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Book I Chapter 49

33.3 · Soul’s own life and embodied life

Consider, then, the powers of soul itself in its own right, or those of the creature that possesses it, the living being considered jointly with body. According to those who hold that soul lives a twofold life, both in itself and with body, the powers are present in one way to soul and in another to the combined living being, ⟨as⟩ in the accounts of Plato and Pythagoras;¹⁴³⁴

33.4 · Powers in a single composite life

but according to those who hold that soul has a single life, the life of the composite, there is one mode in which the powers are present. This may be because soul is blended with body, as the Stoics say, or because it gives its entire life to the combined living being, as the Peripatetics insist. On these accounts the powers are present by being participated in, or by being blended with the whole living being.¹⁴³⁵

33.5 · Different organs and different qualities

How, then, are they distinguished? According to the Stoics, some are distinguished by the difference of ⟨the⟩ underlying bodies. They say that currents of vital breath extend from the ruling center in different directions: some to the eyes, others to the ears, and others to the remaining sense organs. Others are distinguished by a specific quality in the same underlying subject. Just as an apple has sweetness and fragrance in the same body, so the ruling center comprises presentation, assent, impulse, and reason in the same subject.¹⁴³⁶

33.6 · Distinction by what the powers can do

According to the Aristotelians and all who conceive soul as indivisible, the powers are undivided in substance, but distinguished according to the kinds of things they can do.¹⁴³⁷

33.7 · Three parts and many powers

In Plato’s account, soul is called three-part in one sense, as varying threefold in life among distinct substances; in another sense it has many powers, no longer differing in the substance of life, but distinguished by many specific characteristics within the same subject.¹⁴³⁸

33.8 · How a part differs from a power

In general, a part differs from a power in this: a part signifies a difference of substance, while a power signifies a generative or productive distinction within the same subject.¹⁴³⁹

34.1 · Eight parts and further powers

In the same work: on the number of powers.

The followers of Zeno hold that soul has eight parts, with further powers belonging to ⟨it⟩, such as those in the ruling center: presentation, assent, impulse, and reason.¹⁴⁴⁰

34.2 · The threefold division and virtue

Plato’s followers, Archytas, and the other Pythagoreans declare soul to have three parts, dividing it into reasoning, spirit, and desire; for these, they say, are useful for establishing the virtues.¹⁴⁴¹

34.3 · Enumerations of powers

As powers of soul they reckon nature, presentation, perception, opinion, thought that moves bodies, desire for things beautiful and good, and acts of understanding. Aristotle divides them into five: nature, perception, movement from place to place, desire, and thought.¹⁴⁴²

35.1 · Essential and added powers

In the same work: on powers belonging to soul’s substance and powers added to it.

Plotinus removes from it the irrational powers, the perceptions, the representations, the memories, and the processes of reasoning. Only pure reasoning does he refer to its pure substance, as possessing a power naturally bound to the very form of that substance.¹⁴⁴³

35.2 · Powers and two kinds of life

The Platonists around Democritus bring all these kinds of powers together within its substance.¹⁴⁴⁴

Plato makes them belong both to themselves and to living beings, defining each relation according to the corresponding kind of life.¹⁴⁴⁵

35.3 · Powers projected into the whole

The followers of Porphyry and Plotinus declare that soul projects into each part of the whole the powers appropriate to it. They [the Platonists around Porphyry and Plotinus] determine that the lives projected in whatever way are relinquished and cease to exist, much as things growing from a seed do whenever the seed withdraws into itself;¹⁴⁴⁶

35.4 · A possible alternative

but someone might perhaps devise a more novel view, not implausibly: that these lives too remain in the whole and do not perish.¹⁴⁴⁷

36.1 · Soul’s activities: motion and rest

In the same work: on the activities of soul.

Who, then, has not heard the Peripatetic opinion that soul is itself unmoved but is a cause of motions? If what is unmoved is also inactive, the inactivity of soul will also be the source that supplies its activities.¹⁴⁴⁸

1434.The opening nominative construction is resumed by “are present.” The English introduces it with “Consider” to make that structure readable, without treating the word as a printed supplement. Koinon zōion is the living being constituted jointly with body. The supplied hōs, “as,” is marked. The distinction concerns two modes in which powers are present, corresponding to the twofold life attributed to soul.

