and last differences. For, in short, difference is the mother of numbers, as we learn in the Parmenides. But in every part there were these three, viz. essence, sameness, and difference; and it is requisite that all these should be conjoined with each other through a medium, and binding reasons.
In the next place, we say that the soul is a plenitude of reasons, being more simple indeed than sensibles, but more composite than intelligibles. Hence Timæus assumes seven ratios in it, viz. the ratio of equality, mutiple, submultiple, superparticular, and superpartient, and the opposites of these, the subsuperparticular and subsuperpartient ratios⁶⁸: but he does not assume the ratios which are composed from these; since they are adapted to corporeal natures, which are composite and divisible; while on the contrary the ratios in the soul proceed indeed into multitude and division, but at the same time, together with multitude, exhibit simplicity, and the uniform together with division. Neither therefore like intellect is it allotted an essence in the monad and the impartible (for intellect is alone monadic and impartible); nor is it multitude and division alone.
Again, it is requisite to understand that numbers which are more simple and nearer to the monad have a more principal subsistence than such as are more composite; since Plato also establishes one part prior to all those that follow, refers all of them to this, and ends in those which are especially composite and solid. This then being admitted, I say that equality, and the ratio of equality, have the ratio of a monad to all ratios; and what the monad is in essential quantity, that the equal is⁶⁹ in relative quantity. Hence, according to this reasoning, the soul introduces a common measure to all things which subsist according to the same ratios, and one idea bearing an image of sameness; but according to the multiple and submultiple ratio, it governs all series, connects wholes themselves, and exhibits every whole form of mundane natures often produced by it in all things. Thus, for instance, it exhibits the solar and lunar form in divine, dæmonical, and human souls, in irrational animals, in plants, and in stones themselves. It possesses therefore the series as one according to multiple ratio, the whole of which repeatedly appears in the same series, and adorns the most universal genera by more partial series. But by superparticular and subsuperparticular ratios it governs things which subsist as wholes in their participants, and are participated according to one of the things which they contain. And, according to superpartient and subsuperpartient ratios, it governs such things as are participated wholly indeed by secondary natures, but in conjunction with a division, into multitude. Thus, for instance, man participates of animal, and the whole form is in him, yet, not alone, but at the same time, the whole is according to one thing, viz. the human form; so that, together with the whole, and one certain thing⁷⁰ which is a part of it, it is present to its participant. But things which are called common genera, participate indeed of one genus, yet do not participate of this alone, but together with this of many other genera⁷¹ which are parts, and not a part of that one genus. Thus, for instance, a mule participates of the species, from which it has a mixt generation. Each species therefore either participates of one genus according to one thing, and imitates the superparticular ratio, which contains the whole, and one part of the whole; or it participates of one common genus, and which is extended to many species, and thus imitates the superpartient ratio, which, together with the whole, contains more parts of it than one: and there is not any participation of forms besides these. Looking therefore to these things, we can easily assign the cause of those things which subsist according to one species, as for instance of the sun, the moon, and man; and also of those which subsist according to many species in conjunction with that which is common. For there are many such like natures both in the earth and sea, as, for instance, satyrs and marine nymphs, the upper parts of which resemble the human form, and the lower the extremities of goats and fishes. There is also said to be a species of dragons with the faces of lions, such as these possessing an essence mingled from many things. All these ratios therefore are very properly preassumed in the soul, because they bound all the participations of forms in the universe; nor can there be any other ratios of communion besides these, since all things are deduced into species according to these.
Again, therefore, a hebdomad of ratios corresponds to a hebdomad of parts; and the whole soul through the whole of it is hebdomadic in its parts, in its ratios, and in its circles, being characterized by the number seven. For if the demiurgic intellect is a monad, but soul primarily proceeds from intellect, it will subsist as the hebdomad with respect to it: for the hebdomad is paternal and motherless⁷². And perhaps equality imparts a communion equally to all the ratios of the soul, that all may communicate with all. But multiple ratio indicates the manner in which natures that have more of the nature of unity measure such as are multiplied, wholly pervading through the whole of them; and also the manner in which impartible natures measure such as are more distributed. Superparticular and subsuperparticular ratio appears to signify the differences according to which total reasons do not wholly communicate with each other, but possess indeed a partial habitude, yet are conjoined according to one particular thing belonging to them which is most principal. And the superpartient and subsuperpartient ratio indicates the last nature, according to which the communion of the reasons of the soul is divisible, and multiplied through subjection. For the more sublime reasons are wholly united to the whole of themselves; but those of a middle subsistence are not united to the whole of themselves, but are conjoined according to their highest part; and those that rank in the third degree are divisibly connascent according to multitude. Thus, for instance, essence communicates with all reasons, measuring all their progressions; for there is nothing in them unessential: but sameness being itself a genus, especially collects into one communion the summits of these; and difference in a particular manner measures their progressions and divisions. The communion therefore of the ratios of the soul is every where exhibited: for it is either all-perfect, or it alone subsists according to summits, or according to extensions into multitude.
Again, therefore, let us in the next place attend to the manner in which the seven parts subsist⁷³. The first part, indeed, is most intellectual and the summit of the soul, being conjoined with the one, and the hyparxis of its whole essence. Hence it is called one, as being uniform; its number is comprehended in union, and it is analogous to the cause and the center of the soul. For the soul abides according to this, and subsists in unproceeding union with wholes. And the tetrad indeed is in the first monads, on account of its stability, and its rejoicing in equality and sameness. But the number 8 is in the monads of the second order, through its subjection, and that providence of the soul which extends itself from its supreme part, as far as to the last of things. The triad is in the monads of the third order, through the circular progression of the multitude in it, to the all-perfect. And at the same time it is manifest from these things as images, that the summit of the soul, though it is uniform, is not purely one, but that this also is united multitude, just as the monad⁷⁴ is not without multitude, but is at the same time monad, but the one of the gods is alone one. And the one of intellect is indeed more one than multitude, though this also is multiplied; but the one of the soul is similarly one and multitude, just as the one of the natures posterior to soul, and which are divided about bodies, is more multitude than one. And the one of bodies is not simply one, but a phantasm and image of the one. Hence the Elean guest in the Sophista says, that every thing corporeal is broken in pieces, as having an adventitious one, and never ceasing to be divided. The second part multiplies the part prior to it by generative progressions, which the duad indicates, and unfolds all the progressions of essence. Hence also it is said to be double of the first, as imitating the indefinite duad and intelligible infinity. But the third part converts the whole soul again to its principle: and it is the third part of it which is convolved to the principles, and which indeed is measured by the first part, as being filled with union from it, but is more partially conjoined to the second part. Hence it is said to be triple of that, but sesquialter of this: for it is indeed contained from the half by the second part, as not possessing an equal power, but is perfectly contained by the first. Again the fourth, and also the fifth part, peculiarly evince that the soul presides over secondary natures: for these parts are intellectual causes of those incorporeals which are divided about bodies, since they are superficies and tetragonic; this being derived from the second, but that from the third part; for the fourth part is the source of progression and generation, and the fifth of conversion and perfection. For both are superficies; but the one subsists twice from the second, and the other proceeds thrice from the third. And it appears that the one⁷⁵, imitating the procession about body, is productive of generative powers, but that the other⁷⁶ is productive of intellectual regressions: for all knowledge converts that which knows to the thing known; just as every nature wishes to generate, and to make a progression downwards. The sixth and seventh parts insert in the soul the primary causes of bodies, and of solid bulks: for these numbers are solid; and the one⁷⁷ is derived from the second part, and the other⁷⁸ from the third. But Timæus, in what he here says, converting things last to such as are first, and the terminations of the soul to its summit, establishes this to be octuple, and that twenty-seven times, the first. And thus the essence of the soul consists of seven parts, as abiding, proceeding, and returning, and as the cause of the progression and conversion, both of essences divisible about bodies, and of bodies themselves.
If you please you may also say, because the soul is allotted an hypostasis between impartible and partible essences, that it imitates the former through the triad, and preassumes the latter from the tetrad. But every soul is from all these terms, because every rational soul is the centre of wholes. The harmonic and arithmetic middles, therefore, fill these intervals, which have an essential subsistence, and are considered according to essence, these as we have said collecting their samenesses, and those their differences.
We may likewise, approaching nearer to things themselves, say, that the soul, according to one part, viz. its summit, is united to natures prior to itself; but that, according to the double and triple parts, it proceeds from intellect and returns to it; and that, according to the double of the double, and the triple of the triple, it proceeds from itself, and is again converted to itself; and through its own middle to the principles of its essence; for abiding according to them, it is filled from them with every thing of a secondary nature. And as the progression from itself is suspended from the progression prior to itself, so the conversion to itself depends on that which is prior to itself. But the last parts, according to which the soul gives subsistence to things posterior to itself, are referred to the first part, that a circle may be exhibited without a beginning, the end being conjoined with the beginning, and that the universe may be generated animated and intellectual, solid numbers being coordinated with the first part. From these middles, also, Timæus says that sesquialter, sesquitertian, and sesquioctave ratios result. What else then does he wish to indicate by these things, than the more partial differences of the ratios of the soul? For the sesquialter ratios present us with an image of divisible communion indeed, but according to the first of the parts; but the sesquitertian of communion according to the parts in the middle; and the sesquioctave of that which subsists according to the extremes. Hence the middles are conjoined with each other according to the sesquioctave ratio. For when they are beheld according to opposite genera, they possess the least communion: but each is appropriately conjoined with the extremes. Timæus also adds, that all the sesquitertian ratios are filled with the interval of the sesquioctave together with the leimma, or remainder; indicating by this that the terminations of all these ratios end in more partial hypostases, until the soul has comprehended the causes of things last in the world, and which are every way divisible. For soul has previously established in herself, according to the demiurgic will, the principles of the order and harmony of these. Soul, therefore, contains the principles of harmonious progression and conversion, and of division into things first, middle, and last; and she is one intellectual reason, which is at the same time filled with all reasons.
