Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"Plutarch
Philosophy
Plutarch's essays and miscellanies, Vol. 2 (of 5) : $b Comprising all his works collected under the title of "Morals"
Plutarch
Classical literature; Essays; Ethics; Philosophy
From whence then does the soul enjoy this motion whereby it comprehends
what is subject to sense, different from that other intelligible motion
which ends in knowledge? This is a difficult task to resolve, unless
we steadfastly assert that Plato here did not compose the soul, so
singly considered, but the soul of the world also, of the parts above
mentioned,—of the more worthy indivisible substance, and of the less
worthy divisible in reference to bodies. And this soul of the world is
no other than that motion which gives heat and vigor to thought and
fancy, and sympathizes with what is subject to sense, not created, but
existing from eternity, like the other soul. For Nature, which had
the power of understanding, had also the power of opining. But the
intelligible power is subject neither to motion nor affection, being
established upon a substance that is still the same. The other is
movable and fleeting, as being engaged to an unstable, fluctuating, and
disunited matter. In regard the sensible substance was so far from any
order, that it was without shape and boundless. So that the power which
is fixed in this was capable of producing no clear and well-grounded
notions and no certain or well-ordered movements, but only sleepy
dreams and deliriums, which amuse and trouble corporeal stupidity;
unless by accident they lighted upon the more worthy substance. For
it was in the middle between the sensible and discerning faculty, and
had a nature conformable and agreeable to both; from the sensible
apprehending substance, and borrowing from judgment its power of
discerning things intelligible.
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