It may be said that the One is itself a mystical conception, involving

a reversal of all our ordinary beliefs. The universe is a vast

multiplicity of objects, held together, if you will, by some secret

bond of union possibly related to the personal unity of consciousness,

but still neither lost nor confused in its identity. Precisely;

but Plotinus himself fully admits as much. His One is the cause of

existence, not existence itself. He knows just as well as we do, that

the abstract idea of unity has no reality apart from the mind. But if

so, why should he associate it, in the true mystical style, with the

transports of amorous passion? The question is pertinent, but it might

be addressed to other Greek systems as well. We must remember that

Plotinus is only commenting and enlarging on Plato. In the _Republic_

also, the Idea of Good is described as transcending the existence and

the knowledge which it produces,[465] and in the _Symposium_, the

absolute self beautiful, which seems to be the Good under another

name, is spoken of in terms not less passionately enthusiastic than

any applied by Plotinus to the vision of the One.[466] Doubtless the

practical sense of the great Attic master did not desert him even here:

the object of all thought, in its widest sweep and in its highest

flight, is to find room for every possible expansion of knowledge,

for every possible elevation of life. Plotinus was a stranger to

such broad views; but in departing from Plato, as usual he follows

Aristotle. The absolute self-thinking thought of the Stagirite is,

when we examine it closely, only one degree less chimerical than the

Neo-Platonic unification. For it means consciousness of self without

the correlative consciousness of a not-self, and as such, according

to Aristotle, it affords an eternal felicity equal or superior to the

best and happiest moments of our sensitive human life. What Plotinus

does is to isolate personal identity from reason and, as such, to make

it at once the cause and the supreme ideal of existence. This involves

two errors: first a false abstraction of one subjective phenomenon

from the sum total of conscious life; and, secondly, an illegitimate

generalisation of this abstraction into an objective law of things.

But in both errors, Aristotle had preceded him, by dissociating reason

from all other mental functions, and by then attributing the whole

cosmic movement to the love which this isolated faculty of reason, in

its absolute self-existence, for ever inspires. And he also set the

example of associating happiness, which is an emotional state, with an

intellectual abstraction from which emotion is necessarily excluded.

Again, the Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics all pass for being absolute

rationalists. Yet their common ideal of impassive self-possession,

when worked out to its logical consequences, becomes nearly

indistinguishable from the self-simplification of Plotinus. All alike

exhibit the Greek tendency towards endless abstraction—what we have

called the analytical moment of Greek thought, working together with

the moments of antithesis and circumscription. The sceptical isolation

of man from Nature, the Epicurean isolation of the individual from the

community, the Stoic isolation of will from feeling, reached their

highest and most abstract expression in the Neo-Platonic isolation of

pure self-identity from all other modes of consciousness and existence

combined.

In estimating the intellectual character of Plotinus, we must also

remember that the theory of the absolute One occupies a relatively

small place in his speculations; while, at a rough computation, the

purely mystical portions of his writings—by which we understand those

in which allusion is made to personal and incommunicable experiences

of his own—do not amount to more than one per cent. of the whole. If

these have attracted more attention than all the rest put together,

the reason probably is that they offer an agreeable relief to the

arid scholasticism which fills so much of the _Enneads_, and that

they are the only very original contribution made by Plotinus to

Greek literature. But the significance of a writer must not always be

measured by his most original passages, and this is eminently true

of our philosopher. His great merit was to make the spiritualism of

Plato and Aristotle more intelligible and interesting than it had

been before, and to furnish reason with a rallying-point when it was

threatened with utter destruction by the religious revival of the

empire.

VII.

So far our investigation has been analytical. We have seen Plotinus

acquire, one after another, the elements out of which his system has

still to be constructed. The first step was to separate spirit from

matter. They are respectively distinguished as principles of union and

of division. The bodies given to us in experience are a combination of

the two, a dispersion of form over an infinitely extended, infinitely

divisible, infinitely changeful substratum. Our own souls, which at

first seemed so absolutely self-identical, present, on examination,

a similarly composite character. A fresh analysis results in the

separation of Nous or Reason from the lower functions of conscious

life. And we infer by analogy that the soul in Nature bears the same

relation to a transcendent objective Nous. Nous is essentially pure

self-consciousness, and from this self-consciousness the world of

Ideas is developed. Properly speaking, Ideas are the sole reality:

sensible forms are an image of them impressed on matter through the

agency of the world-soul. But Nous, or the totality of Ideas, though

high, is not the highest. All that has hitherto occupied us, Nature,

Soul, and Reason, is pervaded by a fundamental unity, without which

nothing could exist. But Soul is not herself this unity, nor is Reason.

Self-consciousness, even in its purest expression, involves a duality

of object and subject. The notion of Being is distinct from the notion

of oneness. The principle represented by the latter, as the cause of

all things, must itself transcend existence. At the same time, it is

revealed to us by the fact of our own personal identity. To be united

with oneself is to be united with the One.

Thus we have, in all, five gradations: the One, Nous, Soul, the

sensible world, and, lastly, unformed Matter. Taken together, the

first three constitute a triad of spiritual principles, and, as such,

are associated in a single group by Plotinus.[467] Sometimes they are

spoken of as the Alexandrian Trinity. But the implied comparison with

the Trinity of Catholicism is misleading. With Neo-Platonism, the

supreme unity is, properly speaking, alone God and alone One. Nous

is vastly inferior to the first principle, and Soul, again, to Nous.