With these things also accord what we have before asserted, that all its harmony consists from a quadruple diapason, with the diapente and tone. For harmony subsists in the world, in intellect, and in soul; on which account also Timæus says that soul participates of and is harmony. But the world participates of harmony decadically, soul tetradically, and intellect monadically. And as the monad is the cause of the tetrad, and the tetrad of the decad, so also intellectual harmony is the supplier of that which pertains to the soul, and that of the soul is the source of sensible harmony: for soul is the proximate paradigm of the harmony in the sensible world. Since, however, there are five figures⁷⁹ and centers⁸⁰ in the universe which give completion to the whole; hence the harmony diapente is the source of symphony according to parts to the world. Again, because the universe is divided into nine⁸¹ parts, the sesquioctave ratio makes its communion cemmensurate with soul. And here you may see that soul comprehends the world according to cause, and renders it a whole, harmonizing it considered as one, as consisting of four, and of five parts, and as divided into nine parts. For the monad, tetrad, pentad, and ennead, comprehend the whole number according to which all the parts of the world are divided. Hence the antients considered the Muses, and Apollo the leader of the Muses, as presiding over the universe, the latter supplying the one union of the whole harmony, and the former connecting its divided progression: and the eight Syrens mentioned in the Republic appear to give completion to the same numbers. Thus then, in the middle of the monad and ennead, the world is adorned tetradically and pentadically; tetradically indeed, according to the four ideas of animals which its paradigm comprehends, but pentadically according to the five figures through which the demiurgus adorned all things, introducing as Timæus says a fifth idea, and arranging this harmonically in the universe.
Again, therefore, let us say from the beginning, that the demiurgus possessing two-fold powers, the one being productive of sameness, and the other of difference, as we learn in the Parmenides, he both divides and binds the soul. And he is indeed the final cause of these, that the soul may become the middle of wholes, being similarly united and divided; since two things are prior to it, the gods as unities, and beings as united natures; and two things are posterior to it, viz. those natures which are divided in conjunction with others⁸² and those which are perfectly divisible⁸³. You may also say that the one is prior to the former, viz. to the gods and beings, and that matter is posterior to the latter; that sameness and difference which are the idioms of the demiurgic order are effective; and that the sections and bonds of the father are paradigmatic. For he first among the gods cuts and binds with infrangible bonds; theologists obscurely signifying these things when they speak of Saturnian exsections, and those bonds which the fabricator of the universe is said to hurl round himself, and of which Socrates reminds us in the Cratylus. We may also consider numbers as having a formal power with respect to divisions; for the parts of the soul are separated according to these. But the middles and the ratios which give completion to these are analogous to bonds: for it is impossible to consider concauses, which have the relation of matter, in souls which have an incorporeal essence. These things being premised, it is evident how the demiurgus of all division, energizing with two-fold powers, the dividing and the binding, divides from primary causes the triform nature and triple mixture of the soul, the whole soul at the same time remaining undiminished. For since he constituted the soul as a medium between an impartible essence, and that nature which is divided about bodies, and since an impartible essence is triple, abiding, proceeding and returning, hence he established a similitude of this in three parts; adumbrating its permanency by the first part, its progression by the second, and its conversion by the third. And perhaps on this account the second is said to be double of the first: for every thing which proceeds has also that which abides subsisting prior to its progression. But the third part is said to be triple of the first: for every thing which is converted proceeds also and abides. Since also soul produces the essence posterior to itself, it likewise contains in itself the whole of this essence. Hence it contains every incorporeal essence, but which is at the same time inseparable from bodies, according to the fourth and fifth parts; but every corporeal essence according to solid numbers, viz. the sixth and seventh parts. Or, it produces and converts itself to itself, according to square numbers, since it is self-subsistent⁸⁴ and self-energetic, but every divisible essence posterior to itself according to cube numbers. The one ratio of geometric analogy essentially binds these parts, divided as we have said into three and seven. But the harmonic middle binds them according to sameness, and the arithmetic according to difference. These two likewise lie between the geometric middle, and are said to fill the double and triple intervals, because all sameness and all difference are uniformly comprehended under essence and the harmony pertaining to it. But from these middles the multitude of sesquialter, sesquitertian, and sesquioctave ratios becomes apparent; which multitude is indeed binding and connective, as well as the middles, but is of a more partial nature, because each of these is a certain ratio; but each of the middles consists from many ratios, either the same or different. And as analogy or proportion is more comprehensive than ratio, so the above-mentioned middles afford a greater cause to the soul of connecting the multitude which it contains, this cause pervading intellectually through the whole of it. The sesquialter, sesquitertian, and sesquioctave ratios are, therefore, certain bonds of a more partial nature, and are comprehended in the middles, not according to different habitudes of them with respect to the extremes, for this is mathematical, but according to causal comprehension and a more total hypostasis.
Again, these bonds contain the second and third progressions of the ratios; the sesquialter compressing through five centers the harmony of the ratios; the sesquitertian, through the four elements which subsist every where, evincing their power, and rendering all things known and allied to each other; and the sesquioctave harmonizing the division into nine and eight. Hence the antients at one time, considering the parts of the world as eight, and at another as nine, placed over the universe eight Syrens, and nine Muses, from whom harmony is derived to wholes. The sesquitertian and sesquialter ratios, therefore, are more total than the sesquioctaves; and hence they are the suppliers of a more perfect symphony, and comprehend the harmonious section of the world in less numbers. Here therefore the divisions in the participants are distant from each other, but in the incorporeal ratios of the soul the more total comprehend the more partial. But since the sesquioctaves are the causes of a more partial symphony, hence that which is posterior to these is justly said to be thrust down into the extremity of the universe. Nor is it discordant to the whole of things, that divisible defluxions from each of the elements should be driven into the subterranean region. For since the elements subsist in many places, in the heavens, and in the regions under the moon, the ratio posterior to the sesquioctave collecting the last sediment of them in the subterranean region, conjoins them with wholes, that from the union of both the whole harmony of the universe may be complete. Hence we have said that the harmony of the soul is perfectly intellectual and essential, preceding according to cause sensible harmony, and that Timæus, wishing to exhibit this through images, employed harmonic ratios, presupposing that there are certain causes in the soul more comprehensive than others, and which subsist prior to every form and to all the knowledge of the soul. On this account I think it is not fit to discuss things of this kind, by explaining the parts, or the ratios, or the analogies, but we should contemplate all things essentially, according to the first division and harmony of the soul, and refer all things to a demiurgic and intellectual cause. Hence we should comprehend the sesquioctaves and remainders (λειμματα) in the sesquitertian and sesquialter ratios, these in the middles, and the middles in that one middle which is the most principal of all of them; and should refer more partial to more total causes, and consider the former as derived from the latter. And thus much concerning harmonic ratios.
36a. He at the same time formed an eternal image flowing
according to number of eternity abiding in one.
That eternity then, says Proclus, is more venerable, has a more principal subsistence, and is as it were more stable than animal itself, though this is the most beautiful and perfect of intelligible animals, as Plato has informed us in the first part of this dialogue, is entirely evident. For if the eternal is said to be and is eternal, as that which participates, but eternity is neither said to participate of animal itself, nor to receive its appellation from it, it is evident that the one is secondary, but the other more simple and primary. For neither does eternity participate of animal itself, because it is not an animal, nor is time a visible animal, nor any other animal. For it has been shown that animal itself is only-begotten and eternal; and hence eternity is more excellent than animal itself; since the eternal is neither that which eternity is, nor is better than eternity. But as we all acknowledge that what is endued with intellect, and that what is animated, are posterior to intellect and soul, in like manner the eternal is secondary to eternity. But here some one may say, what can be more venerable than animal itself, since it is said by Plato to be the most beautiful of intelligibles, and according to all things perfect? We reply, that it is most beautiful from receiving the summit of beauty, through vehement participation of it, but not from its transcendent participation of the good. For it is not said to be the best of intelligibles. To which we may add, that it is not simply the most beautiful of all intelligibles, but of all intelligible animals. Eternity, therefore, is not any animal, but infinite life. In the next place, it is not necessary, that what is every way perfect should be the first. For the perfect possesses all things; so that it will contain things first, middle, and last. But that which is above this division will be super-perfect. Nothing therefore hinders, but that eternity may be superior to the most beautiful and in every respect perfect animal, since intelligible animals are many, if it is the best, and super-perfect.
If these things then are rightly asserted, eternity will neither be one certain genus of being, as some have thought it to be, such as essence, or permanency, or sameness: for all these are parts of animal itself, and each of these possesses as it were an opposition, viz. essence, non-being; permanency, motion; sameness, difference; but nothing is opposed to eternity. All these therefore are similarly eternal, viz. the same, the different, permanency, motion; but this would not be the case if eternity were one of these. Eternity, therefore, is not opposed to any thing either of these, or to any of the things posterior to itself: for time, which may seem to subsist dissimilarly to eternity, in the first place, does not revolve about the same things with it, but about things which do not receive their continuous coherence from eternity; and in the next place it is an image of, and is not opposed to eternity, as Plato now says, and as we shall shortly demonstrate. Eternity, therefore, will not be any one genus, nor the whole collection of the genera of being: for again, there would be multitude in it, and it would require the union of that which abides in one. But it is itself that which abides in one; so that it would abide, and yet not abide in one. It would abide indeed as eternity, and as the cause of union to beings, but it would not abide as being composed from multitude. To all which we may add, that it is intellect which comprehends the genera of being, and that the conception of intellect is different from that of eternity, in the same manner as the conception of soul from that of time: for the energy of intellect is intransitive intelligence, but of eternity, impartible perpetuity.
