Platonic traces, there would naturally be; but it will be noticed that
they are far less numerous than the Pythagorean. To begin with, we
find the reverent spirit towards the divinities, which prays for their
blessing at the inception of all tasks.[710] To us who live in these
latter days, such a prayer seems out of place in philosophy; but that
is only because we have divorced philosophy from theology; in other
words, because our theology has left the realm of living thought,
and, being fixed once for all, we are allowed to pursue any theory
of existence we please as if it had nothing whatever to do with any
reality; in other words, we are deceiving ourselves. On the contrary,
in those days, every philosophical speculation was a genuine adventure
in the spiritual world, a magical operation that might unexpectedly
lead to the threshold of the cosmic sanctuary. Wise, indeed, therefore,
was he who began it by prayer.
Of other technical Platonic terms there are quite a few. The lower is
always the image of the higher.[711] So the world might be considered
the statue of the Divinity.[712] The ideas are in a realm above the
world.[713] The soul here below is as in a prison.[714] There is a
divinity higher than the one generally known.[715] The divinity is in
a stability resultant of firmness and perfect motion.[716] The perfect
movement, therefore, is circular.[717] This inter-communion of the
universe therefore results in matter appearing in the intelligible
world as "intelligible matter."[718] By dialectics, also called
"bastard reasoning,"[719] we abstract everything[720] till we reach the
thing-in-itself,[721] or, in other words, matter as a substrate of the
world.[722] Thus we metaphysically reach ineffable solitude.[723]
The same goal is reached psychologically, however, in the ecstasy.[724]
This idea occurred in Plato only as a poetic expression of metaphysical
attainment; and in the case of Plotinos at least may have been used as
a practical experience chiefly to explain his epileptic attacks; and
this would be all the more likely as this disease was generally called
the "sacred disease." Whether Numenius also was an epileptic, we are
not told; it is more likely he took the idea from Philo, or Philo's
oriental sources; at least Numenius seems to claim no personal ecstatic
experiences such as those of Plotinos.
We have entered the realm of psychology; and this teaches us that that
in which Numenius and Plotinos differ from Plato and Philo is chiefly
their psychological or experimental application of pure philosophy. No
body could subsist without the soul to keep it together.[725] Various
attempts are made to describe the nature of the soul; it is the extent
or relation of circumference to circle.[726] Or it is like a line and
its divergence.[727] In any case, the divinity and the soul move around
the heavens,[728] and this may explain the otherwise problematical
progress or evolution ("prosodos" or "stolos") of ours.[729]