Possibly the second and third principles are personal; the first most

certainly is not, since self-consciousness is expressly denied to it

by Plotinus. Nor is it likely that the idea of a supernatural triad

was suggested to Neo-Platonism by Christianity. Each of the three

principles may be traced to its source in Greek philosophy. This

has been already shown in the case of the One and of the Nous. The

universal soul is to be found in Plato’s _Timaeus_; it is analogous,

at least in its lower, divided part, to Aristotle’s Nature; and it

is nearly identical with the informing spirit of Stoicism. As to the

number three, it was held in high esteem long before the Christian

era, and was likely to be independently employed for the construction

of different systems at a time when belief in the magical virtue of

particular numbers was more widely diffused than at any former period

of civilised history.

From another point of view, as we have already observed with Kirchner,

the fundamental triad assumed by Plotinus is body, soul, and spirit.

Under their objective aspect of the sensible universe, the world-soul,

and the Nous, these three principles constitute the sum of all reality.

Take away plurality from Nous and there remains the One. Take away

soul from body and there remains unformed matter. These are the two

transcendent principles between which the others extend, and by whose

combination in various proportions they are explained. It is true

that Plotinus himself does not allude to the possibility of such an

analysis, but it exhibits, better than any other, the natural order of

his dialectic.

Plotinus passes by an almost insensible transition from the more

elementary and analytical to the more constructive portion of his

philosophy. This naturally falls into two great divisions, the one

speculative and the other practical. It has to be shown by what

necessity and in what order the great cosmic principles are evolved

from their supreme source; and it has also to be shown in what way

this knowledge is connected with the supreme interests of the human

soul. The moral aspect of Neo-Platonism is not at first very clearly

distinguished from its metaphysical aspect; and both find their most

general solution in the same line of thought that has led us up to

a contemplation of the ultimate One. For the successive gradations

of our ascent represent, in an inverted order, the steps of creative

energy by which all things are evolved from their primal source; while

they directly correspond to the process of purification through which

every soul must pass in returning from the exile of her separate and

material existence to the happiness of identification with God. And

here we at once come on the fundamental contradiction of the system.

What we were so carefully taught to consider as one and nothing more,

must now be conceived as the first cause and the supreme good. Plotinus

does, indeed, try to evade the difficulty by saying that his absolute

is only a cause in relation to other things, that it is not so much

good as the giver of good, that it is only one in the sense of not

being many.[468] But after making these reservations, he continues to

use the old terms as confidently as if they stood for the ideas usually

associated with them. His fundamental error was to identify three

distinct methods of connecting phenomena, in thought, with each other

or with ourselves. We may view things in relation to their generating

antecedents, in relation to other things with which they are associated

by resemblance or juxtaposition, or in relation to the satisfaction of

our own wants. These three modes of reference correspond to Aristotle’s

efficient, formal, and final causes; but the word causation should be

applied only to the first. Whether their unfortunate confusion both by

Aristotle and by his successors was in any appreciable degree due to

their having been associated by him under a common denomination, may

reasonably be doubted. It is rather more probable that the same name

was given to these different conceptions in consequence of their having

first become partially identified in thought. Social arrangements,

which have a great deal to do with primitive speculation, would

naturally lead to such an identification. The king or other chief

magistrate stands at the head of the social hierarchy and forms the

bond of union among its members; he is the source of all authority; and

his position, or, failing that, his favour, is regarded as the supreme

good. Religion extends the same combination of attributes to her chief

God; and philosophy, following on the lines of religion, employs it to

unify the methods of science and morality.

All existence, according to Plotinus, proceeds from the One, which

he also calls God. But God does not create the world by a conscious

exercise of power; for, as we have seen, every form of consciousness

is excluded from his definition. Neither does it proceed from him by

emanation, for this would imply a diminution of his substance.[469] It

is produced by an overflow of his infinite power.[470] Our philosopher

tries to explain and defend this rather unintelligible mode of

derivation by the analogy of physical substances and their actions.

Light is constantly coming from the sun without any loss to the

luminary itself.[471] And all things are, in like manner, constantly

communicating their proper virtue to others while remaining unaltered

themselves. Here we have a good example of the close connexion between

science and abstract speculation. People often talk as if metaphysics

was something beyond the reach of verification. But some metaphysical

theories admit, at any rate, of disproof, in so far as they are founded

on false physical theories. Had Plotinus known that neither the sun nor

anything else in Nature can produce force out of nothing, he would,

very probably, have hesitated to credit the One with such a power.

In reasoning up from the world to its first cause, we were given to

understand that the two were related to one another as contradictory

opposites. The multiple must proceed from the simple, and existence

from that which does not exist. But the analogies of material

production now suggest a somewhat different view. What every power

calls into existence is an image of itself, but the effect is never

more than a weakened and imperfect copy of its original. Thus the

universe appears as a series of diminishing energies descending in

a graduated scale from the highest to the lowest. Here, again, bad

science makes bad philosophy. Effects are never inferior to their

causes, but always exactly equal, the effect being nothing else than

the cause in another place or under another form. This would be obvious

enough, did not superficial observation habitually confound the real

cause with the sum of its concomitants. What we are accustomed to think

of as a single cause is, in truth, a whole bundle of causes, which do

not always converge to a single point, and each of which, taken singly,

is, of course, inferior to the whole sum taken together. Thus when

we say that the sun heats the earth, this is only a conventional way

of speaking. What really does the work is a relatively infinitesimal

part of the solar heat separately transmitted to us through space.

Once neglect this truth, and there is no reason why effects should

not exceed as well as fall short of their causes in any assignable

proportion. Such an illusion is, in fact, produced when different

energies converge to a point. Here it is the consequent and not the

antecedent which is confounded with the sum of its concomitants, as

when an explosion is said to be the effect of a spark.