What then will eternity be, if it is neither any one of the genera of being, nor that which is composed from the five, since all these are eternal, and eternity has a prior subsistence? What else than the monad⁸⁵ of the intelligible unities? But I mean by unities, the ideas of intelligible animals, and the genera of all these intelligible ideas. Eternity is the one comprehension, therefore, of the summit of the multitude of these, and the cause of the invariable permanency of all things, not subsisting in the multitude of intelligibles themselves, nor being a collection of them, but in an exempt manner being present to them, by itself disposing and as it were forming them, and making them to be wholes. For perfect multitude is not unfolded into light, nor is the all-various idea of intelligibles produced immediately after the good; but there are certain natures between, which are more united than all-perfect multitude, but indicate a parturiency and representation of the generation of wholes, and of connected comprehension in themselves. How many, and of what kind these are, the gods know divinely, but the mystic doctrine of Parmenides will inform us in a human and philosophic manner, to which dialogue we shall refer the reader for accurate instruction in these particulars. For we shall now show that eternity is above all-perfect animal, and that it is proximately above it, from the very words of the philosopher.
Because animal itself, therefore, is said to be eternal, it will be secondary to eternity; but because there is nothing eternal prior to it, it will be proximately posterior to eternity. Whence then is this evident? Because, I say, neither is there any thing temporal prior to the world, the image of animal itself, but the world is the first participant of time, and animal itself of eternity. For if as eternity is to time, so is animal itself to the world, then, as geometricians would say, it will be alternately as eternity is to animal itself, so is time to the world. But time is first participated by the world; for it was not prior to the orderly distribution of the universe: and hence eternity is first participated by animal itself. And if time is not the whole sensible animal (i. e the world), for it was generated together with it, and that which is generated with a thing is not that thing with which it is generated, if this be the case, neither will eternity be intelligible animal, so that neither will it be an animal, lest there should be two intelligible animals: for Plato has before shown that animal itself is only begotten (μονογενες). Hence we must not say that eternity is an animal, but different from animal itself. Neither, therefore, in short, is it an animal: for it is either an animal the same with or different from animal itself, neither of which, as we have shown, can be asserted. It is not the latter, because animal itself is only begotten, nor the former, because neither is time the same with that which is temporal. But if it is participated by and does not participate of intelligible animal, it will be a god prior to it, intelligible indeed, but not yet an animal. The order of eternity, therefore, with respect to animal itself, is apparent: for it is evident that it is higher, and proximately higher, and that it is the cause to intelligibles of a subsistence according to the same things, and after the same manner. It has indeed been said to be permanency, but this is a coordinate cause, and rather affords sameness of subsistence about energy; but eternity is an exempt cause. It is also evident that it is the comprehension and union of many intelligible unities; and hence it is called by the oracles father-begotten light⁸⁶, because it illuminates all things with unific light. “For,” says the Oracle, “this alone, by plucking abundantly from the strength of the father, the flower of intellect, is enabled by intellection to impart a paternal intellect to all the fountains and principles; together with intellectual energy and a perpetual permanency according to an unsluggish revolution.” For, being full of paternal deity, which the Oracle calls the flower of intellect, it illuminates all things with intellect, together with an eternal sameness of intellection, and an amatory conversion and energy about the principle of all things. These things, however, I revolve in the inaccessible adyta of the dianoëtic part.
Again, investigating on all sides the intellectual conception of the philosopher about eternity, let us consider what is the meaning of its abiding in one. For we inquire, in what one? Shall we say, in the good, as it has appeared to the most theological of the interpreters? But neither does the good abide in itself, through its simplicity, as we learn in the first hypothesis of the Parmenides, and therefore much less does any thing else abide in it. For, in short, nothing is in it, nor with it, in consequence of its being exempt from coordination with any thing. Hence it is not usually called good, or one, but the good and the one, that we may understand its monadic transcendency, and which is beyond every nature that is known. But now eternity is not said to abide in the one, but in one; so that neither does it abide in the good. Shall we say then, that by eternity abiding in one, its united nature as it were, its permanency in its own one, and its subsisting as one multitude, are implied? Or, in short, the number of that which does not proceed, that it may be the cause of union to the multitude of intelligibles? Shall we say that this also is true, that it may impart to itself the stable and the whole prior to things eternal? For to abide in one, is to have the whole and the same hyparxis invariably present at once. Every divine nature, therefore, begins its energy from itself, so that eternity also establishes itself in one prior to things eternal; and in a similar manner connects itself. Hence being is not the cause of permanency, as Strato⁸⁷ the natural philosopher says it is, but eternity⁸⁸; and it is the cause of a permanency, not such as is always in generation, or becoming to be, but which, as Timæus says, invariably subsists in one. But if eternity unfolds a duad, though we are often studious to conceal it; for the ever is conjoined with being, according to the same, and eternity is that which always is (εστιν αιων, ο αει ων); if this be the case, it appears to have the monad of being prior to it, and the one being, viz. the highest being, and to abide in this one, agreeably to the doctrine of our preceptor, that the first being may be one prior to the duad, as not departing from the one. And the duad indeed in eternity, which causally unfolds multitude, is united to the first being in which eternity⁸⁹ abides; but the multitude of intelligibles is united to eternity itself, which in a transcendent and united manner comprehends and connects all their summits. For that the conception of the first being is different from that of eternity is evident; since to be for ever is perfectly different from simply to be. If therefore any thing is eternal, this also is; but the contrary does not follow, that if any thing is, this also is eternal. Hence, to be is more total and generative than to be for ever, and on this account is nearer to the cause of all beings, of the unities in beings, of generation itself, of matter, and, in short, of all things. These three, therefore, orderly succeed each other; the one being⁹⁰, as the monad of beings; eternity as the duad, together with being possessing the ever; and the eternal, which participates both of being and the ever, and is not primarily eternal being, like eternity. And the one being is alone the cause of being to all things, whether they are truly or not truly beings; but eternity is the cause of permanency in being. And this is what Strato ought rather to have said, and not to have defined being to be the permanency of things, as he writes in his book Concerning Being, transferring the idiom of eternity to being.
Let us now attend to the following admirable account of time, by Proclus.
How then is time said by Plato to be an image of eternity? Is it because eternity abides in one, but time proceeds according to number? These things however rather indicate their dissimilitude than similitude to each other. For Plato nearly opposes all things to all, proceeding, to abiding, according to number, to one, the image to the thing itself. It is better, therefore, to say, that divinity produced these two as the measures of things, I mean eternity and time, the one of intelligible and the other of mundane beings. As the world, therefore, is said to be the image of the intelligible, so also the mundane measure is denominated the image of the intelligible measure. Eternity, however, is a measure as the one, but time as number: for each measures the former things united, and the latter things numbered: and the former measures the permanency of beings, but the latter the extension of generated natures. But the apparent oppositions of these two, do not evince the dissimilitude of the measures, but that secondary are produced from more antient natures. For progression is from abiding, and number from the one. May we not therefore say, that time is on this account an image of eternity, because it is productive of the perfection of mundane natures, just as eternity connectedly contains, and is the guardian of beings. For as those natures which are unable to live according to intellect, are led under the order of Fate, lest by flying from a divine nature they should become perfectly disordered; in like manner things which have proceeded from eternity, and are unable to participate of a perfection, the whole of which is established at once, and is always the same, end indeed in the government of time, but are excited by it to appropriate energies, through which they are enabled to receive the end adapted to their nature, from certain periods which restore them to their antient condition.
But how is time said to be a moveable image of eternity? Shall we say because the whole of it is in motion? Or is this indeed impossible? For nothing is moved according to the whole of itself, not even such things as are essentially changed: for the subject of these remains. Much more therefore must that which is moved, according to other motions, abide according to essence, and this if it be increased, and changed, and locally moved. For if it did not abide according to something, it would at the same time cause the motion to be evanescent; since all motion is in something. Nothing, therefore, is as we have said moved according to the whole of itself, and especially such perpetual natures as it is fit should be established in their proper principles, and abide in themselves, if they are to be continually preserved. But in a particular manner the image of eternity ought in a certain respect to possess perpetuity according to sameness, and stability; so that it is impossible that time should be moved according to the whole of itself, since neither is this possible to any thing else. Something of it, therefore, must necessarily remain, since every thing which is moved is moved in consequence of possessing something belonging to it which abides. The monad of time, therefore, abides suspended from the demiurgus; but being full of measuring power, and wishing to measure the essential motions of the soul, together with physical and corporeal motion, and also being, energies and passions, it proceeds according to number. Hence time, abiding by its impartible and inward energy, and being participated by its external energy, and by the natures which are measured proceeds according to number; i. e. it proceeds according to a certain intellectual number, or rather according to the first number, which as Parmenides would say being analogous to the one being, or the first of beings, presides over intellectuals, in the same manner as the first being presides over intelligibles. Time, therefore, proceeds according to that number; and hence it distributes an accommodated measure to every mundane form.
