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Title: Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato
Author: Thomas Taylor
Release Date: November 22, 2003 [EBook #10214]
Language: English
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INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY AND WRITINGS OF PLATO
By
THOMAS TAYLOR
"Philosophy," says Hierocles, "is the purification and perfection of human
life. It is the purification, indeed, from material irrationality, and the
mortal body; but the perfection, in consequence of being the resumption of
our proper felicity, and a reascent to the divine likeness. To effect these
two is the province of Virtue and Truth; the former exterminating the
immoderation of the passions; and the latter introducing the divine form to
those who are naturally adapted to its reception."
Of philosophy thus defined, which may be compared to a luminous pyramid,
terminating in Deity, and having for its basis the rational soul of man
and its spontaneous unperverted conceptions,--of this philosophy, August,
magnificent, and divine, Plato may be justly called the primary leader
and hierophant, through whom, like the mystic light in the inmost
recesses of some sacred temple, it first shone forth with occult and
venerable splendour.[1] It may indeed be truly said of the whole of this
philosophy, that it is the greatest good which man can participate: for
if it purifies us from the defilements of the passions and assimilates us
to Divinity, it confers on us the proper felicity of our nature. Hence it
is easy to collect its pre-eminence to all other philosophies; to show
that where they oppose it, they are erroneous; that so far as they
contain any thing scientific they are allied to it; and that at best they
are but rivulets derived from this vast ocean of truth.
------------------
[1] In the mysteries a light of this kind shone forth from the adytum of
the temple in which they were exhibited.
------------------
To evince that the philosophy of Plato possesses this preeminence; that
its dignity and sublimity are unrivaled; that it is the parent of all
that ennobles man; and, that it is founded on principles, which neither
time can obliterate, nor sophistry subvert, is the principal design of
this Introduction.
To effect this design, I shall in the first place present the reader with
the outlines of the principal dogmas of Plato's philosophy. The undertaking
is indeed no less novel than arduous, since the author of it has to tread
in paths which have been untrodden for upwards of a thousand years, and
to bring to light truths which for that extended period have been
concealed in Greek. Let not the reader, therefore, be surprised at the
solitariness of the paths through which I shall attempt to conduct him,
or at the novelty of the objects which will present themselves in the
journey: for perhaps he may fortunately recollect that he has traveled
the same road before, that the scenes were once familiar to him, and that
the country through which he is passing is his native land. At, least, if
his sight should be dim, and his memory oblivious, (for the objects which
he will meet with can only be seen by the most piercing eyes,) and his
absence from them has been lamentably long, let him implore the power
of wisdom,
From mortal mists to purify his eyes,
That God and man he may distinctly see.
Let us also, imploring the assistance of the same illuminating power, begin
the solitary journey.
Of all the dogmas of Plato, that concerning the first principle of things
as far transcends in sublimity the doctrine of other philosophers of a
different sect, on this subject, as this supreme cause of all transcends
other causes. For, according to Plato, the highest God, whom in the
Republic he calls the good, and in the Parmenides the one, is not only
above soul and intellect, but is even superior to being itself. Hence,
since every thing which can in any respect be known, or of which any
thing can be asserted, must be connected with the universality of things,
but the first cause is above all things, it is very properly said by
Plato to be perfectly ineffable. The first hypothesis therefore of his,
Parmenides, in which all things are denied of this immense principle,
concludes as follows: "The one therefore is in no respect. So it seems.
Hence it is not in such a manner as to be one, for thus it would be
being, and participate of essence; but as it appears, the one neither is
one, nor is, if it be proper to believe in reasoning of this kind. It
appears so. But can any thing either belong to, or be affirmed of that,
which is not? How can it? Neither therefore does any name belong to it,
nor discourse, nor any science, nor sense, nor opinion. It does not
appear that there can. Hence it can neither be named, nor spoken of, nor
conceived by opinion, nor be known, nor perceived by any being. So it
seems." And here it must be observed that this conclusion respecting the
highest principle of things, that he is perfectly ineffable and
inconceivable, is the result of a most scientific series of negations, in
which not only all sensible and intellectual beings are denied of him,
but even natures the most transcendently allied to him, his first and
most divine progeny. For that which so eminently distinguishes the
philosophy of Plato from others is this, that every part of it is stamped
with the character of science. The vulgar indeed proclaim the Deity to be
ineffable; but as they have no scientific knowledge that he is so, this
is nothing more than a confused and indistinct perception of the most
sublime of all truths, like that of a thing seen between sleeping and
waking, like Phaeacia to Ulysses when sailing to his native land,
That lay before him indistinct and vast,
Like a broad shield amid the watr'y waste.
In short, an unscientific perception of the ineffable nature of the
Divinity resembles that of a man, who on surveying the heavens, should
assert of the altitude of its highest part, that it surpasses that of
the loftiest tree, and is therefore immeasurable. But to see this
scientifically, is like a survey of this highest part of the heavens by
the astronomer; for he by knowing the height of the media between us and
it, knows also scientifically that it transcends in altitude not only the
loftiest tree; but the summits of air and aether, the moon, and even the
sun itself.
Let us therefore investigate what is the ascent to the ineffably, and
after what manner it is accomplished, according to Plato, from the last
of things, following the profound and most inquisitive Damascius as our
leader in this arduous investigation. Let our discourse also be common
to other principles, and to things proceeding from them to that which is
last, and let us, beginning from that which is perfectly effable and
known to sense, ascend too the ineffable, and establish in silence, as in
a port, the parturitions of truth concerning it. Let us then assume the
following axiom, in which as in a secure vehicle we may safely pass from
hence thither. I say, therefore, that the unindigent is naturally prior
to the indigent. For that which is in want of another is naturally
adapted from necessity to be subservient to that of which it is indigent.
But if they are mutually in want of each other, each being indigent of
the other in a different respect, neither of them will be the principle.
For the unindigent is most adapted to that which is truly the principle.
And if it is in want of any thing, according to this it will not be the
principle. It is however necessary that the principles should be this
very thing, the principle alone. The unindigent therefore pertains to
this, nor must it by any means be acknowledged that there is any thing
prior to it. This however, would be acknowledged if it had any connection
with the indigent.
Let us then consider body, (that is, a triply extended substance,) endued
with quality; for this is the first thing effable by us, and is, sensible.
Is this then the principle of things? But it is two things, body, and
quality which is in body as a subject. Which of these therefore is by
nature prior? For both are indigent of their proper parts; and that also
which is in a subject is indigent of the subject. Shall we say then that
body itself is the principle of the first essence? But this is impossible.
For, in the first place, the principle will not receive any thing from that
which is posterior to itself. But body, we say is the recipient of quality.
Hence quality, and a subsistence in conjunction with it, are not derived
from body, since quality is present with body as something different. And,
in the second place, body is every way, divisible; its several parts are
indigent of each other, and the whole is indigent of all the parts. As it
is indigent, therefore, and receives its completion from things which are
indigent, it will not be entirely unindigent.
Further still, if it is not one but united, it will require, as Plato
says, the connecting one. It is likewise something common and formless,
being as it were a certain matter. It requires, therefore, ornament and
the possession of form, that it may not be merely body, but a body with a
certain particular quality; as for instance, a fiery, or earthly, body,
and, in short, body adorned and invested with a particular quality. Hence
the things which accede to it, finish and adorn it. Is then that which
accedes the principle? But this is impossible. For it does not abide in
itself, nor does it subsist alone, but is in a subject of which also it
is indigent. If, however, some one should assert that body is not a
subject, but one of the elements in each, as for instance, animal in
horses and man, thus also each will be indigent of the other, viz. this
subject, and that which is in the subject; or rather the common element,
animal, and the peculiarities, as the rational and irrational, will be
indigent. For elements are always, indigent of each other, and that which
is composed from elements is indigent of the elements. In short, this
sensible nature, and which is so manifest to us, is neither body, for
this does not of itself move the senses, nor quality; for this does not
possess an interval commensurate with sense. Hence, that which is the
object of sight, is neither body nor color; but colored body, or color
corporalized, is that which is motive of the sight. And universally, that
which its sensible, which is body with a particular quality, is motive of
sense. From hence it is evident that the thing which excites the sense is
something incorporeal. For if it was body, it would not yet be the object
of sense. Body therefore requires that which is incorporeal, and that
which is incorporeal, body. For an incorporeal nature, is not of itself
sensible. It is, however, different from body, because these two possess
prerogatives different from each other, and neither of these subsists
prior to the other; but being elements of one sensible thing, they are
present with each other; the one imparting interval to that which is void
of interval, but the other introducing to that which is formless,
sensible variety invested with form. In the third place, neither are both
these together the principles; since they are not unindigent. For they
stand in need of their proper elements, and of that which conducts them
to the generation of one form. For body cannot effect this, since it is
of itself impotent; nor quality, since it is not able to subsist separate
from the body in which it is, or together with which it has its being.
The composite therefore either produces itself, which is impossible, for
it does not converge to itself, but the whole of it is multifariously
dispersed, or it is not produced by itself, and there is some other
principle prior to it.
Let it then be supposed to be that which is called nature, being a
principle of motion and rest, in that which is moved and at rest,
essentially and not according to accident. For this is something more
simple, and is fabricative of composite forms. If, however, it is in the
things fabricated, and does not subsist separate from nor prior to them,
but stands in need of them for its being, it will not be unindigent;
though its possesses something transcendent with respect to them, viz.
the power of fashioning and fabricating them. For it has its being
together with them, and has in them an inseparable subsistence; so
that, when they are it is, and is not when they are not, and this in
consequence of perfectly verging to them, and not being able to sustain
that which is appropriate. For the power of increasing, nourishing, and
generating similars, and the one prior to these three, viz. nature, is
not wholly incorporeal, but is nearly a certain quality of body, from
which it alone differs, in that it imparts to the composite to be
inwardly moved and at rest. For the quality of that which is sensible
imparts that which is apparent in matter, and that which falls on sense.
But body imparts interval every way extended; and nature, an inwardly
proceeding natural energy, whether according to place only, or according
to nourishing, increasing, and generating things similar. Nature,
however, is inseparable from a subject, and is indigent, so that it will
not be in short the principle, since it is indigent of that which is
subordinate. For it will not be wonderful, if being a certain principle,
it is indigent of the principle above it; but it would be wonderful if it
were indigent of things posterior to itself, and of which it is supposed
to be the principle.
By the like arguments we may show that the principle cannot be irrational
soul, whether sensitive, or orectic. For if it appears that it has
something separate, together with impulsive and Gnostic enemies, yet at
the same time it is bound in body, and has something inseparable from it;
since it is notable to convert itself to itself, but its enemy is mingled
with its subject. For it is evident that its essence is something of this
kind; since if it were liberated and in itself free, it would also evince
a certain independent enemy, and would not always be converted to body;
but sometimes it would be converted to itself; or though it were always
converted to body, yet it would judge and explore itself. The energies,
therefore, of the multitude of mankind, (though they are conversant with
externals,) yet, at the same time they exhibit that which is separate
about them. For they consult how they should engage in them, and observe
that deliberation is necessary, in order to effect or be passive to
apparent good, or to decline something of the contrary. But the impulses
of other animals are uniform and spontaneous, are moved together with the
sensible organs, and require the senses alone that they may obtain from
sensibles the pleasurable, and avoid the painful. If, therefore, the body
communicates in pleasure and pain, and is affected in a certain respect
by them, it is evident that the psychical energies, (i.e. energies
belonging to the soul) are exerted, mingled with bodies, and are not
purely psychical, but are also corporeal; for perception is of the
animated body, or of the soul corporalized, though in such perception the
psychical idiom predominates over the corporeal; just as in bodies, the
corporeal idiom has dominion according to interval and subsistence. As
the irrational soul, therefore, has its being in something different from
itself, so far it is indigent of the subordinate: but a thing of this
kind will not be the principle.
Prior them to this essence, we see a certain form separate from a
subject, and converted to itself, such as is the rational nature. Our
soul, therefore, presides over its proper energies and corrects itself.
This, however, would not be the case, unless it was converted to itself;
and it would not be converted, to itself unless it had a separate
essence. It is not therefore indigent of the subordinate. Shall we then
say that it is the most perfect principle? But, it does not at once exert
all its energies, but is always indigent of the greater part. The
principle, however, wishes to have nothing indigent: but the rational
nature is an essence in want of its own energies. Some one, however, may
say that it is an eternal essence, and has never-failing essential
energies, always concurring with its essence, according to the self-moved
and ever vital, and that it is therefore unindigent; but the principle is
perfectly unindigent. Soul therefore, and which exerts mutable energies,
will not be the most proper principle. Hence it is necessary that there
should be something prior to this, which is in every respect immutable,
according to nature, life, and knowledge, and according to all powers and
enemies, such as we assert an eternal and immutable essence to be, and
such as is much honoured intellect, to which Aristotle having ascended,
thought he had discovered the first principle. For what can be wanting to
that which perfectly comprehends in itself its own plenitudes (oleromata),
and of which neither addition nor ablation changes any thing belonging to
it? Or is not this also, one and many, whole and parts, containing in
itself, things first, middle, and last? The subordinate plenitudes also
stand in need of the more excellent, and the more excellent of the
subordinate, and the whole of the parts. For the things related are
indigent of each other, and what are first of what are last, through the
same cause; for it is not of itself that which is first. Besides, the one
here is indigent of the many, because it has its subsistence in the many.
Or it may be said, that this one is collective of the many, and this not
by itself, but in conjunction with them. Hence there is much of the
indigent in this principle. For since intellect generates in itself its
proper plenitudes from which the whole at once receives its completion,
it will be itself indigent of itself, not only that which is generated of
that which generates, but also that which generates, of that which is
generated, in order to the whole completion of that which wholly generates
itself. Further still, intellect understands and is understood, is
intellective of and intelligible to itself, and both these. Hence the
intellectual is indigent of the intelligible, as of its proper object of
desire; and the intelligible is in want of the intellectual, because it
wishes to be the intelligible of it. Both also are indigent of either,
since the possession is always accompanied with indigence, in the same
manner as the world is always present with matter. Hence a certain
indigence is naturally coessentiallized with intellect, so that it cannot
be the most proper principle. Shall we, therefore, in the next place,
direct our attention to the most simple of beings, which Plato calls the
one being, [Greek: en on]? For as there is no separation there throughout
the Whole, nor any multitude, or order, or duplicity, or conversion to
itself, what indigence will there appear to me, in the perfectly united?
And especially what indigence will there be of that which is subordinate?
Hence the great Parmenides ascended to this most safe principle, as that
which is most unindigent. Is it not, however, here necessary to attend to
the conception of Plato, that the united is not the one itself, but that
which is passive[2] to it? And this being the case, it is evident that it
ranks after the one; for it is supposed to be the united and not the one
itself. If also being is composed from the elements bound and infinity,
as appears from the Philebus of Plato, where he calls it that which is
mixt, it will be indigent of its elements. Besides, if the conception of
being is different from that of being united, and that which is a whole
is both united and being, these will be indigent of each other, and the
whole which is called one being is indigent of the two. And though the
one in this is better than being, yet this is indigent of being, in order
to the subsistence of one being. But if being here supervenes the one, as
it were, form in that which is mixt and united, just as the idiom of man
in that which is collectively rational-mortal-animal, thus also the one
will be indigent of being. If, however, to speak more properly, the one
is two-fold; this being the cause of the mixture, and subsisting prior to
being, but that conferring rectitude, on being,--if this be the case,
neither will the indigent perfectly desert this nature. After all these,
it may be said that the one will be perfectly unindigent. For neither is
it indigent of that which is posterior to itself for its subsistence,
since the truly one is by itself separated from all things; nor is it
indigent of that which is inferior or more excellent in itself; for there
is nothing in it besides itself; nor is it in want of itself. But it is
one, because neither has it any duplicity with respect to itself. For not
even the relation of itself to itself must be asserted of the truly one;
since it is perfectly simple. This, therefore, is the most unindigent of
all things. Hence this is the principle and the cause of all; and this is
at once the first of all things. If these qualities, however, are present
with it, it will not be the one. Or may we not say that all things
subsist in the one according to the one? And that both these subsist in
it, and such other things as we predicate of it, as, for instance, the
most simple, the most excellent, the most powerful, the preserver of all
things, and the good itself? If these things, however, are thus true of
the one, it will thus also be indigent of things posterior to itself,
according to those very things which we add to it. For the principle is,
and is said to be the principle of things proceeding from it, and the
cause is the cause of things caused, and the first is the first of things
arranged, posterior to it.[3]
------------------
[2] See the Sophista of Plato, where this is asserted.
[3] For a thing cannot be said to be a principle or cause without the
subsistence of the things of which it is the principle or cause. Hence,
so far as it is a principle or cause, it will be indigent of the
subsistence of these.
------------------
Further still, the simple subsists according to a transcendency of other
things, the most powerful according to power with relation to the subjects
of it; and the good, the desirable, and the preserving, are so called with
reference to things benefitted, preserved, and desiring. And if it should
be said to be all things according to the preassumption of all things in
itself, it will indeed be said to be so according to the one alone, and
will at the same time be the one cause of all things prior to all, and will
be thus, and no other according to the one. So far, therefore, as it is the
one alone, it will be unindigent; but so far as unindigent, it will be the
first principle, and stable root of all principles. So far, however, as it
is the principle and the first cause of all things, and is pre-established
as the object of desire to all things, so far it appears to be in a certain
respect indigent of the things to which it is related. It has therefore, if
it be lawful so to speak, an ultimate vestige of indigence, just as on the
contrary matter has an ultimate echo of the unindigent, or a most obscure
and debile impression of the one. And language indeed appears to be here
subverted. For so far as it is the one, it is also unindigent, since the
principle has appeared to subsist according to the most unindigent and the
one. At the same time, however, so far as it is the one, it is also the
principle; and so far as it is the one it is unindigent, but so far as the
principle, indigent. Hence so far as it is unindigent, it is also indigent,
though not according to the same; but with respect to being that which it
is, it is undigent; but as producing and comprehending other things in
itself, it is indigent. This, however, is the peculiarity of the one; so
that it is both unindigent and indigent according to the one. Not indeed
than it is each of these, in such a manner as we divide it in speaking of
it, but it is one alone; and according to this is both other things, and
that which is indigent. For how is it possible, it should not be indigent
also so far as it is the one? Just as it is all other things which proceed
from it. For the indigent also is, something belonging to all things.
Something else, therefore, must be investigated which in no respect has any
kind of indigence. But of a thing of this kind it cannot with truth be
asserted that it is the principle, nor can it even be said of it that it is
most unindigent, though this appears to be the most venerable of all
assertions.[4]
---------------
[4] See the extracts from Damascius in the additional notes to the third
volume, which contain an inestimable treasury of the most profound
conceptions concerning the ineffable.
------------------
For this signifies transcendency, and an exemption from the indigent. We do
not, however, think it proper to call this even the perfectly exempt; but
that which is in every respect incapable of being apprehended, and about
which we must be perfectly silent, will be the most, just axiom of our
conception in the present investigation; nor yet this as uttering any
thing, but as rejoicing in not uttering, and by this venerating that
immense unknown. This then is the mode of ascent to that which is called
the first, or rather to that which is beyond every thing which can be
conceived, or become the subject of hypothesis.
There is also another mode, which does not place the unindigent before
the indigent, but considers that which is indigent of a more excellent
nature, as subsisting secondary to that which is more excellent. Every
where then, that which is in capacity is secondary to that which is in
energy. For that it may proceed into energy, and that it may not remain
in capacity in vain, it requires that which is in energy. For the more
excellent never blossoms from the subordinate nature. Let this then be
defined by us according to common unperverted conceptions. Matter
therefore has prior to itself material form; because all matter is form
in capacity, whether it be the first matter which is perfectly formless,
or the second which subsists according to body void of quality, or in
other words mere triple extension, to which it is likely those directed
their attention who first investigated sensibles, and which at first
appeared to be the only thing that had a subsistence. For the existence
of that which is common in the different elements, persuaded them that
there is a certain body void of quality. But since, among bodies of this
kind, some possess the governing principle inwardly, and others
externally, such as things artificial, it is necessary besides quality to
direct our attention to nature, as being something better than qualities,
and which is prearranged in the order of cause, as art is, of things
artificial. Of things, however, which are inwardly governed, some appear
to possess being alone, but others to be nourished and increased, and to
generate things similar to themselves. There is therefore another certain
cause prior to the above-mentioned nature, viz. a vegetable power itself.
But it is evident that all such things as are ingenerated in body as in a
subject, are of themselves incorporeal, though they become corporeal by
the participation of that in which they subsist, so that they are said
to be and are material in consequence of what they suffer from matter.
Qualities therefore, and still more natures, and in a still greater
degree the vegetable life, preserve the incorporeal in themselves. Since
however, sense exhibits another more conspicuous life, pertaining to
beings which are moved according to impulse and place, this must be
established prior to that, as being a more proper principle, and as the
supplier of a certain better form, that of a self-moved animal, and which
naturally precedes plants rooted in the earth. The animal however, is not
accurately self-moved. For the whole is not such throughout they whole;
but a part moves and a part is moved. This therefore is the apparent
self-moved. Hence, prior to this it is necessary there should be that
which is truly self-moved, and which according to the whole of itself
moves ands is moved, that the apparently self-moved may be the image of
this. And indeed the soul which moves the body must be considered as a
more proper self-moved essence. This, however, is twofold, the one
rational, the other irrational. For that there is a rational soul is
evident: or has not every one a cosensation of himself, more clear or
more obscure, when converted to himself in the attentions to and
investigations of himself, and in the vital and Gnostic animadversions of
himself? For the essence which is capable of this, and which can collect
universals by reasoning, will very justly be rational. The irrational
soul also, though it does not appear to investigate these things, and to
reason with itself, yet at the same time it moves bodies from place to
place, being itself previously moved from itself; for at different times
it exerts a different impulse. Does it therefore move itself from one
impulse to another? or it is moved by something else, as, for instance,
by the whole rational soul in the universe? But it would be absurd to say
that the energies of every irrational soul are not the energies of that
soul, but of one more divine; since they are infinite, and mingled with
much of the base and imperfect. For this would be just the same as to say
that the irrational enemies are the energies of the rational soul. I omit
to mention the absurdity of supposing that the whole essence is not
generative of its proper energies. For if the irrational soul is a
certain essence, it will have peculiar energies of its own, not imparted
from something else, but proceeding from itself. This irrational soul,
therefore, will also move itself at different times to different impulses.
