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Book I Chapter 49

32.7 · Plato’s numerical account as reported by Aristotle

and Plato, as Aristotle reports, by presupposing the living being itself as constituted from the form of the one and from primary length ⟨and breadth⟩ and depth, and by defining the one as intellect, the dyad as knowledge, the number of the plane as opinion, and that of the solid as [the] perception.¹⁴²⁰

32.8 · Mathematical harmony

Let us also consider harmony, not the harmony established in bodies, but mathematical harmony. In general terms, Moderatus refers to soul the harmony that makes things differing in any way commensurate and congenial. Timaeus attributes to it harmony as a mean and a bond in substances, lives, and the coming-to-be of all things;¹⁴²¹

32.9 · Harmony in principles and in the cosmos

Plotinus, Porphyry, and Amelius have handed down harmony as residing in rational principles that preexist in substance. Many Platonists and Pythagoreans prefer the harmony interwoven with the cosmos and inseparable from heaven.¹⁴²²

32.10 · All incorporeal reality in every part

Come, then, let us ascend to substance that is incorporeal in itself, distinguishing in order all the opinions about soul in this class too. Some declare that all such substance is homogeneous, identical, and one, so that the whole is present in any part of it. They establish within the divisible soul the intelligible cosmos, gods, divine spirits, the Good, and all the kinds prior to soul. They declare that all things are alike present in all, yet in each in a manner appropriate to its own substance.¹⁴²³

32.11 · Differences among the named Platonists

Numenius unquestionably holds this opinion; Plotinus does so without complete consistency, while Amelius moves unsteadily within it. Porphyry hesitates about it, at some points firmly withdrawing from it, at others following it as a teaching handed down from earlier authorities. On this view, soul differs in no respect from intellect, gods, and the higher kinds, at least as regards its substance as a whole.¹⁴²⁴

32.12 · Soul as a distinct subsistence

The opposing opinion, however, distinguishes soul as having come from intellect, secondary to it and possessing a different subsistence. It explains soul’s being with intellect as dependence upon intellect, together with a complete subsistence of its own. It also distinguishes soul from all the higher kinds;¹⁴²⁵

32.13 · Definitions of soul’s distinctive substance

and it assigns soul a distinctive definition of its substance: either the intermediate between the divisible and indivisible, ⟨between the bodily and the in⟩corporeal kinds; or the fullness of universal rational principles; or the service of creation that follows the forms; or life that has its living from itself and has proceeded from the intelligible; or, again, the procession of the kinds belonging to the whole of true being into a lower substance.¹⁴²⁶

32.14 · The author’s preferred account

Plato himself, Pythagoras, Aristotle, and all the ancients whose great names are celebrated for wisdom turn wholly toward these opinions, if one traces their views with careful attention. We too shall endeavor to establish our entire truthful investigation upon them.¹⁴²⁷

32.15 · Heat, cooling, and breath

Some natural philosophers weave soul together as a conjunction of opposites, such as hot and ⟨cold⟩, dry and wet. They declare that living takes its name from boiling up under the action of heat, and soul from being cooled under the action of cold; and, in connection with both together, they regard [or] the air that is breathed as soul;¹⁴²⁸

32.16 · Orphic verses and the one soul

just as Aristotle says that, in the Orphic verses, soul is said to enter from the whole as we breathe, borne by the winds. Orpheus himself, however, seems to suppose that soul exists separately and as one: from it there are many divisions, and many immediate inspirations descend from the whole soul upon the individual souls.¹⁴²⁹

32.17 · Aether, actuality, and mixture

Some Aristotelians posit soul as an aetherial body. Others define it as the perfection in substance of the divine body, which Aristotle calls actuality, as Theophrastus does in some passages; or as what is generated from all the more divine kinds, as someone might propose by introducing a new conception; or as what is blended with bodies, as the Stoics say;¹⁴³⁰

32.18 · Soul as a bodily condition

or what is mixed with nature; or what belongs to body, such as its being ensouled, without being present in soul itself as though subsisting there: such are the statements about soul found in Dicaearchus of Messene.¹⁴³¹

33.1 · Powers within an uncompounded soul

In the same work: on the powers of soul.

