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Select Works
Of
PLOTINUS,
THE GREAT RESTORER OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLATO :
And Extracts From the
Treatise of Synesius
Dn ProtiiDencc.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK.
With an Introduction Containing
THE SUBSTANCE OF PORPHYRY’S LIFE OF PLOTINUS.
BY THOMAS TAYLOR.
A ρχα καί αίτια και κανών ςντι ras ανθρώπινα? ευζαιμοσυνα? α των Θειων και τιμιωτατων επηνωσιε, THEAGES PyTHAG.
i. e. “ The knowledge of things divine and most honourable, is the principle, cause, and rule of human felicity.”
He who has not even a knowledge of common things is a brute among men. He who has an accurate knowledge of human concerns alone, is a man among brutes. But he who knows all that can be known by intel¬ lectual energy, is a God among men.
LonDon :
PRINTED FOR, AND SOLD BY, THE AUTHOR, NO. 9, MANOR PLACE,
WALWORTH.
ALSO BY MESSRS. BLACK AND SON, TAVISTOCK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
>\ HISTORICAL
LONDON :
Printed by A. J. Valpyf Tooke's Court , Chancery Lane »
To
GEORGE MEREDITH, ESQ.
AS A TRIBUTE OF THE WARMEST GRATITUDE,
FOR THE ASSISTANCE WHICH HE HAS GIVEN,
IN CONJUNCTION WITH HIS BROTHER,
WILLIAM MEREDITH,
To the Promulgation of the Philosophy of
PLATO AND ARISTOTLE,
AND A TESTIMONY OF GREAT ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER,
This Work Is Dedicated
BY THE TRANSLATOR,
THOMAS TAYLOR.
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a · . :· · -■ .. ■ · . i.
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The following is a List of Translations and
Original Works
BY T. TAYLOR.
Cranslations.
FROM THE GREEK.
Plotinus on the Beautiful, l2mo. Is. 6d.
Proclus on Euclid, and his Elements of Theology, in which |he principal dogmas of a Theology coeval with the Universe are unfolded. 2 vols. 4to. 1/. 10s.
Four Dialogues of Plato, viz. the Cratylus, Phaedo, Parme¬ nides, and Timseus. 8vo. *Js. 6d.
Sallust on the Gods and the World. 8vo. 3s.
Two Orations of the Emperor Julian, one to the Sovereign Sun, and the other to the Mother of the Gods. 8vo. 3s.
Five Books of Plotinus, viz. on Felicity ; on the Nature
and Origin of Evil; on Providence; on Nature, Contempla¬
tion, and the One ; and on the Descent of the Soul. 8vo. 5s.
Pausanias's Description of Greece, with copious Notes, in which much of the Mythology of the Greeks is unfolded from genuine ancient sources. 3 vols. 8vo. 18s.
Aristotle’s Metaphysics, with copious Notes, in which the Platonic doctrine of Ideas is largely unfolded. 4 to 2/. 2s.
The Dissertations of Maximus Tyrius. 2 vols. 12mo. 12s.
The Works of Plato, in which the substance is given of
nearly all the existing Greek MSS., Commentaries and Scho¬
lia on Plato, and his most abstruse Dogmas are unfolded.
5 vols. 4to. 10/. 10s.
The Works of Aristotle, accompanied with copious elucida¬ tions from the best of his Greek Commentators, viz. Alexander Aphrodisiensis, Syrianus, Ammonius Hermasas, Priscianus, Olympiodorus, Simplicius, &c. 9 vols. 4to. 47/. 5s.
The six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato, to which a seventh Book is added by the Translator, in order to supply the deficiency of another Book on this subject, which was written by Proclus, but since lost. Also Proclus’s Elements of Theology. 2 vols. 4to. 5/. 10s.
Select Works of Plotinus, and Extracts from Synesius on Providence. 8vo. 1 5s.
FROM THE LATIN.
The Fable of Cupid and Psyche from Apuleius, with an
Introduction explaining the meaning of the Fable, and proving
that it alludes to the descent of the Soul. 8vo. 5s.
