If also, you are willing, we may collect the same thing by a reasoning process, from what is written in the Phædrus. Socrates, therefore, says in that dialogue, that the soul which is perfect and winged, revolves on high, and governs the whole world; and that this will be the case with our soul, when it arrives at the summit of a happy life. But this is in a much greater degree present with the genera superior to us, and with the Gods themselves. For our souls obtain this end, and this true blessedness, through the Gods. For whence do you think, and from what other causes, is a disencumbered energy, and which has dominion over wholes, imparted to us, and to the genera in the world more excellent than us, but from the liberated Gods? For each of the mundane Gods obtains the administration of its allotment, and of the proper series over which it rules; and which it constitutes about itself, according to the will of the father. For the demiurgus arranges under the several mundane Gods, the herds of dæmons, and partial souls, as Timæus says. But to energize through the whole world, is a supernatural good, and the peculiarity of the exempt government of the supercelestial Gods. Hence, from these this good is imparted to the mundane Gods, and to our souls. Or how can that which is partial extend its proper energy to the whole? And how departing from its own divided peculiarity, can it change its life? For that which directs its energy to the universe, withdraws itself from an energy which is arranged in a part. We must not therefore say, that this divine good is by any means present to mundane natures from any other source than these Gods, who establish their kingdom proximately above the world. As, therefore, the progression to all things through similitude, and the conversion according to similitude to causes, are imparted from the assimilative rulers to the celestial Gods, to the more excellent genera, and to us, thus also, that which is liberated from partial natures, which is disencumbered and which tends spontaneously to many energies, is an impression derived from the liberated rulers. And thus much concerning the providence of these rulers which pervades to all things, and the goods which they impart to subordinate natures. But we shall add to what has been before said, the peculiarity of their essence, according to which they are allotted this order. CHAPTER XVII.