But if it moves itself, it will be converted to itself. If, however, this
be the case, it will have a separate subsistence, and will not be in a
subject. It is therefore rational, if it looks to itself: for in being
converted to, it surveys itself. For when extended to things external, it
looks to externals, or rather it looks to colored body, but does not see
itself, because sight itself is neither body nor that which is colored.
Hence it does not revert to itself. Neither therefore is this the case
with any other irrational nature. For neither does the phantasy project a
type of itself, but of that which is sensible, as for instance of colored
body. Nor does irrational appetite desire itself, but aspires after a
certain object of desire, such as honor, or pleasure, or riches. It does
not therefore move itself.
But if some one, on seeing that brutes exert rational energies, should
apprehend that these also participate of the first self-moved, and on
this account possess a soul converted to itself, it may perhaps be
granted to him that these also are rational natures, except that they
are not so essentially, but according to participation, and this most
obscure, just as the rational soul may be said to be intellectual
according to participation, as always projecting common conceptions
without distortion. It must however be observed, that the extreme are
that which is capable of being perfectly separated, such as the rational
form, and that which is perfectly inseparable, such as corporeal quality,
and that in the middle of these nature subsists, which verges to the
inseparable, having a small representation of the separable and the
irrational soul, which verges to the separable; or it appears in a
certain respect to subsist by itself, separate from a subject; so that
it becomes doubtful whether it is self-motive, or alter-motive. For it
contains an abundant vestige of self-motion, but not that which is true
and converted to itself, and on this account perfectly separated from
a subject. And the vegetable soul has in a certain respect a middle
subsistence. On this account to some of the ancients it appeared to be
a certain soul, but to others, nature.
Again, therefore, that we may return to the proposed object of
investigation, how can a self-motive nature of this kind, which is
mingled with the alter-motive, be the first principle of things? For
it neither subsists from itself, nor does it in reality perfect itself;
but it requires a certain other nature, both for its subsistence and
perfection: and prior to it is that which is truly self-moved. Is
therefore that which is properly self-moved the principle, and is it
indigent of no form more excellent than itself? Or is not that which
moves always naturally prior to that which is moved; and in short does
not every form which is pure from its contrary subsist by itself prior
to that which is mingled with it? And is not the pure the cause of the
commingled? For that which is coessentialized with another has also an
energy mingled with that other. So that a self-moved nature will indeed,
make itself; but thus subsisting it will be at the same time moving and
moved, but will not be made a moving nature only. For neither is it this
alone. Every form however is always alone according to its first
subsistence; so that there will be that which moves only without being
moved. And indeed it would be absurd that there should be that which is
moved only such as body, but that prior both to that which is self-moved
and that which is moved only, there should not be that which moves only.
For it is evident that there must be, since this will be a more excellent
nature, and that which is self-moved, so far as it moves itself, is more
excellent than so far as it is moved. It is necessary therefore that the
essence which moves unmoved, should be first, as that which is moved, not
being motive, is the third, in the middle of which is the self-moved,
which we say requires that which moves in order to its becoming motive.
In short, if it is moved, it will not abide, so far as it is moved; and
if it moves, it is necessary it should remain moving so far as it moves.
Whence then does it derive the power of abiding? For from itself it
derives the power either of being moved only, or of at the same time
abiding and being moved wholly according to the same. Whence then does
it simply obtain the power of abiding? Certainly from that which simply
abides. But, this is an immovable cause. We must therefore admit that
the immovable is prior to the self moved. Let us consider then if the
immovable is the most proper principle? But how is this possible? For the
immovable contains as numerous a multitude immovably; as the self-moved
self-moveably. Besides an immovable separation must necessarily subsist
prior to a self-moveable separation. The unmoved therefore is at the same
time one and many, and is at the same time united and separated, and a
nature of this kind is denominated intellect. But it is evident that
the united in this is naturally prior to and more honorable than the
separated. For separation is always indigent of union; but not, on the
contrary, union of separation. Intellect, however, has not the united
pure from its opposite. For intellectual form is coessentialized with the
separated, through the whole of itself. Hence that which is in a certain
respect united requires that which is simply united; and that which
subsists with another is indigent of that which subsists by itself; and
that which subsists according to participation, of that which subsists
according to essence. For intellect being self-subsistent produces itself
as united, and at the same time separated. Hence it subsists according to
both these. It is produced therefore from that which is simply united and
alone united. Prior therefore to that which is formal is the
uncircumscribed, and undistributed into forms. And this is that which we
call the united, and which the wise men of antiquity denominated being,
possessing in one contraction multitude, subsisting prior to the many.
Having therefore arrived thus far, let us here rest for a while, and
consider with ourselves, whether being is the investigated principle of
all things. For what will there be which does not participate of being?
May we not say, that this, if it is the united, will be secondary to the
one, and that by participating of the one it becomes the united? But in
short; if we conceive the one to be something different from being, if
being is prior to the one, it will not participate of the one. It will
therefore be many only, and these will be infinitely infinite. But if the
one is with being, and being with the one, and they are either coordinate
or divided from each other, there will be two principles, and the
above-mentioned absurdity will happen. Or they will mutually participate
of each other, and there will be two elements. Or they are parts of
something else, consisting from both. And, if this be the case, what will
that be which leads them to union with each other? For if the one unites
being to itself (for this may be said), the one also will energize prior
to being, that it may call forth and convert being to itself. The one,
therefore, will subsist from itself self-perfect prior to being. Further
still, the more simple is always prior to the more composite. If
therefore they are similarly simple, there will either be two principles,
or one from the two, and this will be a composite. Hence the simple and
perfectly incomposite is prior to this, which must be either one, or not
one; and if not one, it must either be many, or nothing. But with respect
to nothing, if it signifies that which is perfectly void, it will signify
something vain. But if it signifies the arcane, this will not even be
that which is simple. In short, we cannot conceive any principle more
simple than the one. The one therefore is in every respect prior to
being. Hence this is the principle of all things, and Plato recurring to
this, did not require any other principle in his reasonings. For the
arcane in which this our ascent terminates is not the principle of
reasoning, nor of knowledge, nor of animals, nor of beings, nor of
unities, but simply of all things, being arranged above every conception
and suspicion that we can frame. Hence Plato indicates nothing concerning
it, but makes his negations of all other things except the one, from the
one. For that the one is he denies in the last place, but he does not
make a negation of the one. He also, besides this, even denies this
negation, but not the one. He denies, too, name and conception, and all
knowledge, and what can be said more, whole itself and every being. But
let there be the united and the unical, and, if you will, the two
principles bound and the infinite. Plato, however, never in any respect
makes a negation of the one which is beyond all these. Hence in the
Sophista he considers it as the one prior to being, and in the Republic
as the good beyond every essence; but at the same time the one alone is
left. Whether however is it known and effable, or unknown and ineffable?
Or is it in a certain respect these, and in a certain respect not? For by
a negation of this it may be said the ineffable is affirmed. And again,
by the simplicity of knowledge it will be known or suspected, but by
composition perfectly unknown. Hence neither will it be apprehended by
negation. And in short, so far as it is admitted to be one, so far it
will be coarranged with other things, which are the subject of position.
For it is the summit of things, which subsist according to position. At
the same time there is much in it of the ineffable and unknown, the
uncoordinated, and that which is deprived of position, but these are
accompanied with a representation of the Contraries: and the former are
more excellent, than the latter. But every where things pure subsist
prior to their contraries, and such as are unmingled to the commingled.
For either things more excellent subsist in the one essentially, and in a
certain respect the contraries of these also will be there at the same
time; or they subsist according to participation, and are derived from
that which is first a thing of this kind. Prior to the one, therefore, is
that which is simply and perfectly ineffable, without position,
uncoordinated, and incapable of being apprehended, to which also the
ascent of the present discourse hastens through the clearest indications,
omitting none of those natures between the first and the last of things.
Such then is the ascent to the highest God, according to the theology of
Plato, venerably preserving his ineffable exemption from all things, and
his transcendency, which cannot be circumscribed by any gnostic energy,
and at the same time, unfolding the paths which lead upwards to him, and
enkindling that luminous summit of the soul, by which she is conjoined
with the incomprehensible one.
From this truly ineffable principle, exempt from all essence, power, and
energy, a multitude of divine natures, according to Plato, immediately
proceeds. That this must necessarily be the case, will be admitted by the
reader who understands what has been already discussed, and is fully
demonstrated by Plato in the Parmenides, as will be evident to the
intelligent from the notes on that Dialogue. In addition therefore to
what I have staid on this subject, I shall further observe at present
that this doctrine, which is founded in the sublimest and most scientific
conceptions of the human mind, may be clearly shown to be a legitimate
dogma of Plato from what is asserted by him in the sixth book of his
Republic. For he there affirms, in the most clear and unequivocal terms,
that the good, or the ineffable principle of things is superessential,
and shows by the analogy of the sun to the good, that what light and
sight are in the visible, that truth and intelligence are in the
intelligible world. As light therefore, immediately proceeds from the
sun, and wholly subsists according to a solar idiom or property, so truth
or the immediate progeny of the good, must subsist according to a
superessential idiom. And as the good, according to Plato, is the same
with the one, as is evident from the Parmenides, the immediate progeny of
the one will be the same as that of the good. But, the immediate
offspring of the one cannot be any thing else than unities. And, hence we
necessarily infer that according to Plato, the immediate offspring of the
ineffable principle of things are superessential unities. They differ
however from their immense principle in this, that he is superessential
and ineffable, without any addition; but this divine multitude is
participated by the several orders of being, which are suspended from and
produced by it. Hence, in consequence of being connected with multitude
through this participation, they are necessarily subordinate to the one.
No less admirably, therefore, than Platonically does Simplicius, in his
Commentary of Epictetus, observe on this subject as follows: "The
fountain and principle of all things is the good: for that which all
things desire, and to which all things are extended, is the principle and
the end of all things. The good also produces from itself all things,
first, middle, and last. But it produces such as are first and proximate
to itself, similar to itself; one goodness, many goodnesses, one
simplicity and unity which transcends all others, many, unities, and one
principle many principles. For the one, the principle, the good, and
deity, are the same: for deity is the first and the cause of all things.
But it is necessary that the first should also be most simple; since
whatever is a composite and has multitude is posterior to the one. And
multitude and things, which are not good desire the good as being above
them: and in short, that which is not itself the principle is from the
principle.
But it is also necessary that the principle of all things should possess
the highest, and all, power. For the amplitude of power consists in
producing all things from itself, and in giving subsistence to similars,
prior to things which are dissimilar. Hence the one principle produces
many principles, many simplicities, and many goodnesses, proximately from
itself. For since all things differ from each other, and are multiplied
with their proper differences, each of these multitudes is suspended from
its one proper principle. Thus, for instance, all beautiful things,
whatever and wherever they may be, whether in souls or in bodies, are
suspended from one fountain of beauty. Thus too, whatever possesses
symmetry, and whatever is true, and all principles, are in a certain
respect, connate with the first principle, so far as they are principles
and fountains and goodnesses, with an appropriate subjection and analogy.
For what the one principle is to all beings, that each of the other
principles is to the multitude comprehended under the idiom of its
principle. For it is impossible, since each multitude is characterized
by a certain difference, that it should not be extended to its proper
principle, which illuminates one and the same form to all the individuals
of that multitude. For the one is the leader of every multitude; and
every peculiarity or idiom in the many is derived to the many from the
one. All partial principles therefore are established in that principle
which ranks as a whole, and are comprehended in it, not with interval and
multitude, but as parts in the whole, as multitude in the one, and number
in the monad. For this first principle is all things prior to all: and
many principles are multiplied about the one principle, and in the one
goodness, many goodnesses are established. This too, is not a certain
principle like each of the rest: for of these, one is the principle of
beauty, another of symmetry, another of truth, and another of something
else, but it is simply principle. Nor is it simply the principles of
beings, but it is the principle of principles. For it is necessary that
the idiom of principle, after the same manner as other things, should not
begin from multitude, but should be collected into one monad as a summit,
and which is the principle of principles.
Such things therefore as are first produced by the first good, in
consequence of being connascent with it, do not recede from essential
goodness, since they are immovable and unchanged, and are eternally
established in the same blessedness. They are likewise not indigent of
the good, because they are goodnesses themselves. All other natures
however, being produced by the one good, and many goodnesses, since they
fall off from essential goodness, and are not immovably established in
the hyparxis of divine goodness, on this account they possess the good
according to participation."
From this sublime theory the meaning of that ancient Egyptian dogma, that
God is all things, is at once apparent. For the first principle,[6] as
Simplicius in the above passage justly observes, is all things prior
to all; i.e. he comprehends all things causally, this being the most
transcendent mode of comprehension. As all things therefore, considered
as subsisting causally in deity, are transcendently more excellent than
they are when considered as effects preceding from him, hence that mighty
and all-comprehending whole, the first principle, is said to be all
things prior to all; priority here denoting exempt transcendency. As the
monad and the centre of a circle are images from their simplicity of this
greatest of principles, so likewise do they perspicuously shadow forth
to us its causal comprehension of all things. For all number may be
considered as subsisting occultly in the monad, and the circle in the
centre; this occult being the same in each with causal subsistence.
-----------------
[6] By the first principle here, the one is to be understood for that
arcane nature which is beyond the one, since all language is subverted
about it, can only, as we have already observed, be conceived and
venerated in the most profound silence.
-----------------
That this conception of causal subsistence is not an hypothesis devised
by the latter Platonists, but a genuine dogma of Plato, is evident from
what he says in the Philebus: for in that Dialogue he expressly asserts
that in Jupiter a royal intellect, and a royal soul subsist according to
cause. Pherecydes Syrus, too, in his Hymn to Jupiter, as cited by Kercher
(in Oedip. Egyptiac.), has the following lines:
[Greek:
O theos esti kuklos, tetragonos ede trigonos,
Keinos de gramme, kentron, kai panta pro panton.]
i.e. Jove is a circle, triangle and square, centre and line, and all things
before all. From which testimonies the antiquity of this sublime doctrine
is sufficiently apparent.
And here it is necessary to observe that nearly all philosophers: prior
to Jamblichus (as we are informed by Damascius) asserted indeed, that
there is one superessential God, but that the other gods had an essential
subsistence, and were deified by illuminations from the one. They
likewise said that there is a multitude of super-essential unities, who
are not self-perfect subsistences, but illuminated unions with deity,
imparted to essences by the highest Gods. That this hypothesis, however,
is not conformable to the doctrine of Plato is evident from his
Parmenides, in which he shows that the one does not subsist in itself.
(See vol. iii, p. 133). For as we have observed from Proclus, in the
notes on that Dialogue, every thing which is the cause of itself and is
self-subsistent, is said to be in itself. Hence as producing power
always comprehends, according to cause that which it produces, it is
necessary that whatever produces itself should comprehend itself so far
as it is a cause, and should be comprehended by itself so far as it is
caused; and that it should be at once both cause and the thing caused,
that which comprehends, and that which is comprehended. If therefore a
subsistence in another signifies, according to Plato, the being produced
by another more excellent cause (as we have shown in the note to p. 133,
vol. iii), a subsistence in itself must signify that which is self-
begotten, and produced by itself. If the one therefore is not self-sub-
sistent as even transcending this mode of subsistence, and if it be
necessary that there should be something self-subsistent, it follows
that this must be the characteristic property of that which immediately
proceeds from the ineffable. But that there must be something self-
subsistent is evident, since unless this is admitted there will not
be a true sufficiency in any thing.
Besides, as Damascius well observes, if that which is subordinate by
nature is self-perfect, such as the human soul, much more will this be the
case with a divine soul. But if with soul, this also will be true of
intellect. And if it be true of intellect, it will also be true of life: if
of life, of being likewise; and if of being, of the unities above being.
For the self-perfect, the self-sufficient, and that which is established in
itself, will much more subsist in superior than in subordinate natures. If
therefore, these are in the latter, they will also be in the former. I mean
the subsistence of a thing by itself, and essentialized in itself; and such
are essence and life, intellect, soul, and body. For body, though it does
not subsist from, yet subsists by itself; and through this belongs to the
genus of substance, and is contra-distinguished from accident, which cannot
exist independent of a subject.
Self-subsistent superessential natures therefore are the immediate
progeny of the one, if it be lawful thus to denominate things, which
ought rather to be called ineffable unfoldings into light from the
ineffable; for progeny implies a producing cause, and the one must be
conceived as something even more excellent than this. From this divine
self-perfect and self-producing multitude, a series of self-perfect
natures, viz. of beings, lives, intellects, and souls proceeds, according
to Plato, in the last link of which luminous series he also classes the
human soul; proximately suspended from the daemoniacal order: for this
order, as he clearly asserts in the Banquet, "stands in the middle rank
between the divine and human, fills up the vacant space, and links
together all intelligent nature." And here to the reader, who has not
penetrated the depths of Plato's philosophy, it will doubtless appear
paradoxical in the extreme, that any being should be said to produce
itself, and yet at the same time proceed from a superior cause. The
solution of this difficulty is as follows:--Essential production, or that
energy through which any nature produces something else by its very
being, is the most perfect mode of production, because vestiges of it are
seen in the last of things; thus fire imparts heat, by its very essence,
and snow coldness. And in short, this is a producing of that kind, in
which the effect is that secondarily which the cause is primarily. As
this mode of production therefore, from its being the most perfect of all
others, originates from the highest natures, it will consequently first
belong to those self-subsistent powers, who immediately proceed from the
ineffable, and will from them be derived to all the following orders of
beings. But this energy, as being characterized by the essential, will
necessarily be different in different producing causes. Hence, from that
which subsists, at the summit of self subsistent natures, a series of
self subsisting beings will indeed proceed, but then this series will be
secondarily that which its cause is primarily, and the energy by which it
produces itself will be secondary to that by which it is produced by its
cause. Thus, for instance, the rational soul both produces itself (in
consequence of being a self-motive nature), and is produced by intellect;
but it is produced by intellect immutably, and by itself transitively;
for all its energies subsist in time, and are accompanied with motion. So
far therefore as soul contains intellect by participation, so far it is
produced by intellect, but so far as it is self-motive it is produced by
itself. In short, with respect to every thing self-subsistent, the summit
of its nature is produced by a superior cause, but the evolution of that
summit is its own spontaneous energy; and, through this it becomes
self-subsistent, and self-perfect.
That the rational soul, indeed, so far as it is rational, produces
itself, may be clearly demonstrated as follows:--That which is able to
impart any thing superior and more excellent in any genus of things, can
easily impart that which is subordinate and less excellent in the same
genus; but well being confessedly ranks higher and is more excellent than
mere being. The rational soul imparts well being to itself, when it
cultivates and perfects itself, and recalls and withdraws itself from the
contagion of the body. It will therefore also impart being to itself. And
this with great propriety; for all divine natures, and such things as
possess the ability of imparting any thing primarily to others,
necessarily begin this energy from themselves. Of this mighty truth the
sun himself is an illustrious example; for he illuminates all things with
his light, and is himself light, and the fountain and origin of all
splendour. Hence, since the souls imparts life and motion to other
things, on which account Aristotle calls an animal antokincton, self-
moved, it will much more, and by a much greater priority, impart life and
motion to itself.
From this magnificent, sublime, and most scientific doctrine of Plato,
respecting the arcane principle of things and his immediate progeny, it
follows that this ineffable cause is not the immediate maker of the
universe, and this, as I have observed in the Introduction to the Timaeus,
not through any defect, but on the contrary through transcendency of power.
All things indeed are ineffably unfolded from him at once, into light; but
divine media are necessary to the fabrication of the world. For if the
universe was immediately produced from the ineffable, it would, agreeably
to what we have above observed, be ineffable also in a secondary degree.
But as this is by no means the case, it principally derives its immediate
subsistence from a deity of a fabricative characteristic, whom Plato calls
Jupiter, conformably to the theology of Orpheus. The intelligent reader
will readily admit that this dogmas is so far from being derogatory to the
dignity of the Supreme, that on the contrary it exalts that dignity, and,
preserves in a becoming manner the exempt transcendency of the ineffable.
If therefore we presume to celebrate him, for as we have already observed,
it is more becoming to establish in silence those parturitions of the soul
which dare anxiously to explore him, we should celebrate him as the
principle of principles, and the fountain of deity, or in the reverential
language of the Egyptians, as a darkness thrice unknown.[7] Highly laudable
indeed, and worthy the imitation of all posterity, is the veneration which
the great ancients paid to this immense principle. This I have already
noticed in the Introduction to the Parmenides, and I shall only observe at
present in addition, that in consequence of this profound and most pious
reverence of the first God, they did not even venture to give a name to
the summit of that highest order of divinities which is denominated
intelligible. Hence, says Proclus, in his Mss. Scholia on the Cratylus,
"Not every genus of the gods has an appellation; for with respect to the
first Deity, who is beyond all things, Parmenides teaches us that he is
ineffable; and the first genera of the intelligible gods, who are united to
the one, and are called occult, have much of the unknown and ineffable. For
that which is perfectly effable cannot be conjoined with the perfectly
ineffable; but it is necessary that the progression of intelligibles should
terminate in this order, in which the first effable subsists, and that
which is called by proper names. For there the first intelligible forms,
and the intellectual nature of intelligibles, are unfolded into light.
But, the natures prior to this being silent and occult, are only known
by intelligence. Hence the whole of the telestic science energizing
theurgically ascends as far as to this order. Orpheus also says that this
is first called by a name by the other gods; for the light proceeding from
it is known to and denominated by the intellectual gods."
-----------------
[7] Psalm xviii:11; xcvii:2.
-----------------
With no less magnificence therefore than piety, does Proclus thus speak
concerning the ineffable principle of things. "Let us now if ever remove
from ourselves multiform knowledge, exterminate all the variety of life,
and in perfect quiet approach near to the cause of all things. For this
purpose, let not only opinion and phantasy be at rest, nor the passions
alone which impede our anagogic impulse to the first be at peace; but let
the air, and the universe itself, be still. And let all things extend us
with a tranquil power to communion with the ineffable. Let us also
standing there, having transcended the intelligible (if we contain any
thing of this kind), and with nearly closed eyes adoring as it were the
rising sun, since it is not lawful for any being whatever intently to
behold him,--let us survey the sun whence the light of the intelligible
gods proceeds, emerging, as the poets say, from the bosom of the ocean;
and again from this divine tranquillity descending into intellect, and
from intellect employing the reasonings of the soul, let us relate to
ourselves what the natures are from which in this progression we shall
consider the first God as exempt. And let us as it were celebrate him,
not as establishing the earth and the heavens, nor as giving subsistence
to souls, and the generations of all animals; for he produced these
indeed, but among the last of things. But prior to these, let us
celebrate him as unfolding into light the whole intelligible and
intellectual genus of gods, together with all the supermundane and
mundane divinities as, the God of all gods, the Unity of all unities,
and beyond the first adyta--as more ineffable than all silence, and more
unknown than all essence,--as holy among the holies, and concealed in
the intelligible gods." Such is the piety, such the sublimity, and
magnificence of conception, with which the Platonic philosophers speak of
that which is in reality in every respect ineffable, when they presume to
speak about it, extending the ineffable parturitions of the soul to the
ineffable cosensation of the incomprehensible one.
