Νοῦς

[Note] that the intellect contains within itself the rationales of all things, but with some of them [appearing] prior to it as representations, and others of them [appearing] after it as exemplars.¹
Interpretation of a dream: when elevated in the mind, know that [you] dwell in a foreign land.²
[Note] that Pythagoras used to say that the human soul is divided into 3 [parts]: intellect, wits and passion. Intellect and passion also exist in the other living beings, but wits just in the human being. And [he said] that the principle of the soul [comes] from the heart and [goes] up to the head, and that the part of the soul that is in the heart is passion, while the [parts that] are in the head are wits and intellect.³
[Note] that of the things that are thought, some were conceived of by experience, others by similarity, others by analogy, others by transposition, others by composition, others by opposition. And sensible things [are conceived of] by experience, but by similarity the things deriving from something set before [us are conceived of], such as Socrates⁴ from his picture. By analogy [come those conceived of] by enlargement, [such as] Tityos⁵ and the Cyclops,⁶ and by shrinking, such as the pygmy. Even the center of the earth was conceived of by analogy from smaller spheres. By transposition [something is conceived of] like eyes in the chest; by composition, the hippocentaur; and death [is conceived of] by opposition [sc. to life]. Some things, such as the sayables and place, are also conceived of by transference. And something existent which is also good is conceived of naturally, and by privation, a handless man [is conceived of].⁷
The function of the intellect⁸ is to apprehend things by simple direct acts of intuition and [thus] more powerfully than by demonstration. For as well, sense-perception--perhaps having encountered something white or this [particular] shape--has acquired knowledge more strongly than through demonstration: for this [knowledge] does not require a deductive argument. And indeed this activity of the intellect⁹ accrues to those who have arrived at the apex of purification and understanding and who, through the purificatory virtues have become accustomed to activating [their intellect] without the use of imagination and apart from sense-perception. For the intellect is, as it were, the most perfect state of the soul. And thus, the intellect is concerned with mental objects, [...] but discursive thought with things that can be thought about, and opinion with conjectures. Of these faculties, the intellect holds the first rank, but discursive thought the middle [rank], and opinion the lowest [rank]. And discursive thought dwells near our soul, since it holds the middle rank in everything, and through discursive thought our soul is led to the contemplation of mental objects, which [contemplation] is the perfection of the soul. For since our soul is of the same origin and of the same kind as the perceptible objects, because of its association with the senses, it is unable to guide itself to the contemplation of immaterial mental objects, but it considers these also to be bodies and to have magnitude, and whatever applies to the perceptible objects, it imagines [to be the case] there [sc. for the mental objects] as well. And Plato [says] in the Phaedo:¹⁰ "This is the most difficult aspect of our interior life, that whenever we draw ourselves a little toward freedom from the distractions of the body, and want to be free for the contemplation of divine matters, imagination intervenes and stirs up confusion in us. It makes us suppose that the divine is a body and has magnitude and shape, and does not permit us to conceive of god as without body and without shape.” Therefore it is necessary for the soul, as it journeys toward its own perfection, to act first in accordance with discursive thought, which concerns the intermediate things: such are the objects of reasoning, like our soul and the contemplation of it, and also mathematical objects.