All, on the other
hand, who looked to the fact that what has soul in it knows or
perceives what is, identify soul with the principle or principles of
Nature, according as they admit several such principles or one only.
Thus Empedocles declares that it is formed out of all his elements,
each of them also being soul; his words are:
For 'tis by Earth we see Earth, by Water Water,
By Ether Ether divine, by Fire destructive Fire,
By Love Love, and Hate by cruel Hate.
In the same way Plato in the Timaeus fashions soul out of his
elements; for like, he holds, is known by like, and things are
formed out of the principles or elements, so that soul must be so too.
Similarly also in his lectures 'On Philosophy' it was set forth that
the Animal-itself is compounded of the Idea itself of the One together
with the primary length, breadth, and depth, everything else, the
objects of its perception, being similarly constituted. Again he
puts his view in yet other terms: Mind is the monad, science or
knowledge the dyad (because it goes undeviatingly from one point to
another), opinion the number of the plane, sensation the number of the
solid; the numbers are by him expressly identified with the Forms
themselves or principles, and are formed out of the elements; now
things are apprehended either by mind or science or opinion or
sensation, and these same numbers are the Forms of things.
Some thinkers, accepting both premisses, viz.
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