364
P. 130. Dæmons preside over the parts of our body.
Proclus in the fragments of his Ten Doubts concerning
Providence, preserved by Fabricius in the eighth vol. of his
Bibliotheca Græca, observes, "That the Gods, with an
exempt transcendency, extend their providence to all things,
but that dæmons, dividing their superessential subsistence,
receive the guardianship of different herds of animals, distributing
the providence of the Gods, as Plato says, as far as
to the most ultimate division. Hence some of them preside
over men, others over lions or other animals, and others
over plants; and still more partially, some are the inspective
guardians of the eye, others of the heart, and others of
the liver." He adds, "all things, however, are full of Gods,
some of whom exert their providential energies immediately,
but others through dæmons as media: not that the Gods are
incapable of being present to all things, but that ultimate
are themselves unable to participate primary natures." Hence
it must be said that there is one principal dæmon, who is
the guardian and governor of every thing that is in us, and
many dæmons subordinate to him, who preside over our
parts.
P. 134. Hence it is requisite to consider how he may be liberated from these bonds. "The one salvation of the soul
herself," says Proclus in Tim. lib. v. p. 330, "which is extended
by the Demiurgus, and which liberates her from the
circle of generation, from abundant wanderings, and an inefficacious
life, is her return to the intellectual form, and a
flight from every thing which naturally adheres to us from
generation. For it is necessary that the soul, which is
hurled like seed into the realms of generation, should lay
aside the stubble and bark, as it were, which she obtained
from being disseminated into these fluctuating realms; and
that purifying herself from every thing circumjacent, she
should become an intellectual flower and fruit, delighting in
an intellectual life, instead of doxastic nutriment, and pursuing
the uniform and simple energy of the period of sameness,
instead of the abundantly wandering motion of the
period which is characterized by difference. For she contains
each of these circles, and twofold powers. And of her
horses one is good, but the other the contrary [as is said in
the Phædrus]. And one of these leads her to generation,
but the other from generation to true being. The one also
leads her round the genesiurgic, but the other round the intellectual
circle. For the period of the same and the similar
elevates to intellect, and an intelligible nature, and to the