Of course we are speaking of causation as exercised under the

conditions of time, space, matter, and motion. It is then identical

with the transmission of energy and obeys the laws of energy. And

to talk about causation under any other conditions than these is

utter nonsense. But Plotinus and other philosophers exclude the most

essential of the conditions specified from their enquiries into the

ultimate origin of things. We are expressly informed that the genesis

of Nous from the One, and of Soul from Nous, must not be conceived as

taking place in time but in eternity.[472] Unfortunately those who

make such reservations are not consistent. They continue to talk about

power, causation, priority, and so forth, as if these conceptions

were separable from time. Hence they have to choose between making

statements which are absolutely unintelligible and making statements

which are absolutely untrue.

Perhaps the processes of logic and mathematics may be adduced as an

exception. It may be contended that the genus is prior to the species,

the premise to the conclusion, the unit to the multiple, the line

to the figure, in reason though not in time. And Plotinus avails

himself to the fullest extent of mathematical and logical analogies

in his transcendental constructions. His One is the starting-point

of numeration, the centre of a circle, the identity involved in

difference; and under each relation it claims an absolute priority, of

which causal power is only the most general expression. We have already

seen how a multitude of archetypal Ideas spring from the supreme Nous

as from their fountain-head. Their production is explained, on the

lines of Plato’s _Sophist_, as a process of dialectical derivation. By

logically analysing the conception of self-consciousness, we obtain,

first of all, Nous itself, or Reason, as the subject, and Existence

as the object of thought. Subject and object, considered as the same

with one another, give us Identity; considered as distinct, they

give us Difference. The passage from one to the other gives Motion;

the limitation of thought to itself gives Rest. The plurality of

determinations so obtained gives number and quantity, their specific

difference gives quality, and from these principles everything else

is derived.[473] It might seem as if, here at least, we had something

which could be called a process of eternal generation—a causal order

independent of time. But, in reality, the assumed sequence exists only

in our minds, and there it takes place under the form of time, not less

inevitably than do the external re-arrangements of matter and motion.

Thus in logic and mathematics, such terms as priority, antecedence, and

evolution can only be used to signify the order in which our knowledge

is acquired; they do not answer to causal relations existing among

things in themselves. And apart from these two orders—the objective

order of dynamical production in space and time, and the subjective

order of intelligibility in thought—there is no kind of succession that

we can conceive. Eternal relations, if they exist at all, must be

relations of co-existence, of resemblance, or of difference, continued

through infinite time. Wherever there is antecedence, the consequent

can only have existed for a finite time.

Some may think that we have pushed this point at unnecessary length.

But the Neo-Platonic method is not quite so obsolete as they, perhaps,

suppose. Whenever we repeat the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, we are

expressing our religious belief in the language of the Alexandrian

schools, thus pledging ourselves to metaphysical dogmas which we can

neither explain nor defend. Such terms as sonship and procession have

no meaning except when applied to relations conceived under the form of

time; and to predicate eternity of them is to reduce them to so much

unintelligible jargon.

An energy continually advancing through successive gradations, and

diminishing as it advances—such, as we have seen, is the conception of

existence offered by Plotinus. We have seen, also, how to explain the

genesis of one principle from another without the aid of supernatural

volition or of mechanical causation, he is compelled to press into

the service every sort of relationship by which two objects can be

connected, and to invest it with a dynamical significance which

only the phenomena of matter and motion can possess. But what he

chiefly relies on for guidance in this tortuous labyrinth of timeless

evolution, is the old Greek principle that contraries are generated

from one another. And with him, as with the earlier thinkers, all

contraries reduce themselves, in the last analysis, to the four great

antitheses of the One and the Many, Being and not-Being, the Same

and the Other, Rest and Motion. It matters nothing that he should

have followed Plato to the extent of co-ordinating five of these

terms as supreme archetypal Ideas, immediately resulting from the

self-consciousness of Nous, and themselves producing all other forms

of existence. They are used, quite independently of that derivation,

to explain the connexion of the various creative principles with one

another. Nous is deduced from its first cause as Being from not-Being,

as the Many from the One, as Difference from Identity, and as Motion

from Rest.[474] To explain the generation of Soul from Nous is a

more difficult problem. The One had originally been defined as the

antithetical cause of Nous, and therefore the latter could easily be

accounted for by simply reversing the analytical process; whereas Nous

had not been defined as the cause of Soul, but as the model whence her

creative Ideas are derived. Soul, in fact, is not opposed to anything;

she is the connecting link between sense and spirit. In this strait,

Plotinus seems to think that the antithesis between Rest and Motion

is the best fitted to express the nature of her descent from the

higher principle; and on one occasion he illustrates the relation of

his three divine substances to one another by the famous figure of a

central point representing the One, a fixed circle round that point

representing the Nous, and outside that, again, a revolving circle

representing the Soul.[475] Still, the different parts of the system

are very awkwardly pieced together at this juncture; for the creative

energy of the Nous has already been invoked to account for the Ideas or

partial intelligences into which it spontaneously divides; and one does

not understand how it can be simultaneously applied to the production

of something that is not an Idea at all.

Fresh difficulties arise in explaining the activity which the Soul,

in her turn, exerts. As originally conceived, her function was

sufficiently clear. Mediating between two worlds, she transforms the

lower one into a likeness of the higher, stamping on material objects a

visible image of the eternal Ideas revealed to her by a contemplation

of the Nous. And, as a further elaboration of this scheme, we were

told that the primary soul generates an inferior soul, which, again,

subdivides itself into the multitude of partial souls required for the

animation of different bodily organisms. But now that our philosopher

has entered on a synthetic construction of the elements furnished by

his preliminary analysis, he finds himself confronted by an entirely

new problem. For his implied principle is that each hypostasis must

generate the grade which comes next after it in the descending series

of manifestations, until the possibilities of existence have been

exhausted. But in developing and applying the noetic Ideas, the Soul,

apparently, finds a pre-existing Matter ready to hand. Thus she has

to deal with something lower than herself, which she did not create,

and which is not created by the Forms combined with it in sensible

experience. We hear of a descent from thought to feeling, and from

feeling to simple vitality,[476] but in each instance the depth of the

Soul’s fall is measured by the extent to which she penetrates into the

recesses of a substance not clearly related to her nor to anything

above her.

