" Thus also the most
thorough-going, and probably the most deeply versed in the doctrines of
the master among modern Platonists, Thomas Taylor (Introduction.
Phaedo):--"After this our divine philosopher informs that the pure soul
will after death return to pure and eternal natures; but that the
impure soul, in consequence of being imbued with terrene affections,
will be drawn down to a kindred nature, and be invested with a gross
vehicle capable of being seen by the corporeal eye.* For while a
propensity to body remains in the soul, it causes her to attract a
certain vehicle to herself; either of an aerial nature, or composed
from the spirit and vapours of her terrestrial body, or which is
recently collected from surrounding air; for according to the arcana of
the Platonic philosophy, between an ethereal body, which is simple and
immaterial and is the eternal connate vehicle of the soul, and a terrene
body, which is material and composite, and of short duration, there is
an aerial body, which is material indeed, but simple and of a more
extended duration; and in this body the unpurified soul dwells for a
long time after its exit from hence, till this pneumatic vehicle being
dissolved, it is again invested with a composite body; while on the
contrary the purified soul immediately ascends into the celestial
regions with its ethereal vehicle alone.
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