From this sublime veneration of this most awful nature, which, as is
noticed in the extracts from Damascius, induced the most ancient
theologists, philosophers, and poets, to be entirely silent concerning
it, arose the great reverence which the ancients paid to the divinities
even of a mundane characteristic, or from whom bodies are suspended,
considering them also as partaking of the nature of the ineffable, and as
so many links of the truly golden chain of deity. Hence we find in the
Odyssey, when Ulysses and Telemachus are removing the arms from the walls
of the palace of Ithaca, and Minerva going before them with her golden
lamp fills all the place with a divine light,
[Greek:
. . . . . paroithe de pallas Athene
Chryseon lychnon echrusa phars perikalles epoiei.]
Before thee Pallas Athene bore a golden cresset and cast a most lovely
light. Telemachus having observed that certainly some one of the celestial
gods was present,
[Greek:
Emala tis deos endon, of ouranon euryn echousi.]
Verily some God is within, of those that hold the wide heaven. Ulysses
says in reply, "Be silent, restrain your intellect (i.e. even cease to
energize intellectually), and speak not."
[Greek:
Siga, kai kata son noon ischana, med' ereeine.]
Hold thy peace and keep all this in thine heart and ask not hereof.
--Book 19, Odyssey.
Lastly, from all that has been said, it must, I think, be immediately
obvious to every one whose mental eye is not entirely blinded, that there
can be no such thing as a trinity in the theology of Plato, in any respect
analogous to the Christian Trinity. For the highest God, according to
Plato, as we have largely shown from irresistible evidence, is so far from
being a part of a consubsistent triad, that he is not to be connumerated
with any thing; but is so perfectly exempt from all multitude, that he is
even beyond being; and he so ineffably transcends all relation and
habitude, that language is in reality subverted about him, and knowledge
refunded into ignorance. What that trinity however is in the theology of
Plato, which doubtless gave birth to the Christian, will be evident to the
intelligent from the notes on the Parmenides, and the extracts, from
Damascius. And thus much for the doctrine of Plato concerning the principle
of things, and his immediate offspring, the great importance of which will,
I doubt not, be a sufficient apology for the length of this discussion.
In the next place, following Proclus and Olympiodorus as our guides, let us
consider the mode according to which Plato teaches us mystic conceptions of
divine natures: for he appears not to have pursued every where the same
mode of doctrine about these; but sometimes according to a divinely
inspired energy, and at other times dialectically, he evolves the truth
concerning them. And sometimes he symbolically announces their ineffable
idioms, but at other times he recurs to them from images, and discovers in
them the primary causes of wholes. For in the Phaedrus being evidently
inspired, and having exchanged human intelligence for a better possession,
divine mania, he unfolds many arcane dogmas concerning the intellectual,
liberated, and mundane gods. But in the Sophista dialectically contending
about being, and the subsistence of the one above beings, and doubting
against philosophers more ancient than himself, he shows how all beings are
suspended from their cause and the first being, but that being itself
participates of that unity which is exempt from all things, that it is a
passive,[8] one, but not the one itself, being subject to and united to the
one, but not being that which is primarily one. In a similar manner too, in
the Parmenides, he unfolds dialectically the progressions of being from the
one, through the first hypothesis of that dialogue, and this, as he there
asserts, according to the most perfect division of this method. And again
in the Gorgias, he relates the fable concerning the three fabricators, and
their demiurgic allotment. But in the Banquet he speaks concerning the
union of love; and in the Protagoras, about the distribution of mortal
animals from the gods; in a symbolical manner concealing the truth
concerning divine natures, and as far as to mere indication unfolding his
mind to the most genuine of his readers.
-----------------
[8] It is necessary to observe, that, according to Plato, whatever
participates of any thing is said to be passive to that which it
participates, and the participations themselves are called by him passions.
-----------------
Again, if it be necessary to mention the doctrine delivered through the
mathematical disciplines, and the discussion of divine concerns from
ethical or physical discourses, of which many may be contemplated in the
Timaeus, many in the dialogue called Politicus, and many may be seen
scattered in other dialogues; here likewise, to those who are desirous of
knowing divine concerns through images, the method will be apparent. Thus,
for instance, the Politicus shadows forth the fabrication in the heavens.
But the figures of the five elements, delivered in geometrical proportions
in the Timaeus, represent in images the idioms of the gods who preside over
the parts of the universe. And the divisions of the essence of the soul in
that dialogue shadow forth the total orders of the gods. To this we may
also add that Plato composes politics, assimilating them to divine natures,
and adorning them from the whole world and the powers which it contains.
All these, therefore, through the similitude of mortal to divine concerns,
exhibit to us in images the progressions, orders, and fabrications of the
latter. And such are the modes of theologic doctrine employed by Plato.
"But those," says Proclus, "who treat of divine concerns in an indicative
manner, either speak symbolically and fabulously, or through images. And of
those who openly announce their conceptions, some frame their discourses
according to science, but others according to inspiration from the gods.
And he who desires to signify divine concerns through symbols is Orphic,
and, in short, accords with those who write fables respecting the gods.
But he who does this through images is Pythagoric. For the mathematical
disciplines were invented by the Pythagorean in order to a reminiscence of
divine concerns, to which through these as images, they endeavour to
ascend. For they refer both numbers and figures to the gods, according to
the testimony of their historians. But the enthusiastic character, or he
who is divinely inspired, unfolding the truth itself concerning the gods
essentially, perspicuously ranks among the highest initiators. For these do
not think proper to unfold the divine orders, or their idioms, to their
familiars through veils, but announce their powers and their numbers in
consequence of being moved by the gods themselves. But the tradition of
divine concerns according to science is the illustrious, prerogative of the
Platonic philosophy. For Plato alone, as it appears to me of all those who
are known to us, has attempted methodically to divide and reduce into order
the regular progression of the divine genera, their mutual difference, the
common idioms of the total orders, and the distributed idioms in each."
Again, since Plato employs fables, let us in the first place consider
whence the ancients were induced to devise fables, and in the second place,
what the difference is between the fables of philosophers and those of
poets. In answer to the first question then, it is necessary to know that
the ancients employed fables looking to two things, viz. nature, and our
soul. They employed them by looking to nature, and the fabrication of
things, as follows. Things unapparent are believed from things apparent,
and incorporeal natures from bodies. For seeing the orderly arrangement of
bodies, we understand that a certain incorporeal power presides over them;
as with respect to the celestial bodies, they have a certain presiding
motive power. As we therefore see that our body is moved, but is no longer
so after death, we conceive that it was a certain incorporeal power which
moved it. Hence, perceiving that we believe things incorporeal and
unapparent from things apparent and corporeal, fables came to be adopted,
that we might come from things apparent to certain unapparent natures; as,
for instance, that on hearing the adulteries, bonds, and lacerations of the
gods, castrations of heaven, and the like, we may not rest satisfied with
the apparent meaning of such like particulars, but may proceed to the
unapparent, and investigate the true signification. After this manner,
therefore, looking to the nature of things, were fables employed.
But from looking to our souls, they originated as follows: While we are
children we live according to the phantasy, but the phantastic part is
conversant with figures, and types, and things of this kind. That the
phantastic part in us therefore may be preserved, we employ fables in
consequence of this part rejoicing in fables. It may also be said that
a fable is nothing else than a false discourse shadowing forth the truth:
for a fable is the image of truth. But the soul is the image of the
natures prior to herself; and hence the soul very properly rejoices in
fables, as an image in an image. As we are therefore from our childhood
nourished in fables, it is necessary that they should be introduced. And
thus much for the first problem, concerning the origin of fables.
In the next place let us consider what the difference is between the
fables of philosophers and poets. Each therefore has something in which
it abounds more than, and something in which it is deficient from the
other. Thus, for instance, the poetic fable abounds in this, that we must
not rest satisfied with the apparent meaning, but pass on to the occult
truth. For who, endued with intellect, would believe that Jupiter was
desirous of having connection with Juno, and on the ground, without
waiting to go into the bed-chamber. So that the poetic fable abounds, in
consequence of asserting such things as do not suffer us to stop at the
apparent, but lead us to explore the occult truth. But it is defective in
this, that it deceives those of a juvenile age. Plato therefore neglects
fable of this kind, and banishes Homer from his Republic; because youth
on hearing such fables, will not be able to distinguish what is
allegorical from what is not.
Philosophical fables, on the contrary, do not injure those that go no
further than the apparent meaning. Thus, for instance, they assert that
there are punishments and rivers under the earth: and if we adhere to the
literal meaning of these we shall not be injured. But they are deficient
in this, that as their apparent signification does not injure, we often
content ourselves with this, and do not explore the latent truth. We may
also say that philosophic fables look to the enemies of the soul. For if
we were entirely intellect alone, and had no connection with phantasy, we
should not require fables, in consequence of always associating with
intellectual natures. If again, we were entirely irrational, and lived
according to the phantasy, and had no other energy than this, it would be
requisite that the whole of our life should be fabulous. Since, however,
we possess intellect, opinion, and phantasy, demonstrations are given
with a view to intellect; and hence Plato says that if you are willing to
energize according to intellect, you will have demonstrations bound with
adamantine chains; if according to opinion, you will have the testimony
of renowned persons; and if according to the phantasy, you have fables by
which it is excited; so that from all these you will derive advantage.
Plato therefore rejects the more tragical mode of mythologizing of the
ancient poets, who thought proper to establish an arcane theology
respecting the gods, and on this account devised wanderings, castrations,
battles and lacerations of the gods, and many other such symbols of the
truth about divine natures which this theology conceals;--this mode he
rejects, and asserts that it is in every respect most foreign from
erudition. But he considers those mythological discourses about the gods
as more persuasive and more adapted to truth, which assert that a divine
nature is the cause of all good, but of no evil, and that it is void of
all mutation, comprehending in itself the fountain of truth, but never
becoming the cause of any deception to others. For such types of theology
Socrates delivers in the Republic.
All the fables therefore of Plato guarding the truth in concealment,
have not even their externally apparent apparatus discordant with our
undisciplined and unperverted anticipations of divinity. But they bring
with them an image of the mundane composition in which both the apparent
beauty is worthy of divinity, and a beauty more divine than this is
established in the unapparent lives and powers of its causes.
In the next place, that the reader may see whence and from what dialogues
principally the theological dogmas of Plato may be collected, I shall
present him with the following translation of what Proclus has admirably
written on this subject.
"The truth (says he) concerning the gods pervades, as I may say, through
all the Platonic dialogues, and in all of them conceptions of the first
philosophy, venerable, clear, and supernatural, are disseminated, in some
more obscurely, but in others more conspicuously;--conceptions which
excite those that are in any respect able to partake of them, to the
immaterial and separate essence of the gods. And as in each part of the
universe and in nature itself, the demiurgus of all which the world
contains established resemblances of the unknown essence of the gods,
that all things might be converted to divinity through their alliance
with it, in like manner I am of opinion, that the divine intellect of
Plato weaves conceptions about the gods with all its progeny, and leaves
nothing deprived of the mention of divinity, that from the whole of its
offspring a reminiscence of total natures may be obtained, and imparted
to the genuine lovers of divine concerns.
"But if it be requisite to lay before the reader those dialogues out of
many which principally unfold to us the mystic discipline about the gods,
I shall not err in ranking among this number the Phaedo and Phaedrus, the
Banquet and the Philebus, and together with these the Sophista and
Politicus, the Cratylus and the Timaeus. For all these are full through
the whole of themselves, as I may say, of the divine science of Plato.
But I should place in the second rank after these, the fable in the
Gorgias, and that in the Protagoras, likewise the assertions about the
providence of the gods in the Laws, and such things as are delivered
about the Fates, or the mother of the Fates, or the circulations of the
universe, in the tenth book of the Republic. Again you may, if you
please, place in the third rank those Epistles through which we may be
able to arrive at the science about divine natures. For in these, mention
is made of the three kings; and many other divine dogmas worthy the
Platonic theory are delivered. It is necessary therefore, regarding
these, to explore in them each order of the gods.
Thus from the Philebus, we may receive the science respecting the one
good, and the two first principles of things (bound and infinity) together
with the triad subsisting from these. For you will find all these
distinctly delivered to us by Plato in that dialogue. But from the Timaeus
you may obtain the theory about intelligibles, a divine narration about the
demiurgic monad, and the most full truth about the mundane gods. From the
Phaedrus you may learn all the intelligible and intellectual genera, and
the liberated orders of the gods, which are proximately established above
the celestial circulations. From the Politicus you may obtain the theory of
the fabrication in the heavens, of the periods of the universe, and of the
intellectual causes of those periods. But from the Sophista you may learn
the whole sublunary generation, and the idiom of the gods who are allotted
the sublunary region, and preside over its generations and corruptions. And
with respect to each of the gods, we may obtain many sacred conceptions
from the Banquet, many from the Cratylus, and many from the Phaedo. For in
each of these dialogues more or less mention is made of divine names, from
which it is easy for those who are exorcised in divine concerns to discover
by a reasoning process the idioms of each.
"It is necessary, however, to evince that each of the dogmas accords with
Platonic principles and the mystic traditions of theologists. For all the
Grecian theology is the progeny of the mystic doctrine of Orpheus;
Pythagoras first of all learning from Aglaophemus the origins of the
gods, but Plato in the second place receiving an all-perfect science of
the divinities from the Pythagoric and Orphic writings. For in the
Philebus, referring the theory about the two forms of principles (bound
and infinity) to the Pythagoreans, he calls them men dwelling with the
gods, and truly blessed. Philolaus, therefore, the Pythagorean, has left
for us in writing admirable conceptions about these principles,
celebrating their common progression into beings, and their separate
fabrication. Again, in the Timaeus, endeavouring to teach us about the
sublunary gods and their order, Plato flies to theologists, calls them
the sons of the gods, and makes them the fathers of the truth about these
divinities. And lastly, he delivers the orders of the sublunary gods
proceeding from wholes, according to the progression delivered by
theologists of the intellectual kings. Further still, in the Cratylus he
follows the traditions of theologists respecting the order of the divine
processions. But in the Gorgias he adopts the Homeric dogma, respecting
the triadic hypostases of the demiurgi. And, in short, he every where
discourses concerning the gods agreeably to the principles of theologists;
rejecting indeed the tragical part of mythological fiction, but establishing
first hypotheses in common with the authors of fables.
"Perhaps, however, some one may here object to us, that we do not in a
proper manner exhibit the every where dispersed theology of Plato, and that
we endeavour to heap together different particulars from different
dialogues, as if we were studious of collecting many things into one
mixture, instead of deriving them all from one and the same fountain. For
if this were our intention, we might indeed refer different dogmas to
different treatises of Plato, but we shall by no means have a precedaneous
doctrine concerning the gods, nor will there be any dialogue which presents
us with an all-perfect and entire procession of the divine genera, and
their coordination with each other. But we shall be similar to those who
endeavor to obtain a whole from parts, through the want of a whole prior[9]
to parts, and to weave together the perfect, from things imperfect, when,
on the contrary, the imperfect ought to have the first cause of its
generation in the perfect. For the Timaeus, for instance, will teach us the
theory of the intelligible genera, and the Phaedrus appears to present us
with a regular account of the first intellectual orders. But where will be
the coordination of intellectuals to intelligibles? And what will be the
generation of second from first natures? In short, after what manner the
progression of the divine orders takes place from the one principle of all
things, and how in the generations of the gods, the orders between the one,
and all-perfect number, are filled up, we shall be unable to evince.
-----------------
[9] A whole prior to parts is that which causally contains parts in
itself. Such parts too, when they proceed from their occult causal
subsistence, and have a distinct being of their own, are nevertheless
comprehended, though in a different manner, in their producing whole.
-----------------
"Further still, it may be said, where will be the venerableness of your
boasted science about divine natures? For it is absurd to call these
dogmas, which are collected from many places, Platonic, and which, as you
acknowledge, are reduced from foreign names to the philosophy of Plato;
nor are you able to evince the whole entire truth about divine natures.
Perhaps, indeed, they will say that certain persons, junior to Plato,
have delivered in their writings, and left to their disciples, one
perfect form of philosophy. You, therefore, are able to produce one
entire theory about nature from the Timaeus; but from the Republic, or
Laws, the most beautiful dogmas about morals, and which tend to one form
of philosophy. Alone, therefore, neglecting the treatise of Plato, which
contains all the good of the first philosophy, and which may be called
the summit of the whole theory, you will be deprived of the most perfect
knowledge of beings, unless you are so much infatuated as to boast on
account of fabulous fictions, though an analysis of things of this kind
abounds with much of the probable, but not of the demonstrative. Besides,
things of this kind are only delivered adventitiously in the Platonic
dialogues; as the fable in the Protagoras, which is inserted for the sake
of the political science, and the demonstrations respecting it. In like
manner the fable in the Republic is inserted for the sake of justice; and
in the Gorgias for the sake of temperance. For Plato combines fabulous
narrations with investigations of ethical dogmas, not for the sake of the
fables, but for the sake of the leading design, that we may not only
exercise the intellectual part of the soul, through contending reasons,
but that the divine part of the soul may more perfectly receive the
knowledge of beings, through its sympathy with more mystic concerns.
For from other discourses we resemble those who are compelled to the
reception of truth; but from fables we are affected in an ineffable
manner, and call forth our unperverted conceptions, venerating the mystic
information which they contain.
"Hence, as it appears to me, Timaeus with great propriety thinks it fit
that we should produce the divine genera, following the inventors of
fables as sons of the gods, and subscribe to their always generating
secondary natures from such as are first, though they should speak
without demonstration. For this kind of discourse is not demonstrative,
but entheastic, or the progeny of divine inspiration; and was invented by
the ancients, not through necessity, but for the sake of persuasion, not
regarding naked discipline, but sympathy with things themselves. But if
you are willing to speculate not only the causes of fables, but of other
theological dogmas, you will find that some of them are scattered in the
Platonic dialogues for the sake of ethical, and others for the sake of
physical considerations. For in the Philebus, Plato discourses concerning
bound and infinity, for the sake of pleasure, and a life according to
intellect. For I think the latter are species of the former. In the
Timaeus the discourse about the intelligible gods is assumed for the sake
of the proposed physiology. On which account, it is every where necessary
that images should be known from paradigms, but that the paradigms of
material things should be immaterial, of sensibles, intelligible, and of
physical forms, separate from nature. But in the Phaedrus, Plato
celebrates the supercelestial place, the subcelestial profundity, and
every genus under this for the sake of amatory mania; the manner in which
the reminiscence of souls takes place; and the passage to these from
hence. Every where, however, the leading end, as I may say, is either
physical or political, while the conceptions about divine natures are
introduced either for the sake of invention or perfection. How, therefore,
can such a theory as yours be any longer venerable and supernatural, and
worthy to be studied beyond every thing, when it is neither able to
evince the whole in itself, nor the perfect, nor that which is
precedaneous in the writings of Plato, but is destitute of all these, is
violent and not spontaneous, and does not possess a genuine, but an
adventitious order, as in a drama? And such are the particulars which may
be urged against our design.
"To this objection I shall make a just and perspicuous reply. I say then
that Plato every where discourses about the gods agreeably to ancient
opinions and the nature of things. And sometimes indeed, for the sake of
the cause of the things proposed, he reduces them to the principles of
the dogmas, and thence, as from an exalted place of survey, contemplates
the nature of the thing proposed. But some times he establishes the
theological science as the leading end. For in the Phaedrus, his subject
respects intelligible beauty, and the participation of beauty pervading
thence through all things; and in the Banquet it respects the amatory
order.
"But if it be necessary to consider, in one Platonic dialogue, the
all-perfect, whole and connected, extending as far as to the complete
number of theology, I shall perhaps assert a paradox, and which will
alone be apparent to our familiars. We ought however to dare, since we
have begun the assertion, and affirm against our opponents, that the
Parmenides, and the mystic conceptions of this dialogue, will accomplish
all you desire. For in this dialogue, all the divine genera proceed in
order from the first cause, and evince their mutual suspension from each
other. And those indeed which are highest, connate with the one, and of
a primary nature, are allotted a form of subsistence, characterized by
unity, occult and simple; but such as are last are multiplied, are
distributed into many parts, and excel in number, but are inferior in
power to such as are of a higher order; and such as are middle, according
to a convenient proportion, are more composite than their causes, but
more simple than their proper progeny. And, in short, all the axioms of
the theological science appear in perfection in this dialogue; and all
the divine orders are exhibited subsisting in connection. So that this
is nothing else than the celebrated generation of the gods, and the
procession of every kind of being from the ineffable and unknown cause of
wholes.[10] The Parmenides therefore, enkindles in the lovers of Plato
the whole and perfect light of the theological science. But after this,
the aforementioned dialogues distribute parts of the mystic discipline
about the gods, and all of them, as I may say, participate of divine
wisdom, and excite our spontaneous conceptions respecting a divine nature.
------------------
[10] The principle of all things is celebrated by Platonic philosophy as
the cause of wholes, because through transcendency of power he first
produces those powers in the universe which rank as wholes, and afterward
those which rank as parts through these. Agreeably to this Jupiter, the
artificer of the universe, is almost always called [Greek: demiourgos ton
olon], the demiurgus of wholes. See the Timaeus, and the Introduction to it.
------------------
And it is necessary to refer all the parts of this mystic discipline to
these dialogues, and these again to the one and all perfect theory of the
Parmenides. For thus, as it appears to me, we shall suspend the more
imperfect from the perfect, and parts from wholes, and shall exhibit
reasons assimilated to things of which, according to the Platonic Timaeus,
they are interpreters. Such then is our answer to the objection which may
be urged against us; and thus we refer the Platonic theory to the
Parmenides; just as the Timaeus is acknowledged by all who have the least
degree of intelligence to contain the whole science about nature."
All that is here asserted by Proclus will be immediately admitted by the
reader who understands the outlines which we have here given of the
theology of Plato, and who is besides this a complete master of the
mystic meaning of the Parmenides; which I trust he will find sufficiently
unfolded, through the assistance of Proclus, in the introduction and
notes to that dialogue.