Plato, then, does not regard the powers as things distinct from soul, residing in soul as something distinct from them. He says instead that they are innate and subsist together under one form, because soul’s substance is uncompounded. Aristotle likewise assumes the substance of soul to be simple, incorporeal, and perfective of form; he does not make its powers present in soul as though it were some composite.¹⁴³²

33.2 · Powers as qualities of an underlying body

The philosophers who follow Chrysippus and Zeno, however, and all who conceive soul as a body, combine its powers as qualities in an underlying subject. They posit soul as a substance already underlying the powers, and from these two together they construct a composite nature made up of unlike constituents.¹⁴³³

1420.The source cites Aristotle, On the Soul I.2, 404b18-24. The account is mediated through Aristotle and should not be treated as a direct quotation from a Platonic dialogue. The dimension “and breadth” is supplied; the article before perception is rejected. Both signs remain visible in the English. The sequence links numerical or dimensional terms with kinds of cognition.

1421.Harmonia is a fitting together. The passage explicitly shifts from bodily harmony to mathematical relation. “Commensurate and congenial” renders symmetra kai prosēgora. The source’s reference identifies Timaeus of Locri, p. 99a and following, rather than simply naming Plato’s Timaeus without distinction.

1422.These are further placements of harmony, continuing the preceding sentence. The first places it in antecedent logoi; the second associates it inseparably with the ordered universe. “Preexist in substance” preserves the qualification kat’ ousian, rather than making the priority merely chronological.

1423.Homoiomerēs describes a whole whose parts have the same character. “Divine spirits” renders daimones without a Christian implication of evil. The final qualification matters: the claim that all is in all is modified by the mode appropriate to each recipient. “Prior” translates presbytera in the hierarchy of being, not simply as older in time.

1424.The assessments of these thinkers belong to the excerpt’s author. The differences in his report are preserved: Numenius is unqualifiedly assigned to the view; Plotinus, Amelius, and Porphyry receive distinct qualifications. “From earlier authorities” interprets anōthen as transmission from predecessors; it need not imply a revelation from above. The conclusion is explicitly restricted to substance.

1425.The contrast is between identity of substance and a distinct, dependent mode of being. “Being with intellect” follows meta nou in the edited text. Autotelōs means completely or with its own completeness; it does not cancel the stated dependence on intellect. The repeated chōrizei marks distinction or separation in this account, not a spatial distance.

1426.These alternatives elaborate the opposing account rather than five additional named schools. The supply on p. 366 ends inside asōmatōn: the printed sōmatōn becomes “incorporeal” by the supplied prefix. The English brackets likewise end within “incorporeal” to show its extent. Plērōma is fullness; proodos is procession or proceeding into a lower order. The reference to divisible and indivisible recalls the Timaeus selection in excerpt 28.

1427.The author now declares his own allegiance. His claim that the named ancients converge on these opinions is part of his interpretation and is not an independent editorial judgment about all their works. Epistasis here is attentive consideration. The prospective “shall endeavor” is retained.

1428.The proposed word connections are zēn, “to live,” with anazein, “to boil up,” and psychē, “soul,” with anapsychesthai, “to be cooled.” They are the ancient account’s explanations of the names. Supplied “cold” and rejected “or” remain marked. The construction “in connection with both” is kept without supplying a more specific mechanism of breathing.

1429.The source cites Aristotle, On the Soul I.5, 410b27 and following. The excerpt distinguishes Aristotle’s report of Orphic verses from its own qualified interpretation of Orpheus: “seems” remains. Epipnoiai are breath-like inspirations or influences; “immediate” follows amesous. Meristai, literally divided or divisible, is rendered “individual” for the recipient souls.

1430.Entelecheia is rendered “actuality,” alongside the text’s explanatory teleiotēs, “perfection.” The printed “divine body” is retained. The author expressly allows a new, hypothetical conception in the next alternative; the apparatus explains en tais epinoiais accordingly, rather than treating it as a book title. These reports and possibilities remain distinct.

1431.The closing construction is damaged or obscure. The English provisionally takes “being ensouled” as a condition belonging to body rather than something subsisting in soul itself. The apparatus questions the second hōsper and proposes hopōsoun, “in any way,” while recording more extensive repairs to the preceding wording. None is inserted into the Greek; the precise force of the clause remains uncertain.

1432.The heading continues the work attributed to Iamblichus in excerpt 32. The account distinguishes powers native to a simple soul from qualities added to a separate underlying substance. Eidous telesiourgon is rendered “perfective of form”; this describes soul’s completion of form in the report, rather than treating its powers as added components. The printed asyntheton, “uncompounded,” is an editorial correction of the transmitted “composite.”

1433.Hypokeimenon is the underlying subject or bearer of qualities. The two constituents in this explanation are the underlying soul-substance and its powers as qualities. The report attributes this analysis to the Stoic tradition and other corporealist accounts; it does not merge it with the preceding account of innate powers.