You may also say still more appropriately, that time which is truly so called proceeds according to number, numbering the participants of itself, and being itself that intellectual number, which Socrates obscurely indicates when he says that swiftness itself and slowness itself are in true number, by which the things numbered by time differ, being moved swifter or slower. Hence Timæus does not speak with prolixity about this true number, because Socrates had previously in the Republic perfectly unfolded it, but he speaks about that which proceeds from it. For that being true number, time, says he, proceeds according to number. Let then true time proceed according to intelligible number, but it proceeds so far as it measures its participants, just as the time of which Timæus now speaks proceeds as that which is numerable, possessing yet an image of essential time, through which it numbers all things with greater or lesser numbers of their life, so that an ox lives for this and man for that period of time, and the sun and moon and the other stars accomplish their revolutions according to different measures. Time, therefore, is the measure of motion, not as that by which we measure, but as that which produces and bounds the being of life, and of every other motion of things in time, and as measuring them according to and assimilating them to paradigms. For as it refers itself to the similitude of eternity which comprehends paradigmatic causes, in like manner it sends back to a more venerable imitation of eternal principles things perfected by it, which are circularly convolved. Hence theurgists say that time is a god, and deliver to us a method by which we may excite this deity to render himself apparent. They also celebrate him as older and younger, and as a circulating and eternal God; not only as the image of eternity, but as eternally comprehending it prior to sensibles. They add further, that he intellectually perceives the whole number of all the natures that are moved in the world, according to which he leads round and restores to their antient condition in swifter and slower periods every thing that is moved. Besides all this, they celebrate him as interminable through power, in consequence of infinite circulation. And lastly, they add that he is of a spiral form, as measuring according to one power things which are moved in a right line, and those which are moved in a circle, just as the spiral uniformly comprehends the right line and the circle.
We must not, therefore, follow those who consider time as consisting in mere naked conceptions, or who make it to be a certain accident; nor yet must we assent to those who are more venerable than these, and who approach nearer to reality, and assert with them that the idiom of time is derived from the soul of the world energizing transitively. For Plato, with whom we all desire to accord respecting divine concerns, says that the demiurgus gave subsistence to time, the world being now arranged both according to soul and according to body, and that it was inserted in the soul by him, in the same manner as harmonic reasons. Nor again, does he represent the god fashioning and generating time in the soul, in the same manner as he says the Divinity fabricated the whole of a corporeal nature within the soul, that the soul might be the despot and governor of it; but having discoursed concerning the essence, harmony, power, motions, and all various knowledges of the soul, he produces the essence of time, as the guardian and measurer of all these, and as that which assimilates them to paradigmatic principles For what benefit would arise from all mundane natures being well-conditioned, without a perpetual permanency of subsistence; and in imitating after a manner the idea of their paradigm, but not evolving to the utmost of their power the whole of it, and in receiving partibly impartible intelligence? Hence the philosopher places a demiurgic cause and not soul over the progression of time.
In the next place, looking to things themselves, you may say that if soul generated time, it would not thus participate as being perfected by it; for that soul is perfected by time, and also measured by it according to its energies, is not immanifest, since every thing which has not the whole of its energy collectively and at once, requires time to its perfection and restoration, through which it collects its proper good, which it was incapable of acquiring impartibly, and without the circulations of time. Hence, as we have before observed, eternity and time are the measures of the permanency and perfection of things; the former being the one simple comprehension of the intelligible unities, and the other the boundary and demiurgic measure of the more or less extended permanency of the natures which proceed from thence. If, therefore, soul, after the same manner with intellect and the gods, apprehended every object of its knowledge by one projecting energy, and always the same, understanding immutably, it might perhaps have generated time, but would not require time to its perfection. But since it understands transitively, and according to periods by which it becomes restored to its pristine state, it is evidently dependant on time for the perfection of its energy.
After this, it is requisite to understand that inanimate natures also participate of time, and that they do not then only participate of it when they are born, in the same manner as they participate of form and habit, but also when it appears that they are deprived of all life; and this not in the same manner, as they are even then said to live, because they are coordinated with wholes, and sympathize with the universe, but they also peculiarly and essentially participate of a certain time, so far as they are inanimate, continually dissolving as far as to perfect corruption. To which we may add, that since the mutations, motions and rests pertaining to souls and bodies, and, in short, all such things as rank among opposites in mundane affairs, are measured by time, it is requisite that time should be exempt from all these; for that which is participated by many things, and these dissimilar, being one and the same, and always presubsisting by itself, is participated by them conformably to this mode of subsistence; and still further, being in all things, it is every where impartible, so that it is every where one thing, impartible according to number, and the peculiarity of no one of the things which are said to subsist according to it. And this Aristotle also perceiving, demonstrates that there is something incorporeal and impartible in divisible natures, and which is every where the same, meaning by this the now in time. Further still, time not being essence, but an accident, it would not thus indicate a demiurgic power, so as to produce some things perpetually in generation, or becoming to be, but others with a more temporal generated subsistence; and some things more slowly proceeding to being than these, but swifter than more imbecil natures; at the same time distributing to all things an accommodated and proper measure of permanency in beings. But if time is a demiurgic essence, it will not be the whole soul, nor a part of soul; for the conception of soul is different from that of time, and each is the cause of different and not of the same things. For soul imparts life, and moves all things, and hence the world, so far as it approaches to soul, is filled with life, and participates of motion; but time excites fabrications to their perfection, and is the supplier of measure and a certain perpetuity to wholes. It will not, therefore, be subordinate to soul, since soul participates of it, if not essentially, yet according to its transitive energies. For the soul of the universe is said to energize incessantly, and to live intellectually through the whole of time. It remains, therefore, that time is an essence, and not secondary to that of soul. In short, if eternity were the progeny of intellect, or were a certain intellectual power, it would be necessary to say that time also is something of this kind pertaining to soul: but if eternity is the exempt measure of the multitude of intelligibles, and the comprehension of the perpetuity and perfection of all things, must not time also have the same relation to soul and the animastic order? So that time will differ from eternity, in the same manner as all proceeding natures from their abiding causes. For eternity exhibits more transcendency with respect to the things measured by it than time, since the former comprehends in an exempt manner the essences and the unities of intelligibles; but the latter does not measure the essences of the first souls, as being rather coordinated and generated together with them. Intelligibles also are more united with eternity than mundane natures with time. The union indeed of the former is so vehement, that some of the more contemplative philosophers have considered eternity to be nothing else than one total intellect; but no wise man would be willing to consider time as the same with the things existing in time, through the abundant separation and difference between the two.
If then time is neither any thing belonging to motion, nor an attendant on the energy of soul, nor, in short, the offspring of soul, what will it be? For perhaps it is not sufficient to say that it is the measure of mundane natures, nor to enumerate the goods of which it is the cause, but to the utmost of our power we should endeavour to apprehend its idiom. May we not therefore say, since its essence is most excellent, perfective of soul, and present to all things, that it is an intellect, not only abiding but also subsisting in motion? Abiding indeed according to its inward energy, and by which it is truly eternal, but being moved according to its externally proceeding energy, by which it becomes the boundary of all transition. For eternity possessing the abiding, both according to its inward energy, and that which it exerts to things eternal, time being assimilated to it according to the former of these energies, becomes separated from it according to the latter, abiding and being moved. And as with respect to the essence of the soul, we say that it is intelligible, and at the same time generated, partible, and at the same time impartible, and are no otherwise able perfectly to apprehend its middle nature than by employing after a manner opposites, what wonder is there if, perceiving the nature of time to be partly immovable and partly subsisting in motion, we, or rather not we, but prior to us, the philosopher, through the eternal, should indicate its intellectual monad abiding in sameness, and through the moveable its externally proceeding energy, which is participated by soul and the whole world? For we must not think that the expression the eternal simply indicates that time is the image of eternity, for if this were the case, what would have hindered Plato from directly saying that it is the image, and not the eternal image of eternity? But he was willing to indicate this very thing, that time has an eternal nature, but not in such a manner as animal itself is said to be eternal: for that is eternal both in essence and energy; but time is partly eternal, and partly, by its external gift, moveable. Hence theurgists call it eternal, and Plato very properly denominates it not only so; for one thing is alone moveable, both essentially and according to the participants of it, being alone the cause of motion, as soul, and hence it alone moves itself and other things: but another thing is alone immovable, preserving itself without transition, and being the cause to other things of a perpetual subsistence after the same manner, and to moveable natures through soul. It is necessary, therefore, that the medium between these two extremes should be that which, both according to its own nature, and the gifts which it imparts to others, is immovable and at the same time moveable, essentially immovable indeed, but moved in its participants. But a thing of this kind is time; hence time is truly, so far as it is considered in itself, immovable, but so far as it is in its participants, it is moveable, and subsists together with them, unfolding itself into them. It is therefore eternal, and a monad, and center essentially, and according to its own abiding energy; but it is, at the same time, continuous and number, and a circle, according to its proceeding and being participated. Hence it is a certain proceeding intellect, established indeed in eternity, and on this account is said to be eternal. For it would not otherwise contribute to the assimilation of mundane natures to more perfect paradigms, unless it were itself previously suspended from them. But it proceeds and abundantly flows into the things which are guarded by it. Whence I think the chief of theurgists celebrate time as a god, as Julian in the seventh of the Zones, and venerate it by these names, through which it is unfolded in its participants; causing some things to be older, and others to be younger, and leading all things in a circle. Time, therefore, possessing a certain intellectual nature, circularly leads according to number, both its other participants and souls. For time is eternal, not in essence only, but also in its inward energy; but so far as it is participated by externals, it is alone moveable, coextending and harmonizing with them the gift which it imparts. But every soul is transitively moved, both according to its inward and external energies, by the latter of which it moves bodies. And it appears to me that those who thus denominated time χρονος, had this conception of its nature, and were therefore willing to call it as it were χορευοντος νους, an intellect moving in measure; but dividing the words perhaps for the sake of concealment, they called it χρονος. Perhaps too, they gave it this appellation because it abides, and is at the same time moved in measure; by one part of itself abiding, and by the other proceeding with measured motion. By the conjunction, therefore, of both these, they signify the wonderful and demiurgic nature of this god. And it appears, that as the demiurgus being intellectual began from intellect to adorn the universe, so time being itself supermundane, began from soul to impart perfection. For that time is not only mundane, but by a much greater priority supermundane, is evident; since as eternity is to animal itself, so is time to this world, which is animated and illuminated by intellect, and wholly an image of animal itself, in the same manner as time of eternity.
