PROCLUS, THE PLATONIC SUCCESSOR

[3]
wholes and parts, and to the most individual
things in the heavens, and under the heavens, to
eternal and corruptible natures. But it is
requisite that Providence should either know
the desert of the things for which it provides, or
that it should not lead all things according to
their desert, in consequence of being ignorant
of their worth. We must also investigate the
manner in which Providence knows all things,
both wholes and parts, and corruptible and
eternal natures, and what the characteristic is of
its knowledge. And if we are able to apprehend
this, afterwards something else, and again
another thing will become the subject of doubt.
Considering therefore this in the first place, and
invoking the common leader, Hermes, we must
say that with respect to knowledge, one kind is
con-nascent with irrationality, and is called
sense or phantasy; it also pertains to things of a
partial nature, and which are not external to
body, and therefore manifests that the
cognitions themselves are directed to partial
essences. But another kind of knowledge is
essentially inherent in the rational life, and is
called opinion and science; differing indeed
from irrational cognitions in this, that it knows
universals, they, as we have said, having a
perception of partial qualities alone. These two
kinds of rational knowledge likewise differ
from each other, because the one, viz. opinion,
is the knowledge of mutable natures; but the
other, viz. science, is the knowledge of things
permanently [4]
immutable. Prior to these, however, there is
another knowledge, which is denominated
intellectual ; of which one kind apprehends all
things at once and simply, but the other is a
knowledge, not of all things at once, but of one
thing at a time*. And in this they differ, one
being the knowledge of an intellect in every