The next important Platonic dogma in order, is that doctrine concerning
ideas, about which the reader will find so much said in the notes on the
Parmenides, that but little remains to be added here. That little however
is as follows: The divine Pythagoras, and all those who have legitimately
received his doctrines, among whom Plato holds the most distinguished
rank, asserted that there are many orders of beings, viz. intelligible,
intellectual, dianoetic, physical, or in short, vital and corporeal
essences. For the progression of things, the subjection which naturally
subsists together with such progression, and the power of diversity in
coordinate genera give subsistence to all the multitude of corporeal and
incorporeal natures. They said, therefore, that there are three orders in
the whole extent of beings; viz. the intelligible, the dianoetic, and the
sensible; and that in each of these ideas subsist, characterized by the
respective essential properties of the natures by which they are
contained. And with respect to intelligible ideas, these they placed
among divine natures, together with the producing, paradigmatic, and
final causes of things in a consequent order. For if these three causes
sometimes concur, and are united among themselves, (which Aristotle says
is the case), without doubt this will not happen in the lowest works of
nature, but in the first and most excellent causes of all things, which
on account of their exuberant fecundity have a power generative of all
things, and from their converting and rendering similar to themselves the
natures which they have generated, are the paradigms, or exemplars of all
things. But as these divine causes act for their own sake, and on account
of their own goodness, do they not exhibit the final cause? Since
therefore intelligible forms are of this kind, and are the leaders of so
much good to wholes, they give completion to the divine orders, though
they largely subsist about the intelligible order contained in the
artificer of the universe. But dianoetic forms or ideas imitate the
intellectual, which have a prior subsistence, render the order of soul
similar to the intellectual order, and comprehend all things in a
secondary degree.
These forms beheld in divine natures possess a fabricative power, but
with us they are only gnostic, and no longer demiurgic, through the
defluxion of our wings, or degradation of our intellectual powers. For,
as Plato says in the Phaedrus, when the winged powers of the soul are
perfect and plumed for flight, she dwells on high, and in conjunction
with divine natures governs the world. In the Timaeus, he manifestly
asserts that the demiurgus implanted these dianoetic forms in souls, in
geometric, arithmetic, and harmonic proportions: but in his Republic (in
the section of a line in the 6th book) he calls them images of
intelligibles; and on this account does not for the most part disdain to
denominate them intellectual, as being the exemplars of sensible natures.
In the Phaedo he says that these are the causes to us of reminiscence;
because disciplines are nothing else than reminiscences of middle
dianoetic forms, from which the productive powers of nature being derived
and inspired, give birth to all the mundane phenomena.
Plato however did not consider things definable, or in modern language
abstract ideas, as the only universals, but prior to these he established
those principles productive of science which essentially reside in the
soul, as is evident from his Phaedrus and Phaedo. In the 10th book of the
Republic too, he venerates those separate forms which subsist in a divine
intellect. In the Phaedrus, he asserts that souls elevated to the
supercelestial place, behold Justice herself, temperance herself, and
science herself; and lastly in the Phaedo he evinces the immortality of
the soul from the hypothesis of separate forms.
Syrianus[11], in his commentary on the 13th book of Aristotle's
Metaphysics, shows in defense of Socrates, Plato, the Parmenideans,
and Pythagoreans, that ideas were not introduced by these divine men
according to the usual meaning of names, as was the opinion of Chrysippus,
Archedemus, and many of the junior Stoics; for ideas are distinguished by
many differences from things which are denominated from custom. Nor do
they subsist, says he, together with intellect, in the same manner as
those slender conceptions which are denominated universals abstracted
from sensibles, according to the hypothesis of Longinus:[12] for if that
which subsists is unsubstantial, it cannot be consubsistent with intellect.
-----------------
[11] See my translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics, p. 347. If the reader
conjoins what is said concerning ideas in the notes on that work, with
the introduction and notes to the Parmenides in this, he will be in
possession of nearly all that is to be found in the writings of the
ancients on this subject.
[12] It appears from this passage of Syrianus that Longinus was the
original inventor of the theory of abstract ideas; and that Mr. Locke was
merely the restorer of it.
-----------------
Nor are ideas according to these men notions, as Cleanthes afterwards
asserted them to be. Nor is idea definite reason, nor material form; for
these subsist in composition and division, and verge to matter. But ideas
are perfect, simple, immaterial, and impartible natures. And what wonder
is there, says Syrianus, if we should separate things which are so much
distant from each other? Since neither do we imitate in this particular
Plutarch, Atticus, and Democritus, who, because universal reasons
perpetually subsist in the essence of the soul, were of opinion that these
reasons are ideas: for though they separate them from the universal in
sensible natures, yet it is not proper to conjoin in one and the same the
reason of soul, and an intellect such as ours, with paradigmatic and
immaterial forms, and demiurgic intellections. But as the divine Plato
says, it is the province of our soul to collect things into one by a
reasoning process, and to possess a reminiscence of those transcendent
spectacles, which we once beheld when governing the universe in conjunction
with divinity. Boethus,[13] the peripatetic too, with whom it is proper to
join Cornutus; thought that ideas are the same with universals in sensible
natures. However, whether these universals are prior to particulars, they
are not prior in such a manner as to be denudated from the habitude which
they possess with respect to them, nor do they subsist as the causes of
particulars; both which are the prerogatives of ideas; or whether they are
posterior to particulars, as many are accustomed to call them, how can
things of posterior origin, which have no essential subsistence, but are
nothing more than slender conceptions, sustain the dignity of fabricative
ideas?
-------------------
[13] This was a Greek philosopher, who is often cited by Simplicius in
his Commentary on the Predicaments, and must not therefore be confounded
with Boetius, the roman senator and philosopher.
-------------------
In what manner then, says Syrianus, do ideas subsist according to the
contemplative lovers of truth? We reply, intelligibly and tetradically
([Greek: noeros kai tetradikos]), in animal itself ([Greek: en to
antozoo]), or the extremity of the intelligible order; but intellectually
and decadically ([Greek: noeros kai dekadikos]), in the intellect of the
artificer of the universe; for, according to the Pythagoric Hymn, "Divine
number proceeds from the retreats of the undecaying monad, till it arrives
at the divine tetrad which produced the mother of all things, the universal
recipient, venerable, circularly investing all things with bound, immovable
and unwearied, and which is denominated the sacred decad, both by the
immortal gods and earth-born men."
[Greek:
Proeisi gar o Theios arithmos, os phesin o Pythagoreios eis auton
umnos,
Monados ek keuthmonos akeralou esti'an iketai
Tetrada epi zatheen, he de teke metera panton,
Pandechea, presbeiran, oron peri pasi titheiran,
Atropon, akamatou, dekada kleiousi min agnen,
Athanatoi to theoi kai gegeneeis anthropoi.]
And such is the mode of their subsistence according to Orpheus,
Pythagoras and Plato. Or if it be requisite to speak in more familiar
language, an intellect sufficient to itself, and which is a most perfect
cause, presides over the wholes of the universe, and through these
governs all its parts; but at the same time that it fabricates all
mundane natures, and benefits them by its providential energies, it
preserves its own most divine and immaculate purity; and while it
illuminates all things, is not mingled with the natures which it
illuminates. This intellect, therefore, comprehending in the depths of
its essence an ideal world, replete with all various forms, excludes
privation of cause and casual subsistence, from its energy. But as it
imparts every good and all possible beauty to its fabrications, it
converts the universe to itself, and renders it similar to its own
omniform nature. Its energy, too, is such as its intellection; but it
understands all things, since it is most perfect. Hence there is not any
thing which ranks among true beings, that is not comprehended in the
essence of intellect; but it always establishes in itself ideas, which
are not different from itself and its essence, but give completion to it,
and introduce to the whole of things, a cause which is at the same time
productive, paradigmatic, and final. For it energizes as intellect, and
the ideas which it contains are paradigmatic, as being forms; and they
energize from themselves, and according to their own exuberant goodness.
And such are the Platonic dogmas concerning ideas, which sophistry and
ignorance may indeed oppose, but will never be able to confute.
From this intelligible world, replete with omniform ideas, this sensible
world, according to Plato, perpetually flows, depending on its artificer
intellect, in the same manner as shadow on its forming substance. For as
a deity of an intellectual characteristic is its fabricator, and both the
essence and energy of intellect are established in eternity the sensible
universe, which is the effect or production of such an energy, must be
consubsistent with its cause, or in other words, must be a perpetual
emanation from it. This will be evident from considering that every thing
which is generated, is either generated by art or by nature, or according
to power. It is necessary, therefore, that every thing operating
according to nature or art should be prior to the things produced; but
that things operating according to power should have their productions
coexistent with themselves; just as the sun produces light coexistent
with itself; fire, heat; and snow, coldness. If therefore the artificer
of the universe produced it by art, he would not cause it simply to be,
but to be in some particular manner; for all art produces form. Whence
therefore does the world derive its being? If he produced it from nature,
since that which makes by nature imparts something of itself to its
productions, and the maker of the world is incorporeal, it would be
necessary that the world, the offspring of such an energy, should be
incorporeal. It remains therefore, that the demiurgus produced the
universe by power alone; but every thing generated by power subsists
together with the cause containing this power: and hence production of
this kind cannot be destroyed unless the producing cause is deprived of
power. The divine intellect therefore that produced the sensible universe
caused it to be coexistent with himself.
This world thus depending on its divine artificer, who is himself an
intelligible world replete with the archetypal ideas of all things,
considered according to its corporeal nature, is perpetually flowing, and
perpetually advancing to being (en to gignesthai), and compared with its
paradigm, has no stability or reality of being. However, considered as
animated by a divine soul, and as receiving the illuminations of all the
supermundane gods, and being itself the receptacle of divinities from
whom bodies are suspended, it is said by Plato in the Timaeus to be a
blessed god. The great body of this world too, which subsists in a
perpetual dispersion of temporal extension, may be properly called a
whole with a total subsistence, on account of the perpetuity of its
duration, though this is nothing more than a flowing eternity. And hence
Plato calls it a whole of wholes; by the other wholes which are
comprehended in its meaning, the celestial spheres, the sphere of fire,
the whole of air considered as one great orb; the whole earth, and the
whole sea. These spheres, which are called by Platonic writers parts with
a total subsistence, are considered by Plato as aggoregately perpetual.
For if the body of this world is perpetual, this also must be the case
with its larger parts, on account of their exquisite alliance to it, and
in order that wholes with a partial subsistence, such as all individuals,
may rank in the last gradation of things.
As the world too, considered as one great comprehending whole, is called
by Plato a divine animal, so likewise every whole which it contains is a
world, possessing in the first place, a self-perfect unity; proceeding
from the ineffable, by which it becomes a god; in the second place, a
divine intellect; in the third place, a divine soul; and in the last
place, a deified body. Hence each of these wholes is the producing cause
of all the multitude which it contains, and on this account is said to be
a whole prior to parts; because, considered as possessing an eternal form
which holds all its parts together, and gives to the whole perpetuity of
subsistence, it is not indigent of such parts to the perfection of its
being. That these wholes which rank thus high in the universe are
animated, must follow by a geometrical necessity. For, as Theophrastus
well observes, wholes would possess less authority than parts, and things
eternal than such as are corruptible, if deprived of the possession
of soul.
And now having with venturous, yet unpresuming wing, ascended to the
ineffable principle of things, and standing with every eye closed in the
vestibules of the adytum, found that we could announce nothing concerning
him, but only indicate our doubts and disappointment, and having thence
descended to his occult and most venerable progeny, and passing through
the luminous world of ideas, holding fast by the golden chain of deity,
terminated our downward flight in the material universe, and its
undecaying wholes, let us stop awhile and contemplate the sublimity and
magnificence of the scene which this journey presents to our view. Here
then we see the vast empire of deity, an empire terminated upwards by a
principle so ineffable that all language is subverted about it, and
downwards, by the vast body of the world. Immediately subsisting after
this immense unknown we in the next place behold a mighty all-
comprehending one, which as being next to that which is in every
respect incomprehensible, possesses much of the ineffable and unknown.
From this principle of principles, in which all things casually subsist
absorbed in superessential light and involved in unfathomable depths, we
view a beauteous progeny of principles, all largely partaking of the
ineffable, all stamped with the occult characters of deity, all
possessing an over-flowing fullness of good. From these dazzling summits,
these ineffable blossoms, these divine propagations, we next see being,
life, intellect, soul, nature and body depending; monads suspended from
unities, deified natures proceeding from deities. Each of these monads
too, is the leader of a series which extends from itself to the last of
things, and which while it proceeds from, at the same time abides in, and
returns to its leader. And all these principles and all their progeny are
finally centred, and rooted by their summits in the first great all-
comprehending one. Thus all beings proceed from, and are comprehended
in the first being; all intellects emanate from one first intellect; all
souls from one first soul; all natures blossom from one first nature; and
all bodies proceed from the vital and luminous body of the world. And
lastly, all these great monads are comprehended in the first one, from
which both they and all their depending series are unfolded into light.
Hence this first one is truly the unity of unities, the monad of monads,
the principle of principles, the God of gods, one and all things, and yet
one prior to all.
Such, according to Plato, are the flights of the true philosopher, such
the August and magnificent scene which presents itself to his view. By
ascending these luminous heights, the spontaneous tendencies of the soul
to deity alone find the adequate object of their desire; investigation
here alone finally reposes, doubt expires in certainty, and knowledge
loses itself in the ineffable.
And here perhaps some grave objector, whose little soul is indeed acute,
but sees nothing with a vision healthy and sound, will say that all this
is very magnificent, but that it is soaring too high for man; that it is
merely the effect of spiritual pride; that no truths, either in morality
or theology, are of any importance which are not adapted to the level of
the meanest capacity; and that all that it is necessary for man to know
concerning either God or himself is so plain, that he that runs may read.
In answer to such like cant, for it is nothing more,--a cant produced by
the most profound ignorance, and frequently attended with the most
deplorable envy, I ask, is then the Delphic precept, KNOW THYSELF, a
trivial mandate? Can this be accomplished by every man? Or can any one
properly know himself without knowing the rank he holds in the scale of
being? And can this be effected without knowing what are the natures
which he surpasses, and what those are by which he is surpassed? And can
he know this without knowing as much of those natures as it is possible
for him to know? And will the objector be hardy enough to say that every
man is equal to this arduous task? That he who rushes from the forge, or
the mines, with a soul distorted, crushed and bruised by base mechanical
arts, and madly presumes to teach theology to a deluded audience, is
master of this sublime, this most important science? For my own part I
know of no truths which are thus obvious, thus accessible to every man,
but axioms, those self-evident principles of science which are
conspicuous by their own light, which are the spontaneous unperverted
conceptions of the soul, and to which he who does not assent deserves, as
Aristotle justly remarks, either pity or correction. In short, if this is
to be the criterion of all moral and theological knowledge, that it must
be immediately obvious to every man, that it is to be apprehended by the
most careless inspection, what occasion is there for seminaries of
learning? Education is ridiculous, the toil of investigation is idle. Let
us at once confine Wisdom in the dungeons of Folly, recall Ignorance from
her barbarous wilds, and close the gates of Science with
everlasting bars.
Having thus taken a general survey of the great world, and descended from
the intelligible to the sensible universe, let us still, adhering to that
golden chain which is bound round the summit of Olympus, and from which
all things are suspended, descend to the microcosm man. For man
comprehends in himself partially everything which the world contains
divinely and totally. Hence, according to Pluto, he is endued with an
intellect subsisting in energy, and a rational soul proceeding from the
same father and vivific goddess as were the causes of the intellect and
soul of the universe. He has likewise an ethereal vehicle analogous to
the heavens, and a terrestrial body, composed from the four elements, and
with which also it is coordinate.
With respect to his rational part, for in this the essence of man
consists, we have already shown that it is of a self-motive nature, and
that it subsists between intellect, which is immovable both in essence
and energy, and nature, which both moves and is moved. In consequence of
this middle subsistence, the mundane soul, from which all partial souls
are derived, is said by Plato in the Timaeus, to be a medium between that
which is indivisible and that which is divisible about bodies, i.e. the
mundane soul is a medium between the mundane intellect, and the whole of
that corporeal life which the world participates. In like manner, the
human soul is a medium between a daemoniacal intellect proximately,
established above our essence, which it also elevates and perfects, and
that corporeal life which is distributed about our body, and which is
the cause of its generation, nutrition and increase. This daemoniacal
intellect is called by Plato, in the Phaedrus, theoretic and, the
governor of the soul. The highest part therefore of the human soul is the
summit of the dianoetic power ([Greek: to akrotaton tes dianoias]), or
that power which reasons scientifically; and this summit is our intellect.
As, however, our very essence is characterized by reason, this our summit
is rational, and though it subsists in energy, yet it has a remitted union
with things themselves. Though too it energizes from itself, and contains
intelligibles in its essence, yet from its alliance to the discursive
nature of soul, and its inclination to that which is divisible, it falls
short of the perfection of an intellectual essence and energy profoundly
indivisible and united, and the intelligibles which it contains degenerate
from the transcendently fulged and self-luminous nature of first
intelligibles. Hence, in obtaining a perfectly indivisible knowledge, it
requires to be perfected by an intellect whose energy is ever vigilant
and unremitted; and it's intelligibles, that they may become perfect,
are indigent of the light which proceeds from separate intelligibles.
Aristotle, therefore, very properly compares the intelligibles of our
intellect to colors, because these require the splendour of the sun, and
denominates an intellect of this kind, intellect in capacity, both on
account of its subordination to an essential intellect, and because it is
from a separate intellect that it receives the full perfection of its
nature. The middle part of the rational soul is called by Plato, dianoia,
and is that power which, as we have already said, reasons scientifically,
deriving the principles of its reasoning, which are axioms from intellect.
And the extremity of the rational soul is opinion, which in his Sophista
he defines to be that power which knows the conclusion of dianoia. This
power also knows the universal in sensible particulars, as that every man
is a biped, but it knows only the oti, or that a thing is, but is ignorant
of the dioti, or why it is: knowledge of the latter kind being the province
of the dianoetic power.
And such is Plato's division of the rational part of our nature, which he
very justly considers as the true man; the essence of every thing
consisting in its most excellent part.
After this follows the irrational nature, the summit of which is the
phantasy, or that power which perceives every thing accompanied with
figure and interval; and on this account it may be called a figured
intelligence ([Greek: morphotike noesis]). This power, as Jamblichus
beautifully observes, groups upon, as it were, and fashions all the
powers of the soul; exciting in opinion the illuminations from the
senses, and fixing in that life which is extended with body, the
impressions which descend from intellect. Hence, slays Proclus, it folds
itself about the indivisibility of true intellect, conforms itself to all
formless species, and becomes perfectly every thing, from which the
dianoetic power and our indivisible reason consists. Hence too, it is all
things passively which intellect is impassively, and on this account
Aristotle calls it passive intellect. Under this subsist anger and
desire, the former resembling a raging lion, and the latter a many-headed
beast; and the whole is bounded by sense, which is nothing more than a
passive perception of things, and on this account is justly said by
Plato, to be rather passion than knowledge; since the former of these is
characterized by alertness, and the latter by energy.
Further still, in order that the union of the soul with this gross
terrestrial body may be effected in a becoming manner, two vehicles,
according to Plato, are necessary as media, one of which is ethereal, and
the other aerial, and of these, the ethereal vehicle is simple and
immaterial, but the aerial, simple and material; and this dense earthly
body is composite and material.
The soul thus subsisting as a medium between natures impartible
and such as are divided about bodies, it produces and constitutes the
latter of these; but establishes in itself the prior causes from which it
proceeds. Hence it previously receives, after the manner of an exemplar,
the natures to which it is prior as their cause; but it possesses through
participation, and as the blossoms of first natures, the causes of its
subsistence. Hence it contains in its essence immaterial forms of things
material, incorporeal of such as are corporeal, and extended of such as
are distinguished by interval. But it contains intelligibles after the
manner of an image, and receives partibly their impartible forms, such
as are uniform variously, and such as are immovable, according to a
self-motive condition. Soul therefore is all things, and is elegantly
said by Olympiodorus to be an omniform statue ([Greek: pammorphon
agalma]): for it contains such things as are first through participation,
but such as are posterior to its nature, after the manner of an exemplar.
As, too, it is always moved; and this always is not eternal, but
temporal, for that which is properly eternal, and such is intellect, is
perfectly stable, and has no transitive energies, hence it is necessary
that its motions should be periodic. For motion is a certain mutation
from some things into others. And beings are terminated by multitudes and
magnitudes. These therefore being terminated, there can neither be an
infinite mutation, according to a right line, nor can that which is
always moved proceed according to a finished progression. Hence that
which is always moved will proceed from the same to the same; and will
thus form a periodic motion. Hence, too, the human, and this also is true
of every mundane soul, uses periods and restitutions of its proper life.
For, in consequence of being measured by time, it energizes transitively,
and possesses a proper motion. But every thing which is moved perpetually
and participates of time, revolves periodically and proceeds from the
same to the same. And hence the soul, from possessing motion, and
energizing according to time, will both possess periods of motion and
restitutions to its pristine state.
Again, as the human soul, according to Plato, ranks among the number of
those souls that sometimes follow the mundane divinities, in consequence
of subsisting immediately after daemons and heroes, the perpetual
attendants of the gods, hence it possesses a power of descending
infinitely into generation, or the sublunary region, and of ascending
from generation to real being. For since it does not reside with divinity
through an infinite time, neither will it be conversant with bodies
through the whole succeeding time. For that which has no temporal
beginning, both according to Plato and Aristotle, cannot have an end; and
that which has no end, is necessarily without a beginning. It remains,
therefore, that every soul must perform periods, both of ascensions from
generation, and of descensions into generation; and that this will never
fail, through an infinite time.
From all this it follows that the soul, while an inhabitant of earth, is
in a fallen condition, an apostate from deity, an exile from the orb of
light. Hence Plato, in the 7th book of his Republic, considering our life
with reference to erudition and the want of it, assimilates us to men in
a subterranean cavern, who have been there confined from their childhood,
and so fettered by chains as to be only able to look before them to the
entrance of the cave which expands to the light, but incapable through
the chain of turning themselves round. He supposes too, that they have
the light of a fire burning far above and behind them; and that between
the fire and the fettered men, there is a road above, along which a low
wall is built. On this wall are seen men bearing utensils of every kind,
and statues in wood and stone of men and other animals. And of these men
some are speaking and others silent. With respect to the fettered men in
this cave, they see nothing of themselves or another, or of what is
carrying along, but the shadows formed by the fire falling on the
opposite part of tho cave. He supposes too, that the opposite part of
this prison has an echo; and that in consequence of this the fettered
men, when they hear any one speak, will imagine that it is nothing else
than the passing shadow.
