Our leader, however, [Syrianus] more aptly interprets the words of Plato. For the soul of the world has indeed that which is supermundane and exempt from the universe, according to which it is conjoined with intellect, which Plato in the Phædrus, and Orpheus in his verses concerning _Ippa_[196] denominate the head or summit of the soul. It has also another multitude of powers proceeding from this monad, divided about the world, and appropriately present to all the parts of the universe. And these subsist in one way indeed about the middle, in another way about the earth, in another about the sun, and in another about each of the spheres. Our leader, therefore, says that all these are comprehended in the present words of Plato, who indicates by them, that the soul of the world in one way animates the middle, in another the whole bulk, and that it leaves something else prior to these exempt from the universe. That we may not, however, carelessly attend to what is here said by Plato, but may offer something demonstrative about the psychical powers, it must be said, that soul by a much greater priority than body is a vital world, and is both one and number. And by the one indeed, it is better than every form of habitude; but by the multitude it rules over the different parts of the universe. For in its guardian powers it contains the centre; since from thence the whole sphere is governed, to which also it converges. Farther still, every thing turbulent in the world is impelled to the middle, and requires a divine guard, which is able to arrange it, and detain it in its proper boundaries. Hence also, theologists terminate the progressions of the highest Gods in that place; and the Pythagoreans call the middle either the tower or the prison of Jupiter. But in its stable and at the same time vivific powers, it contains the sphere of the earth. In its perfective and generative powers, the sphere of water. In its connective and motive powers it comprehends the air. In its undefiled powers, fire. And in its intellectual powers, the whole heaven. In these powers, likewise, it in one way contains the lunar, in another the solar, and in another the inerratic sphere.