Plotinus is driven by this perplexity to reconsider the whole theory

of Matter.[477] He takes Aristotle’s doctrine as the groundwork of

his investigation. According to this, all existence is divided into

Matter and Form. What we know of things—in other words, the sum of

their differential characteristics—is their Form. Take away this, and

the unknowable residuum is their Matter. Again, Matter is the vague

indeterminate something out of which particular Forms are developed.

The two are related as Possibility to Actuality, as the more generic

to the more specific substance through every grade of classification

and composition. Thus there are two Matters, the one sensible and

the other intelligible. The former constitutes the common substratum

of bodies, the other the common element of ideas.[478] The general

distinction between Matter and Form was originally suggested to

Aristotle by Plato’s remarks on the same subject; but he differs from

his master in two important particulars. Plato, in his _Timaeus_, seems

to identify Matter with space.[479] So far, it is a much more positive

conception than the ὕλη of the _Metaphysics_. On the other hand, he

constantly opposes it to reality as something non-existent; and he at

least implies that it is opposed to absolute good as a principle of

absolute evil.[480] Thus while the Aristotelian world is formed by the

development of Power into Actuality, the Platonic world is composed by

the union of Being and not-Being, of the Same and the Different, of the

One and the Many, of the Limit and the Unlimited, of Good and Evil, in

varying proportions with each other.

Plotinus, as we have said, starts with the Aristotelian account of

Matter; but by a process of dialectical manipulation, he gradually

brings it into almost complete agreement with Plato’s conception; thus,

as usual, mediating between and combining the views of his two great

authorities. In the first place, he takes advantage of Aristotle’s

distinction between intelligible and sensible Matter, to strip the

latter of that positive and vital significance with which it had been

clothed in the Peripatetic system. In the world of Ideas, there is an

element common to all specific forms, a fundamental unity in which they

meet and inhere, which may without impropriety be called their Matter.

But this Matter is an eternal and divine substance, inseparably united

with the fixed forms which it supports, and, therefore, something

which, equally with them, receives light and life and thought from

the central source of being. It is otherwise with sensible Matter,

the common substance of the corporeal elements. This is, to use the

energetic expression of our philosopher, a decorated corpse.[481]

It does not remain constantly combined with any form, but is for

ever passing from one to another, without manifesting a particular

preference for any. As such, it is the absolute negation of Form, and

can only be conceived, if at all, by thinking away every sensible

quality. Neither has it any quantity, for quantity means magnitude, and

magnitude implies definite figure. Aristotle opposed to each particular

form a corresponding privation, and placed Matter midway between

them. Plotinus, on the other hand, identifies Matter with the general

privation of all forms. It is at this point that he begins to work his

way back to the Platonic notion of Matter as simple extension. There

must, after all, be something about Matter which enables it to receive

every kind of quality and figure,—it must have some sort of mass or

bulk, not, indeed, in any definite sense, but with an equal capacity

for expansion and for contraction. Now, says Plotinus, the very

indeterminateness of Matter is precisely the capacity for extension in

all directions that we require. ‘Having no principle of stability, but

being borne towards every form, and easily led about in all directions,

it acquires the nature of a mass.’[482]

Henceforth, whatever our philosopher says about Matter will apply to

extension and to extension alone. It cannot be apprehended by sight,

nor by hearing, nor by smell, nor by taste, for it is neither colour,

nor sound, nor odour, nor juice. Neither can it be touched, for it is

not a body, but it becomes corporeal on being blended with sensible

qualities. And, in a later essay, he describes it as receiving all

things and letting them depart again without retaining the slightest

trace of their presence.[483] Why then, it may be asked, if Plotinus

meant extension, could he not say so at once, and save us all this

trouble in hunting out his meaning? There were very good reasons why he

should not. In the first place, he wished to express himself, so far as

possible, in Aristotelian phraseology, and this was incompatible with

the reduction of Matter to extension. In the next place, the idea of

an infinite void had been already appropriated by the Epicureans, to

whose system he was bitterly opposed. And, finally, the extension of

ordinary experience had not the absolute generality which was needed

in order to bring Matter into relation with that ultimate abstraction

whence, like everything else, it has now to be derived.

As a result of the preceding analysis, Plotinus at last identifies

Matter with the Infinite—not an infinite something, but the Infinite

pure and simple, apart from any subject of which it can be predicated.

We started with what seemed a broad distinction between intelligible

and sensible Matter. That distinction now disappears in a new and more

comprehensive conception; and, at the same time, Plotinus begins to see

his way towards a restatement of his whole system in clearer terms.

‘The Infinite is generated from the infinity or power or eternity of

the One; not that there is infinity in the One, but that it is created

by the One.’[484] With the first outrush of energy from the primal

fount of things, Matter begins to exist. But no sooner do movement and

difference start into life, than they are restrained and bent back

by the presence of the One; and this reflection of power or being on

itself constitutes the supreme self-consciousness of Nous.[485] Whether

the subsequent creation of Soul involves a fresh production of energy,

or whether a portion of the original stream, which was called into

existence by the One, escapes from the restraining self-consciousness

of Nous and continues its onward flow—this Plotinus does not say. What

he does say is that Soul stands to Nous in the relation of Matter to

Form, and is raised to perfection by gazing back on the Ideas contained

in Nous, just as Nous itself had been perfected by returning to the

One.[486] But while the two higher principles remain stationary,

the Soul, besides giving birth to a fresh stream of energy, turns

towards her own creation and away from the fountain of her life.

