Note 155 — AUXILIARIES TO THE PERCEPTION OF INTELLIGIBLE NATURES.

The analogy of the soul to harmony, is more accurately unfolded as follows, by Olympiodorus, in his Commentary on the Phædo of Plato, than it is in this place by Porphyry: “Harmony has a triple subsistence. For it is either harmony itself, or it is that which is first harmonized, and which is such according to the whole of itself; or it is that which is secondarily harmonized, and which partially participates of harmony. The first of these must be assigned to intellect, the second to soul, and the third to body. This last, too, is corruptible, because it subsists in a subject; but the other two are incorruptible, because they are neither composites, nor dependent on a subject. Hence, the rational soul is analogous to a musician, but the animated body to harmonized chords; for the former has a subsistence separate, but the latter inseparable from the musical instrument.”