Here, in the first place, as we have observed in the notes on that book,
the road above between the fire and the fettered men, indicates that
there is a certain ascent in the cave itself from a more abject to a more
elevated life. By this ascent, therefore Plato signifies the contemplation
of dianoetic objects in the mathematical disciplines. For as the shadows
in the cave correspond to the shadows of visible objects, and visible
objects are the immediate images of dianoetic forms, or those ideas which
the soul essentially participates, it is evident that the objects from
which these shadows are formed must correspond to such as are dianoetic.
It is requisite, therefore, that the dianoetic power exercising itself in
these, should draw forth the principles of these from their latent
retreats, and should contemplate them not in images, but as subsisting in
herself in impartible involution.
In the next place he says, "that the man who is to be led from the cave
will more easily see what the heavens contain, and the heavens
themselves, by looking in the night to the light of the stars, and the
moon, than by day looking on the sun, and the light of the sun." By this
he signifies the contemplation of intelligibles: for the stars and their
light are imitations of intelligibles, so far as all of them partake of
the form of the sun, in the same manner as intelligibles are
characterized by the nature of the good.
After the contemplation of these, and after the eye is accustomed through
these to the light, as it is requisite in the visible region to see the
sun himself in the last place, in like manner, according to Plato, the
idea of the good must be seen the last in the intelligible region. He,
likewise divinely adds, that it is scarcely to be seen; for we can only
be conjoined with it through the intelligible, in the vestibule of which
it is beheld by the ascending soul.
In short, the cold, according to Plato, can only be restored while on
earth to the divine likeness, which she abandoned by her descent, and be
able after death to reascend to the intelligible world, by the exercise
of the cathartic and theoretic virtues; the former purifying her from the
defilements of a mortal nature, and the latter elevating her to the
vision of true being: for thus, as Plato says in the Timaeus, "the soul
becoming sane and entire, will arrive at the form of her pristine habit."
The cathartic, however, must necessarily precede the theoretic virtues;
since it is impossible to survey truth while subject to the perturbation
and tumult of the passions. For the rational soul subsisting as a medium
between intellect and the irrational nature, can then only without
revulsion associate with the intellect prior to herself, when she becomes
pure from copassivity with inferior natures. By the cathartic virtues,
therefore, we become sane, in consequence of being liberated from the
passions as diseases; but we become entire by the reassumption of
intellect and science as of our proper parts; and this is effected by
contemplative truth. Plato also clearly teaches us that our apostacy from
better natures is only to be healed by a flight from hence, when he
defines in his Theaetetus philosophy to be a flight from terrestrial
evils: for he evinces by this that passions are connascent with mortals
alone. He likewise says in the same dialogue, "that neither can evil
be abolished, nor yet do they subsist with the gods, but that they
necessarily revolve about this terrene abode, and a mortal nature." For
those who are obnoxious to generation and corruption can also be affected
in a manner contrary to nature, which is the beginning of evils. But in
the same dialogue he subjoins the mode by which our flight from evil
is to be accomplished. "It is necessary," says he "to fly from hence
thither: but the flight is a similitude to divinity, as far as is
possible to man; and this similitude consists in becoming just and holy
in conjunction with intellectual prudence." For it is necessary that he
who wishes to run from evils, should in the first place turn away from a
mortal nature; since it is not possible for those who are mingled with it
to avoid being filled with its attendant evils. As therefore, through our
flight from divinity, and the defluction of those wings which elevate us
on high, we fell into this mortal abode, and thus became connected with
evils, so by abandoning passivity with a mortal nature, and by the
germination of the virtues, as of certain wings, we return to the abode
of pure and true good, and to the possession of divine felicity. For the
essence of many subsisting as a medium between daemoniacal natures, who
always have an intellectual knowledge of divinity, and those beings who
are never adapted by nature to understand him, it ascends to the former
and descends to the latter, through the possession and desertion of
intellect. For it becomes familiar both with the divine and brutal
likeness, through the amphibious condition of its nature.
When the soul therefore has recovered her pristine perfection in as great
a degree as is possible, while she is an inhabitant of earth by the
exercise of the cathartic and theoretic virtues, she returns after death,
as he says in the Timaeus, to her kindred star, from which she fell, and
enjoys a blessed life. Then, too, as he says in the Phaedrus, being
winged, she governs the world in conjunction with the gods. And this
indeed is the most beautiful end of her labors. This is what he calls in
the Phaedo, a great contest and a mighty hope. This is the most perfect
fruit of philosophy to familiarize and lead her back to things truly
beautiful, to liberate her from this terrene abode as from a certain
subterranean cavern of material life, elevate her to ethereal splendors,
and place her in the islands of the blessed.
From this account of the human soul, that most important Platonic dogma
necessarily follows, that our soul essentially contains all knowledge,
and that whatever knowledge she acquires in the present life, is in
reality nothing more than a recovery of what a he once possessed. This
recovery is very properly called by Plato reminiscence, not as being
attended with actual recollection in the present life, but as being an
actual repossession of what the soul had lost through her oblivious union
with the body. Alluding to this essential knowledge of the soul, which
discipline evocates from its dormant retreats, Plato says in the
Sophista, "that we know all things as in a dream, and are again ignorant
of them, according to vigilant perception." Hence too, as Proclus well
observes, it is evident that the soul does not collect her knowledge from
sensibles, nor from things partial and divisible discover the whole and
the one. For it is not proper to think that things which have in no
respect a real subsistence, should be the leading causes of knowledge to
the soul; and that things which oppose each other and are ambiguous,
should precede science which has a sameness of subsistence; nor that
things which are variously mutable, should be generative of reasons which
are established in unity; nor that things indefinite should be the causes
of definite intelligence. It is not fit, therefore, that the truth of
things eternal should be received from the many, nor the discrimination
of universals from sensibles, nor a judgment respecting what is good from
irrational natures; but it is requisite that the soul entering within
herself, should investigate herself the true and the good, and the
eternal reasons of things.
We have said that discipline awakens the dormant knowledge of
the soul; and Plato considered this as particularly effected by the
mathematical discipline. Hence, he asserts of theoretic arithmetic that
it imparts no small aid to our ascent to real being, and that it
liberates us from the wandering and ignorance about a sensible nature.
Geometry too is considered by him as most instrumental to the knowledge
of the good, when it is not pursued for the sake of practical purposes,
but as the means of ascent to an intelligible essence. Astronomy also is
useful for the purpose of investigating the fabricator of all things,
and contemplating as in most splendid images the ideal world, and its
ineffable cause. And lastly music, when properly studied, is subservient
to our ascent, viz. when from sensible we betake ourselves to the
contemplation of ideal and divine harmony. Unless, however, we thus
employ the mathematical discipline, the study of them is justly
considered by Plato as imperfect and useless, and of no worth. For as
the true end of man according to his philosophy is an assimilation to
divinity, in the greatest perfection of which human nature is capable,
whatever contributes to this is to be ardently pursued; but whatever has
a different tendency, however necessary it may be to the wants and
conveniences of the mere animal life, is comparatively little and vile.
Hence it necessary to pass rapidly from things visible and audible, to
those which are alone seen by the eye of intellect. For the mathematical
sciences, when properly studied, move the inherent knowledge of the soul;
awaken its intelligence; purify its dianoetic power; call forth its
essential forms from their dormant retreats; remove that oblivion and
ignorance which are congenial with our birth; and dissolve the bonds
arising from our union with an irrational nature. It is therefore
beautifully said by Plato in the 7th book of his Republic, "that the soul
through these disciplines has an organ purified and enlightened, which is
blinded and buried by studies of a different kind, an organ better worth
saving than ten thousand eyes, since truth becomes visible through this
alone."
Dialectic, however, or the vertex of the mathematical sciences,
as it is called by Plato in his Republic, is that master discipline which
particularly leads us up to an intelligible essence. Of this first of
sciences, which is essentially different from vulgar logic, and is the
same with what Aristotle calls the first philosophy and wisdom, I have
largely spoken in the introduction and notes to the Parmenides. Suffice
it therefore to observe in this place, that dialectic differs from
mathematical science in this, that the latter flows from, and the former
is void of hypothesis. That dialectic has a power of knowing universals;
that it ascends to good and the supreme cause of all; and, that it
considers good as the end of its elevation; but that the mathematical
science, which previously fabricates for itself definite principles, from
which it evinces things consequent to such principles, does not tend to
the principle, but to the conclusion. Hence Plato does not expel
mathematical knowledge from the number of the sciences, but asserts it to
be the next in rank to that one science which is the summit of all; nor
does he accuse it as ignorant of its own principles, but considers it as
receiving these from the master science dialectic, and that possessing
them without any demonstration, it demonstrates from these its consequent
propositions.
Hence Socrates, in the Republic, speaking of the power of dialectic,
says that it surrounds all disciplines like a defensive enclosure, and
elevates those that use it to the good itself, and the first unities;
that it purifies the eye of the soul; establishes itself in true beings,
and, the one principle of all things, and ends at last in that which is
no longer hypothetical. The power of dialectic, therefore, being thus
great, and the ends of this path so mighty, it must by no means be
confounded with arguments which are alone conversant with opinion: for
the former is the guardian of sciences, and the passage to it is through
these, but the latter is perfectly destitute of disciplinative science.
To which we may add, that the method of reasoning which is founded in
opinion, regards only that which is apparent; but the dialectic method
endeavors to arrive at the one itself, always employing for this purpose
steps of ascent, and at last beautifully ends in the nature of the good.
Very different therefore is it from the merely logical method, which
presides over the demonstrative phantasy, is of a secondary nature, and
is alone pleased with contentious discussions. For the dialectic of Plato
for the most part employs divisions and analyses as primary sciences, and
as imitating the progression of beings from the one, and their conversion
to it again. It likewise sometimes uses definitions and demonstrations,
and prior to these the definitive method, and the divisive prior to this.
On the contrary, the merely logical method, which is solely conversant
with opinion, is deprived of the incontrovertible reasonings of
demonstration.
The following is a specimen of the analytical method of Plato's dialectic.
Of analysis there are three species. For one is an ascent from sensibles
to the first intelligibles; a second is an ascent through things
demonstrated and subdemonstrated, to undemonstrated and immediate
propositions; and a third proceeds from hypothesis to unhypothetical
principles. Of the first of these species, Plato has given a most
admirable specimen in the speech of Diotima in the Banquet. For there he
ascends from the beauty about bodies to the beauty in souls; from this to
the beauty in right disciplines; from this again to the beauty in laws;
from the beauty in laws to the ample sea of beauty (Greek: to polu pelagos
tou kalou); and thus proceeding he at length arrives at the beautiful
itself.
The second species of analysis is as follows: It is necessary to make the
thing investigated the subject of hypothesis; to survey such things as
are prior to it; and to demonstrate these from things posterior,
ascending to such as are prior, till we arrive at the first thing and to
which we give our assent. But beginning from this, we descend
synthetically to the thing investigated. Of this species, the following
is an example from the Phaedrus of Plato. It is inquired if the soul is
immortal; and this being hypothetically admitted, it is inquired in the
next place if it is always moved. This being demonstrated, the next
inquiry is if that which is always moved, is self-moved; and this again
being demonstrated, it is considered whether that which is self-moved is
the principle of motion, and afterwards if the principle is unbegotten.
This then being admitted as a thing acknowledged, and likewise that what
is begotten is incorruptible, the demonstration of the thing proposed is
thus collected. If there is a principle, it is unbegotten and
incorruptible. That which is self-moved is the principle of motion. Soul
is self-moved. Soul therefore (i.e. the rational soul) is incorruptible,
unbegotten, and immortal.
Of the third species of analysis, which proceeds from the hypothetical to
that which is unhypothetical, Plato has given a most beautiful specimen
in the first hypothesis of his Parmenides. For here, taking for his
hypothesis that the one is, he proceeds through an orderly series of
negations, which are not privative of their subjects, but generative of
things which are as it were, their opposites, till he at length takes
away the hypothesis that the one is. For he denies of it all discourse
and every appellation. And thus evidently denies of it not only that it
is, but even negation. For all things are posterior to the one; viz.
things known, knowledge, and the instruments of knowledge. And thus,
beginning from the hypothetical, he ends in that which is unhypothetical,
and truly ineffable.
Having taken a general survey, both of the great world and the microcosm
man, I shall close this account of the principal dogmas of Plato, with
the outlines of his doctrine concerning Providence and Fate, as it is a
subject of the greatest importance, and the difficulties in which it is
involved are happily removed by that prince of philosophers.
In the first place, therefore, Providence, according to common
conceptions, is the cause of good to the subjects of its care; and Fate
is the cause of a certain connection to generated natures. This being
admitted, let us consider what the things are which are connected. Of
beings, therefore, some have their essence in eternity, and others in
time. But by beings whose essence is in eternity, I mean those whose
energy as well as their essence is eternal; and by beings essentially
temporal, those whose essence is always in generation, or becoming to be,
though this should take place in an infinite time. The media between
these two extremes are natures which, in a certain respect, have an
essence permanent and better than generation, or a flowing subsistence,
but whose energy is measured by time. For it is necessary that every
procession from things first to last should be effected through media.
The medium, therefore, between these two extremes, must either be that
which has an eternal essence, but any energy indigent of time, or, on the
contrary, that which has a temporal essence, but an eternal energy. It is
impossible, however, for the latter of these to have any subsistence; for
if this were admitted, energy would be prior to essence. The medium,
therefore, must be that whose essence is eternal, but energy temporal.
And the three orders which compose this first middle and last are, the
intellectual, psychical (or that pertaining to soul), and corporeal. For
from what has been already said by us concerning the gradation of beings,
it is evident that the intellectual order is established in eternity,
both in essence and energy; that the corporeal order is always in
generation, or advancing to being, and this either in an infinite time,
or in a part of time; and that the psychical is indeed eternal in
essence, but temporal in energy. Where then shall we rank things which
being distributed either in places or times, have a certain coordination
and sympathy with each other through connection? It is evident that they
must be ranked among altermotive and corporeal natures. For of things
which subsist beyond the order of bodies, some are better both than place
and time; and others, though they energize according to time, appear to
be entirely pure from any connection with place.
Hence things which are governed and connected by Fate are entirely
altermotive and corporeal. If this then is demonstrated, it is manifest
that admitting Fate to be a cause of connection, we must assert that it
presides over altermotive and corporeal natures. If, therefore, we look
to that which is the proximate cause of bodies, and thorough which also
altermotive beings are moved, breathe, and are held together, we shall
find that this is nature, the energies of which are to generate, nourish,
and increase. If, therefore, this power not only subsists in us, and all
other animals and plants, but prior to partial bodies there is, by a much
greater necessity, one nature of the world which comprehends and is
motive of all bodies; it follows that nature must be the cause of things
connected, and that in this we must investigate Fate. Hence, Fate is
nature, or that incorporeal power which is the one life of the world,
presiding over bodies, moving all things according to time, and
connecting the motions of things that, by places and times, are distant
from each other. It is likewise the cause of the mutual sympathy of
mortal natures, and of their conjunction with such as are eternal. For
the nature which is in us, binds and connects all the parts of our body,
of which also it is a certain Fate. And as in our body some parts have a
principal subsistence, and others are less principal, and the latter are
consequent to the former, so in the universe, the generations of the less
principal parts are consequent to the motions of the more principal, viz.
the sublunary generations to the periods of the celestial bodies; and the
circle of the former is the image of the latter.
Hence it is not difficult to see that Providence is deity itself, the
fountain of all good. For whence can good be imparted, to all things, but
from divinity? So that no other cause of good but deity is, as Plato
says, to be assigned. And, in the next place, as this cause is superior
to all intelligible and sensible natures, it is consequently superior to
Fate. Whatever too is subject to Fate, is also under the dominion of
Providence; having its connection indeed from Fate, but deriving the good
which it possesses from Providence. But again, not all things that are
under the dominion of Providence are indigent of Fate; for intelligibles
are exempt from its sway. Fate therefore is profoundly conversant with
corporeal natures; since connection introduces time and corporeal motion.
Hence Plato, looking to this, says in the Timaeus, that the world is
mingled from intellect and necessity, the former ruling over the latter.
For by necessity here he means the motive cause of bodies, which in other
places he calls Fate. And this with great propriety; since every body is
compelled to do whatever it does, and to suffer whatever it suffers; to
heat or to be heated, to impart or to receive cold. But the elective
power is unknown to a corporeal nature; so that the necessary and the
nonelective may be said to be the peculiarities of bodies.
As there are two genera of things, therefore, the intelligible and the
sensible, so likewise there are two kingdoms of these; that of
Providence, upwards, which reigns over intelligibles and sensibles, and
that of Fate downwards, which reigns over sensibles only. Providence
likewise differs from Fate in the same manner as deity from that which is
divine indeed, but participation, and not primarily. For in other things
we see that which has a primary subsistence, and that which subsists
according to participation. Thus the light which subsists in the orb of
the sun is primary light, and that which is in the air, according to
participation; the latter being derived from the former. And life is
primarily in the soul, but secondarily in the body. Thus also, according
to Plato, Providence is deity, but Fate is something divine, and not a
god: for it depends upon Providence, of which it is as it were the image.
As Providence too is to intelligibles, so is Fate to sensibles. And,
alternately, as Providence is to Fate, so are intelligibles to sensibles.
But intelligibles are the first of beings, and from these others derive
their subsistence. And hence the order of Fate depends on the dominion of
Providence.
In the second place, let us look to the rational nature itself, when
correcting the inaccuracy of sensible information, as when it accuses the
sight of deception, in seeing the orb of the sun as not larger than a
foot in diameter; when it represses the ebullitions of anger, and
exclaims with Ulysses,
"Endure my heart;"
or when it restrains the wanton tendencies of desire to corporeal delight.
For in all such operations it manifestly subdues the irrational motions,
both gnostic and appetitive, and absolves itself from them, as from
things foreign to its nature. But it is necessary to investigate the
essence of every thing, not from its perversion, but from its energies
according to nature. If therefore reason, when it energizes in us as
reason, restrains the shadowy impressions of the delights of licentious
desire, punishes the precipitate motion of fury, and reproves the senses
as full of deception, asserting that
"We nothing accurate, or see, or hear:"
and if it says this, looking to its internal reasons, none of which it
knows through the body, or through corporeal cognitions, it is evident
that, according to this energy, it removes itself far from the senses,
contrary to the decision of which it becomes separated from those sorrows
and delights.
After this, let us direct our attention to another and a better motion of
our rational soul, when, during the tranquillity of the inferior parts,
by a self-convertive energy, it sees its own essence, the powers which it
contains, the harmonic reasons from which it consists, and the many lives
of which it is the middle boundary, and thus finds itself to be a
rational world, the image of the prior natures, from which it proceeds,
but the paradigm of such as are posterior to itself. To this energy of
the soul, theoretic arithmetic and geometry greatly contribute, for these
remove it from the senses, purify the intellect from the irrational forms
of life with which it is surrounded, and lead it to the incorporeal
perception of ideas. For if these sciences receive the soul replete with
images, and knowing nothing subtile and unattended with material
garrulity; and if they elucidate reasons possessing an irrefragable
necessity of demonstration, and forms full of all certainty and
immateriality, and which by no means call to their aid the inaccuracy of
sensibles, do they not evidently purify our intellectual life from things
which fill us with a privation of intellect, and which impede our
perception of true being?
After both these operations of the rational soul, let us now survey her
highest intelligence, through which she sees her sister souls in the
universe, who are allotted a residence in the heavens, and in the whole
of a visible nature, according to the will of the fabricator of the
world. But above all souls, she sees intellectual essences and orders.
For a deiform intellect resides above every soul, and which also imparts
to the soul an intellectual habit. Prior to these, however, she sees
those divine monads, from which all intellectual multitudes receive their
unions. For above all things united, there must necessarily be unific
causes; above things vivified, vivifying causes; above intellectual
natures, those that impart intellect; and above all participants,
imparticipable natures. From all these elevating modes of intelligence,
it must be obvious to such as are not perfectly blind, how the soul,
leaving sense and body behind, surveys through the projecting energies of
intellect those beings that are entirely exempt from all connection with
a corporeal nature.
The rational and intellectual soul therefore, in whatever manner it may
be moved according to nature, is beyond body and sense. And hence it must
necessarily have an essence separate from both. But from this again, it
becomes manifest, that when it energizes according to its nature, it is
superior to Fate, and beyond the reach of its attractive power; but that,
when falling into sense and things irrational and corporalized, it
follows downward natures and lives, with them as with inebriated
neighbors, then together with them it becomes subject to the dominion of
Fate. For again, it is necessary that there should be an order of beings
of such a kind, as to subsist according to essence above Fate, but to be
sometimes ranked under it according to habitude. For if there are beings,
and such are all intellectual natures which are eternally established
above the laws of Fate, and also which, according to the whole of their
life, are distributed under the periods of Fate, it is necessary that the
medium between these should be that nature which is sometimes above, and
sometimes under the dominion of Fate. For the procession of incorporeal
natures is much more without a vacuum than that of bodies.
The free will therefore of man, according to Plato, is a rational
elective, power, desiderative of true and apparent good, and leading the
soul to both, through which it ascends and descends, errs and acts with
rectitude. And hence the elective will be the same with that which
characterizes our essence. According to this power, we differ from divine
and mortal natures: for each of these is void of that two-fold inclination;
the one on account of its excellence being alone established in true
good; but the other in apparent good, on account of its defect. Intellect
too characterizes the one, but sense the other; and the former, as
Plotinus says, is our king, but the latter our messenger. We therefore
are established in the elective power as a medium; and having the ability
of tending both to true and apparent good, when we tend to the former we
follow the guidance of intellect, when to the latter, that of sense. The
power therefore which is in us is not capable of all things. For the
power which is omnipotent is characterized by unity; and on this account
is all-powerful, because it is one, and possesses the form of good. But
the elective power is two-fold, and on this account is not able to effect
all things; because, by it's inclinations to true and apparent good, it
falls short of that nature which is prior to all things. It would however
be all-powerful, if it had not an elective impulse, and was will alone.
For a life subsisting according to will alone subsists according to good,
because the will naturally tends to good, and such a life makes that
which is characteristic in us most powerful and deiform. And hence
through this the soul, according to Plato, becomes divine, and in another
life, in conjunction with deity, governs the world. And thus much of the
outlines of the leading dogmas of the philosophy of Plato.