And, apparently, it is only by this condescension on her part that

the visible world could have been formed.[487] We can explain this

by supposing that as the stream of Matter departs more and more from

the One, its power of self-reflection continually diminishes, and at

length ceases altogether. It is thus that the substratum of sensible

objects must, as we have seen, be conceived under the aspect of a

passive recipient for the forms imposed on it by the Soul; and just as

those forms are a mere image of the noetic Ideas, so also, Plotinus

tells us, is their Matter an image of the intelligible Matter which

exists in the Nous itself; only the image realises the conception of

a material principle more completely than the archetype, because of

its more negative and indeterminate nature, a diminution of good being

equivalent to an increase of evil.[488]

Still Plotinus gives no clear answer to the question whence comes this

last and lowest Matter. He will not say that it is an emanation from

the Soul, nor yet will he say that it is a formless residue of the

element out of which she was shaped by a return to the Nous. In truth,

he could not make up his mind as to whether the Matter of sensible

objects was created at all. He oscillates between unwillingness to

admit that absolute evil can come from good, and unwillingness to admit

that the two are co-ordinate principles of existence. And, as usual,

where ideas fail him, he helps himself out of the difficulty with

metaphors. The Soul must advance, and in order to advance she must make

a place for herself, and that there may be a place there must be body.

Or, again, while remaining fixed in herself, she sends out a great

light, and by the light she sees that there is darkness beyond its

extreme verge, and moulds its formless substance into shape.[489]

The ambiguities and uncertainties which Plotinus exhibits in theorising

on the origin of Matter, are due not only to the conflicting influences

of Plato and Aristotle, but also to another influence quite distinct

from theirs. This is the Stoic cosmology. While utterly repudiating

the materialism of the Stoics, Plotinus evidently felt attracted by

their severe monism, and by the consistent manner in which they derived

every form of existence from the divine substance. They too recognised

a distinction between Form and Matter, the active and the passive

principle in Nature, but they supposed that the one, besides being

penetrated and moulded by the other, had also been originally produced

by it. Such a theory was well suited to the energetic and practical

character of Stoic morality, with its aversion from mere contemplation,

its immediate bearing on the concrete interests of life. Man was

conceived as an intelligent force, having for his proper function to

bring order out of chaos, ‘to make reason and the will of God prevail,’

and this ideal appeared to be reflected in the dynamic constitution of

Nature. With Plotinus, on the other hand, as with Aristotle, theory and

not practice was the end of life, or rather, as he himself expressed

it, practice was an inferior kind of theorising, an endeavour to set

before oneself in outward form what should properly be sought in the

noetic world where subject and object are one.[490] Accordingly, while

accepting the Stoic monism, he strove to bring it into close agreement

with Aristotle’s cosmology, by substituting contemplation for will as

the creative principle in all existence, no less than as the ideal of

happiness for man.

We have seen how, in accordance with this view, each principle is

perfected by looking back on its source.[491] Thus the activity of the

world-soul, so far as it is exercised for the benefit of what comes

after and falls beneath her, is an anomaly only to be accounted for

by her inferior place in the system of graduated descent; or else by

the utter impotence of Matter, which is incapable of raising itself

into Form by a spontaneous act of reflection, and can only passively

receive the images transmitted to it from above, without being able

to retain even these for any time. Nay, here also, what looks like

creative energy admits of being assimilated more or less closely to an

exercise of idealising thought. It is really for her own sake that the

Soul fills what lies beyond her with life and light, not, like Plato’s

Soul, from pure disinterested joy in the communication and diffusion of

good. It is because she recoils with horror from darkness and nonentity

that she shapes the formless substance into a residence for herself, on

the model of the imperial palace whence she came. Thus the functions of

sensation, nutrition, and reproduction are to be regarded as so many

modes of contemplation. In the first, the Soul dwells on the material

images which already exist; in the second and third, she strives to

perpetuate and multiply them still further. And the danger is that she

may become so enthralled by her own creation as to forget the divine

original after which it is formed.[492] Should she yield to the snare,

successive transmigrations will sink her lower and lower into the

depths of animalism and material darkness. To avoid this degradation,

to energise with the better part of our nature, is to be good. And with

the distinction between good and evil, we pass from the metaphysical to

the ethical portion of the system.

VIII.

All virtue, with Plotinus, rests on the superiority of the soul

to the body. So far, he follows the common doctrine of Plato and

Aristotle. But in working out the distinction, he is influenced by the

individualising and theoretic philosophy of the latter rather than by

the social and practical philosophy of the former. Or, again, we may

say that with him the intellectualism of Aristotle is heightened and

warmed by the religious aspirations of Plato, strengthened and purified

by the Stoic passionlessness, the Stoic independence of external

goods. In his ethical system, the virtues are arranged in an ascending

scale. Each grade reproduces the old quadripartite division into

Wisdom, Courage, Temperance and Justice, but in each their respective

significance receives a new interpretation. As civic virtues, they

continue to bear the meaning assigned to them in Plato’s _Republic_.

Wisdom belongs to reason, Courage to passionate spirit, Temperance

to desire, while Justice implies the fulfilment of its appropriate

function by each.[493] But all this only amounts to the restriction of

what would otherwise be unregulated impulse, the imposition of Form on

Matter, the supremacy of the soul over the body; whereas what we want

is to get rid of matter altogether. Here also, Plato sets us on the

right track when he calls the virtues purifications. From this point

of view, for the soul to energise alone without any interference, is

Wisdom; not to be moved by the passions of the body is Temperance; not

to dread separation from the body is Courage; and to obey the guidance

of reason is Justice.[494] Such a disposition of the soul is what Plato

means by flying from the world and becoming like God. Is this enough?