1435.The pronoun autōn refers to the powers, as the apparatus emphasizes. The single mode of presence is contrasted with the preceding twofold account; the text nevertheless distinguishes participation from blending as explanations of that presence. Peripatetics here denotes the Aristotelian school.

1436.Pneumata are streams or currents of pneuma, rendered “vital breath”; hēgemonikon is the ruling center. The two explanations distinguish bodily distribution from qualitative difference in a common bearer. The apple illustrates the latter. Phantasia is “presentation,” consistent with the earlier discussion of Stoic powers, rather than imagination alone. The supplied article remains marked.

1437.The printed sentence lacks the words needed to complete its contrast. “Are undivided” and “distinguished” supply the recoverable sense in English. The apparatus offers several repairs: Heeren explicitly adds indivisibility and division; Wachsmuth proposes “are not distinguished” after “the powers”; Usener proposes one power in substance and several by kinds of activity. The Greek remains unsupplemented as printed, and the English is provisional.

1438.The construction triplēi zōēs in the printed text is awkward; the English interprets it as a threefold variation of life. The apparatus suggests a different case construction or deletion of “threefold,” neither adopted here. The intended contrast distinguishes parts associated with difference of substance from powers differentiated within one subject. This is the excerpt’s analysis of Plato.

1439.The distinction summarizes this account’s terminology. Gennētikē and poiētikē concern generating and producing; the contrast is between a different constituent substance and a capacity differentiated by what it brings about. It should not be assumed that every earlier author quoted in the anthology uses “part” and “power” with this same precision.

1440.The text distinguishes the eightfold division of soul from the several capacities within its ruling center, already listed in excerpt 33. The opening verb diadoxazousi and the transition to the list are difficult; the apparatus discusses repairs. The English regularizes the construction while retaining all four powers and the supplied relative pronoun. It does not add a numerical total for every power.

1441.The threefold division is linked here with the account of virtue, as in the earlier report in excerpt 25a. Logismos is reasoning, thymos spirit or the capacity for anger, and epithymia desire. The following list counts powers under another description and need not be forced into three items.

1442.The unusual phrase “thought that moves bodies” follows kinētikēn sōmatōn dianoian as printed; it is not silently split into two powers. Physis, “nature,” remains the text’s term in both lists, denoting natural life-functions in this context. Noēseis is plural, “acts of understanding.” The source compares Aristotle, On the Soul II.3, 414a31, and 432a29.

1443.“The same work” continues the work attributed, under the restored heading at I.49.32, to Iamblichus as On the Soul. This is the author’s report of Plotinus, not a continuous quotation from him. Wachsmuth cites Enneads IV.3.18. The contrast between ordinary logismoi and pure logismos is retained; phantasiai are representations or appearances. The finite printed anateinei remains, despite the apparatus’s suggested infinitive.

1444.The surprising designation “Platonists around Democritus” is the printed reading. The apparatus records Heeren’s exclusion of “Platonists” and Meineke’s replacement with “atomists,” while Wachsmuth retains it and refers to Syrianus. The translation does not silently adopt either alteration.

1445.The wording kai autas heautōn is difficult; the apparatus asks whether the order should be autas kai heautōn. The English provisionally retains “themselves” rather than replacing it outright with “souls.” The contextual contrast is between life belonging to soul itself and life shared with the living composite, developed explicitly in the next excerpt. “Relation” is an English clarification, not an additional Greek word.

1446.Proballesthai describes soul’s putting forth or projecting powers; the ensuing “lives” are their manifestations in the whole. The source refers back to excerpt 23 for Porphyry. The repeated subject is bracketed as rejected by Heeren and remains bracketed in English. The seed’s withdrawal into itself is the text’s analogy; no additional botanical process is supplied to explain it.

1447.This alternative is explicitly a possible new conception. It is not assigned to Porphyry or Plotinus, whose reported position precedes it. “These lives” refers to the projected lives, not to a newly introduced class of souls.

1448.The conditional argument distinguishes being unmoved, akinēton, from being inactive, anenergēton; it does not simply equate them as an established fact. “Peripatetic” names the Aristotelian position as the excerpt reports it. Energeia is rendered “activity,” with the related sense of actuality becoming especially relevant in the next sentence.