Time, therefore, while it abides, moves in measure; and through its abiding, its measured motions are infinite, and are restored to their pristine state. For moving in measure, the first of intellects about the whole fabrication of things, so far as it perpetually subsists after the same manner, and is intellect according to essence, it is said to be eternal; but so far as it moves in measure, it circularly leads souls, and natures, and bodies, and, in short, periodically restores them to their pristine condition. For the world is moved indeed, as participating of soul; but it is moved in an orderly manner, because it participates of intellect; and it is moved periodically with a motion from the same to the same, imitating the permanency of the intellect which it contains, through the resemblance of time to eternity. And this it is to make the world more similar to its paradigm; viz. by restoring it to one and the same condition, to assimilate it to that which abides in one, through the circulation according to time. From these things also, you have all the causes of time according to Plato; the demiurgus indeed, as the fabricative cause; eternity as the paradigm; and the end the circulation of the things moved to that which is one, according to periods. For in consequence of not abiding in one, it aspires after that which is one, that it may partake of the one, which is the same with the good. For it is evident that the progression of things is not one, and in a right line, infinitely extended as it were both ways, but is bounded and circumscribed, moving in measure about the father of wholes, and the monad of time infinitely evolving all the strength of fabrication, and again returning to its pristine state. For whence are the participants of time enabled to return to their pristine condition, unless that which is participated possessed this power and peculiarity of motion? Time, therefore, the first of things which are moved, circulating according to an energy proceeding to externals, and returning to its pristine state, after all the evolution of its power, thus also restores the periods of other things to their former condition. By the whole progression of itself indeed, it circularly leads the soul which first participates of it; but by certain parts of itself, it leads round other souls and natures, the celestial revolutions, and among things last, the whole of generation: for in consequence of time circulating all things circulate; but the circles of different natures are shorter and longer. For again, if the demiurgus himself made time to be a moveable image of eternity, and gave it subsistence according to his intellection about eternity, it is necessary that what is moveable in time, should be circular and moved in measure, that it may not apostatize from, and may evolve the intelligence of the father about eternity. For, in short, since that which is moveable in time is comprehensive of all motions, it is requisite that it should be bounded much prior to the things which are measured by it: for not that which is deprived of measure, but the first measure, measures things; as neither does infinity bound, but the first bound. But time is moved, neither according to soul, nor according to nature, nor according to that which is corporeal and apparent; since its motions would thus be divisible, and not comprehensive of wholes. It would likewise thus participate of irregularity, either more or less, and its motions would be indigent of time. For all of them are beheld in time, and not in progression, as those which are the measures of wholes, but in a certain quality of life, or lation, or passion. But the motion of time is a pure and invariable progression, equal and similar, and the same. For it is exempt both from regular and irregular motions. and is similarly present to both, not receiving any alteration through the motions themselves being changed, but remaining the same separate from all inequality, being energetic and restorative of whole motions according to nature, of which also it is the measure. It also subsists unmingled with the natures which it measures, according to the idiom of its intellectual energy, but proceeds transitively, and according to the peculiarity of self-motion. And in this respect, indeed, it accords with the order of soul, but is inherent in the things which are bounded and perfected by it according to a primary cause of nature. It is not however similar in all respects to any one thing. For in a certain respect it is necessary that the measure of wholes should be similar to all things, and be allied to all things, but yet not be the same with any one of the things measured.
The motion, therefore, of time proceeds evolving and dividing impartible and abiding power, and causing it to appear partible; being as it were a certain number, divisibly receiving all the forms of the monad, and reverting and circulating to itself. For thus the motion of time proceeding according to the measures in the temporal monad conjoins the end with the beginning, and this infinitely; possessing indeed itself a divine order, not arranged as the philosopher Jamblichus also says, but that which ar- ranges; nor an order which is attendant on things precedent, but which is the primary leader of effects. This motion is also at the same time measured, not indeed from any thing endued with interval, for it would be ridiculous to say that things which have a more antient nature and dignity, are measured by things subordinate, but it is measured from the temporal monad alone, which its progression is said to evolve, and by a much greater priority from the demiurgus, and from eternity itself. With relation to eternity, therefore, which is perfectly immovable, time is said to be moveable; just as if some one should say that soul is divisible about bodies, when considered with relation to intellect, not that it is this alone, but that when compared with intellect, it may appear to be such, though when compared with a divisible essence, it is indivisible. Time, therefore, is moveable not in itself, but according to the participation from it which appears in motions, and by which they are measured and bounded; just as if it should be said that soul is divisible about bodies, so far as there is a certain divisible participation of it about these of which it comprehends the cause. For thus also time is moveable, as possessing the cause of the energy externally proceeding from it, and which is divisibly apparent in motions, and is separated together with them. As motions, therefore, become temporal through participation, so time is moveable, through being participated by motions.
39e. Whatever ideas, therefore, intellect perceived by the
dianoëtic energy in animal itself, &c.
The demiurgic wholeness, says Proclus⁹¹ (p. 266), weaves parts in conjunction with wholes, numbers with monads, and makes every part of the universe to be a world, and causes a whole and a universe to subsist in a part. For the world is allotted this from its similitude to animal itself, because animal itself is an entire monad and number, an all-perfect intelligible intellect, and a plenitude of intelligible causes, which it generated so as to abide eternally in itself. For there is one multitude which abides in causes, and another which proceeds and is distributed; since the demiurgus himself also gives subsistence to some genera of gods in himself, and produces others from himself, into secondary and third orders. His father Saturn likewise generates some divinities as paradigmatic causes of fabrication abiding in himself, and others as demiurgic causes coordinated with wholes. And the grandfather of Jupiter, Heaven, contains some divinities in, and separates others from himself. Theologists also manifest these things by mystic names, such as concealment, absorption, and the being educated by Fate. But by a great priority to these, intelligible intellect, the father of wholes, generates some causes, and unfolds them into light, in himself, but produces others from himself; containing within his own comprehensions, such as are uniform, whole, and all-perfect, but producing through difference into other orders such as are multiplied and divided. Since therefore every paternal order gives subsistence to things after this manner, this world, which is an imitation of the intelligible orders, and is elevated to them, very properly contains one allness prior to partial animals, and another, that which receives its completion from them, and together with the former receives the latter, that it may be most similar both to the demiurgic and paradigmatic cause.
With respect to animal itself, we have before said what it is according to our opinion, and we shall also now say, that of the intelligible extent, one thing is the highest, united and occult; another is the power of this, proceeding, and at the same time abiding; and another, that which unfolds itself through energy, and exhibits the intelligible multitude which it contains. Of these also, the first is intelligible being, the second intelligible life, and the third intelligible intellect. Animal itself, however, cannot be the first being: for multitude is not there, nor the tetrad of ideas, but through its singleness and ineffable union it is called one by Plato. And, in short, animal itself is said to participate of eternity, but the first being participates of nothing, unless some one should say it participates of the one, which is itself a thing in every respect deserving consideration. For may we not say that what is above being itself, is even more excellent than this appellation the one? But that is primarily one, which is not such according to participation. Animal itself, therefore, cannot be being itself, through the above-mentioned causes. Neither can it be intelligible life: for animal is secondary to life, and is said to be animal by a participation of life. In short, if animal itself were the second, eternity would be being; but this is impossible: for being itself is one thing, and eternal being another; the former being the monad of being, and the latter the duad, having the ever connected with being. Besides the former is the cause of being to all things, but the latter, of their permanency according to being. If therefore animal itself is neither the one being, nor being itself, nor that which is immediately posterior to this, for eternity is this, being intelligible power, infinite life, and wholeness itself, according to which every divine nature is at once a whole; since this is the case, animal itself must be the remaining third. For animal itself must necessarily in a certain respect be intellect, since the image of it entirely subsists with sense, but sense is the image of intellect; so that in that which is primarily animal, intellect will be primarily inherent. If therefore it is secondary to life, it must necessarily subsist according to intelligible intellect: for being intelligible, and an animal, as Plato says, the most beautiful of intelligibles, and only begotten, it will possess this order. Hence animal itself is intelligible intellect, comprehending the intellectual orders of the gods in itself, of which also it is collective, unific, and perfective, being the most beautiful boundary of intelligibles, unfolding their united and unknown cause to intellectual natures, exciting itself to all-various ideas and powers, and producing all the secondary orders of the gods. Hence also Orpheus calls it the god Phanes, as unfolding into light the intelligible unities, and ascribes to him the forms of animals, because the first cause of intelligible animals shines forth in him; and multiform ideas, because he primarily comprehends intelligible ideas. He also calls him the key of intel- lect, because he bounds the whole of an intelligible essence, and connectedly contains intellectual life. To this mighty divinity the demiurgus of the universe is elevated, being himself, indeed, as we have before said, intellect, but an intellectual intellect, and particularly the cause of intellect. Hence he is said to behold animal itself: for to behold is the peculiarity of the intellectual gods; since the theologist⁹² also denominates intelligible intellect eyeless. Concerning this intellect therefore he says,
Love, eyeless, rapid, feeding in his breast,
For the object of his energy is intelligible. But the demiurgus being intellect, is not a participated intellect⁹³, that he may be the demiurgus of wholes, and that he may be able to look to animal itself. But being imparticipable, he is truly intellectual intellect. And, indeed, through simple intelligence, he is conjoined with the intelligible, but through various intelligence, he hastens to the generation of secondary natures. Plato, therefore, calls his intelligence vision, as being without multitude, and as shining with intelligible light; but he denominates his second energy dianoëtic, as proceeding through simple intelligence to the generation of demiurgic works. And Plato indeed says, that he looks to animal itself; but Orpheus, that he leaps to and absorbs it, Night⁹⁴ pointing it out to him: for through this goddess, who is both intelligible and intellectual, intellectual intellect is conjoined with the intelligible. You must not however on this account say, that the demiurgus looks to that which is external to himself: for this is not lawful to him; but that being converted to himself, and to the fountain of ideas which he contains, he is also conjoined with the monad of the all-various orders of forms. For since we say that our soul by looking to itself knows all things, and that things prior are not external to it, how is it possible that the demiurgic intellect, by understanding itself, should not in a far greater degree survey the intelligible world? For animal itself is also contained in him, though not monadically, but according to a certain divine number. Hence he is said by theologists, as we have observed, to absorb the intelligible god, being himself intellectual, in consequence of containing the whole of an intelligible essence, formal divisions, and the intelligible number, which Plato indicating denominates the ideas of the demiurgus, such and so many, by the former of these appellations manifesting the idioms of causes, and by the latter, separation according to number.