In the beginning of this Introduction, I observed that, in drawing these
outlines I should conduct the reader through novel and solitary paths,
solitary indeed they must be, since they have been unfrequented from the
reign of the emperor Justinian to the present time; and novel they will
doubtless appear to readers of every description, and particularly to
those who have been nursed as it were in the bosom of matter, the pupils
of experiment, the darlings of sense, and the legitimate descendants of
the earth-born race that warred on the Olympian gods. To such as these,
who have gazed on the dark and deformed face of their nurse, till they
are incapable of beholding the light of truth, and who are become so
drowsy from drinking immoderately of the cup of oblivion, that their
whole life is nothing more than a transmigration from sleep to sleep, and
from dream to dream, like men passing from one bed to another,--to such
as these, the road through which we have been traveling will appear to be
a delusive passage, and the objects which we have surveyed to be nothing
more than fantastic visions, seen only by the eye of imagination, and
when seen, idle and vain as the dreams of a shadow.
The following arguments, however, may perhaps awaken some few of these
who are less lethargic than the rest, from the sleep of sense, and enable
them to elevate their mental eye from the dark mire in which they are
plunged, and gain a glimpse of this most weighty truth, that there is
another world, of which this is nothing more than a most obscure
resemblance, and another life, of which this is but the flying mockery.
My present discourse therefore is addressed to those who consider
experiment as the only solid criterion of truth. In the first place then,
these men appear to be ignorant of the invariable laws of demonstration
properly so called, and that the necessary requisites of all
demonstrative propositions are these: that they exist as causes, are
primary, more excellent, peculiar, true, and known than the conclusions.
For every demonstration not only consists of principles prior to others,
but of such as are eminently first; since if the assumed propositions may
be demonstrated by other assumptions, such propositions may indeed
appear prior to the conclusions, but are by no means entitled to the
appellation of first. Others, on the contrary, which require no
demonstration, but are of themselves manifest, are deservedly esteemed
the first, the truest, and the best. Such indemonstrable truths were
called by the ancients axioms from their majesty and authority, as the
assumptions which constitute demonstrative syllogisms derive all their
force and efficacy from these.
In the next place, they seem not to be sufficiently aware, that universal
is better than partial demonstration. For that demonstration is the more
excellent which is derived from the better cause; but a universal is more
extended and excellent than a partial cause; since the arduous
investigation of the why in any subject is only stopped by the arrival at
universals. Thus if we desire to know why the outward angles of a
triangle are equal to four right angles, and it is answered, Because the
triangle is isosceles; we again ask, but why Because isosceles? And if it
be replied, Because it is a triangle; we may again inquire, But why
because a triangle? To which we finally answer, because a triangle is a
right-lined figure. And here our inquiry rests at that universal idea,
which embraces every preceding particular one, and is contained in no
other more general and comprehensive than itself. Add too, that the
demonstration of particulars is almost the demonstration of infinites; of
universals the demonstration of finites; and of infinites there can be no
science. That demonstration likewise is the best which furnishes the mind
with the most ample knowledge; and this is, alone, the province of
universals. We may also add, that he who knows universals knows
particulars likewise in capacity; but we can not infer that he who has
the best knowledge of particulars, knows any thing of universals. And
lastly, that which is universal is the object of intellect and reason;
but particulars are coordinated to the perceptions of sense.
But here perhaps the experimentalist will say, admitting all this to be
true, yet we no otherwise obtain a perception of these universals than by
an induction of particulars, and abstraction from sensibles. To this, I
answer that the universal which is the proper object of science, is not
by any means the offspring of abstraction; and induction is no otherwise
subservient to its existence than an exciting cause. For if scientific
conclusions are indubitable, if the truth of demonstration is necessary
and eternal, this universal is truly all, and not like that gained by
abstraction, limited to a certain number of particulars. Thus, the
proposition that the angles of every triangle are equal to two right, if
it is indubitably true, that is, if the term every in it really includes
all triangles, cannot be the result of any abstraction; for this, however
extended it may be, is limited, and falls far short of universal
comprehension. Whence is it then that the dianoetic power concludes thus
confidently that the Proposition is true of all triangles? For if it be
said that the mind, after having abstracted triangle from a certain
number of particulars, adds from itself what is wanting to complete the
all; in the first place, no man, I believe, will say that any such
operation as this took place in his mind when he first learnt this
proposition; and in the next place, if this should be granted, it would
follow that such proposition is a mere fiction, since it is uncertain
whether that which is added to complete the all is truly added; and thus
the conclusion will no longer be indubitably necessary.
In short, if the words all and every, with which every page of theoretic
mathematics is full, mean what they are conceived by all men to mean, and
if the universals which they signify are the proper objects of science,
such universals must subsist in the soul prior to the energies of sense.
Hence it will follow that induction is no otherwise subservient to
science, than as it produces credibility in axioms and petitions; and
this by exciting the universal conception of these latent in the soul.
The particulars, therefore, of which an induction is made in order to
produce science, must be so simple, that they may be immediately
apprehended, and that the universal may be predicated of them without
hesitation. The particulars of the experimentalists are not of this kind,
and therefore never can be sources of science truly so called.
Of this, however, the man of experiment appears to be totally ignorant,
and in consequence of this, he is likewise ignorant that parts can only
be truly known through wholes, and that this is particularly the case
with parts when they belong to a whole, which, as we have already
observed, from comprehending in itself the parts which it produces, is
called a whole prior to parts. As he, therefore, would by no means merit
the appellation of a physician who should attempt to cure any part of the
human body, without a previous knowledge of the whole; so neither can he
know any thing truly of the vegetable life of plants, who has not a
previous knowledge of that vegetable life which subsists in the earth as
a whole prior to, because the principle and cause of all partial
vegetable life, and who still prior to this has not a knowledge of that
greater whole of this kind which subsists in nature herself; nor, as
Hippocrates justly observes, can he know any thing truly of the nature of
the human body who is ignorant what nature is considered as a great
comprehending whole. And if this be true, and it is so most indubitably,
with all physiological inquiries, how much more must it be the case with
respect to a knowledge of those incorporeal forms to which we ascended in
the first part of this Introduction, and which in consequence of
proceeding from wholes entirely exempt from body are participated by it,
with much greater obscurity and imperfection? Here then is the great
difference, and a mighty one it is, between the knowledge gained by the
most elaborate experiments, and that acquired by scientific reasoning,
founded on the spontaneous, unperverted, and self-luminous conceptions of
the soul. The former does not even lead its votary up to that one nature
of the earth from which the natures of all the animals and plants on its
surface, and of all the minerals and metals in its interior parts,
blossom as from a perennial root. The latter conducts its votary through
all the several mundane wholes up to that great whole the world itself,
and thence leads him through the luminous order of incorporeal wholes to
that vast whole of wholes, in which all other wholes are centred and
rooted, and which is no other than the principle of all principles, and
the fountain of deity itself. No less remarkable likewise, is the
difference between the tendencies of the two pursuits, for the one
elevates the soul to the most luminous heights, and to that great
ineffable which is beyond all altitude; but the other is the cause of a
mighty calamity to the soul, since, according to the elegant expression
of Plutarch, it extinguishes her principal and brightest eye, the
knowledge of divinity. In short, the one leads to all that is grand,
sublime and splendid in the universe; the other to all that is little,
groveling[14] and dark. The one is the parent of the most pure and ardent
piety; the genuine progeny of the other are impiety and atheism. And, in
fine, the one confers on its votary the most sincere, permanent, and
exalted delight; the other continual disappointment, and unceasing
molestation.
-----------------
[14] That this must be the tendency of experiment, when prosecuted as the
criterion of truth, is evident from what Bacon, the prince of modern
philosophy, says in the 104th Aphorism of his Novum Organum, that
"baseless fabric of a vision." For he there sagely observes that wings
are not to be added to the human intellect, but rather lead and weights;
that all its leaps and flights may be restrained. That this is not yet
done, but that when it is we may entertain better hopes respecting the
sciences. "Itaque hominum intellectui non plumae addendae, sed plumbum
potius, et pondera; ut cohibeant omnem saltum et volatum. Atque hoc adhuc
factum non est; quum vero factum fuerit, melius de scientiis sperare
licebit." A considerable portion of lead must certainly have been added
to the intellect of Bacon when he wrote this Aphorism.
-----------------
If such then are the consequences, such the tendencies of experimental
inquiries, when prosecuted as the criterion of truth, and daily
experience[15] unhappily shows that they are, there can be no other remedy
for this enormous evil than the intellectual philosophy of Plato. So
obviously excellent indeed is the tendency of this philosophy, that its
author, for a period of more than two thousand years, has been universally
celebrated by the epithet of divine. Such too is its preeminence, that it
may be shown, without much difficulty, that the greatest men of antiquity,
from the time in which its salutary light first blessed the human race,
have been more or less imbued with its sacred principles, have been more or
less the votaries of its divine truths. Thus, to mention a few from among a
countless multitude. In the catalogue of those endued with sovereign power,
it had for its votaries Dion of Siracusian, Julian the Roman, and Chosroes
the Persian, emperor; among the leaders of armies, it had Chabrias and
Phocion, those brave generals of the Athenians; among mathematicians, those
leading stars of science, Eudoxus, Archimedes[16] and Euclid; among
biographers, the inimitable Plutarch; among physicians, the admirable
Galen; among rhetoricians, those unrivaled orators Demosthenes and Cicero;
among critics, that prince of philologists, Longinus; and among poets, the
most learned and majestic Virgil. Instances, though not equally illustrious,
yet approximating to these in splendour, may doubtless be adduced after
the fall of the Roman empire; but then they have been formed on these
great ancients as models, and are, consequently, only rivulets from
Platonic streams. And instances of excellence in philosophic attainments,
similar to those among the Greeks, might have been enumerated among the
moderns, if the hand of barbaric despotism had not compelled philosophy
to retire into the deepest solitude, by demolishing her schools, and
involving the human intellect in Cimmerian darkness. In our own country,
however, though no one appears to have wholly devoted himself to the
study of this philosophy, and he who does not will never penetrate its
depths, yet we have a few bright examples of no common proficiency in its
more accessible parts.
-----------------
[15] I never yet knew a man who made experiment the test of truth, and I
have known many such, that was not atheistically inclined.
[16] I have ranked Archimedes among the Platonists, because he cultivated
the mathematical sciences Platonically, as is evident from the testimony of
Plutarch in his Life of Marcellus, p. 307. For he there informs us that
Archimedes considered the being busied about mechanics, and in short, every
art which is connected with the common purposes of life, as ignoble and
illiberal; and that those things alone were objects of his ambition with
which the beautiful and the excellent were present, unmingled with the
necessary. The great accuracy and elegance in the demonstrations of Euclid
and Archimedes, which have not been equaled by any of our greatest modern
mathematicians, were derived from a deep conviction of this important
truth. On the other hand modern mathematicians, through a profound
ignorance of this divine truth, and looking to nothing but the wants and
conveniences of the animal life of man, as if the gratification of his
senses was his only end, have corrupted pure geometry, by mingling with it
algebraical calculations, and through eagerness to reduce it as much as
possible to practical purposes, have more anxiously sought after
conciseness than accuracy, facility than elegance of geometrical
demonstration.
-----------------
The instances I allude to are Shaftesbury, Akenside, Harris, Petwin, and
Sydenham. So splendid is the specimen of philosophic abilities displayed by
these writers, like the fair dawning of same unclouded morning, that we
have only deeply to regret that the sun of their genius sat before we were
gladdened with its effulgence. Had it shone with its full strength, the
writer of this Introduction would not have attempted either to translate
the works, or elucidate the doctrines of Plato; but though it rose with
vigor, it dispersed not the clouds in which its light was gradually
involved, and the eye in vain anxiously waited for it's meridian beam.
In short, the principles of the philosophy of Plato are of all others the
most friendly to true piety, pure morality, solid learning, and sound
government. For as it is scientific in all its parts, and in these parts
comprehends all that can be known by man in theology and ethics, and all
that is necessary for him to know in physics, it must consequently contain
in itself the source of all that is great and good both to individuals and
communities, must necessarily exalt while it benefits, and deify while it
exalts.
We have said that this philosophy at first shone forth through Plato with
an occult and venerable splendor; and it is owing to the hidden manner in
which it is delivered by him, that its depth was not fathomed till many
ages after it's promulgation, and when fathomed, was treated by
superficial readers with ridicule and contempt. Plato indeed, is not
singular in delivering his philosophy occultly: for this was the custom
of all the great ancients; a custom not originating from a wish to become
tyrants in knowledge, and keep the multitude in ignorance, but from a
profound conviction that the sublimest truths are profaned when clearly
unfolded to the vulgar. This indeed must necessarily follow; since, as
Socrates in Plato justly observes, "it is not lawful for the pure to be
touched by the impure;" and the multitude are neither purified from the
defilements of vice, nor the darkness of twofold ignorance. Hence, while
they are thus doubly impure, it is as impossible for them to perceive the
splendors of truth, as for an eye buried in mire to survey the light
of day.
The depth of this philosophy then does not appear to have been perfectly
penetrated except by the immediate disciples of Plato, for more than five
hundred years after its first propagation. For though Crantor, Atticus,
Albinus, Galen and Plutarch, were men of great genius, and made no common
proficiency in Philosophic attainments, yet they appear not to have
developed the profundity of Plato's conceptions; they withdrew not the
veil which covers his secret meaning, like the curtains which guarded the
adytum of temples from the profane eye; and they saw not that all behind
the veil is luminous, and that there divine spectacles[17] every where
present themselves to the view. This task was reserved for men who were
born indeed in a baser age, but, who being allotted a nature similar to
their leader, were the true interpreters of his mystic speculations. The
most conspicuous of these are the great Plotinus, the most learned
Porphyry, the divine Jamblichus, the most acute Syrianus, Proclus the
consummation of philosophic excellence, the magnificent Hierocles, the
concisely elegant Sallust, and the most inquisitive Damascius. By these
men, who were truly links of the golden chain of deity, all that is
sublime, all that is mystic in the doctrines of Plato (and they are
replete with both these in a transcendent degree), was freed from its
obscurity and unfolded into the most pleasing and admirable light. Their
labors, however, have been ungratefully received. The beautiful light
which they benevolently disclosed has hitherto unnoticed illumined
philosophy in her desolate retreats, like a lamp shining on some
venerable statue amidst dark and solitary ruins. The prediction of the
master has been unhappily fulfilled in these his most excellent
disciples. "For an attempt of this kind," says he,[18] "will only be
beneficial to a few, who from small vestiges, previously demonstrated,
are themselves able to discover these abstruse particulars. But with
respect to the rest of mankind, some it will fill with a contempt by no
means elegant, and others with a lofty and arrogant hope, that they shall
now learn certain excellent things." Thus with respect to these admirable
men, the last and the most legitimate of the followers of Plato, some
from being entirely ignorant of the abstruse dogmas of Plato, and finding
these interpreters full of conceptions which are by no means obvious to
every one in the writings of that philosopher, have immediately concluded
that such conceptions are mere jargon and revery, that they are not truly
Platonic, and that they are nothing more than streams, which, though,
originally derived from a pure fountain, have become polluted by distance
from their source. Others, who pay attention to nothing but the most
exquisite purity of language, look down with contempt upon every writer
who lived after the fall of the Macedonian empire; as if dignity and
weight of sentiment were inseparable from splendid and accurate diction;
or as if it were impossible for elegant writers to exist in a degenerate
age. So far is this from being the case, that though the style of
Plotinus[19] and Jamblichus[20] is by no means to be compared with that
of Plato, yet this inferiority is lost in the depth and sublimity of
their conceptions, and is as little regarded by the intelligent reader,
as motes in a sunbeam by the eye that gladly turns itself to the
solar light.
--------------
[17] See my Dissertation on the Mysteries.
[18]See the 7th Epistle of Plato.
[19] It would seem that those intemperate critics who have thought proper
to revile Plotinus, the leader of the latter Platonists, have paid no
attention to the testimony of Longinus concerning this most wonderful
man, as preserved by Porphyry in his life of him. For Longinus there
says, "that though he does not entirely accede to many of his hypotheses,
yet he exceedingly admires and loves the form of his writing, the density
of his conceptions, and the philosophic manner in which his questions are
disposed." And in another place he says, "Plotinus, as it seems, has
explained the Pythagoric and Platonic principles more clearly than those
that were prior to him; for neither are the writings of Numenius,
Cronius, Moderatus, and Thrasyllus, to be compared with those of Plotinus
on this subject." After such a testimony as this from such a consummate
critic as Longinus, the writings of Plotinus have nothing to fear from
the imbecile censure of modern critics. I shall only further observe,
that Longinus, in the above testimony, does not give the least hint of
his having found any polluted streams, or corruption of the doctrines of
Plato, in the works of Plotinus. There is not indeed the least vestige of
his entertaining any such opinion in any part of what he has said about
this most extraordinary man. This discovery was reserved for the more
acute critic of modern times, who, by a happiness of conjecture unknown
to the ancients, and the assistance of a good index, can in a few days
penetrate the meaning of the profoundest writer of antiquity, and bid
defiance even to the decision of Longinus.
[20] Of this most divine man, who is justly said by the emperor Julian to
have been posterior indeed in time, but not in genius even to Plato himself,
see the life which I have given in the History of the Restoration of the
Platonic Theology, in the second vol. of my Proclus on Euclid.
----------------------
As to the style of Porphyry, when we consider that he was the disciple of
Longinus, whom Eunapius elegantly calls "a certain living library, and
walking museum," it is but reasonable to suppose that he imbibed some
portion of his master's excellence in writing. That he did so is
abundantly evident from the testimony of Eunapius, who particularly
commends his style for its clearness, purity, and grace. "Hence," he
says, "Porphyry being let down to men like a mercurial chain, through his
various erudition, unfolded every thing into perspicuity, and purity."
And in another place he speaks of him as abounding with all the graces of
diction, and as the only one that exhibited and proclaimed the praise of
his master. With respect to the style of Proclus, it is pure, clear and
elegant, like that of Dionysius Halicarnassus; but is much more copious
and magnificent; that of Hierocles is venerable and majestic, and nearly
equals the style of the greatest ancients; that of Sallust possesses an
accuracy and a pregnant brevity, which cannot easily be distinguished
from the composition of the Stagirite; and lastly, that of Damascius is
clear and accurate, and highly worthy a most investigating mind.
Others again have filled themselves with a vain confidence, from reading
of commentaries of these admirable interpreters, and have in a short time
considered themselves superior to their masters. This was the case with
Ficinus, Picus, Dr. Henry Moore, and other pseudo Platonists, their
contemporaries, who, in order to combine Christianity with the doctrines
of Plato, rejected some of his most important tenets, and perverted
others, and thus corrupted one of these systems, and afforded no real
benefit to the other.
But who are the men by whom these latter interpreters of Plato are
reviled? When and whence did this defamation originate? Was it when the
fierce champions for the trinity fled from Galilee to the groves of
Academus, and invoked, but in vain, the assistance of Philosophy? When
The trembling grove confessed its fright,
The wood-nymphs started at the sight;
Ilissus backward urg'd his course,
And rush'd indignant to his source.
Was it because that mitred sophist, Warburton, thought fit to talk of the
polluted streams of the Alexandrian school, without knowing any thing of
the source whence those streams are derived? Or was it because some heavy
German critic, who knew nothing beyond a verb in mi, presumed to grunt at
these venerable heroes? Whatever was its source, and whenever it
originated, for I have not been able to discover either, this however is
certain, that it owes its being to the most profound Ignorance, or the
most artful Sophistry, and that its origin is no less contemptible than
obscure. For let us but for a moment consider the advantages which these
latter Platonists possessed beyond any of their modern revilers. In the
first place, they had the felicity of having the Greek for their native
language, and must therefore, as they were confessedly, learned men, have
understood that language incomparably better than any man since the time
in which the ancient Greek was a living tongue. In the next place, they
had books to consult, written by the immediate disciples of Plato, which
have been lost for upwards of a thousand years, besides many Pythagoric
writings from which Plato himself derived most of his more sublime
dogmas. Hence we find the works of Parmenides, Empedocles, the Electic
Zeno, Speusippus, Xenocrates, and many other illustrious philosophers of
the highest antiquity, who were either genuine Platonists or the sources
of Platonism, are continually cited by these most excellent interpreters,
and in the third place they united the greatest purity of life to the
most piercing vigor of intellect. Now when it is considered that the
philosophy to the study of which these great men devoted their lives, was
professedly delivered by its author in obscurity; that Aristotle himself
studied it for twenty years; and that it was no uncommon thing, as Plato
informs us in one of his Epistles, to find students unable to comprehend
its sublimest tenets even in a longer period than this,--when all these
circumstances are considered, what must we think of the arrogance, not to
say impudence, of men in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth
centuries, who have dared to calumniate these great masters of wisdom? Of
men, with whom the Greek is no native language; who have no such books to
consult as those had whom they revile; who have never thought, even in a
dream, of making the acquisition of wisdom the great object of their
life; and who in short have committed that most baneful error of
mistaking philology for philosophy, and words for things? When such as
these dare to defame men who may be justly ranked among the greatest and
wisest of the ancients, what else can be said than that they are the
legitimate descendants of the suitors of Penelope, whom, in the animated
language of Ulysses,
Laws or divine or human fail'd to move,
Or shame of men, or dread of gods above:
Heedless alike of infamy or praise,
Or Fame's eternal voice in future days,[21]
-----------------
[21] Pope's Odyssey, book xxii, v. 47, &c.
-----------------
But it is now time to present the reader with a general view of the works
of Plato, and, also to speak of the preambles, digressions, and style of
their author, and of the following translation. In accomplishing the
first of these, I shall avail myself of the synopsis of Mr. Sydenham,
taking the liberty at the same time of correcting it where it appears to
be erroneous, and of making additions to it where it appears to be
deficient.
The dialogues of Plato are of various kinds; not only with regard to
those different matters, which are the subjects of them; but in respect
of the manner also in which they are composed or framed, and of the form
under which they make their appearance to the reader. It will therefore,
as I imagine, be not improper, in pursuance of the admonition given us by
Plato himself in his dialogue named Phaedrus[22] and in imitation of the
example set us by the ancient Platonists to distinguish the several
kinds; by dividing them, first, into the most general; and then,
subdividing into the subordinate; till we come to those lower species,
that particularly and precisely denote the nature of the several
dialogues, and from which they ought to take their respective
denominations.
