soul'; so Lael. 14; Tusc. 1, 80 _aeternitas animorum_. -- DISSERUISSET:
subjunctive because involving the statements of some other person than the
speaker. A. 341, _c_; G. 630; H. 528, 1. -- IS QUI ESSET etc.: 'a man great
enough to have been declared wisest'. See n. on Lael. 7 _Apollinis ...
iudicatum_. -- SIC: cf. _ita_ above. -- CELERITAS ANIMORUM: the ancients
pictured to themselves the mind as a substance capable of exceedingly rapid
movement; cf. Tusc. 1, 43 _nulla est celeritas quae possit cum animi
celeritate contendere_. -- TANTAE SCIENTIAE: as the plural of _scientia_ is
almost unknown in classical Latin, recent editors take _scientiae_ here as
genitive, 'so many arts requiring so much knowledge'. In favor of this
interpretation are such passages as Acad. 2, 146 _artem sine scientia esse
non posse_; Fin. 5, 26 _ut omnes artes in aliqua scientia versentur_. Yet
in De Or. 1, 61 _physica ista et mathematica et quae paulo ante ceterarum
artium propria posuisti, scientiae sunt eorum qui illa profitentur_ it is
very awkward to take _scientiae_ as genitive. -- CUMQUE SEMPER etc.: this
argument is copied very closely from Plato's Phaedrus, 245 C. -- PRINCIPIUM
MOTUS: αρχη κινησεως in Plato. -- SE IPSE: cf. n. on 4 _a se ipsi_. -- CUM
SIMPLEX etc: from Plato's Phaedo, 78-80. The general drift of the argument
is this: material things decay because they are compounded of parts that
fall asunder; there is nothing to show that the soul is so compounded;
therefore no reason to believe that it will so decay. Notice the imperfects
_esset ... haberet ... posset_ accommodated to the tense of _persuasi_
above, although the other subjunctives in the sentence are not; cf. n. on
42 _efficeret_. -- NEQUE ... DISSIMILE: in modern phraseology the whole of
this clause would be briefly expressed thus, -- 'and was homogeneous'. --
POSSET: _quod si_ ='whereas if', the subject of _posset_ being _animus_,
and _dividi_ being understood. -- MAGNO ARGUMENTO: ‛ικανον τεκμηριον in Pl.
Phaed. 72 A. Belief in the immortality of the soul naturally follows the
acceptance of the doctrine of pre-existence. -- HOMINES SCIRE etc.: See
Plato, Phaedo, 72 E-73 B. The notion that the souls of men existed before