[1] At first the philosophy of Plato’s old age lived on in spirit in the Academy. Just as his pupils carried on his Pythagorean speculations about numbers, reduced his imaginative suggestions as to a daimonic nature intermediate between that of God and man to pedantic system, and elaborated the theological strain in his thought to a gloomy and burdensome deisidaimonia (witness esp. the Epinomis of Philippos of Opos and in addition all that we know of Xenokrates’ speculations)—so too they retained and respected for a time the Platonic doctrine of the soul and the ascetic tendency in his ethical teaching. For Philippos of Opos the aim of all human endeavour is a final and blessed emancipation from this world (which, however, is only possible for a few of those who are, in his special manner, “wise”—973 C ff., 992 C). He is a mystic for whom this earth and its life fall away into nothing: all serious interest is confined to the contemplation of divine things such as are revealed in mathematics and astronomy. Again, the Platonic doctrine of the soul, in its mystic and world-renouncing sense, lies at the bottom of the fabulous narratives of Herakleides Pontikos (in the Ἄβαρις, Ἐμπεδότιμος, etc.). This, too, accounts for the youthful attempts in this direction of Aristotle himself (in the Εὔδημος and probably also in the Προτρεπτικός). This side of his doctrine was as it seems systematized from the standpoint of the latest stage of Platonism by Xenokrates in particular. It may be merely accident that we do not hear very reliably of anything indicating an ascetic tendency or an “other-worldly” effort after emancipation of the soul in connexion with Xenokrates. Krantor (in his much-read book περὶ πένθους) was already capable of employing the Platonic doctrine of the soul and the imaginative fancies that could be attached to it simply as a literary adornment. And before him his teacher Polemon betrays a turning aside from the true Platonic mysticism. With Arkesilaos the last vestige of this whole type of thought disappears completely.
[2] τοῖς ἐλευθέροις ἥκιστα ἔξεστιν ὅ τι ἔτυχε ποιεῖν, ἀλλα πάντα ἢ τὰ πλεῖστα τέτακται, Arist., Meta. 1075a, 19 (in maxima fortuna minima licentia est, Sall., C. 51, 13). Freedom in this sense indeed was a thing of the past.
[3] Not that such hopes or fears were entirely absent. The reader will remember the case of Kleombrotos of Ambrakia (Call., Ep. 25), who by reading the Phaedo of Plato (and completely misunderstanding the meaning of the prophet, as not unfrequently happens) was led to seek an immediate entrance into the life of the other world by a violent break with this one—and committed suicide. This is an isolated example of a mood to which Epiktetos bears witness as common in his own much later time—the desire felt by many young men of ardent temperament to escape from the distracted life of humanity and return as quickly as possible to the universal life of God by the destruction of their own individual existence: Epict. 1, 9, 11 ff. But in the earlier period such violent manifestations of other-worldly fanaticism were of rare occurrence. Hedonism was [509] capable of leading to the same result as we may see from the Ἀποκαρτερῶν of Hegesias the Cyrenaic, called ὁ πεισιθάνατος, whom Cicero mentions together with this same Kleombrotos: TD. i, 83–4.
[4] τὸ σῶμά πως τῆς ψυχῆς ἕνεκεν (γέγονει), as ὁ πρίων τῆς πρίσεως ἕνεκα—and not vice versa: PA. 1, 5, 645b, 19.
[5] The ψυχή is related to the body as ὄψις is to the eye, i.e. as the effective power residing in the ὄργανον (not like ὅρασις, the individual act of vision). It is the πρώτη ἐντελέχεια of its body de An. ii, 1, 412a, 27. There is no σύνθεσις of σῶμα and ψυχή: they are simply “together” like the wax and the ball formed out of the wax: Top. 151a, 20 ff.; GA. 729b, 9 ff.; de An. 412b, 7.
[6] ἀπελθούσης γοῦν (τῆς ψυχῆς) οὔκετι ζῷόν ἐστιν, οὐδὲ τῶν μορίων οὐδὲν τὸ αὐτὸ λείπεται, πλὴν τῷ σχήματι μόνον καθάπερ τὰ μυθευόμενα λιθοῦσθαι, PA. 641a, 18.
[7] Meta. 1026a, 5: περὶ ψυχῆς ἐνίας θεωρῆσαι τοῦ φυσικοῦ, ὅση μὴ ἄνευ τῆς ὑλῆς ἐστίν.—οὐδὲ γὰρ πᾶσα ψυχὴ φύσις, ἀλλά τι μόριον αὐτῆς, PA. 641b, 9. The subject of τὸ κεχωρισμένον of the soul is studied by ὁ πρῶτος φιλόσοφος: de An. 403b, 16.
[8] λέγω δὲ νοῦν, ᾧ διανοεῖται καὶ ὑπολαμβάνει ἡ ψυχή, de An. 429a, 23.
[9] The νοῦς and its θεωρητικὴ δύναμις ἔοικε ψυχῆς γένος ἕτερον εἶναι καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἐνδέχεται χωρίζεσθαι, καθάπερ τὸ ἀΐδιον τοῦ φθαρτοῦ, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ μόρια τῆς ψυχῆς οὐκ ἔστι χωριστά κτλ., de An. 413b, 25.
[10] There can be no doubt that Aristotle’s opinion was that νοῦς was uncreated and existed without beginning from eternity: see Zeller, Sitzb. Berl. Ak. 1882, p. 1033 ff.