If these things then subsist after this manner, it is not proper to place an infinity of forms in intelligibles: for that which is definite is more allied to principles than the indefinite; and first natures are always more contracted in quantity, but transcend in power natures posterior to and proceeding from them. Nor must we say with some, that animal itself is separate from the demiurgus, thus making the intelligible to be external to intellect: for we do not make that which is seen subordinate to that which sees, that it may be external, but we assert that it is prior to it: and more divine intelligibles are understood by such as are more various, as being contained in them; since our soul also entering into itself, is said to discover all things, divinity and wisdom, as Socrates asserts. Animal itself therefore is prior and not external to the demiurgus. And there indeed all things subsist totally and intelligibly, but in the demiurgus intellectually and separately: for in him the definite causes of the sun and moon presubsist, and not one idea alone of the celestial gods, which gives subsistence to all the celestial genera. Hence the Oracles assert⁹⁵, that his demiurgic energies burst about the bodies of the world like swarms of bees: for a divine intellect evolves into every demiurgic multitude the total separation of these energies in intellect.
39e.—But these ideas are four, &c. As with respect to demiurgic intelligence, a monad is the leader of intellectual multitude, and as with respect to paradigm, unical form subsists prior to number, in like manner discourse, the interpreter of divine concerns, shadowing forth the nature of the things of which it is the messenger, first receives the whole of the thing known collectively, and according to enthusiastic projection, but afterwards expands that which is convolved, unfolds the one intelligence through arguments, and divides that which is united; conformably to the nature of things, at one time interpreting their union, and at another their separation, since it is neither naturally adapted, nor is able to comprehend both these at once. Agreeably to this, the discourse of Plato first divinely unfolds the whole number of intelligible ideas, and afterwards distributes into parts the progressions which this number contains: for there intelligible multitude is apparent, where the first monads of ideas subsist. And that this is usual with Plato we have before abundantly shown. Descending therefore from words to things, let us in the first place see what this tetrad itself of ideas is, and whence this number originates, and in the next place what the four ideas are, and how they subsist in animal itself, whether so as that its all perfect nature receives its completion from these, or after some other manner, for by thus proceeding we shall discover the divinely intellectual conception of Plato. It is necessary, however, again to recur to the above-mentioned demonstrations, in which we said that the first, united, and most simple intelligible essence of the gods, proceeding supernally from the unity of unities, but according to a certain mode which is ineffable and incomprehensible by all things, one part of this essence ranks as the first, is occult and paternal; but another part ranks as the second, and is the one power, and incomprehensible measure of wholes; and the third part is that which has proceeded into energy and all various powers, and is at the same time both paternal and fabricative. The first of these also is a monad, because it is the summit of the whole intelligible extent, and the fountain and cause of divine numbers; but the second is a duad, for it both abides and proceeds as in intelligible genera, and has the ever connected with being; and the third is the tetrad which is now investigated, which receives all the occult cause of the monad, and unfolds in itself its unproceeding power. For such things as subsist in the monad primarily, and with unproceeding union, the tetrad exhibits in a divided manner, now separated according to number, and a production into secondary natures. But since the third possesses an order adapted to it, yet also entirely participates of the causes prior to itself, it is not only the tetrad, but besides this which is still greater, as a monad it is allotted a paternal, and as a duad a fabricative and prolific transcendency.
So far therefore as it is called animal itself, it is the monad of the nature of all animals, intellectual, vital, and corporeal; but so far as it comprehends at the same time the male and female nature, it is a duad; for these subsist in an appropriate manner in all the orders of animals, in one way in the gods, in another in dæmons, and in another in mortals; but so far as from this duad, it gives subsistence to the four ideas of animals in itself, it is a tetrad; for the fourfold fabrication of things proceeds according to these ideas, and the first productive cause of wholes is the tetrad. Plato therefore teaching this tetradic power of the paradigm, and the most unical ideas of mundane natures, says, that they are four, comprehended in one animal itself. For there is one idea there, animal itself; and there is also a duad, viz. the female and the male, or, according to Plato, possessing genera and species: for he calls two of the ideas genera, viz. the intellectual and the air-wandering, but the other two species, as being subordinate to these. There is also a tetrad; and as far as to this, intelligible forms proceed into other productive principles according to a different number. For according to every order there is an appropriate number, the lesser comprehending more total ideas, but the more multiplied number such as are more partial; since more divine natures being contracted in quantity, possess a transcendency of power; and the forms of second natures are more multiplied than those prior to them; such as are intellectual more than intelligibles, supermundane than intellectual, and mundane than supermundane forms. These then are the forms which proceed to an ultimate distribution, just as intelligibles receive the highest union: for all progression diminishes power and increases multitude. If therefore Timæus discoursed about a certain intellectual order, he would have mentioned another number, as for instance the hebdomadic or decadic; but since he speaks about the intelligible cause of ideas, and which comprehends all such animals as are intelligible, he says that the first ideas are four. For there the tetrad subsists proceeding from the intelligible monad, and filling the demiurgic decad. For “divine number, according to the Pythagorean hymn upon it, proceeds from the retreats of the undecaying monad, till it arrives at the divine tetrad, which produces the mother of all things, the universal recipient, venerable, placing a boundary about all things, undeviating and unwearied, which both immortal gods and earth-born men call the sacred decad⁹⁶.” Here the uniform and occult cause of being⁹⁷ is called the undecaying monad, and the retreats of the monad: but the manifestation of intelligible multitude, which the duad subsisting between the monad and tetrad unfolds, is denominated the divine tetrad; and the world itself receiving images of all the divine numbers, supernally imparted to it, is the decad: for thus we may understand these verses looking to the fabrication of the world. And thus much concerning this tetrad.
In the next place, let us consider what the four ideas are, and what are the things to which they give subsistence: for there are different opinions concerning this, some especially regarding the words of Plato, asserting that the progression is into gods, and the mortal genera, but others looking to things, that it is into gods, and the genera superior to man, because these subsist prior to mortals, and it is necessary that the demiurgus should not immediately produce mortals from divine natures. Others again conjoin both these, and follow what is written in the Epinomis, that gods subsist in the heavens, dæmons in the air, demigods in water, and men and other mortal animals in the earth. Such then being the diversity of opinion among the interpreters, we admire indeed the lovers of things, but we shall endeavour to follow our leader⁹⁸. Hence we say that the celestial genus of gods comprehends all the celestial genera, whether they are divine, angelic, or dæmoniacal; but the air-wandering, all such as are arranged in the air, whether gods, or their attendant dæmons, or mortal animals that live in the air. Again, that the aquatic comprehends all the genera that are allotted water, and those natures that are nourished in water; and the pedestrial, the animals that are distributed about the earth, and that subsist and grow in the earth. For the demiurgus is at once the cause of all mundane natures, and the common father of all things, generating the divine and dæmoniacal genera by and through himself alone, but delivering mortals to the junior gods, as they are able proximately to generate them. The paradigm also is not the cause of some, but by no means of other animals, but it possesses the most total causes of all things.
It is also requisite to consider the proposed words in an appropriate manner, according to every order; as, for instance, the genus of gods arranged in the heavens, in one way, in those that are properly called gods, and in another, in the genera more excellent than man. For we say that there are celestial angels, dæmons, and heroes, and that all these are called gods, because the divine idiom has dominion over their essential peculiarity. Again, we must consider the winged and air-wandering in one way in the aërial gods, in another in dæmons, and in another in mortals. For that which is intellectual in the gods, is denominated winged; that which is providential, air-wandering, as pervading through all the sphere of the air, and connectedly containing the whole of it. But in dæmons, the winged signifies rapidity of energy; and the air-wandering indicates their being every where present, and proceeding through all things without impediment. And in mortals, the winged manifests the motion through one organ of those natures that alone employ the circular motion; but the air-wandering, the all-various motion through bodies: for nothing hinders partial souls that live in the air from pervading through it. Again, the aquatic in divine natures, indicates a government inseparable from water: and hence the oracle calls these gods water-walkers⁹⁹; but in the genera attendant on the gods, it signifies that which is connective of a moist nature. And indeed the pedestrial, in one place, signifies that which connectedly contains the last seat of things, and proceeds through it, in the same manner as the terrestrial, that which stably rules over this seat, and is perfective of it through all-various powers and lives; but in another place it signifies the government at different times of different parts of the earth, through an appropriate motion. And thus much concerning the names.