----------------
[22] Whoever is unable to divide and distinguish things into their
several sorts or species; and, on the other hand, referring every
particular to its proper species, to comprehend them all in one general
idea; will never understand any writings of which those things are the
subject, like a true critic, upon those high principles of art to which
the human understanding reaches. We have thought proper, here, to
paraphrase this passage, for the sake of giving to every part of so
important a sentence its full force, agreeably to the tenor of Plato's
doctrine; and in order to initiate our readers into a way of thinking,
that probably many of them are as yet unacquainted with.
----------------
The most general division of the writings of Plato, is into those of the
Sceptical kind, and those of they Dogmatical. In the former sort, nothing
is expressly either proved or asserted, some philosophical question only is
considered and examined; and the reader is left to himself to draw such
conclusions, and discover such truths as the philosopher means to
insinuate. This is done, either in the way of inquiry, or in the way of
controversy and dispute. In the way of controversy are carried on all such
dialogues, as tend to eradicate false opinions; and that, either indirectly,
by involving them in difficulties, and embarrassing the maintainers of them;
or directly, by confuting them. In the way of inquiry proceed those whose
tendency is to raise in the mind right opinions; and that either by exciting
to the pursuit of some part of wisdom, and showing in what manner to
investigate it; or by leading the way, and helping the mind forward in the
search. And this is effected by a process through opposing arguments.[23]
------------------
[23] It is necessary to observe that Plato in the Parmenides calls all
that part of his Dialectic, which proceeds through opposite arguments, an
exercise and wandering.
------------------
The dialogues of the other kind, the Dogmatical or Didactic, teach
explicitly some point of doctrine; and this they do either by laying it
down in the authoritative way, or by proving it in the ways of reason and
argument. In the authoritative way the doctrine is delivered, sometimes by
the speaker himself magisterially, at other times as derived to him by
tradition from wise men. The argumentative or demonstrative method of
teaching, used by Plato, proceeds in all the dialectic ways, dividing,
defining, demonstrating, and analysing; and the object of it consists in
exploring truth alone. According to this division is framed the following
scheme, or table:
DIALOGUES[24]
Sceptical Disputative Embarrassing Confuting Inquisitive Exciting Assisting
Dogmatical Demonstrative Analytical Inductional Authoritative Magisterial
Traditional
-----------------
[24]We have, given us by Diogenes Laertius, another division of the
characters, as he calls them, of Plato's writings, different from that
exhibited in the scheme above. This we have thought proper to subjoin, on
account of its antiquity and general reception.
Dialogues
Diadectic Speculative Physical Logical Practical Ethical Political
Inquisitive Gymnastic Maieutic Peirastic Agonistic Endeietic Anatreptic
The learned reader will observe the latter half of the dialogues, according
to this scheme, to be described by metaphors taken from the gymnastic art:
the dialogues, here termed gymnastic, being imagined to bear a similitude
to that exercise; the agonistic, to the combat. In the lowest subdivision,
indeed, the word maieutic is a metaphor of another kind, fully explained in
Plato's Theaetetus: the maieutic dialogues, however, were supposed to
resemble giving the rudiments of the art; as the peirastic were, to
represent a skirmish, or trial of proficiency; the endeietic were, it
seems, likened to the exhibiting a specimen of skill; and the anatreptic,
to presenting the spectacle of a thorough defeat, or sound drubbing. The
principal reason why we contented not ourselves with this account of the
difference between the dialogues of Plato, was the capital error there
committed in the first subdivision, of course extending itself through the
latter. This error consists in dividing the Didactic dialogues with regard
to their subject-matter; while those of the Inquisitive sort are divided
with respect to the manner of their composition. So that the subdivisions
fall not, with any propriety, under one and the same general head. Besides,
a novice in the works of Plato might hence be led naturally to suppose,
that the dogmatical or didactic dialogues are, all of them, written in the
same manner; and that the others, those of the inquisitive kind, by us
termed sceptical, have no particular subjects at all; or, if they have,
that their subjects are different from those of the didactic dialogues,
and are consequently unphilosophical. Now every one of the suppositions
here mentioned is far from being true.
----------------
The philosopher, in thus varying his manner, and diversifying his
writings into these several kinds, means not merely to entertain with
their variety; not to teach, on different occasions, with more or less
plainness and perspicuity; not yet to insinuate different degrees of
certainty in the doctrines themselves: but he takes this method, as a
consummate master of the art of composition in the dialogue-way of
writing, from the different characters of the speakers, as from different
elements in the frame of these dramatic dialogues, or different
ingredients in their mixture, producing some peculiar genius and turn of
temper, as it were, in each.
Socrates indeed is in almost all of them the principal speaker: but when
he falls into the company of some arrogant sophist; when the modest
wisdom, and clear science of the one, are contrasted with the confident
ignorance and blind opinionativeness of the other; dispute and
controversy must of course arise: where the false pretender cannot fail
of being either puzzled or confuted. To puzzle him only is sufficient,
if there be no other persons present; because such a man can never be
confuted in his own opinion: but when there is an audience round them,
in danger of being misled by sophistry into error, then is the true
philosopher to exert his utmost, and the vain sophist to be convicted
and exposed.
In some dialogues Plato represents his great master mixing in
conversation with young men of the best families in the commonwealth.
When these happen to have docile dispositions and fair minds, then is
occasion given to the philosopher to call forth[25] the latent seeds of
wisdom, and to cultivate the noble plants with true doctrine, in the
affable and familiar way of joint inquiry. To this is owing the
inquisitive genius of such dialogues: where, by a seeming equality in the
conversation, the curiosity or zeal of the mere stranger is excited; that
of the disciple is encouraged; and, by proper questions, the mind is
aided and forwarded in the search of truth.
-----------------
[25] We require exhortation, that we may be led to true good; dissuasion,
that we may be turned from things truly evil; obstetrication, that we may
draw forth our unperverted conceptions; and confutation, that we may be
purified from two-fold ignorance.
-----------------
At other times, the philosophic hero of these dialogues is introduced
in a higher character, engaged in discourse with men of more improved
understandings and enlightened minds. At such seasons he has an
opportunity of teaching in a more explicit manner, and of discovering
the reasons of things: for to such an audience truth is due, and all
demonstrations[26] possible in the teaching it. Hence, in the dialogues
composed of these persons, naturally arises the justly argumentative or
demonstrative genius; and this, as we have before observed, according to
all the dialectic methods.
-----------------
[26] The Platonists rightly observe, that Socrates, in these cases, makes
use of demonstrative and just reasoning, ([Greek: apodeiktikou]); whereas
to the novice he is contented with arguments only probable, ([Greek:
pithanois]); and against the litigious sophist often employs such as are
[Greek: eristikoi]; puzzling and contentious.
-----------------
But when the doctrine to be taught admits not of demonstration; of which
kind is the doctrine of antiquities, being only traditional, and a matter
of belief; and the doctrine of laws, being injunctional, and the matter of
obedience; the air of authority is then assumed: in the former cases, the
doctrine is traditionally handed down to others from the authority of
ancient sages; in the latter, is magisterially pronounced with the
authority of a legislator.[27]
-----------------
[27] It is necessary to observe, that in those dialogues in which Socrates
is indeed introduced, but sustains an inferior part, he is presented to
our view as a learner, and not as a teacher; and this is the case in the
Parmenides and Timaeus. For by the former of these philosophers he is
instructed in the most abtruse theological dogmas, and by the latter in
the whole of physiology.
-----------------
Thus much for the manner in which the dialogues of Plato are severally
composed, and the cast of genius given them in their composition. The
form under which they appear, or the external character that marks them,
is of three sorts: either purely dramatic, like the dialogue of tragedy
or comedy; or purely narrative, where a former conversation is supposed
to be committed to writing, and communicated to some absent friend; or of
the mixed kind, like a narration in dramatic poems, where is recited, to
some person present, the story of things past.
Having thus divided the dialogues of Plato, in respect of that inward
form or composition, which creates their genius; and again, with
reference to that outward form, which marks them, like flowers and other
vegetables, with a certain character; we are further to make a division
of them, with regard to their subject and their design; beginning with
their design, or end, because for the sake of this are all the subjects
chosen. The end of all the writings of Plato is that, which is the end of
all true philosophy or wisdom, the perfection and the happiness of man.
Man therefore is the general subject; and the first business of philosophy
must be to inquire what is that being called man, who is to be made happy;
and what is his nature, in the perfection of which is placed his happiness.
As however, in the preceding part of this Introduction, we have endeavored
to give the outlines of Plato's doctrine concerning man, it is unnecessary
in this place to say any thing further on that subject.
The dialogues of Plato, therefore, with respect to their subjects, may be
divided into the speculative, the practical, and such as are of a mixed
nature. The subjects of these last are either general, comprehending both
the others; or differential, distinguishing them. The general subject are
either fundamental, or final: those of the fundamental kind are philosophy,
human nature, the soul of man; of the final kind are love, beauty, good.
The differential regard knowledge, as it stands related to practice; in
which are considered two questions: one of which is, whether virtue is to
he taught; the other is, whether error in the will depends on error in
the judgment. The subjects of the speculative dialogues relate either to
words, or to things. Of the former sort are etymology, sophistry, rhetoric,
poetry; of the latter sort are science, true being, the principles of
mind, outward nature. The practical subjects relate either to private
conduct, and the government of the mind over the whole man; or to his
duty towards others in his several relations; or to the government of a
civil state, and the public conduct of a whole people. Under these three
heads rank in order the particular subjects practical; virtue in general,
sanctity, temperance, fortitude, justice, friendship, patriotism, piety;
the ruling mind in a civil government, the frame and order of a state,
law in general, and lastly, those rules of government and of public
conduct, the civil laws.
Thus, for the sake of giving the reader a scientific, that is a
comprehensive, and at the same time a distinct view of Plato's writings,
we have attempted to exhibit to him, their just and natural distinctions;
whether he chooses to consider them with regard to their inward form or
essence, their outward form or appearance, their matter; or their end:
that is, in those more familiar terms, we have used in this Synopsis,
their genius, their character, their subject, and their design.
And here it is requisite to observe, that as it is the characteristic of
the highest good to be universally beneficial, though some things are
benefitted by it more and others less, in consequence of their greater or
less aptitude to receive it; in like manner the dialogues of Plato are
so largely stamped with the characters of sovereign good, that they are
calculated to benefit in a certain degree even those who are incapable
of penetrating their profundity. They can tame a savage sophist, like
Thrasymachus in the Republic; humble the arrogance even of those who
are ignorant of their ignorance; make those to become proficients in
political, who will never arrive at theoretic virtue; and, in short, like
the illuminations of deity, wherever there is any portion of aptitude in
their recipients, they purify, irradiate, and exalt.
After this general view of the dialogues of Plato, let us in the next
place consider their preambles, the digressions with which they abound,
and the character of the style in which they are written. With respect to
the first of these, the preambles, however superfluous they may at first
sight appear, they will be found on a closer inspection necessary to the
design of the dialogues which they accompany. Thus the prefatory part of
the Timaeus unfolds, in images agreeably to the Pythagoric custom, the
theory of the world; and the first part of the Parmenides, or the
discussion of ideas, is in fact merely a preamble to the second part,
or the speculation of the one; to which however it is essentially
preparatory. Hence, as Plutarch says, when he speaks of Plato's dialogue
on the Atlantic island: These preambles are superb gates and magnificent
courts with which he purposely embellishes his great edifices, that
nothing may be wanting to their beauty, and that all may be equally
splendid. He acts, as Dacier well observes, like a great prince, who,
when he builds a sumptuous palace, adorns (in the language of Pindar) the
vestibule with golden pillars. For it is fit that what is first seen
should be splendid and magnificent, and should as it were perspicuously
announce all that grandeur which afterwards presents itself to the view.
With respect to the frequent digressions in his dialogues, these also,
when accurately examined, will be found to be no less subservient to the
leading design of the dialogues in which they are introduced; at the same
time that they afford a pleasing relaxation to the mind from the labor of
severe investigation. Hence Plato, by the most happy and enchanting art,
contrives to lead the reader to the temple of Truth through the delightful
groves and valleys of the Graces. In short, this circuitous course, when
attentively considered, will be found to be the shortest road by which he
could conduct the reader to the desired end: for in accomplishing this it
is necessary to regard not that road, which is most straight in the
nature of things, or abstractedly considered, but that which is most
direct in the progressions of human understanding.
With respect to the style of Plato, though it forms in reality the
most inconsiderable part of the merit of his writings, style in all
philosophical works being the last thing that should be attended to, yet
even in this Plato may contend for the palm of excellence with the most
renowned masters of diction. Hence we find that his style was the
admiration of the finest writers of antiquity. According to Ammianus,
Jupiter himself would not speak otherwise, if he were to converse in the
Attic tongue. Aristotle considered his style as a medium between poetry
and prose. Cicero no less praises him for the excellence of his diction
than the profundity of his conceptions; and Longinus calls him with
respect to his language, the rival of Homer. Hence he is considered by
this prince of critics, as deriving into himself abundant streams from
the Homeric fountain, and is compared by him, in his rivalship of Homer,
to a new antagonist who enters the lists against one that is already the
object of universal admiration.
Notwithstanding this praise, however, Plato has been accused, as Longinus
informs us, of being frequently hurried away as by a certain Bacchic fury
of words to immoderate and unpleasant metaphors, and an allegoric
magnificence of diction. Longinus excuses this by saying that whatever
naturally excels in magnitude possesses very little of purity. For that,
says he, which is in every respect accurate is in danger of littleness.
He adds, "and may not this also be necessary, that those of an abject and
moderate genius, because they never encounter danger, nor aspire after
the summit of excellence, are for the most part without error and remain
in security; but that great things become insecure through their magnitude?"
Indeed it appears to me, that whenever this exuberance, this Bacchic
fury, occurs in the diction of Plato, it is owing to the magnitude of the
inspiring influence of deity with which he is then replete. For that he
sometimes wrote from divine inspiration is evident from his own confession
in the Phaedrus, a great part of which is not so much like an orderly
discourse as a dithyrambic poem. Such a style therefore, as it is the
progeny of divine mania, which, as Plato justly observes, is better than
all human prudence, spontaneously adapts itself to its producing cause,
imitates a supernatural power as far as this can be effected by words,
and thus necessarily becomes magnificent, vehement, and exuberant; for
such are the characteristics of its source. All judges of composition
however, both ancient and modern, are agreed that his style is in general
graceful and pure; and that it is sublime without being impetuous and
rapid. It is indeed no less harmonious than elevated, no less accurate[27]
than magnificent. It combines the force of the greatest orators with the
graces of the first of poets; and in short; is a river to which those
justly celebrated lines of Denham may be most pertinently applied:
Tho' deep, yet clear; tho' gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage, without o'erfowing full.
-----------------
[27] The reader will see, from the notes on Plato's dialogues, and
particularly from the notes on the Parmenides and Timaeus, that the style
of that philosopher possesses an accuracy which is not to be found in any
modern writer; an accuracy of such a wonderful nature, that the words are
exactly commensurate with the sense. Hence the reader who has happily
penetrated his profundity finds, with astonishment, that another word
could not have been added without being superfluous, nor one word taken
away without injuring the sense. The same observation may also be applied
to the style of Aristotle.
-----------------
Having thus considered the philosophy of Plato, given a general view of
his writings, and made some observations on his style, it only now
remains to speak of the following arrangement of his dialogues and
translation of his works, and then, with a few appropriate observations,
to close this Introduction.
As no accurate and scientific arrangement then of these dialogues has
been transmitted to us from the ancients, I was under the necessity of
adopting an arrangement of my own, which I trust is not unscientific,
however inferior it may be to that which was doubtless made, though
unfortunately lost, by the latter interpreters of Plato. In my
arrangement, therefore, I have imitated the order of the universe in
which, as I have already observed, wholes precede parts, and universals
particulars. Hence I have placed those dialogues first which rank as
wholes, or have the relation of a system, and afterwards those in which
these systems are branch out into particulars. Thus, after the First
Alcibiades, which may be called, and appears to have been generally
considered by the ancients an introduction to the whole of Plato's
philosophy, I have placed the Republic and the Laws, which may be said to
comprehend systematically the morals and politics of Plato. After these I
have ranked the Timaeus, which contains the whole of his physiology, and
together with it the Critias, because of its connection with the Timaeus.
The next in order is the Parmenides, which contains a system of his
theology. Thus far this arrangement is conformable to the natural progress
of the human mind in the acquisition of the sublimest knowledge; the
subsequent arrangement principally regards the order of things. After the
Parmenides then, the Sophista, Phaedrus, Greater Hippias, and Banquet,
follow, which may be considered as so many lesser wholes subordinate to
and comprehended in the Parmenides, which, like the universe itself, is a
whole of wholes. For in the Sophista being itself is investigated, in the
Banquet love itself, and in the Phaedrus beauty itself; all which are
intelligible forms, and are consequently contained in the Parmenides, in
which the whole extent of the intelligible is unfolded. The Greater
Hippias is classed with the Phaedrus, because in the latter the whole
series of the beautiful is discussed, and in the former that which
subsists in soul. After these follows the Theaetetus, in which science
considered as subsisting in soul is investigated; science itself,
according to its first subsistence, having been previously celebrated by
Socrates in one part of the Phaedrus. The Politicus and Minos, which
follow next, may be considered as ramifications from the Laws; and, in
short, all the following dialogues either consider more particularly the
dogmas which are systematically comprehended in those already enumerated,
or naturally flow from them as their original source. As it did not
however appear possible to arrange these dialogues which rank as parts in
the same accurate order as those which we considered as whole, it was
thought better to class them either according to their agreement in one
particular circumstance, as the Phaedo, Apology, and Crito, all which
relate to the death of Socrates, and as the Meno and Protagoras, which
relate to the question whether virtue can be taught; or according to
their agreement in character, as the Lesser Hippias and Euthydemus, which
are anatreptic, and the Theages, Laches, and Lysis, which are maieutic
dialogues. The Cratylus is ranked in the last place, not so much because
the subject of it is etymology, as because a great part of it is deeply
theological; for by this arrangement, after having ascended to all the
divine orders and their ineffable principle in the Parmenides, and thence
descended in a regular series to the human soul in the subsequent
dialogues, the reader is again led back to deity in this dialogue, and
thus imitates the order which all beings observe, that of incessantly
returning to the principles whence they flew.
After the dialogues[28] follow the Epistles of Plato, which are in every
respect worthy that prince of all true philosophers. They are not only
written with great elegance, and occasionally with magnificence of
diction, but with all the becoming dignity of a mind conscious of its
superior endowments, and all the authority of a master in philosophy.
They are likewise replete with many admirable political observations,
and contain some of his most abstruse dogmas, which though delivered
enigmatically, yet the manner in which they are delivered, elucidates at
the same time that it is elucidated by what is said of these dogmas in
his more theological dialogues.
-----------------
[28] As I profess to give the reader a translation of the genuine works
of Plato only, I have not translated the Axiochus, Demodoeus, Sisyphus,
&c. as these are evidently spurious dialogues.
-----------------
With respect, to the following translation, it is necessary to observe, in
the first place, than the numbers of legitimate dialogues of Plato is
fifty-five; for though the Republic forms but one treatise, and the Laws
another, yet the former consists of ten, and the latter of twelve books,
and each of these books is a dialogue. Hence, as there are thirty-three
dialogues, besides the Laws and the Republic, fifty-five will, as we have
said, be the amount of the whole. Of these fifty-five, the nine following
have been translated by Mr. Sydenham; viz. the First and Second Alcibiades,
the Greater and Lesser Hippias, the Banquet (except the speech of
Alcibiades), the Philebus, the Meno, the Io, and the Rivals.[29] I have
already observed, and with deep regret, that this excellent though
unfortunate scholar died before he had made that proficiency in the
philosophy of Plato which might have been reasonably expected from so fair
a beginning. I personally knew him only in the decline of life, when his
mental powers were not only considerably impaired by age, but greatly
injured by calamity. His life had been very stormy; his circumstances, for
many years preceding his death, were indigent; his patrons were by no means
liberal; and his real friends were neither numerous nor affluent. He began
the study of Plato, as he himself informed me, when he had considerably
passed the meridian of life, and with most unfortunate prejudices against
his best disciples, which I attempted to remove during my acquaintance with
him, and partly succeeded in the attempt; but infirmity and death prevented
its completion. Under such circumstances it was not to be expected that he
would fathom the profundity of Plato's conceptions, and arrive at the
summit of philosophic attainments. I saw, however, that his talents and his
natural disposition were such as might have ranked him among the best of
Plato's interpreters, if he had not yielded to the pressure of calamity, if
he had not nourished such baneful prejudices, and if he had not neglected
philosophy in the early part of life. Had this happened, my labors would
have been considerably lessened, or perhaps rendered entirely unnecessary,
and his name would have been transmitted to posterity with undecaying
renown. As this unfortunately did not happen, I have been under the
necessity of diligently examining and comparing with the original all
those parts of the dialogues which he translated, that are more deeply
philosophical, or that contain any thing of the theology of Plato. In
these, as might be expected, I found him greatly deficient; I found him
sometimes mistaking the meaning through ignorance of Plato's more sublime
tenets, and at other times perverting it, in order to favor some opinions
of his own. His translation however of other parts which are not so
abstruse is excellent. In these he not only presents the reader faithfully
with the matter, but likewise with the genuine manner of Plato. The notes
too which accompany the translation of these parts generally exhibit just
criticism and extensive learning, an elegant taste, and a genius naturally
philosophic. Of these notes I have preserved as much as was consistent with
the limits and design of the following work.
-----------------
[29] In the notes on the above-mentioned nine dialogues, those written
by Mr. Sydenham are signed S., and those by myself T.
-----------------
Of the translation of the Republic by Dr. Spens, it is necessary to observe
that a considerable part of it is very faithfully executed; but that in the
more abstruse parts it is inaccurate; and that it every where abounds with
Scotticisms which offend an English ear, and vulgarisms which are no less
disgraceful to the translator than disgusting to the reader. Suffice it
therefore to say of this version, that I have adopted it wherever I found
it could with propriety be adopted, and given my own translation where it
was otherwise.
