The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 2 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 p — Plato — John Shaqi
The six books of Proclus, the Platonic successor, on the theology of Plato (vol. 2 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 p
Plato · en
Nor again, dismissing the rational soul, must it be said that a dæmon
is that which energizes in the soul: as for instance, that in those
who live according to reason, reason is the dæmon; in those that
live according to anger, the irascible part; and in those that live
according to desire, the epithymetic or desiring part. Nor must it
be said that the nature which proximately presides over that which
energizes in our life, is a dæmon: as for instance, that reason is
the dæmon of the irascible, and anger of those that live according to
desire. For, in the first place, to assert that dæmons are parts of
our soul, is to admire human life in an improper degree, and oppose
the division of Socrates in the Republic, who after Gods and dæmons
places the heroic and human race, and blames the poets for introducing
in their poems heroes in no respect better than men, but subject to
similar passions. By this accusation, therefore, it is plain that
Socrates was very far from thinking that dæmons, who are of a sublimer
order than heroes, are to be ranked among the parts and powers of the
soul. For from this doctrine it will follow that things essentially
more excellent give completion to such as are subordinate. And in the
second place, from this hypothesis, mutations of lives would also
introduce multiform mutations of dæmons. For the avaricious character
is frequently changed into an ambitious life, this again into a life
which is formed by right opinion, and this last into a scientific life.
The dæmon, therefore, will vary according to these changes; for the
energizing part will be different at different times. If, therefore,
either this energizing part itself is a dæmon, or that part which has
an arrangement prior to it, dæmons will be changed together with the
mutation of human life, and the same person will have many dæmons in
one life; which is of all things the most impossible. For the soul
never changes in one life the government of its dæmon; but it is the
same dæmon which presides over us till we are brought before the judges
of our conduct, as also Socrates asserts in the Phædo.
Again, those who consider a partial intellect, or that intellect which
subsists at the extremity of the intellectual order, as the same with
the dæmon which is assigned to man, appear to me to confound the
intellectual peculiarity with the dæmoniacal essence. For all dæmons
subsist in the extent of souls, and rank as the next in order to divine
souls. But the intellectual order is different from that of soul, and
is neither allotted the same essence, nor power, nor energy.