Proclus on Providence and Fate; Extracts from his Treatise entitled Ten Doubts concerning Providence ; and Extracts from his Treatise on the Subsistence of Evil; as preserved in the Bibliotheca Gr. of Fabricius. See Proclus on the The¬ ology of Plato.
Yii
SDriffinal (BHorket.
History of the Restoration of the Platonic Theology, by the genuine disciples of Plato. See the 2nd vol. of Proclus on Euclid.
A Dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, in which much new and important information, relative to those most venerable and august institutions, is given from Greek Manu¬ scripts. 8vo. 5s. A Second Edition of this work is printed in Nos. XV. and XVI. of the Pamphleteer.
A complete Collection of all the existing Chaldaean Oracles, with concise explanations. See the 3d vol. of the Old Monthly Magazine.
A Dissertation on Nullities and Diverging Series, in which Nullities are proved to be infinitely small quantities, and the Platonic doctrine of to ev, or the One , is illustrated. See the end of the first edition of the Translation of Aristotle's Meta¬ physics.
A poetical Paraphrase on the Speech of Diotima on the
Beautiful, in the Banquet of Plato. See the Translation of
the Fable of Cupid and Psyche.
Hymns. See the before-mentioned Sallust, Julian, Plotinus, and Cupid and Psyche.
The Elements of the true Arithmetic of Infinites, in which all the Propositions in the Arithmetic of Infinites invented by Dr. Wallis, relative to the summation of infinite series, and also the principles of the doctrine of Fluxions, are demonstrated to be false; and the nature of Infinitesimals is unfolded, 4to. 5s.
A Dissertation on the Philosophy of Aristotle, in four Books ; in which his principal Physical and Metaphysical dogmas are unfolded ; and it is shown from indubitable evidence, that his Philosophy has not been accurately known since the destruction of the Greeks. The insufficiency also of the Philosophy that has been substituted by the moderns for that of Aristotle, is demonstrated. This volume was written as an Introduction to the Translation of Aristotle's works. 4to. 51. 5s.
Theoretic Arithmetic, in three Books ; containing the sub¬ stance of all that has been written on this subject by Theo of Smyrna, Nicomachus, Iamblichus, and Boetius. — Together with some remarkable particulars respecting perfect, amicable, and other numbers, which are not to be found in the writings of any ancient or modern mathematicians. Likewise a specimen ©f the manner in which the Pythagoreans philosophized about numbers ; and a developement of their mystical and theologi- fcal arithmetic. 8vo. 14i.
erratum.
p. 161. note, for πλ*ιν read 7r«p.
Introduction ·
The philosophy of Plato is deeply in¬
debted to two very extraordinary men,
who rank among the chief of its leaders
and hierophants, viz. Plotinus and Proclus ;
to the former for its restoration, and to the
latter for the complete developement of all
its sublimities and mysteries.
It is indeed a remarkable historical fact,
though but little known, that the depths
of this philosophy, as I have elsewhere
observed,1 were not perfectly fathomed,
1 See the General Introduction to my translation of Platp,
Plot » b
except by his immediate disciples, for more
than five hundred years after its first pro¬
pagation. 1 For though Grantor, Atticus,
1 This fact must necessarily be very little known at pre¬ sent, as the philosophy of Plato is no longer studied as it was in ancient times, having become for many centuries obsolete. And yet it is no uncommon thing with the literati, and particularly with the critics of the present age, to decide with as much confidence on the dogmas of this philosophy, and on the writings of its most celebrated votaries, as on the nugatory and fungous productions of the day. These men
forget, when they boast of having consumed the best part of their life in the study of the Greek and Latin languages, that philology is a very different thing from* philosophy, and that there is extreme danger in being well-grounded at great Grammar schools, of being at the same time well-ground . Their presumption however is by no means wonderful when we consider that they have been disciplined by the spectre of the Dunciad,
“ Whose beaver’d brow a birchen garland wears.
Dropping with infants’ blood, and mothers’ tears/’
And whose language is,
• — — “ Since man from beast by words is known.
Words are man’s province, words we teach alone.
When Reason doubtful, like the Samian letter.