No, it is not. We have, so far, been dealing only with the negative

conditions of good, not with good itself. The essential thing is not

purification, but what remains behind when the work of purification

is accomplished. So we come to the third and highest grade of virtue,

the truly divine life, which is a complete conversion to reason. Our

philosopher endeavours to fit this also into the framework of the

cardinal virtues, but not without imposing a serious strain on the

ordinary meaning of words. Of Wisdom nothing need be said, for it

is the same as rationality. Justice is the self-possession of mind,

Temperance the inward direction towards reason, Courage the impassivity

arising from resemblance to that which is by nature impassive.[495]

Plotinus is careful to make us understand that his morality has neither

an ascetic nor a suicidal tendency. Pleasures are to be tolerated

under the form of a necessary relief and relaxation; pains are to be

removed, but if incurable, they are to be patiently borne; anger is,

if possible, to be suppressed, and, at any rate, not allowed to exceed

the limits of an involuntary movement; fear will not be felt except

as a salutary warning. The bodily appetites will be restricted to

natural wants, and will not be felt by the soul, except, perhaps, as a

transient excitement of the imagination.[496] Whatever abstinences our

philosopher may have practised on his own account, we find no trace of

a tendency towards self-mortification in his writings, nothing that is

not consistent with the healthiest traditions of Greek spiritualism as

originally constituted by the great Athenian school.

While not absolutely condemning suicide, Plotinus restricts the right

of leaving this world within much narrower limits than were assigned

to it by the Stoics. In violently separating herself from the body,

the soul, he tells us, is acting under the influence of some evil

passion, and he intimates that the mischievous effects of this passion

will prolong themselves into the new life on which she is destined

to enter.[497] Translated into more abstract language, his meaning

probably is that the feelings which ordinarily prompt to suicide, are

such as would not exist in a well-regulated mind. It is remarkable

that Schopenhauer, whose views of life were, on other points, the very

reverse of those held by Plotinus, should have used very much the same

argument against self-destruction. According to his theory, the will

to life, which it should be our principal business to conquer, asserts

itself strongly in the wish to escape from suffering, and only delays

the final moment of peaceful extinction by rushing from one phase of

existence to another. And in order to prove the possibility of such a

revival, Schopenhauer was obliged to graft on his philosophy a theory

of metempsychosis, which, but for this necessity, would certainly never

have found a place in it at all. In this, as in many other instances,

an ethical doctrine is apparently deduced from a metaphysical doctrine

which has, in reality, been manufactured for its support. All systems

do but present under different formulas a common fund of social

sentiment. A constantly growing body of public opinion teaches us that

we do not belong to ourselves, but to those about us, and that, in

ordinary circumstances, it is no less weak and selfish to run away from

life than to run away from death.

Plotinus follows up his essay on the Virtues by an essay on

Dialectic.[498] As a method for attaining perfection, he places

dialectic above ethics; and, granting that the apprehension of abstract

ideas ranks higher than the performance of social duties, he is quite

consistent in so doing. Not much, however, can be made of his few

remarks on the subject. They seem to be partly meant for a protest

against the Stoic idea that logic is an instrument for acquiring truth

rather than truth itself, and also against the Stoic use or abuse of

the syllogistic method. In modern phraseology, Plotinus seems to view

dialectic as the immanent and eternal process of life itself, rather

than as a collection of rules for drawing correct inferences from true

propositions, or from propositions assumed to be true. We have seen

how he regarded existence in the highest sense as identical with the

self-thinking of the absolute Nous, and how he attempted to evolve the

whole series of archetypal Ideas contained therein from the simple

fact of self-consciousness. Thus he would naturally identify dialectic

with the subjective reproduction of this objective evolution; and here

he would always have before his eyes the splendid programme sketched

in Plato’s _Republic_.[499] His preference of intuitive to discursive

reasoning has been quoted by Ritter as a symptom of mysticism. But

here, as in so many instances, he follows Aristotle, who also held that

simple abstraction is a higher operation, and represents a higher order

of real existence than complex ratiocination.[500]

The ultimate stage of perfection is, of course, the identification of

subject and object, the ascent from the Nous to the One. But, on this

point, Plotinus never added anything essential to what has already

been quoted from the analytical portion of his enquiry, and the essay

containing that passage is accordingly placed last in Porphyry’s

arrangement of his works.

Our account of Neo-Platonism has, with the exception of a few

illustrations, been derived exclusively from the earlier essays of

Plotinus. His subsequent writings are exceedingly obscure and tedious,

and they add little by way either of development or defence to the

outlines which he had sketched with a master’s hand. Whatever materials

they may supply for a better appreciation, whether of his philosophy or

of his general character as a thinker, will most profitably find their

place in the final survey of both which we shall now attempt to give.

IX.

Every great system of philosophy may be considered from four distinct

points of view. We may ask what is its value as a theory of the world

and of human life, measured either by the number of new truths which

it contains, or by the stimulus to new thought which it affords. Or

we may consider it from the aesthetic side, as a monumental structure

interesting us not by its utility, but by its beauty and grandeur.

Under this aspect, a system may be admirable for its completeness,

coherence, and symmetry, or for the great intellectual qualities

exhibited by its architect, although it may be open to fatal objections

as a habitation for human beings, and may fail to reproduce the plan

on which we now know that the universe is built. Or, again, our

interest in the work may be purely historical and psychological; we

may look on it as the product of a particular age and a particular

mind, as summing up for us under their most abstract form the ideas and

aspirations which at any given moment had gained possession of educated

opinion. Or, finally, we may study it as a link in the evolution of

thought, as a result of earlier tendencies, and an antecedent of later

developments. We propose to make a few remarks on the philosophy of

Plotinus, or, what is the same thing, on Neo-Platonism in general, from

each of these four points of view.

