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Book I Chapter 49

23.5 · Seed in matter and immaterial soul

And just as seed, when held in matter, is confined within the parts of matter according to each of the rational principles of which it was capable, yet, when gathered again into the power of seed, possesses the full power in each of its parts, so too what is conceived as a part of immaterial soul possesses the power of the entire soul.¹³⁵⁷

23.6 · Turning back from matter

What has inclined toward matter is held in so far as [form, having inclined] it was suited to associate with what is in matter. Yet it already possesses the power of the whole and encounters that power within itself when it stands apart from what is in matter and comes to be within itself.¹³⁵⁸

23.7 · Poverty and fullness

Since, when it inclined toward matter, there ⟨was⟩ a lack of all things and an emptying of its own power, but when led up to intellect it was found to possess its own fullness in accordance with the power of the whole soul, those who first recognized this condition of soul fittingly hinted at the one as poverty and the other as fullness.¹³⁵⁹

24.1 · Porphyry: On the Powers of the Soul

From Porphyry’s On the Powers of the Soul.

The task before us is to outline the powers of the soul, first reviewing the accounts found among the ancients and the later assessment made by the teachers.¹³⁶⁰

24.2 · Ariston: apprehension with and without organs

Ariston posits a power of apprehension in the soul and divides it in two. One part, he says, is generally set in motion together with one of the sense organs. He calls this the perceptive power, the source and fountain of the particular perceptions. The other always acts by itself and without organs. In irrational creatures, he says, this has no name, since it either does not exist in them at all or is altogether weak and exceedingly dim. In rational creatures, in which it is especially ⟨or⟩ exclusively evident, it is called intellect. [He said that intellect acts without organs, and that the perceptive power acts with an organ as well.]¹³⁶¹

24.3 · Shape and essence

How, then, will the power that acts with an organ differ from intellect, if both ⟨the⟩ part acting with an organ and the part acting without one have been placed under a single genus, that of the apprehensive power? Is it because the one apprehends the shape of things, the other their essence? For perception does not apprehend essence, but shape and configuration . . . . .; apprehending that something is a human being or a horse belongs to another power.¹³⁶²

24.4 · Discursive thought and opinion

The movement of apprehension is therefore different. The apprehension belonging to the perceptive power seems to receive an impression and to be drawn outward toward shape; the other stands apart from the receiving of impressions. Some accordingly made a division: what proceeds step by step without imagination ⟨or perception⟩, dependent on intellect, they called both discursive thought and intellect; what proceeds with imagination or perception they called the power of opinion. Others posited a single rational substance but different activities.¹³⁶³

24.5 · Different kinds of apprehension

With a difference of this kind, perhaps it was inappropriate to place the ⟨two⟩ powers under one heading. For intellection and perception do not start from a single substance; and if someone calls the activity of intellect “apprehension,” the same name will have a different meaning. Everyone on either side should have posited the power of intellect as distinct and of another kind, with the power of discursive thought following it, but with the former an activity all at once and the latter an activity proceeding step by step;¹³⁶⁴

24.6 · Perception, imagination, and opinion

and the perceptive power as altogether different. One part of it makes use of organs, while ⟨another⟩ does not: the part with organs is called perceptive, the part without them imaginative. Yet another belongs no less to the same genus but goes beyond what proceeds step by step; this apprehends these things all at once and is called the power of opinion. A question remains whether this kind is a species of discursive thought or whether the other is, the one that stands above the perceptive and imaginative but below the intellective.¹³⁶⁵

25.1 · Numenius: assent and presentation

In the same work.

Numenius, having said that the power of assent is receptive of activities, says that the imaginative power is incidental to it: not its work and product, but an accompaniment. The Stoics do not make perception consist in presentation alone, but make its very being depend on assent. For perception is a sensory presentation, an assent, with assent occurring in accordance with impulse.¹³⁶⁶

25.2 · Longinus and the earlier accounts

Longinus suspects that there is no power of assent at all. According to the earlier thinkers and those of the Academy, however, perception is taken as bare presentation ⟨through⟩ a sense organ. For that reason it does not, at the outset, share in a distinctive character, since it does not share in assent either.¹³⁶⁷

25.3 · Assent and what is in our control

But even if perception is a presentation through a sense organ combined with assent, perception will not necessarily share in virtue as well, unless assent belongs among the things in our control.¹³⁶⁸

25a.1 · Parts and powers: the Stoic division

By the same author.

The ancients disagreed not only about these matters, but also, from the outset, about the parts of the soul: in general, what a part is, what a power is, and how they differ.

