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"The soul therefore was never a writing-tablet bare of inscriptions; she is a tablet that has always been inscribed and is always writing itself and being written on by Nous."

— Proclus (c. 411-85)

Author

Proclus (c. 411-85)

Work Title

Commentary on the First Book of Euclid's Elements

Date

Mid 5th Century

Metaphor

"The soul therefore was never a writing-tablet bare of inscriptions; she is a tablet that has always been inscribed and is always writing itself and being written on by Nous."

Metaphor in Context

If, however, mathematical forms do not exist by abstraction from material things or by assembling of the common characters in particulars, nor are they in any way later-born and derivative from sense objects, of necessity the soul must obtain them from herself or from Nous, or from both herself and the higher intelligence. Now if she gets them from herself alone, how can they be images of intelligible forms? And how can they fail to receive some increment of being from higher realities, occupying as they do a middle position between indivisible and divisible nature? And how can the forms in Nous maintain their primacy as the first patterns of all things? Yet if they come from Nous alone, how can the inherent activity and self-moving character of soul be preserved when she receives her ideas from elsewhere, like a thing moved by outside forces? And how will she differ from matter, which is only potentially all things and generates none of the embodied forms? There is left only the conclusion that soul draws her concepts both from herself and from Nous, that she is herself the company of forms, which receive their constitution from the intelligible patterns but enter spontaneously upon the stage of being. The soul therefore was never a writing-tablet bare of inscriptions; she is a tablet that has always been inscribed and is always writing itself and being written on by Nous. For soul is also Nous, unfolding herself by virtue of Nous that presides over her, and having it become its likeness and replica. Consequently if Nous is everything after the fashion of intellect, so is soul everything after the fashion of soul; if Nous is exemplar, soul is copy; if Nous is everything in concentration, soul is everything discursively.
(pp. 13-4) (16.8-10)