In absolute value, Neo-Platonism stands lowest as well as last among

the ancient schools of thought. No reader who has followed us thus far

will need to be reminded how many valuable ideas were first brought to

light, or reinforced with new arguments and illustrations by the early

Greek thinkers, by the Sophists and Socrates, by Plato and Aristotle,

by the Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics, and by the moralists of the

Roman empire. On every subject of speculation that can be started, we

continue to ask, like Plotinus himself, what the ‘blessed ancients’

had to say about it;[501] not, of course, because they lived a long

time ago, but because they came first, because they said what they had

to say with the unique charm of original discovery, because they were

in more direct contact than we are, not, indeed, with the facts, but

with the phenomena of Nature and life and thought. It is true that we

have nothing more to learn from them, for whatever was sound in their

teaching has been entirely absorbed into modern thought, and combined

with ideas of which they did not dream. But until we come to Hume and

his successors, there is nothing in philosophical literature that can

be compared to their writings for emancipating and stimulating power;

and, perhaps, when the thinkers of the last and present centuries have

become as obsolete as Bacon and Descartes are now, those writings will

continue to be studied with unabating zeal. Neo-Platonism, on the other

hand, is dead, and every attempt made to galvanise it into new life has

proved a disastrous failure. The world, that is to say the world of

culture, will not read Plotinus and his successors, will not even read

the books that are written about them by scholars of brilliant literary

ability like MM. Vacherot and Jules Simon in France, Steinhart and

Kirchner in Germany.[502]

We have not far to seek for the cause of this fatal condemnation.

Neo-Platonism is nothing if not a system, and as a system it is false,

and not only false but out of relation to every accepted belief. In

combining the dialectic of Plato with the metaphysics of Aristotle and

the physics of Stoicism, Plotinus has contrived to rob each of whatever

plausibility it once possessed. The Platonic doctrine of Ideas was an

attempt to express something very real and important, the distinction

between laws and facts in Nature, between general principles and

particular observations in science, between ethical standards and

everyday practice in life. The eternal Nous of Aristotle represented

the upward struggle of Nature through mechanical, chemical, and vital

movements to self-conscious thought. The world-soul of Stoicism

represented a return to monism, a protest against the unphilosophical

antithesis between God and the world, spirit and matter, necessity and

free-will. Plotinus attempts to rationalise the Ideas by shutting them

up in the Aristotelian Nous, with the effect of severing them still

more hopelessly from the real world, and, at the same time, making

their subjective origin still more flagrantly apparent than before.

And along with the Stoic conception of a world-soul, he preserves all

those superstitious fancies about secret spiritual sympathies and

affinities connecting the different parts of Nature with one another

which the conception of a transcendent Nous, as originally understood

by Aristotle, had at least the merit of excluding. Finally, by a

tremendous wrench of abstraction, the unity of existence is torn away

from existence itself, and the most relative of all conceptions is put

out of relation to the thought which, in the very same breath, it is

declared to condition, and to the things which it is declared to create.

Again, on the practical side, by combining Plato with Aristotle and

both with Stoicism, Plotinus contrives to eliminate what is most

valuable in each. If, in the _Republic_, the Good was placed above all

existence, this was only that we might transform existence into its

image. If Aristotle placed the theoretical above the ethical virtues,

he assigned no limits but those of observation and reasoning to the

energising of theoretic power. If the Stoics rested morality on the

absolute isolation of the human will, they deduced from this principle

not only the inwardness of virtue, but also the individualisation of

duty, the obligation of beneficence, and the forgiveness of sin. But

with Plotinus, Reason has no true object of contemplation outside

its own abstract ideas, and the self-realisation of Stoicism means a

barren consciousness of personal identity, from which every variety of

interest and sympathy is excluded: it is not an expansion of our own

soul into coincidence with the absolute All, but a concentration of

both into a single point, a flight of the alone to the alone;[503] and

only in this utter solitude does he suppose that the Platonic Good is

finally and wholly possessed.

Nor, with a single exception, is the fundamental untruth of the system

redeemed by any just and original observations on points of detail such

as lie so thickly scattered over the pages of other metaphysicians,

both in ancient and modern literature. The single exception is the

refutation of materialism to which attention has been already directed.

Apart from this, the _Enneads_ do not contain one single felicitous or

suggestive idea, nothing that can enlarge the horizon of our thoughts,

nothing that can exalt the purpose of our lives.

If, however, we pass to the second point of view, and judge

Neo-Platonism according to the requirements, not of truth or of

usefulness, but of beauty, our first verdict of utter condemnation will

be succeeded by a much more favourable opinion. Plotinus has used the

materials inherited from his predecessors with unquestionable boldness

and skill; and the constructive power exhibited in the general plan of

his vast system is fully equalled by the close reasoning with which

every detail is elaborated and fitted into its proper place. Nothing

can be imagined more imposing than this wondrous procession of forms

defiling from the unknown to the unknown—from the self-developing

consciousness of Reason as it breaks and flames and multiplies into

a whole universe of being and life and thought, ever returning, by

the very law of their production, to the source whence they have

sprung—onward and outward on the wings of the cosmic Soul, through

this visible world, where they reappear as images of intellectual

beauty in the eternal revolutions of the starry spheres above, in the

everlasting reproduction of organic species below, in the loveliest

thoughts and actions of the loveliest human souls—till the utmost

limits of their propagation and dispersion have been reached, till

the last faint rays of existence die out in the dark and void region

that extends to infinity beyond. Nothing in the realm of abstractions

can be more moving than this Odyssey of the human soul, wakened by

visions of earthly loveliness to a consciousness of her true destiny, a

remembrance of her lost and forgotten home; then abandoning these for

the possession of a more spiritual beauty, ascending by the steps of

dialectic to a contemplation of the archetypal Ideas that lie folded

and mutually interpenetrated in the bosom of the eternal Reason where

thought and being are but the double aspect of a single absolute

reality; seeking farther and higher, beyond the limits of existence

itself, for a still purer unity, and finding in the awful solitude of

that supreme elevation that the central source of all things does not

lie without but within, that only in returning to self-identity does

she return to the One; or, again, descending to the last confines of

light and life that she may prolong their radiation into the formless

depths of matter, projecting on its darkness an image of the glory

whose remembrance still attends her in her fall.