But from these things it may be inferred that intelligible animal itself is entirely different from animal itself in the demiurgus; since the former has not definite ideas of mortal animals. For the demiurgus wishing to assimilate what the world contains to every thing in himself, produced mortal animals, that he might make the world all-perfect; but he comprehends the definite ideas of these, producing them from the immortal genera. He knows therefore mortal animals, and it is evident that he knows them for- mally; and he thinks fit that the junior gods, looking to him, and not to animal itself, should fabricate them, in consequence of containing in himself separately the ideas of mortals and immortals. In animal itself, therefore, with respect to the aërial, or aquatic, or terrestrial, there was one idea of each of these, the cause of all aërial, aquatic, or pedestrial animals, but they are divided in the demiurgus; and some are formal comprehensions of immortal aërial, and others of mortal aërial animals; and after the same manner with respect to the aquatic and terrestrial genera. The formal multitude therefore in animal itself, is not the same with that in the demiurgus, as may be inferred from these arguments.
We may also see that Plato makes a division of these genera into monad and triad, (opposing the summit of the celestial genus to the total genera,) and into two duads. For he denominates the celestial and winged, genus, but the aquatic and pedestrial, species; the latter possessing an order subordinate to the former, in the same manner as species to genus. It is likewise requisite to observe that he omits the region of fire in these, because the divine genus comprehends the summit of fire. For of sublunary bodies, fire has not any proper region, but subsists according to mutation alone, always requiring the nourishment of air and water. For its proper place, as fire, is on high: but neither is it there, since it would be seen, being naturally visible; nor can it arrive thither, being extinguished by the surrounding air, which is dissimilar to it. If, therefore, it is requisite that there should be a wholeness of fire, and that possessing a form it should be somewhere, and not alone consist in being generated, and if there is no such fire under the moon, fire will alone subsist in the heavens, abiding such as it is, and always possessing its proper place. For a motion upwards¹⁰⁰ is not the property of fire when subsisting according to nature, but is alone peculiar to fire when subsisting contrary to nature. Thus also the SACRED DISCOURSE of the Chaldæans conjoins things aërial with the lunar ratlings, attributing to fire the celestial region, according to a division of the elements in the world. For the fire in generation is a certain defluxion of the celestial fire, and is in the cavities of the other elements. There is not however a sphere of fire by itself, but the summit of air imitates the purity of supernal fire. And we denominate this sublunary fire, and call the region under the heavens the place of fire: for this is most similar to the celestial profundity, as the termination of air is to water, which is gross and dark. But you should not wonder if the most attenuated and pure fire will be in the summits of air, as the most gross and turbid is in the bosom of the earth; not making this pure fire to be a wholeness different from the whole air, but considering it, being most attenuated, as carried in the pores of the air, which are most narrow. Hence it is not seen through two causes; from not being distinct from the air, and from consisting of the smallest parts: so that it does not resist our sight in the same manner as the light of visible objects. True fire, therefore, subsists in the heavens; but of sublunary fire, that which is most pure, is in the air proximate to the celestial regions, which Plato in the course of this Dialogue calls æther; and that which is most gross, is contained in the recesses of the earth.

## Notes

[1] Viz. The art pertaining to mystic rites.
[2] Alluding to Plato’s cave in the seventh book of the Republic.
[3] As I have shown in my Dissertation on the Mysteries, from indubitable authority, that a skill in magic formed the last part of the sacerdotal office, it is by no means wonderful that, through this theurgic art, the statues in the temples where the mysteries were celebrated should have been rendered resplendent with divine light.
[4] For the whole of nature, according to the antient theology, is under the government of the moon; from the deity of which it also proceeds.
[5] Proæresis (προαιρεσις) is a deliberative tendency to things within the reach of our ability to effect.
[6] This appears to have been the opinion of Heraclitus.
[7] This was the opinion of the Stoics.
[8] That is, the dianoëtic power of the soul, or that power which reasons scientifically.
[9] In the original ανακτησιν; but the sense requires we should read αναμνησιν.
[10] That is, one of the Chaldæan oracles; to my collection of which I refer the reader,
[11] In the Phædo.
[12] By this first of sciences Proclus means the dialectic of Plato, concerning which see the Parmenides.
[13] Intellectual vision is intuitive; and hence intellect, by an immediate projection of its visive power, apprehends the objects of its knowledge. Hence too the visive energies of intellect are called by the Platonists νοεραι επιβολαι, i. e. intellectual projections.
[14] This illumination is the summit of the dianoëtic part.
[15] That is, simple, indemonstrable propositions.
[16] For an account of these unities see the Parmenides, and the Introduction to it.
[17] Σωτηρια. The term salvation is not peculiar to the Christian religion, since long before its establishment the Heathens had their saviour gods.
[18] Generation signifies, according to Plato and his best disciples, the whole of a sensible nature.
[19] Viz. the Christians.
[20] Hence the unscientific do not truly accord with each other: for the rational part in them secretly dissents to what the irrational part admits.
[21] Philosophers accord with each other in proportion to their possession of science, and dissent in proportion to their privation of it. With intellectual philosophers, therefore, there is more concord than with others, because they have more of genuine science.
[22] This method forms an important part of the dialectic of Plato; for a full account of which, see the Introduction to the Parmenides.
[23] Proclus here alludes to the following lines in the speech of Ulysses to Achilles, Iliad. lib. ix. l. 253. ῀Ω πεπον, ἠ μεν σοι γε πατηρ επετελλετο Πελευς Ηματι τῳ, ὁτε σ’ εκ Φθιης Αγαμεμνονι πεμπε· Τεκνον εμον, καρτος μεν Αθηναιη τε και Ηρη Δωσους’, αι κ’ εθελωσι· συ δε μεγαλητορα θυμον Ισχειν εν στηθεσσι· φιλοφροσυνη γαρ αμεινων· Ληγεμεναι δ’ εριδος κακομηχανου, οφρα σε μαλλον Τισωσ’ Αργειων ημεν νεοι ηδη γεροντες. Which are thus elegantly paraphrased by Pope: When Peleus in his aged arms embrac’d His parting son, these accents were his last: “My child! with strength, with glory and success, Thy arms may Juno and Minerva bless! Trust that to heaven: but thou thy cares engage To calm thy passions, and subdue thy rage: From gentler manners let thy glory grow, And shun contention, the sure source of woe: That young and old may in thy praise combine, The virtues of humanity be thine.
[24] In the original τεκμηριον καθαρον και αχραντον. The reader is requested to adopt the translation of these words given above, instead of the translation of Sydenham, “a fresh proof never used before,” as being more accurate.
[25] Viz. they are influenced by opinion.
[26] Being, considered according to its highest subsistence, is the immediate progeny of the good, or the ineffable principle of things. This is evident from the second hypothesis in the Parmenides.
[27] This will be evident from the Timæus.
[28] In the twelfth book of his Metaphysics, to my translation of which I refer the English reader.
[29] i. e. In being, the summit of the intelligible order.
[30] i. e. In intelligible intellect.
[31] viz. In the summit of the intelligible and at the same time intellectual order. See the Introduction to the Parmenides.
[32] Being, life, and intellect, considered according to their highest subsistence, form the intelligible triad, or the first all-perfect procession from the ineffable cause of all, as is beautifully shown by Proclus in his third book On the Theology of Plato. But that being is beyond life, and life beyond intellect, is evident from this consideration, that the progressions of superior are more extended than those of inferior causes. Hence, though whatever lives has a being, and whatever possesses intellect lives, yet some things have being without life or intellect, and others have being and life without intellect. And hence, as the progressions of being are more extended than those of life, and of life than those of intellect, we conclude that being is superior to life, and life to intellect.
[33] By reasons here productive principles are signified.
[34] Bound and infinite, as will be evident from the Philebus, are the two highest principles, after the ineffable principle of all.
[35] See the Timæus and Atlanticus.
[36] A man unknown, Author of a work called The Pursuits of Literature.
[37] For an account of the virtues superior to the political, see the Phædo, Theætetus, and Phædrus.
[38] The harmony diapason includes all tones, and is the same as what is called in modern music an octave or eighth. It is also a duple proportion, or that of 4 to 2,
[39] This is an interval which is called in modern music a perfect fourth, and is a sesquitertian proportion, or that of 4 to 3.
[40] This is the second of the concords, and is now called a perfect fifth. It is also a sesquialter proportion, or that of 3 to 2.
[41] Viz. Anger and desire, as being irrational parts, are both of them, according to Plato in the Timæus, the offspring of the junior Gods, but the rational part is alone the offspring of the one demiurgus of all things.
[42] An oak may be said to be an image of the lowest nature, or natural life, from the great imbecility of this life, which is evident in the slow growth of the oak.
[43] If Priestley, Hartley, and other modern metaphysical writers, had but known that the undisciplined are governed by the corporeal temperaments, and that men of true science govern those temperaments, they certainly would not have poisoned the minds of the unscientific with such pernicious and puerile conceptions about necessity.
[44] Proclus here means the dianoëtic power of the soul, of which intellect is the summit.
[45] This is shown in the Timæus, where it is proved that the three elements, fire, air, and water, are the connecting media of the two contrary extremes, heaven and earth.
[46] It is placed under reason, to which it is subservient in exciting its energies; and it is also placed under anger and desire, to the motions of which it is subservient, so far as these motions subsist in conjunction with sense.
[47] See the Timæus.
[48] That part of the soul which energizes dianoëtically and scientifically is called by Plato, in the Timæus, the circle of sameness; and that which energizes according to opinion, the circle of difference.
