ration which deifies him by whom it is performed as much as is possible
to man.

Truth, [Greek: aletheia]. Plato, following ancient theologists, considers
truth multifariously. Hence, according to his doctrine, the highest truth
is characterized by unity, and is the light proceeding from the good,
which imparts purity, as he says in the Philebus, and union, as he says
in the Republic, to intelligibles. The truth which is next to this in
dignity is that which proceeds from intelligibles, and illuminates the
intellectual orders, and which an essence unfigured, uncolored, and
without contact, first receives, where also the plain of truth is
situated, as it is written in the Phaedrus. The third kind of truth is,
that which is connascent with souls, and which through intelligence comes
into contact with true being. For the psychical light is the third, from
the intelligible; intellectual deriving its plenitude from intelligible
light, and the psychical from the intellectual. And the last kind of
truth is that which is full of error and inaccuracy through sense, and
the instability of its object. For a material nature is perpetually
flowing, and is not naturally adapted to abide even for a moment.

The following beautiful description of the third kind of truth, or that
which subsists in souls, is given by Jamblichus: "Truth, as the name
implies, makest a conversion about the gods and their incorporeal energy;
but, doxastic imitation, which, as Plato says, is fabricative of images,
wanders about that which is deprived of divinity and is dark. And the
former indeed receives its perfection in intelligible and divine forms,
and real beings which have a perpetual sameness of subsistence; but the
latter looks to that which is formless, and non-being, and which has a
various subsistence; and, about this it's visive power is blunted. The
former contemplates that which is, but the latter assumes such a form as
appears to the many. Hence the former associates with intellect, and
increases the intellectual nature which we contain; but the latter, from
looking to that which always seems to be, hunts after folly and
deceives." Jamblic. apud Stob. p. 136.

The unical, [Greek: to niaion]. That which is characterized by unity.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Introduction to the Philosophy and
Writings of Plato, by Thomas Taylor

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