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therefore, which have a similitude to divinity germinate from a divine cause. For the human soul is contained by one form, and is on all sides darkened by body, which he who denominates the river of Negligence, or the water of Oblivion, or ignorance and delirium, [1] or a
- ↑ Gale, in his note on these words, after having observed that Porphyry says, that ignorance, darkness, and folly attend the soul in its lapse into body; and that, according to Servius, the soul, when it begins to descend into body, drinks of folly and oblivion, quotes also Irenæus (lib. ii. c. 59), who makes the following stupid remark: "Souls entering into this life [it is said drink of oblivion, before they enter into bodies, from the dæmon who is above this ingress. But whence do you know this, O Plato, since your soul also is now in body? For if you remember the dæmon, the cup, and the entrance, it is likewise requisite that you should know the rest." To this it is easy to reply, that a soul purified and enlightened by philosophy, like that of Plato, is able to recognise many things pertaining to its pre-existent state, even while in the present body, in consequence of partially emerging from corporeal darkness and oblivion; but that it is not capable of knowing every thing distinctly, till it is perfectly liberated from the delirium of the body. And Gale, no less sillily, adds, "respondebunt Platonici hæc omnia cognovisse Platonem ex narratione, quæ circumferebatur de Ere Armenio, qui Lethes aquam non biberat. i. e. "The Platonists will answer that Plato knew all these things from the narration of the Armenian Erus [in the Republic] who did not drink of the water of Lethe." For Plato did not obtain this knowledge from any historical narration, but from possessing in a transcendent degree the cathartic and theoretic virtues, and from energizing enthusiastically (or according to a divinely inspired energy) through the latter of these virtues.]
