The philosophical and mathematical commentaries of Proclus on the first book of Euclid's elements (Vol. 1 of 2) : $b To which are added, A history of the restoration of Platonic theology, by the latter Platonists: And a translation from the Greek of Proclus's Theological elementsProclus
Philosophy
The philosophical and mathematical commentaries of Proclus on the first book of Euclid's elements (Vol. 1 of 2) : $b To which are added, A history of the restoration of Platonic theology, by the latter Platonists: And a translation from the Greek of Proclus's Theological elements
Proclus
Euclid. Elements; Platonists
they do not discourse concerning intelligible numbers or figures,
but of such as are sensible alone. For neither is it the office of
geodesia to measure the cylinder or the cone, but material masses
as if they were cones, and wells as if they were cylinders. Neither
does it accomplish this purpose by intelligible right lines, but by
such as are sensible, sometimes indeed by a more certain means, as
by the solar rays: but at other times by grosser ones, as by a line
and perpendicular. In like manner, the reckoner does not survey the
passions of numbers by themselves, but as they are resident in sensible
objects. From whence he also imposes a name upon these derived from
the things which he reckons, calling them μηλίαι, & φιαλίται. Besides
this, he does not, admit of any least, like the arithmetician, who
receives that minimum, as a genus of relation. For some one man is
considered by him as the measure of the whole multitude of men, as
unity also is the common measure of all numbers. Again, optics and
canonics are produced from geometry and arithmetic. And optics uses
the visual rays which are constituted by the rays of the eyes, as
lines and angles. But it is divided into that which is properly called
optics (because it renders the cause of these appearances, which are
accustomed to present themselves to us different from their reality, on
account of the different situations and distances of visible objects,
as the coincidence of parallel lines, or the appearance of quadrangles
as if they were circles); and into universal catoptrics, which is
conversant about various and manifold refractions, and is connected
with imaginative or conjectural knowledge: as also into that which
is called sciography[89], or the delineation of shadows, which shews
how appearances in images may seem neither inelegant nor deformed, on
account of the distances and altitudes of the things designed. But
canonics (music) or the regular art, considers the apparent reasons
of harmonies, finding out the sections of rules, every where using
the assistance of sense, and, as Plato says, seeming to prefer the
testimony of the ears to intellect itself. But to the parts we have
hitherto enumerated, mechanics must he added, as it is a certain part
of the whole science, and of the knowledge of sensible objects, and
of things united with matter. But under this exists the art effective
of instruments, which is called (ὀργανoποιητικὴ) I mean of those
instruments proper for the purposes of war: such, indeed, as Archimedes
is reported to have constructed, resisting the besiegers of sea and
land; and that which is effective of miracles, and which is called
(θαυματοποιητικὴ.) One part of this constructs with the greatest
artifice pneumatic engines, such as Ctesibius and Heron fabricated: but
another operates with weights, the motion of which is reckoned to be
the cause of inequilibrity; but their station of equilibrity, as Timæus
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