Albinus, Galen and Plutarch, were men of
great genius, and made no common pro¬
ficiency 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
Points him two ways, the narrower is the better.
Plac'd at the door of learning, youth to guide»
We never suffer it to stand too wide .
To ask, to guess, to know as they commence,
As Fancy opens the quick springs of Sense,
We ply the memory , we load the brain ,
Bind rebel Wit, and double chain on chain ;
Confine the thought, to exercise the breath ,
And keep them in the pale of Words till death ,
Whate’er the talents, or howe’er design’d ,
We hang one jingling padlock on the wind .
Punciad, Book IV.
3 Έπι των Χεγομενων τεΧετων, τα μεν α bvra ην, ως δηΧοι
και τοννομα, τα be παραπετάσματα προβεβΧηνται, αθέατα τα
εν tois abvrois <ρν\αττοντα, Psellus in Alleg. de Sphina
viii INTRODUCTION,
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 * 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 master were the true
interpreters of his sublime and mystic
speculations. Of these Plotinus was the
leader, and to him this philosophy is in·*
debted for its genuine restoration, and for
that succession of philosophic heroes, who
were luminous links of the golden chain of
deity. The commencement indeed of this
restoration of philosophy originated from
Ammonius Saccas, but the completion of
1 See ray dissertation on the Eleusinian and Bacchie Mysteries in Numbers XV and XVI of the Pamphleteer.
it was the work of Plotinus. For the
former of these, who was by birth an Alex¬
andrian, and at first nothing more than a
porter, opened a philosophical school at
Alexandria, but with a determination not
to commit the more abstruse and theologi¬
cal dogmas of his philosophy to writing.
Indeed, this truly great man was so fearful
of profaning these sublime mysteries, by
exposing them to vulgar inspection, that he
revealed them to his disciples Erennius,
Origen, and Plotinus, on the condition of
inviolable secrecy, and under the guard of
irrevocable oaths. However, fortunately for
posterity, Erennius dissolved the compact,
and Origen (not the Christian father of that
name) imitating Erennius, disclosed a part of
his master s secrets, in a curious treatise on
Daemons, which unfortunately is lost. But
the publications of these two great men
were but trifling efforts to restore the
mystic wisdom of antiquity, since the
evolution of it into light free from the
enigmas in which it had been before enve¬
loped, was reserved for the divine genius
of Plotinus*
Of this very extraordinary man there is
a long and interesting life extant by his
disciple Porphyry, from which the follow*
ing particulars are selected for the informa¬
tion of the English reader*
Plotinus was by birth an Egyptian, and
was a native of Lycopolis, as we are in¬
formed by Eunapius ; for Porphyry is
wholly silent as to this particular. Indeed,
this is not wonderful, if we consider what
Porphyry asserts of him in the beginning
of his life, viz. that he was ashamed that his
soul was in body . Hence, says he, he would
neither tell the race, nor the parents from
whom he originated, nor would he patiently
relate in what country he was born. This
I know will be considered by a genuine
modern, as either rank enthusiasm, or gross
affectation ; but he who has fathomed the
depth of his writings will immediately sub¬
scribe to its truth. The same vehement
love for intellectual pursuits, and contempt
for body, made him disdain to sit for his
picture; so that when Amelias, one of his
disciples* begged that he would permit his
likeness to be taken, his answer expressed
the true greatness of his mind : “ As if
(says he) it was not sufficient to bear this
image, with which nature has surrounded
Xll INTRODUCTION.
us, you think that a more lasting image of
this image should be left as a work worthy
to be inspected.” However, the wish of
Amelius was at length accomplished, by
the ingenious contrivance of one Carterius
a painter, who by frequenting the school
of Plotinus, and viewing his countenance
with fixed attention, produced at length
from his memory a happy likeness of the
philosopher. Though he was often afflicted
with the colic, he always refused the assist¬
ance of clysters, asserting that remedies of
this kind were not fit for a man advanced
in years. Nor would he ever receive the
assistance of theriacal antidotes, since he
said his nourishment was not derived from
the bodies of even tame animals. He like¬
wise abstained from baths; but daily used
frictions at home. But when a grievous