Note 150 — AUXILIARIES TO THE PERCEPTION OF INTELLIGIBLE NATURES.

Porphyry here summarily comprehends the rational gnostic powers of the soul in intellect, because, being rational, they are expansions of intellect properly so called. But these powers, beginning from the lowest, are opinion, dianoia, and the summit of dianoia, which summit is the intellect of the human soul, and is that power, by the light of which we perceive the truth of axioms, it being intuitive perception. Dianoia is the discursive energy of reason; or it is that power which reasons scientifically, deriving the principles of its reasoning from intellect. And opinion is that power which knows that a thing is, but is ignorant of the cause of it, or why it is.