On the Soul (De Anima) with Simplicius Commentary

This is the extremity of all evils: that if, at any time, we are at leisure from the needs of the body and wish to apply ourselves to the contemplation of divine natures, the body invades us on all sides during our investigations. It causes agitation and turmoil, and impels us so vehemently that we are unable, because of its presence, to perceive the truth. For the phantasy The faculty of imagination or the power of forming mental images. intervenes and induces us to think that a divine nature is corporeal, possessing magnitude and shape, and it does not allow us to form conceptions of divinity that are incorporeal and free from shape.

On this account, it is necessary that the soul, when proceeding toward its perfection, should first energize according to the dianoetic power The discursive or rational faculty of the soul that reasons step-by-step.. This power deals with objects that hold a middle position between intelligibles Pure, abstract forms understood by the intellect. and sensibles Things perceived by the physical senses.. Such are dianoetic objects; such are our soul and the theory pertaining to it; and such are the mathematics, since mathematical forms have an essential subsistence within the soul. By becoming accustomed to energizing immaterially regarding these, we shall be able to gradually ascend to the contemplation of those intelligible forms which have their subsistence in the Deity, and which are the paradigms—or models—of everything that possesses a perpetual subsistence according to nature. Hence, Plotinus says that youth should be led through the mathematics, so that they may become accustomed to an incorporeal nature 3 The following beautiful account of the utility of the mathematical science is extracted from the Commentaries of Proclus on Euclid, p. 6: "Timæus calls the knowledge of the mathematical disciplines the 'path of erudition,' because it has the same relation to the science of wholes and the first philosophy that general education has to virtue. For the latter prepares the soul, through the possession of worthy manners, for a perfect life; but the former enables our reasoning power and the 'eye of the soul' to ascend from the obscurity of sensory information. Hence Socrates, in the Republic, rightly observes that the eye of the soul, which is blinded and buried by other studies, is alone adapted to be resuscitated and excited by the mathematical disciplines; by these, it is again elevated to the contemplation of real beings, is transferred from images to realities and from darkness to intellectual light, and, in short, is extended from a cavern and its detaining bonds, and the fetters of matter, to an incorporeal and impartible essence. For the beauty and order of the mathematical reasons, and the firmness and stability of the contemplation they afford, conjoin us with intelligibles themselves and perfectly establish us in their essences, which are always adorned with divine beauty, perpetually remain the same, and preserve a mutual order without end.".

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