PLOTINOS
Complete Works
In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods;
With
BIOGRAPHY by PORPHYRY, EUNAPIUS, & SUIDAS,
COMMENTARY by PORPHYRY,
ILLUSTRATIONS by JAMBLICHUS & AMMONIUS,
STUDIES in Sources, Development, Influence;
INDEX of Subjects, Thoughts and Words.
by
KENNETH SYLVAN GUTHRIE,
Professor in Extension, University of the South, Sewanee;
A.M., Sewanee, and Harvard; Ph.D., Tulane, and Columbia.
M.D., Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE PRESS
P. O. Box 42, ALPINE, N.J., U.S.A.
Copyright, 1918, by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie.
All Rights, including that of Translation, Reserved.
Entered at Stationers' Hall, by
George Bell and Sons, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn, London.
PLOTINOS
Complete Works
In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods;
With
BIOGRAPHY by PORPHYRY, EUNAPIUS, & SUIDAS,
COMMENTARY by PORPHYRY,
ILLUSTRATIONS by JAMBLICHUS & AMMONIUS,
STUDIES in Sources, Development, Influence;
INDEX of Subjects, Thoughts and Words.
by
KENNETH SYLVAN GUTHRIE,
Professor in Extension, University of the South, Sewanee;
A.M., Sewanee, and Harvard; Ph.D., Tulane, and Columbia.
M.D., Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia.
VOL. I
Biographies; Amelian Books, 1-21.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE PRESS
P. O. Box 42, ALPINE, N.J., U.S.A.
FOREWORD
It is only with mixed feelings that such a work can be published.
Overshadowing all is the supreme duty to the English-speaking world,
and secondarily to the rest of humanity to restore to them in an
accessible form their, till now, unexploited spiritual heritage, with
its flood of light on the origins of their favorite philosophy. And
then comes the contrast--the pitiful accomplishment. Nor could it
be otherwise; for there are passages that never can be interpreted
perfectly; moreover, the writer would gladly have devoted to it every
other leisure moment of his life--but that was impossible. As a matter
of fact, he would have made this translation at the beginning of his
life, instead of at its end, had it not been for a mistaken sense of
modesty; but as no one offered to do it, he had to do it himself. If he
had done it earlier, his "Philosophy of Plotinos" would have been a far
better work.
Indeed, if it was not for the difficulty and expense of putting it
out, the writer would now add to the text an entirely new summary of
Plotinos's views. The fairly complete concordance, however, should
be of service to the student, and help to rectify the latest German
summary of Plotinos, that by Drews, which in its effort to furnish a
foundation for Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious, neglected both
origins and spiritual aspects. However, the present genetic insight of
Plotinos's development should make forever impossible that theory of
cast-iron coherence, which is neither historical nor human.
The writer, having no thesis such as Drews' to justify, will
welcome all corrections and suggestions. He regrets the inevitable
uncertainties of capitalization (as between the supreme One,
Intelligence World-Soul and Daemon or guardian, and the lower
one, intelligence, soul and demon or guardian); and any other
inconsistencies of which he may have been guilty; and he beseeches the
mantle of charity in view of the stupendousness of the undertaking,
in which he practically could get no assistance of any kind, and also
in view of the almost insuperable difficulties of his own career. He,
however, begs to assure the reader that he did everything "ad majorem
Dei gloriam."