Of the ten dialogues translated by Dacier, I can say nothing with
accuracy, because I have no knowledge whatever of the French language;
but if any judgment may be formed of this work, from a translation of it
into English, I will be bold to say that it is by no means literal, and
that he very frequently mistakes the sense of the original. From this
translation therefore I could derive but little assistance; some however
I have derived, and that little I willingly acknowledge. In translating
the rest of Plato's works, and this, as the reader may easily see, form
by far the greatest part of them, I have had no assistance from any
translation except that of Ficinus, the general excellency of which is
well known to every student of Plato, arising not only from his
possessing a knowledge of Platonism superior to that of any translators
that have followed him, but likewise from his having made this
translation from a very valuable manuscript in the Medicean library,
which is now no longer to be found. I have, however, availed myself of
the learned labors of the editors of various dialogues of Plato; such as
the edition of the Rivals, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo, by
Forster; of the First and Second Alcibiades and Hipparchus, by Etwall; of
the Meno, First Alcibiades, Phaedo and Phaedrus, printed at Vienna, 1784;
of the Cratylus and Theaetetus, by Fischer; of the Republic, by Massey;
and of the Euthydemus and Gorgias, by Dr. Routh, president of Magdalen
College, Oxford. This last editor has enriched his edition of these two
dialogues with very valuable and copious philological and critical notes,
in which he has displayed no less learning than judgment, no less
acuteness than taste. He appears indeed to me to be one of the best and
most modest of philologists; and it is to be hoped that he will be
imitated in what he has done by succeeding editors of Plato's text.
If my translation had been made with an eye to the judgment of the many,
it would have been necessary to apologize for its literal exactness.
Had I been anxious to gratify false taste with respect to composition, I
should doubtless have attended less to the precise meaning of the original,
have omitted almost all connective Particles, have divided long periods
into a number of short ones, and branched out the strong and deep river of
Plato's language into smooth-gliding, shallow, and feeble streams; but as
the present work was composed with the hope indeed of benefitting all, but
with an eye to the criticism solely of men of elevated souls, I have
endeavored not to lose a word of the original; and yet at the same time
have attempted to give the translation as much elegance as such verbal
accuracy can be supposed capable of admitting. I have also endeavored to
preserve the manner as well as the matter of my author, being fully
persuaded that no translation deserves applause, in which both these are
not as much as possible preserved.
My principal object in this arduous undertaking has been to unfold all
the abstruse and sublime dogmas of Plato, as they are found dispersed in
his works. Minutely to unravel the art which he employs in the
composition of all his dialogues, and to do full justice to his meaning
in every particular, must be the task of some one who has more leisure,
and who is able to give the works of Plato to the public on a more
extensive plan. In accomplishing this great object, I have presented the
reader in my notes with nearly the substance in English of all the
following manuscript Greek Commentaries and Scholia on Plato; viz. of the
Commentaries of Proclus on the Parmenides and First Alcibiades; and of
his Scholia on the Cratylus; of the Scholia of Olympiodorus on the
Phaedo, Gorgias, and Philebus; and of Hermeas on the Phoedrus. To these
are added very copious extracts from the manuscript of Damascius,[30]
Peri Archon, and from the published works of Proclus on the Timeus,
Republic, and Theology of Plato. Of the four first of these manuscripts,
three of which are folio volumes, I have complete copies taken with my
own hand; and of the copious extracts from the others, those from
Olympiodorus on the Gorgias were taken by me from the copy preserved in
the British Museum; those from the same philosopher on the Philebus, and
those from Hermeas on the Phaedrus, and Damascius Peri Archon, from the
copies in the Bodleian library.
-----------------
[30] Patricius was one of the very few in modern times who have been
sensible of the great merit of these writings, as is evident from the
extract from the preface to his translation of Proclus's Theological
Elements. (Ferrar. 4to. 1583.) Patricius, prior to this, enumerates the
writings of Proclus, and they are included in his wish that all the
manuscript Greek commentaries on Plato were made public.
-----------------
And here gratitude demands that I should publicly acknowledge the very
handsome and liberal manner in which I was received by the University of
Oxford, and by the principal librarian and sub-librarians of the Bodleian
library, during the time that I made the above mentioned extracts. In the
first place I have to acknowledge the very polite attention which was paid
to me by Dr. Jackson,[31] dean of Christ-church. In the second place, the
liberty of attendance at the Bodleian library, and the accommodation which
was there afforded me, by the librarians of that excellent collection,
demand from me no small tribute of praise. And, above all, the very liberal
manner in which I was received by the fellows of New College, with whom I
resided for three weeks, and from whom I experienced even Grecian
hospitality, will, I trust, be as difficult a task for time to obliterate
from my memory, as it would be for me to express it as it deserves.
-----------------
[31] I was much pleased to find that this very respectable prelate is a
great admirer of Aristotle, and that extracts from the Commentaries of
Simplicius and Ammonius on the Categories of that philosopher, are read
by his orders in the college of which he is the head.
-----------------
With respect to the faults which I may have committed in this translation
(for I am not vain enough to suppose it is without fault), I might plead
as an excuse, that the whole of it has been executed amidst severe
endurance from bodily infirmity and indigent circumstances; and that a
very considerable part of it was accomplished amidst other ills of no
common magnitude, and other labors inimical to such an undertaking. But
whatever may be my errors, I will not fly to calamity for an apology. Let
it be my excuse that the mistakes I may have committed in lesser
particulars, have arisen from my eagerness to seize and promulgate those
great truths in the philosophy and theology of Plato, which though they
have been concealed for ages in oblivion, have a subsistence coeval with
the universe, and will again be restored, and flourish for very extended
periods, through all the infinite revolutions of time.
In the next place, it is necessary to speak concerning the qualifications
requisite in a legitimate student of the philosophy of Plato, previous to
which I shall just notice the absurdity of supposing that a mere knowledge
of the Greek tongue, however great that knowledge may be, is alone
sufficient to the understanding the sublime doctrines of Plato; for a man
might as well think that he can understand Archimedes without a knowledge
of the elements of geometry, merely because he can read him in the
original. Those who entertain such an idle opinion, would do well to
meditate on the profound observation of Heraclitus, "that polymathy does
not teach intellect," ([Greek: Polymathic noon ou didaskei]).
By a legitimate student, then, of the Platonic philosophy, I mean one
who, both from nature and education, is properly qualified for such
an arduous undertaking; that is one who possesses a naturally good
disposition; is sagacious and acute, and is inflamed with an ardent
desire for the acquisition of wisdom and truth; who from his childhood
has been well instructed in the mathematical disciplines; who, besides
this, has spent whole days, and frequently the greater part of the night,
in profound meditation; and, like one triumphantly sailing over a raging
sea, or skillfully piercing through an army of foes, has successfully
encountered an hostile multitude of doubts;--in short, who has never
considered wisdom as a thing of trifling estimation and easy access, but
as that which cannot be obtained without the most generous and severe
endurance, and the intrinsic worth of which surpasses all corporeal good,
far more than the ocean the fleeting bubble which floats on its surface.
To such as are destitute of these requisites, who make the study of words
their sole employment, and the pursuit of wisdom but at best a secondary
thing, who expect to be wise by desultory application for an hour or two
in a day, after the fatigues of business, after mixing with the base
multitude of mankind, laughing with the gay affecting airs of gravity
with the serious, tacitly assenting to every man's opinion, however
absurd, and winking at folly however shameful and base--to such as
these--and, alas! the world is full of such--the sublimest truths must
appear to be nothing more than jargon and reverie, the dreams of a
distempered imagination, or the ebullitions of fanatical faith.
But all this is by no means wonderful, if we consider that two-fold
ignorance is the disease of the many. For they are not only ignorant with
respect to the sublimest knowledge, but they are even ignorant of their
ignorance. Hence they never suspect their want of understanding, but
immediately reject a doctrine which appears at first sight absurd,
because it is too splendid for their bat-like eyes to behold. Or if they
even yield their assent to its truth, their very assent is the result of
the same most dreadful disease of the soul. For they will fancy, says
Plato, that they understand the highest truths, when the very contrary is
really the case. I earnestly therefore entreat men of this description,
not to meddle with any of the profound speculations of the Platonic
philosophy, for it is more dangerous to urge them to such an employment,
than to advise them to follow their sordid avocations with unwearied
assiduity, and toil for wealth with increasing alacrity and vigor; as
they will by this means give free scope to the base habits of their soul,
and sooner suffer that punishment which in such as these must always
precede mental illumination, and be the inevitable consequence of guilt.
It is well said indeed by Lysis, the Pythagorean, that to inculcate
liberal speculations and discourses to those whose morals are turbid and
confused, is just as absurd as to pour pure and transparent water into a
deep well full of mire and clay; for he who does this will only disturb
the mud, and cause the pure water to become defiled. The woods of such,
as the same author beautifully observes, (that is the irrational or
corporeal life), in which these dire passions are nourished, must first
be purified with fire and sword, and every kind of instrument (that is,
through preparatory disciplines, and the political virtues), and reason
must be freed from its slavery to the affections, before any thing useful
can be planted in these savage haunts.
Let not such then presume to explore the regions of Platonic philosophy.
The land is too pure to admit the sordid and the base. The road which
conducts to it is too intricate to be discovered by the unskillful and
stupid, and the journey is too long and laborious to be accomplished by
the effeminate and the timid, by the slave of passion and the dupe of
opinion, by the lover of sense and the despiser of truth. The dangers and
difficulties in the undertaking are such as can be sustained by none but
the most hardy and accomplished adventurers; and he who begins the journey
without the strength of Hercules, or the wisdom and patience of Ulysses,
must be destroyed by the wild beasts of the forest, or perish in the storms
of the ocean; must suffer transmutation into a beast through the magic
power of Circe, or be exiled for life by the detaining charm of Calypso;
and in short must descend into Hades, and wander in its darkness, without
emerging from thence to the bright regions of the morning, or be ruined
by the deadly melody of the Syren's song. To the most skillful traveler,
who pursues the right road with an ardor which no toils can abate, with
a vigilance which no weariness can surprise into negligence, and with
virtue which no temptations can seduce, it exhibits for many years the
appearance of the Ithaca of Ulysses, or the flying Italy of AEneas; for
we no sooner gain a glimpse of the pleasing land which is to be the end
of our journey, than it is suddenly ravished from our view, and we still
find ourselves at a distance from the beloved coast, exposed to the fury
of a stormy sea of doubts.
Abandon then, ye groveling souls, the fruitless design! Pursue with
avidity the beaten road which leads to popular honors and sordid gain,
but relinquish all thoughts of a voyage for which you are totally
unprepared. Do you not perceive what a length of sea separates you from
the royal coast? A sea,
Huge, horrid, vast, where scarce in safety sails
The best built ship, though Jove inspire the gales.
And may we not very justly ask you, similar to the interrogation of
Calypso,
What ships have you, what sailors to convey,
What oars to cut the long laborious way?
I shall only observe further, that the life of Plato, by Olympiodorus, was
prefixed to this translation, in preference to that by Diogenes Laertius,
because the former is the production of a most eminent Platonist, and the
latter of a mere historian, who indiscriminately gave to the public whatever
anecdotes he found in other authors. If the reader combines this short
sketch of the life of Plato with what that philosopher says of himself in
his 7th Epistle, he will be in possession of the most important particulars
about him that can be obtained at present.
EXPLANATIONS OF CERTAIN PLATONIC TERMS
As some apology may be thought necessary for having introduced certain
unusual words of Greek origin, I shall only observe, that, as all arts and
sciences have certain appropriate terms peculiar to themselves, philosophy,
which is the art of arts, and science of sciences, as being the mistress of
both, has certainly a prior and a far superior claim to this privilege. I
have not, however, introduced, I believe, any of these terms without at the
same time sufficiently explaining them; but, lest the contrary should have
taken place, the following explanation of all such terms as I have been
able to recollect, and also of common words used by Platonists in a
peculiar sense, is subjoined for the information of the reader.
Anagogic, [Greek: anagogikos]. Leading on high.
Demiurgus, [Greek: demiourgos]. Jupiter, the artificer of the universe.
Dianoetia. This word is derived from [Greek: dianoia], or that power of
the soul which reasons scientifically, deriving the principles of its
reasoning from intellect. Plato is so uncommonly accurate in his diction,
that this word is very seldom used by him in any other than its primary
sense.
The Divine, [Greek: to Theion], is being subsisting in conjunction with
the one. For all things, except the one, viz. essence, life, and
intellect, are considered by Plato as suspended from and secondary to the
gods. For the gods do not subsist in, but prior to, these, which they
also produce and connect, but are not characterized by these. In many
places, however, Plato calls the participants of the gods by the names of
the gods. For not only the Athenian Guest in the Laws, but also Socrates
in the Phaedrus, calls a divine soul a god. "For," says he, "all the
horses and charioteers of the gods are good," &c. And afterwards, still
more clearly, he adds, "And this is the life of the gods." And not only
this, but he also denominates those nature gods that are always united to
the gods, and which, in conjunction with them, give completion to one
series. He also frequently calls daemons gods, though, according to
essence, they are secondary to and subsist about the gods. For in the
Phaedrus, Timaeus, and other dialogues, he extends the appellation of
gods as far as the daemons. And what is still more paradoxical than all
this, he does not refuse to call some men gods; as, for instance, the
Elean Guest in the Sophista. From all this, therefore, we must infer that
with respect to the word god, one thing which is thus denominated is
simply deity; another is so according to union; a third, according to
participation; a fourth, according to contact; and a fifth, according to
similitude. Thus every superessential nature is primarily a god; but
every intellectual nature is so according to union. And again, every
divine soul is a god according to participation; but divine daemons are
gods according to contact with the gods; and the souls of men obtain this
appellation through similitude. Each of these, however, except the first,
is as we have said, rather divine than a god; for the Athenian Guest in
the Laws, calls intellect itself divine. But that which is divine is
secondary to the first deity, in the same manner as the united is to the
one; that which is intellectual to intellect; and that which is animated
to soul. Indeed, things more uniform and simple always precede, and the
series of beings ends in the one itself.
Doxastic. This word is derived from doxa, opinion, and signifies that
which is apprehended by opinion, or that power which is the extremity of
the rational soul. This power knows the universal in particulars, as that
every man is a rational animal; but it knows not the dioti, or why a
thing is, but only the oti, or that it is.
The Eternal, [Greek: To aionion], that which has a never-ending subsistence,
without any connection with time; or, as Plotinus profoundly defines it,
infinite life at once total and full.
That which is generated, [Greek: to geneton]. That which has not the
whole of its essence or energy subsisting at once without temporal
dispersion.
Generation, [Greek: genesis]. An essence composite and multiform, and
conjoined with time. This is the proper signification of the word; but it
is used symbolically by Plato, and also by theologists more ancient than
Plato, for the sake of indication. For as Proclus beautifully observes
(in MS. Comment in Parmenidem), "Fables call the ineffable unfolding into
light through causes, generation." "Hence," he adds in the Orphic
writings, the first cause is denominated time; for where there is
generation, according to its proper signification, there also there
is time."
A Guest, [Greek: Xenos]. This word, in its more ample signification in
the Greek, denotes a stranger, but properly implies one who receives
another, or is himself received at an entertainment. In the following
dialogues, therefore, wherever one of the speakers is introduced as a
Xenos, I have translated this word guest, as being more conformable to
the genius of Plato's dialogues, which may be justly called rich mental
banquets, and consequently the speakers in them may be considered as so
many guests. Hence in the Timaeus, the persons of that dialogue are
expressly spoken of as guests.
Hyparxis, [Greek: uparxis]. The first principle or foundation, as it
were, of the essence of a thing. Hence also, it is the summit of essence.
Idiom, [Greek: Idioma]. The characteristic peculiarity of a thing.
The Immortal, [Greek: To athanaton]. According to Plato, there are many
orders of immortality, pervading from on high to the last of things; and
the ultimate echo, as it were, of immorality is seen in the perpetuity of
the mundane wholes, which according to the doctrine of the Elean Guest in
the Politicus, they participate from the Father of the universe. For both
the being and the life of every body depend on another cause; since body
is not itself naturally adapted to connect, or adorn, or preserve itself.
But the immortality of partial souls, such as ours, is more manifest and
more perfect than this of the perpetual bodies in the universe; as is
evident from the many demonstrations which are given of it in the Phaedo,
and in the 10th book of the Republic. For the immortality of partial
souls has a more principal subsistence, as possessing in itself the cause
of eternal permanency. But prior to both these is the immortality of
daemons; for these neither verge to mortality, nor are they filled with
the nature of things which are generated and corrupted. More venerable,
however, than these, and essentially transcending them, is the
immortality of divine souls, which are primarily self-motive, and contain
the fountains and principles of the life which is attributed about
bodies, and through which bodies participate of renewed immortality. And
prior to all these is the immortality of the gods: for Diotima in the
Banquet does not ascribe an immortality of this kind to demons. Hence
such an immortality as this is separate and exempt from wholes. For,
together with the immortality of the gods, eternity subsists, which is
the fountain of all immortality and life, as well that life which is
perpetual, as that which is dissipated into nonentity. In short,
therefore, the divine immortal is that which is generative and connective
of perpetual life. For it is not immortal, as participating of life, but
as supplying divine life, and deifying life itself.
Imparticipable, [Greek: To amethekton]. That which is not consubsistent
with an inferior nature. Thus imparticipable intellect is an intellect
which is not consubsistent with soul.
Intellectual Projection, [Greek: noera epibole]. As the perception of
intellect is immediate, being a darting forth, as it were, directly to
its proper objects, this direct intuition is expressed by the term
projection.
The Intelligible, [Greek: To noeton]. This word in Plato and Platonic
writers has a various signification: for, in the first place, whatever is
exempt from sensibles, and has its essence separate from them, is said to
be intelligible, and in this sense soul is intelligible. In the second
place, intellect, which is prior to soul, is intelligible. In the third
place, that which is more ancient than intellect, which replenishes
intelligence and is essentially perfective of it, is called intelligible;
and this is the intelligible which Timaeus in Plato places in the order
of a paradigm, prior to the demiurgic intellect and intellectual energy.
But beyond these is the divine intelligible, which is defined according
to divine union and hyparxis. For this is intelligible as the object of
desire to intellect, as giving perfection to and containing it, and as
the completion of being. The highest intelligible, therefore, is that
which is the hyparxis of the gods; the second, that which is true being,
and the first essence; the third, intellect, and all intellectual life;
and the fourth, the order belonging to soul.
Logismos, reasoning. When applied to divinity as by Plato in the Timaeus,
signifies a distributive cause of things.
On account of which; with reference to which; through which; according to
which, from which; or in which; viz. [Greek: di o, uph' ou, di ou, kath'
o, ex ou]. By the first of these terms, Plato is accustomed to denominate
the final cause; by the second the paradigmatic; by the third, the
demiurgic; by the fourth, the instrumental; by the fifth, form; and by
the sixth, matter.
Orectic. This word is derived from [Greek: orexis], appetite.
Paradigm, [Greek: paradeigma]. A pattern, or that with reference to which
a thing is made.
The perpetual, [Greek: to aidion]. That which subsists forever, but through
a connection with time.
A Politician, [Greek: politikos]. This word, as Mr. Sydenham justly
observes in his notes in the Rivals, is of a very large and extensive
import as used by Plato, and the other ancient writers on politics: for
it includes all those statesmen or politicians in aristocracies and
democracies, who were, either for life, or for a certain time, invested
with the whole or a part of kingly authority, and the power thereto
belonging. See the Politicus.
Prudence, [Greek: Phronesis]. This word frequently means in Plato and
Platonic writers, the habit of discerning what is good in all moral
actions, and frequently signifies intelligence, or intellectual
Perception. The following admirable explanation of this word is given by
Jamblichus Prudence having a precedaneous subsistence, receives its
generation from a pure and perfect intellect. Hence it looks to intellect
itself, is perfected by it, and has this as the measure and most
beautiful paradigm of all its energies. If also we have any communion
with the gods, it is especially effected by this virtue; and through this
we are in the highest degree assimilated to them. The knowledge too of
such things as are good, profitable, and beautiful, and of the contraries
to these, is obtained by this virtue; and the judgment and correction of
works proper to be done are by this directed. And in short it is a
certain governing leader of men, and of the whole arrangement of their
nature; and referring cities and houses, and the particular life, of
every one to a divine paradigm, it forms them according to the best
similitude; obliterating some things and purifying others. So that
prudence renders its possessors similar to divinity. Jamblic. apud.
Stob. p. 141.
Psychical, [Greek: psychikos]. Pertaining to soul.
Science. This word is sometimes defined by Plato to be that which assigns
the causes of things; sometimes to be that the subjects of which have a
perfectly stable essence; and together with this, he conjoins the
assignation of cause from reasoning. Sometimes again he defines it to be
that the principles of which are not hypotheses; and, according to this
definition, he asserts that there is one science which ascends as far as
to the principle of things. For this science considers that which is
truly the principle as unhypothetic, has for its subject true being, and
produces its reasonings from cause. According to the second definition,
he calls dianoetic knowledge science; but according to the first alone,
he assigns to physiology the appellation of science.
The telestic art. The art pertaining to mystic ceremonies.
Theurgic. This word is derived from [Greek: Theourgia], or that religious
operation which deifies him by whom it is performed as much as is possible
to man.
Truth, [Greek: aletheia]. Plato, following ancient theologists, considers
truth multifariously. Hence, according to his doctrine, the highest truth
is characterized by unity, and is the light proceeding from the good,
which imparts purity, as he says in the Philebus, and union, as he says
in the Republic, to intelligibles. The truth which is next to this in
dignity is that which proceeds from intelligibles, and illuminates the
intellectual orders, and which an essence unfigured, uncolored, and
without contact, first receives, where also the plain of truth is
situated, as it is written in the Phaedrus. The third kind of truth is,
that which is connascent with souls, and which through intelligence comes
into contact with true being. For the psychical light is the third, from
the intelligible; intellectual deriving its plenitude from intelligible
light, and the psychical from the intellectual. And the last kind of
truth is that which is full of error and inaccuracy through sense, and
the instability of its object. For a material nature is perpetually
flowing, and is not naturally adapted to abide even for a moment.
The following beautiful description of the third kind of truth, or that
which subsists in souls, is given by Jamblichus: "Truth, as the name
implies, makest a conversion about the gods and their incorporeal energy;
but, doxastic imitation, which, as Plato says, is fabricative of images,
wanders about that which is deprived of divinity and is dark. And the
former indeed receives its perfection in intelligible and divine forms,
and real beings which have a perpetual sameness of subsistence; but the
latter looks to that which is formless, and non-being, and which has a
various subsistence; and, about this it's visive power is blunted. The
former contemplates that which is, but the latter assumes such a form as
appears to the many. Hence the former associates with intellect, and
increases the intellectual nature which we contain; but the latter, from
looking to that which always seems to be, hunts after folly and
deceives." Jamblic. apud Stob. p. 136.
The unical, [Greek: to niaion]. That which is characterized by unity.
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