be closely joined with that which is ineffable and fuperior to all beings. When come fo high as the firft principle fhe ends her journey and refts. Such is the doctrine of Proclus.

334. But Socrates in the firft Alcibiades teacheth on the other hand, that the contemplation of God is the proper means to know or understand our own foul. As the eye, faith he, looking ftedfastly at the vifive part or pupil of another eye, beholds itfelf, even fo the foul beholds and understands herself, while fhe contemplates the Deity which is wisdom and virtue or like thereunto. In the Phædon Socrates fpeaks of God as being ταγαθὸν and τὸ δέον (α), the good and the decent: Plotinus reprefents God as order; Ariftotle as law.

335. It may feem perhaps to thofe, who have been taught to difcourfe about fubftratums, more reafonable and pious to attribute to the Deity a more fubftantial being, than the notional entities of wisdom, order, law, virtue, or goodness, which being only complex ideas, framed and put together by the underftanding, are its own creatures, and have nothing fubftantial, real, or independent in them. But it must be confidered, that in the Platonic fyftem, order, virtue, law, goodness, and wifdom are not creatures of the foul of man, but innate and originally exiftent therein, not as an accident in a fubftance, but as light to enlighten, and as a guide to govern. In Plato's ftyle, the term idea doth not merely fignify an inert inactive object of the understanding, but is ufed as fynonymous with altior and dex, cause and principle. According to that philofopher, goodness, beauty, virtue and fuch like, are not figments of the mind, nor mere mixed modes, nor yet abstract ideas in the modern fense, but the most real beings, intellectual and unchangeable; and therefore more real than the fleeting tranfient objects of fenfe (b), which wanting (b) 3c6.

(a) 260, 220,

X

ftability

"

ftability cannot be fubjects of fcience (d), much lefs of intellectual knowledge.

335. By Parmenides, Timæus, and Plato a diflinction was made, as hath been obferved already, between genitum and ens. The former fort is always. generating or in fieri (e), but never exifts, because it never continues the fame, being in a conftant change, ever perifhing and producing. By entia they underftand things remote from fenfe, invifible and intellectual, which never changing are ftill the fame, and may therefore be faid truly to exift: gría, which is generally tranflated fubftance, but more properly effence, was not thought to belong to things fenfible and corporeal, which have no ftability; but rather to intellectual ideas, tho' difcerned with more difficulty, and making lefs impreffion on a mind stupified and immerfed in animal life, than grofs objects that continually befet and follicit our fenfes.

337. The moft refined human intellect exerted to its utmoft reach, can only feize fome imperfect glympfes (f) of the divine ideas, abftracted from all things corporeal, fenfible, and imaginable. Therefore Pythagoras and Plato treated them in a mysterious manner, concealing rather than expofing them to vulgar eyes; fo far were they from thinking, that thofe abftract things, altho' the most real, were the fittest to influence common minds, or become principles of knowledge, not to fay duty and virtue, to the generality of mankind.

338. Ariftotle and his followers have made a monftrous reprefentation of the Platonic ideas; and fome of Plato's own fchool have faid very odd things concerning them. But if that philofopher himself was not read only, but ftudied alfo with care, and made his own interpreter, I believe the prejudice that now lies against him would foon wear off (g) or be even

(d) 264, 266, 297 (e) 304, 306. (f) 313,330. (8) 309, 313,

con

converted into a high efteem for thofe exalted notions and fine hints, that sparkle and fhine throughout his writings; which feem to contain not only the most valuable learning of Athens and Greece, but alfo treasure of the moft remote traditions and early fcience of the east.

a

339. In the Timæus of Plato mention is made of ancient perfons, authors of traditions, and the offfpring of the gods. It is very remarkable, that in the account of the creation contained in the fame piece, it is faid that God was pleafed with his work, and that the night is placed before the day. The more we think, the more difficult fhall we find it to conceive, how mere man, grown up in the vulgar habits of life, and weighed down by fenfuality, fhould ever be able to arrive at science, without some tradition (b) or teaching, which might either fow the feeds of knowledge, or call forth and excite thofe latent feeds that were originally fown in the foul.

