The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 1 of 2) : $b translated from the Greek, to which a seventh book is added, in order to supply the deficiency of another book on this subject, which was written by Proclus, but since lost, also, a translation from the Greek of Proclus' Elements of theology, to which are added a translation of the treatise of Proclus, On providence and fate, a translation of extracts from his treatise, entitled, Ten doubts concerning — Plato — John Shaqi
The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 1 of 2) : $b translated from the Greek, to which a seventh book is added, in order to supply the deficiency of another book on this subject, which was written by Proclus, but since lost, also, a translation from the Greek of Proclus' Elements of theology, to which are added a translation of the treatise of Proclus, On providence and fate, a translation of extracts from his treatise, entitled, Ten doubts concerning
Plato · en
“It is also the doctrine of Platonic philosophers, that intellect
is the very life of living things, the first principle and exemplar
of all, from whence, by different degrees, are derived the inferior
classes of life; first the rational, then the sensitive, after that the
vegetable, but so as in the rational animal there is still somewhat
intellectual, again in the sensitive there is somewhat rational, and
in the vegetable somewhat sensitive, and lastly in mixed bodies, as
metals and minerals, somewhat of vegetation. By which means the whole
is thought to be more perfectly connected. Which doctrine implies that
all the faculties, instincts, and motions of inferior beings, in their
several respective subordinotions, are derived from, and depend upon
intellect.
“Both Stoics and Platonics held the world to be alive, though
sometimes it be mentioned as a sentient animal, sometimes as a plant
or vegetable. _But in this, notwithstanding what has been surmised
by some learned men, there seems to be no atheism. For so long as the
world is supposed to be quickened by elementary fire or spirit, which
is itself animated by soul, and directed by understanding, it follows
that all parts thereof originally depend upon, and may be reduced unto,
the same indivisible stem or principle, to wit, a supreme mind; which
is the concurrent doctrine of Pythagoreans, Platonics, and Stoics._”
Compare now the Newtonian with this theory, that the heavenly bodies
are vitalized by their informing souls, that their orderly motion is
the result of this vitality, and that the planets move harmonically
round the sun, not as if urged by a centripetal force, but from an
animated tendency to the principle and fountain of their light, and
from a desire of partaking as largely as possible of his influence and
power. In the former theory all the celestial motions are the effect of
violence, in the latter they are all natural. The former is attended
with insuperable difficulties, the latter, when the principle on which
it is founded is admitted, with none. And the former is unscientific
and merely hypothetical; but the latter is the progeny of the most
accurate science, and is founded on the most genuine and unperverted
conceptions of the human mind.