FOOTNOTES

Thus too the celebrated Bullialdus, in his Notes on Theo of Smyrna, speaks of Iamblichus as a man of a most acute genius.

But as, according to the arcana of ancient theology, every God beginning from on high produces his proper series as far as to the last of things, and this series comprehends many essences different from each other, such as Dæmoniacal, Heroical, Nymphical, and the like; the lowest powers of these orders, have a great communion and physical sympathy with the human race, and contribute to the perfection of all their natural operations, and particularly to their procreations. “Hence” (says Proclus in MSS. Schol. in Crat.) “it often appears, that heroes are generated from the mixture of these powers with mankind; for those that possess a certain prerogative above human nature, are properly denominated heroes.” He adds: “Not only a dæmoniacal genus of this kind sympathizes physically with men, but other kinds sympathize with other natures, as Nymphs with trees, others with fountains, and others with stags or serpents.”

Olympiodorus, in his life of Plato, observes of that philosopher, “That an Apolloniacal spectre is said to have had connexion with Perictione his mother, and that appearing in the night to his father Aristo, it commanded him not to sleep with Perictione during the time of her pregnancy; which mandate Aristo obeyed.” The like account of the divine origin of Plato, is also given by Apuleius, Plutarch, and Hesychius.

“All things are not commensurate with each other, nor is every thing sensible to every thing, even in the sublunary region. This is evident from dogs who scent animals at a great distance, and which are not smelt by men. How much more, therefore, in things which are separated by so great an interval as those which are incorruptible from the corruptible, and celestial from terrestrial natures, is it true to say, that the sound of divine bodies is not audible by terrestrial ears? But if any one like Pythagoras, who is reported to have heard this harmony, should have his terrestrial body exempt from him, and his luminous and celestial vehicle[17a] and the senses which it contains purified, either through a good allotment, or through probity of life, or through a perfection arising from sacred operations, such a one will perceive things invisible to others, and will hear things inaudible by others. With respect to divine and immaterial bodies, however, if any sound is produced by them, it is neither percussive nor destructive, but it excites the powers and energies of sublunary sounds, and perfects the sense which is co-ordinate with them. It has also a certain analogy to the sound which concurs with the motion of terrestrial bodies. But the sound which is with us in consequence of the sonorific nature of the air, is a certain energy of the motion of their impassive sound. If, then, air is not passive there, it is evident that neither will the sound which is there be passive. Pythagoras, however, seems to have said that he heard the celestial harmony, as understanding the harmonic proportions in numbers, of the heavenly bodies, and that which is audible in them. Some one, however, may very properly doubt why the stars are seen by our visive sense, but the sound of them is not heard by our ears? To this we reply that neither do we see the stars themselves; for we do not see their magnitudes, or their figures, or their surpassing beauty. Neither do we see the motion through which the sound is produced; but we see as it were such an illumination of them, as that of the light of the sun about the earth, the sun himself not being seen by us. Perhaps too, neither will it be wonderful, that the visive sense, as being more immaterial, subsisting rather according to energy than according to passion, and very much transcending the other senses, should be thought worthy to receive the splendor and illumination of the celestial bodies, but that the other senses should not be adapted for this purpose. Of these, however, and such like particulars, if any one can assign more probable causes, let him be considered as a friend, and not as an enemy.”

THE END.