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Timaeus of Plato, truly existing being is only to .be appre- 

 hended by us through illuminations from an intellect 

 superior to the human, in conjunction with the energy of 

 the summit of our reasoning power ; for such is the accurate 

 meaning of Xoyos in this place. But opinion is a knowledge 

 of sensibles conformable to reason, yet without being able to 

 assign the cause of what it knows ; and sense is an irrational 

 knowledge of the objects to which it is passive, and the in- 

 strument of sense is passion only. See the first volume 

 of my translation of the Commentaries of Proclus on the 

 Timaeus of Plato, p. 202, &c. 



Ocellus adds, " that it is his intention [in this treatise On 

 the Universe] to derive what is probable from intellectual 

 perception." For in physiological discussions we must be 

 satisfied with probability and an approximation to the truth. 

 Hence, Proclus, in his Commentary on that part of the 

 Timseus in which Plato says, " What essence is to genera- 

 tion, that truth is to faith," admirably observes as follows : 

 " The faith of which Plalo now speaks is rational, but is 

 mingled with irrational knowledge, as it employs sense and 

 conjecture ; hence, it is filled with much of the unstable. 

 For receiving from sense or conjecture the on, or that a 

 thing is, it thus explains causes. But these kinds of know- 

 ledge have much of the confused and unstable. Hence, 

 Socrates, in the Phaedo, reprehends sense in many respects, 

 because we neither hear nor see anything accurately. 



" How, therefore, can the knowledge which originates 

 from sense possess the accurate and the irreprehensible ? 

 For the powers which use science alone, comprehend the 

 whole of the thing known with accuracy ; but those that 

 energise with sense, are deceived, and deviate from accuracy, 

 on account of sense, and because the object of knowledge is 

 unstable. For, with respect to that which is material, what 



