g. coming from without inwards, and
reminiscence starting from the soul and terminating with the
movements, actual or residual, in the sense organs.
The case of mind is different; it seems to be an independent
substance implanted within the soul and to be incapable of being
destroyed. If it could be destroyed at all, it would be under the
blunting influence of old age. What really happens in respect of
mind in old age is, however, exactly parallel to what happens in the
case of the sense organs; if the old man could recover the proper kind
of eye, he would see just as well as the young man. The incapacity
of old age is due to an affection not of the soul but of its
vehicle, as occurs in drunkenness or disease. Thus it is that in old
age the activity of mind or intellectual apprehension declines only
through the decay of some other inward part; mind itself is
impassible. Thinking, loving, and hating are affections not of mind,
but of that which has mind, so far as it has it. That is why, when
this vehicle decays, memory and love cease; they were activities not
of mind, but of the composite which has perished; mind is, no doubt,
something more divine and impassible. That the soul cannot be moved is
therefore clear from what we have said, and if it cannot be moved at
all, manifestly it cannot be moved by itself.
Of all the opinions we have enumerated, by far the most unreasonable
is that which declares the soul to be a self-moving number; it
involves in the first place all the impossibilities which follow
from regarding the soul as moved, and in the second special
absurdities which follow from calling it a number.
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