This is the 31st Symbol in the Protreptics, and which Iamblichus thus
explains: “This Symbol also resembles the former: for the brain is the
ruling instrument of intellectual prudence. The Symbol, therefore,
obscurely signifies that we ought not to dilacerate nor mangle things
and dogmas, which have been the objects of judicious deliberation. But
these will be such as have been the subject of intellectual
consideration, becoming thus equal to objects of a scientific nature.
For things of this kind are to be surveyed, not through the instruments
of the irrational form of the soul, such as the heart and the liver; but
through the pure rational nature. Hence, to dilacerate these by
opposition, is inconsiderate folly; but the Symbol rather exhorts us to
venerate the fountain of intelligence, and the most proximate organ of
intellectual perception, through which we shall possess contemplation,
science, and wisdom; and by which we shall truly philosophize, and
neither confound nor obscure the vestiges which philosophy produces.”