[49] And this is what Homer divinely insinuates in the Fable of Ulysses.
[50] As all things abide in their causes, proceed from them and return to them, as is demonstrated by Proclus in his Elements of Theology, this must also be true of the immediate and first procession from the highest god. The first offspring, therefore, from the ineffable principle of things will be an all-perfect triad, the leader of a divine number; and in like manner every divine number will proceed from a triad, and this from a monad: for there is no number prior to three, unity being the principle of number, and the duad partaking of the nature both of unity and number. This will be evident from considering that it is the property of number to receive a greater increase from multiplication than addition, viz. when multiplied into itself; but unity is increased by being added to, but not by being multiplied by itself, and two in consequence of its middle nature produces the same when added to, as when multiplied by itself. See the Introduction to The Parmenides.
[51] Theodorus, as well as Jamblichus, was the disciple of Porphyry.
[52] There are three divine orders, which according to antient theologists are said to comprehend the total orders of the gods, viz. the intelligible, (the immediate progeny of the ineffable principle of things,) the intelligible and at the same time intellectual, and the intellectual order. The demiurgus of the universe subsists at the extremity of this last.
[53] There is wanting here in the original το δε των μερων ολικως.
[54] Τριαδος is erroneously printed in the original instead of μοναδος.
[55] Viz. Saturn.
[56] Viz. Rhea.
[57] Viz. Jupiter.
[58] Being itself, or the summit of the intelligible order, is called father alone; Phanes, or the extremity of the intelligible order, is called father and artificer; Jupiter, or the extremity of the intellectual order, is called artificer and father; and Vulcan, who is the fabricator of a corporeal nature, is called artificer alone.
[59] Instead of των θειων πραξεων υπο των εγκοσμιων, as in the original, it is necessary to read as in our translation των θειων ταξεων υπερ των εγκοσμιων.
[60] Viz. the diagram pertaining to the generation of the soul.
[61] That which ultimately connects bodies must necessarily be impartible; for if it also consisted of parts, those parts would require something else as the cause of their connection, and this something else, if also partible, another connecting principle, and so on ad infinitum. Body, therefore, derives its connection from the presence of something incorporeal.
[62] Whole, as Proclus soon after this informs us, has a triple subsistence, prior to parts, in a part, and posterior to parts. We have a beautiful image of the first of these of which Proclus is now speaking, in the centre of a circle considered as subsisting with the extremities of the radii terminating in it. For these extremities, considered as giving completion to the centre, so far as centre, may be said to be as it were parts of it; but when they are considered as they may be, as proceeding from the centre, they are posterior to it.
[63] The number 7, according to the Pythagoreans, is the image of intellectual light; and hence the intellectual order is hebdomadic, consisting of two triads, viz. Saturn, Rhea, Jupiter, and the three Curetes, and a separating monad which is called by antient theologists Ocean. See the fifth book of Proclus on Plato’s Theology, and the Introduction and Notes to the Parmenides.
[64] See my Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries.
[65] Thus in 6, 4, 3, which are in harmonic proportion, the ratio of 6 to 4 is greater than that of 4 to 3.
[66] Reason must here be considered as signifying a productive and connective principle of things, to which ratio in quantity is analogous.
[67] Thus, in the numbers 6, 4, 2, which are in arithmetic proportion, the ratio of 6 to 4, i. e. the ratio of the greater terms is less than the ratio of 4 to 2, the ratio of the lesser terms: for the ratio of 6 to 4 is 1½, but that of 4 to 2 is 2.
[68] For an account of these ratios, see the Note to the 8th Book of the Republic on the Geometric Number, vol. i.
[69] That all the species of inequality of ratio proceed from equality of ratio may be shown as follows:—Let there be any three equal terms, as, for instance, three unities, 1, 1, 1. Let the first therefore be placed equal to the first, viz. 1; the second to the first and second added together, viz. to 2; and let the third be equal to the first, twice the second, and the third added together, viz. to 1, 2, 1, or 4. This will produce duple proportion, viz. 1, 2, 4. By the same process with 1, 2, 4, triple proportion will arise, viz. 1, 3, 9; and by a like process with this again, quadruple proportion, and so on. Multiple proportion being thus produced from equal terms, by inverting the order of these terms, and adopting the same process, sesquialter will be produced from duple proportion, sesquitertian from triple, &c. Thus, for instance, let the three terms 4, 2, 1, be given, which form a duple proportion: let the first be placed equal to the first, viz. to 4; the second to the first and second, viz. to 6; and the third to the first, twice the second, and the third, viz. to 4, 4, 1, or 9, and we shall have 4, 6, 9, which form a sesquialter proportion; for 6/4 = 1½ = 9/6. By a like process with 9, 3, 1, which form a triple proportion, a sesquitertian proportion will arise, viz. 9, 12, 16; and so of other species of superparticular proportion. In like manner, by inverting the terms which compose superparticular proportion, all the species of superpartient proportions will arise. And hence it appears that equality is the principle of all inequalities, in the same manner as the monad of all numbers.
[70] Thus in the superparticular ratio of 3 to 2, 2 is contained in 3, and together with it one part of 2, viz. the ½ of it.
[71] Thus in the superpartient ratio of 10 to 6, 6 is contained in 10, and together with it two parts of 6, viz. 4, which is two-thirds of 6.
[72] The hebdomad is said to be motherless, because in monadic numbers 7 is not produced by the multiplication of any two numbers between 1 and 10.
[73] Let it be remembered that the first numbers of the soul are, as we have observed in the Introduction to this Dialogue, 1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 8, 27.
[74] In the dissertation on nullities, at the end of my translation of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, I have demonstratively shown that infinite multitude is contained causally in the monad.
[75] Viz. 4.
[76] Viz. 9.
[77] Viz. 8 is derived from 2.
[78] Viz. 27 is derived from 3.
[79] Proclus here means the five regular bodies, viz. the dodecahedron, the pyramid, the octahedron, the icosahedron, and the cube. It is a remarkable property of these figures, that the sum of their sides is the same as that of their angles, and that this sum is pentadic; for it is equal to 50. Thus the dodecahedron contains 12 sides, the pyramid 4, the octahedron 8, the icosahedron 20, and the cube 6; and 12 + 4 + 8 + 20 + 6 = 50. In like manner, with respect to their angles, the dodecahedron has 20, the pyramid 4, the octahedron 6, the icosahedron 12, and the cube 8; and 20 + 4 + 6 + 12 + 8 = 50.
[80] Viz. the northern, southern, eastern and western centers, and that which subsists between these.
[81] Viz. into the five centers and the four elements considered as subsisting every where.
[82] Viz. corporeal forms and qualities.
[83] Viz. bodies.
[84] Even square numbers are beautiful images of self-subsistence. For that which produces itself effects this by its hyparxis or summit, since the being of every thing depends on its principal part, and this is its summit. But the root of a number is evidently analogous to hyparxis; and consequently an even square number will be an image of a nature which produces itself. And hence self-production is nothing more than an involution of hyparxis.
[85] Μονας is omitted in the original; but the sense requires that either this word, or the word αιτια, cause, should be inserted.
[86] This is one of the Chaldæan Oracles, which, as I have shown in my collection of them in the Supplement to vol. iii. of the Monthly Magazine, were delivered by Chaldæan Theurgists under the reign of Marcus Antoninus. The original is as follows:

Πατρογενες φαος· πολυ γαρ μονος
Εκ πατρος αλκης δρεψαμενος νοου ανθος,
Εχει τῳ νοειν πατρικον νουν ενδιδοναι
Πασαις πηγαις τε και αρχαις·
Και το νοειν, αει τε μενειν αοκνῳ στροφαλιγγι.
[87] Strato was a philosopher of Lampsacus. He was the disciple and successor of Theophrastus; and flourished 289 years before Christ.
[88] For eternity is stability of being; and in like manner immortality is stability of life, and memory of knowledge.
[89] As the intelligible triad, or the first procession from the ineffable cause of all, consists, as will be shown in the Introduction to the Parmenides, of being, life, and intellect, eternity forms the middle of this triad, being, as Plotinus divinely says, infinite life, at once total and full, and abides in the summit of this triad, i. e. in being itself or the first and intelligible being.
[90] Το εν ον, viz. being characterized by and wholly absorbed in the one; for such is the first being.
[91] The beginning of the Commentary on this part of the Timæus is unfortunately wanting in the original; and by a strange confusion, the words και η τριτη, which there form the beginning, are connected with the comment on the preceding text, which comment is also imperfect; and what is still more strange, the part which is wanting to the completion of this preceding comment is to be found in p. 270, beginning at the words το δε ουτως, line 11.
[92] Viz. Orpheus.
[93] Viz. he is not an intellect consubsistent with soul.
[94] Night subsists at the summit of that divine order which is denominated intelligible, and at the same time intellectual.
[95] Viz. The Chaldæan Oracles. See the Parmenides.
[96] The last line of these verses, viz. αθανατοι τε θεοι, και γηγενεεις ανθρωποι, is not in Proclus, but is added from the Commentaries of Syrianus on Aristotle’s Metaphysics, where alone it is to be found.
[97] Viz. The summit of the intelligible triad, or superessential being.
[98] Viz. Syrianus, the preceptor of Proclus.
[99] Here, also by an unaccountable mistake, all that follows after the word ὑδροβατηρας, water-walkers, which is in p. 270, and which ought immediately to follow this word, begins near the bottom of p. 272, at the words επι δε των επομενων, &c.
[100] Agreeably to this, Plotinus observes, that every body, when in its proper place, is either at rest, or moves circularly.