Note 154 — AUXILIARIES TO THE PERCEPTION OF INTELLIGIBLE NATURES.

See the notes on the 3d book of my translation of Aristotle’s treatise on the Soul, and also my translation of Plotinus on Felicity. “The phantasy,” says Olympiodorus (in Platonis Phæd.) “is an impediment to our intellectual conceptions; and hence, when we are agitated by the inspiring influence of Divinity, if the phantasy intervenes, the enthusiastic energy ceases: for enthusiasm and the phantasy are contrary to each other. Should it be asked, whether the soul is able to energize without the phantasy? we reply, that its perception of universals proves that it is able. It has perceptions, therefore, independent of the phantasy; at the same time, however, the phantasy attends it in its energies, just as a storm pursues him who sails on the sea.”