And such is Plato's division of the rational part of our nature, which he very justly considers as the true man; the essence of every thing consisting in its most excellent part.
After this follows the irrational nature, the summit of which is the phantasy, or that power which perceives every thing accompanied with figure and interval; and on this account it may be called a figured intelligence ([Greek: morphotike noesis]). This power, as Jamblichus beautifully observes, groups upon, as it were, and fashions all the powers of the soul; exciting in opinion the illuminations from the senses, and fixing in that life which is extended with body, the impressions which descend from intellect. Hence, slays Proclus, it folds itself about the indivisibility of true intellect, conforms itself to all formless species, and becomes perfectly every thing, from which the dianoetic power and our indivisible reason consists. Hence too, it is all things passively which intellect is impassively, and on this account Aristotle calls it passive intellect. Under this subsist anger and desire, the former resembling a raging lion, and the latter a many-headed beast; and the whole is bounded by sense, which is nothing more than a passive perception of things, and on this account is justly said by Plato, to be rather passion than knowledge; since the former of these is characterized by alertness, and the latter by energy.
Further still, in order that the union of the soul with this gross terrestrial body may be effected in a becoming manner, two vehicles, according to Plato, are necessary as media, one of which is ethereal, and the other aerial, and of these, the ethereal vehicle is simple and immaterial, but the aerial, simple and material; and this dense earthly body is composite and material.
The soul thus subsisting as a medium between natures impartible and such as are divided about bodies, it produces and constitutes the latter of these; but establishes in itself the prior causes from which it proceeds. Hence it previously receives, after the manner of an exemplar, the natures to which it is prior as their cause; but it possesses through participation, and as the blossoms of first natures, the causes of its subsistence. Hence it contains in its essence immaterial forms of things material, incorporeal of such as are corporeal, and extended of such as are distinguished by interval. But it contains intelligibles after the manner of an image, and receives partibly their impartible forms, such as are uniform variously, and such as are immovable, according to a self-motive condition. Soul therefore is all things, and is elegantly said by Olympiodorus to be an omniform statue ([Greek: pammorphon agalma]): for it contains such things as are first through participation, but such as are posterior to its nature, after the manner of an exemplar.