For example, the Stoics posited a soul with eight parts. They counted five perceptive parts, a sixth concerned with voice, and a seventh with reproduction, [and] supposed that the remaining part, the ruling faculty, occupied the position of a ruler. They assigned the other parts the rank of a servant, so that the same soul consisted of ruler and ruled.¹³⁶⁹

1357.Logoi are the principles of the seed’s differentiated activity, and dynamis is its capacity or power. The repeated language of being held, krateisthai, presents material confinement; gathering reverses that dispersal in the analogy. “What is conceived as a part” preserves the caution of hōs meros epinooumenon: the soul’s division is conceptual rather than the cutting of a body.

1358.Square brackets preserve words that Wachsmuth rejects, eidos rhepsan, literally “form, having inclined.” The bracketed English preserves the disconnected words because they interrupt the construction. Read without them, the sentence contrasts a capacity constrained by association with matter with the full power already possessed and found again through inward return.

1359.The restored ēn, “was,” remains marked. Penia is poverty or lack; koros is fullness or satiety, set against the emptying, kenōsis, of the preceding clause. The apparatus associates the closing language with Heraclitus; the excerpt itself leaves the earlier thinkers unnamed. No quotation or named attribution is added to the text.

1360.Dynamis is a power or capacity; the distinction between a power and a part becomes a central question in excerpt 25a. Historia here concerns the survey of earlier accounts, followed by their later assessment, epikrisis. The opening announces a discussion of differing views, which should not all be attributed to Porphyry as his own conclusions.

1361.Antilēpsis is rendered “apprehension,” broad enough to cover the two powers initially placed under it. Nous is intellect; aisthētikon the perceptive power. The supplied “or” keeps the alternatives “especially” and “exclusively” distinct. Wachsmuth brackets the final summary as a rejected addition, explaining in the apparatus that it had been a marginal note. Its words remain bracketed in both languages. Ariston is named without a further identifying description in this passage.

1362.The opening question tests Ariston’s classification. Morphē and plasis concern shape and configuration; ousia here concerns what something is, hence “essence.” The supplied article remains marked. The scan marks a gap after plaseōs: the missing comparison is not reconstructed. The closing “another power” makes explicit the faculty understood with the Greek “of another.”

1363.Dianoia is discursive thought: thinking that proceeds through a sequence, here expressed by diexodikon and diexodos. Doxastikon is the capacity for opinion. The passage reports competing ways of relating these activities, rather than introducing a settled classification. The printed feminine construction in the opening sentence is retained; the English understands “apprehension” as its subject. “Or perception” is supplied by the editor.

1364.Homōnymōs means that one name is used in different senses; it need not establish a common genus. Athroa, “all at once,” contrasts with activity en diexodōi, “proceeding step by step.” The wording pantas tous eph’ hekateras is unsettled in the apparatus. This translation takes it as the postponed subject of “should have posited,” “everyone on either side”; the referent of “either” remains uncertain. No conjectural repair is inserted. The supplied “two” remains marked.

1365.The classification uses aisthētikē broadly before distinguishing perception with organs from imagination without them. The difficult phrase to athroon toutōn is rendered “this apprehends these things all at once,” with the activity understood from the context. The concluding alternatives are left open as printed: the referents of “this kind” and “the other” are not securely resolved by the wording. The supplied ti is represented by the marked “another.”

1366.Synkatathesis, “assent,” is distinguished from phantasia, the presentation that appears to the soul, and hormē, “impulse.” The contrast between a product and an accompaniment is explicit in Numenius’s account. The final sentence is compressed: aisthētikē phantasia and synkatathesis are both nominative. The English juxtaposes “a sensory presentation, an assent” rather than silently changing the first into a dative, “assent to a sensory presentation.”

1367.Psilē, “bare,” excludes assent from this account of perception. The supplied preposition “through” remains marked. Idiōma is translated conservatively as “a distinctive character”: the sentence does not specify which character is intended. The apparatus records difficult alternative wording around “at the outset,” but the translation follows the edited text. Longinus’s doubt is reported as his position.

1368.The qualification links virtue, aretē, to what is eph’ hēmin, “in our control” or “up to us.” The printed aretēs is retained; the apparatus suggests haireseōs, “choice,” as an alternative. The text therefore does not simply identify perception with a voluntary choice, and its conditional should be preserved.

1369.Wachsmuth numbers this excerpt 25a; that numbering is retained, while the further decimal subdivisions are modern comparison aids. The eightfold count comprises the five senses, voice, reproduction, and the hēgemonikon, the ruling faculty. The analogy is one of ruler and servants within a single soul. The bracketed kai, “and,” is rejected in the edition and remains bracketed on both sides.