Note 148 — AUXILIARIES TO THE PERCEPTION OF INTELLIGIBLE NATURES.

Knowledge subsists conformably to the nature by which it is possessed, and not conformably to the thing known. Hence it is either better than, or co-ordinate with, or inferior to the object of knowledge. Thus the rational soul has a knowledge of sensibles, which is superior to sensibles; but it knows itself with a co-ordinate knowledge; and its knowledge of divinity is inferior to the object of knowledge. Porphyry, therefore, is not correct in what he here says. This dogma respecting the conformity of knowledge to that which knows, rather than to the thing known, originated from the divine Iamblichus, as we are informed by Ammonius in his commentary on Aristotle’s treatise De Interpretatione, and is adopted by Proclus (in Parmenid.). Boetius likewise employs it in his reasoning in lib. v. about the prescience of divinity. None of his commentators, however, have noticed the source from whence it was derived.