340. Human fouls in this low fituation, bordering on mere animal life, bear the weight and fee through the dufk of a grofs atmosphere, gathered from wrong judgments daily paffed, falfe opinions daily learned, and early habits of an older date than either judgment or opinion. Through fuch a medium the fharpeft eye cannot fee clearly (i). And if by fome extraordinary effort the mind fhould furmount this dufky region, and fnatch a glympfe of pure light, fhe is foon drawn backward and depreffed by the heaviness of the animal nature, to which the is chained. And if again fhe chanceth, amidst the agitation of wild fancies and ftrong affections, to fpring upwards, a fecond relapfe fpeedily fucceeds into this region of darkness and dreams.

341. Nevertheless, as the mind gathers ftrength by repeated acts, we fhould not defpond, but continue to exert the prime and flower of our faculties, (b) 298, 301, 302. (i) 292, 293, 294.

X 2

ftill

ftill recovering, and reaching on, and ftruggling into the upper region, whereby our natural weaknefs and blindness may be in fome degree remedied, and a tafte attained of truth and intellectual life. Befide the conftant prevailing opinion of the greatest men of antiquity, that there is both an univerfal spirit author of life and motion, and an univerfal mind enlightening and ordering all things, it was a received tenet among them, that there is alfoo Ev or Táyatòv (a), which they looked on as the fons deitatis, the first hypoftafis in the divinity.

342. The one, or to ev, being immutable and indivifible, always the fame and entire, was therefore thought to exift truly and originally, and other things only fo far as they are one and the fame, by participation of the Tov. This gives unity, ftability, reality to things (b). Plato defcribes God, as Mofes, from his being. According to both, God is he who truly is, τws . Change and divifion were esteemed defects or bad. Evil fcatters, divides, deftroys: Good, on the contrary, produceth concord and union, affembles, combines, perfects, and preferves entire. The feveral beings which compofe the universe are parts of the fame fyftem, they combine to carry on one end, and perfect one whole. And this aptnefs and concurrence thereunto furnishes the partial particular idea of good in the diftinct creatures. Hence it might have come to pass, that rayabou and to ev were regarded as one and the fame.

TO

343. Light and fight (faith Plato in the fixth book of his Republic) are not the fun; even fo truth and knowledge are not the good itself, altho' they approach thereunto. And again, what the fun is in a vifible place with refpect to fight and things feen, that fame is rayatov or good in an intelligible place, with refpect to understanding and things understood.

(a) 329. (b) 264, 306.

Therefore

Therefore the good or one is not the light that en lightens, but the fource of that light.

344. Every moment produceth fome change in the parts of this visible creation. Something is added or diminished, or altered in effence, quantity, quality, or habitude. Wherefore all generated beings were faid by the ancients to be in a perpetual flux (c). And that which, on a confused and general view, feems one fingle conftant being, fhall upon a nearer inspection appear a continued feries of different beings. But God remains for ever one and the fame. Therefore God alone exifts. This was the doctrine of Heraclitus, Plato, and other ancients.

345. It is the opinion of Plato and his followers, that in the foul of man, prior and fuperior to intellect, there is fomewhat of an higher nature, by virtue of which we are one; and that by means of our one or unit, we are most closely joined to the Deity. And, as by our intellect we touch the divine intellect, even fo by our ev or unit the very flower of our effence, as Proclus expreffeth it, we touch the first one.

346. According to the Platonic philosophy, ens and unum are the fame. And confequently our minds participate fo far of exiftence as they do of unity. But it fhould feem that perfonality is the indivifible center of the foul or mind, which is a monad fo far forth as fhe is a perfon. Therefore perfon is really that which exists, inasmuch as it participates of the divine unity. In man the monad or indivifible is the auro To avrò the self fame self or very self, a thing, in the opinion of Socrates, much and narrowly to be inquired into and difcuffed, to the end that, knowing ourselves, we may know what belongs to us and our happiness.

347. Upon mature reflexion the perfon or mind of all created beings feemeth alone indivifible, and to partake most of unity. But fenfible things are rather confidered as one than truly fo, they being in a perpe(c) 304, 336.

tual