Still more impressive, if we consider the writings of Plotinus on their

personal side, and as a revelation of their author’s mind, is the high

and sustained purity, the absolute detachment and disinterestedness by

which they are characterised throughout. No trace of angry passion,

no dallying with images of evil, interferes to mar their exalted

spirituality from first to last. While the western world was passing

through a period of horror and degradation such as had never been known

before, the philosopher took refuge in an ideal sphere, and looked

down on it all with no more disturbance to his serenity than if he had

been the spectator of a mimic performance on the stage.[504] This,

indeed, is one of the reasons why the _Enneads_ are so much less

interesting, from a literary point of view, than the works of the Roman

Stoics. It is not only that we fail to find in them any allusions even

of the faintest kind to contemporary events or to contemporary life

and manners, such as abound in Seneca and Epictêtus, but there is not

the slightest reference to the existence of such a thing as the Roman

empire at all. One or two political illustrations occur, but they

are drawn from old Greek city life, and were probably suggested by

Plato or Aristotle.[505] But this tremendous blank is so perfectly in

keeping with the whole spirit of Neo-Platonism as to heighten instead

of lowering its aesthetic effect. In studying the philosophy of the

preceding centuries, to whatever school it may belong, we have the

image of death always before our eyes; and to fortify us against its

terrors, we are continually called upon to remember the vanity of life.

This is the protest of thought against the world, just as in Lucian and

Sextus we hear the protest of the world against thought. At last the

whole bitter strife comes to an end, the vision of sense passes away,

And leaves us with Plotinus and pure souls.

Here we need no deliverance from troubles and indignities which are

not felt; nor do we need to be prepared for death, knowing that we

can never die. The world will no longer look askance at us, for we

have ceased to concern ourselves about its reformation. No scepticism

can shake our convictions, for we have discovered the secret of all

knowledge through the consciousness of that which is eternal in

ourselves. Thus the world of outward experience has dropped out of our

thoughts, because thought has orbed into a world of its own.

X.

In the foregoing remarks we have already passed from the purely

aesthetic to the historical or psychological view of Neo-Platonism—that

is, the view which considers a philosophy in reference to the

circumstances of its origin. Every speculative system reflects, more

or less fully, the spirit of the age in which it was born; and the

absence of all allusion to contemporary events does not prove that

the system of Plotinus was an exception to this rule. It only proves

that the tendency of the age was to carry away men’s thoughts from

practical to theoretical interests. We have already characterised the

first centuries of Roman imperialism as a period of ever-increasing

religious reaction; and in this reaction we attempted to distinguish

between the development of supernaturalist beliefs which were

native to Greece and Italy, and the importation of beliefs which had

originated in the East. We saw also how philosophy shared in the

general tendency, how it became theological and spiritualistic instead

of ethical and naturalistic, how its professors were converted from

opponents into upholders of the popular belief. Now, according to some

critics, Neo-Platonism marks another stage in the gradual substitution

of faith for reason, of authority for independent thought; the only

question being whether we should interpret it as a product of Oriental

mysticism, or as a simple sequence of the same movement which had

previously led from Cicero to Seneca, from Seneca to Epictêtus, from

Epictêtus to Marcus Aurelius.

Of these views, the first is taken by Ritter, and adopted with some

modifications by M. Vacherot in his _Histoire de l’École d’Alexandrie_.

It is also unreservedly accepted by Donaldson in his continuation of

Müller’s _History of Greek Literature_, and is probably held at this

moment by most Englishmen who take any interest in the subject at all.

The second view—according to which Neo-Platonism is, at least in its

main features, a characteristic although degenerate product of Greek

thought—is that maintained by Zeller. As against the Orientalising

theory, it seems to us that Zeller has thoroughly proved his case.[506]

It may be doubted whether there is a single idea in Plotinus which can

be shown to have its exact counterpart in any of the Hindoo or other

Asiatic systems whence he is supposed to have drawn; and, as our own

analysis has abundantly shown, he says nothing that cannot be derived,

either directly or by a simple and easy process of evolution, from

Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. On the other hand, has not Zeller

gone much too far in treating Neo-Platonism as a product of the great

religious reaction which unquestionably preceded and accompanied its

appearance? Has he not altogether underrated its importance as a purely

speculative system, an effort towards the attainment of absolute truth

by the simple exercise of human reason? It seems to us that he has, and

we shall offer some grounds for venturing to differ from his opinion.

To appreciate the labours of Plotinus, we must, first of all, compare

his whole philosophic method with that of his predecessors. Now, Zeller

himself has shown quite clearly that in reach of thought, in power of

synthesis, in accuracy of reasoning, not one of these can be compared

to the founder of Neo-Platonism for a single moment.[507] We may go

still further and declare with confidence that no philosopher of equal

speculative genius had appeared in Hellas since Chrysippus, or, very

possibly, since Aristotle. The only ground for disputing his claims to

take rank with the great masters of Hellenic thought seems to be that

his system culminates on the objective side in something which lies

beyond existence, and on the subjective side in a mystical ecstasy

which is the negation of reason. We have shown, however, that if the

One is represented as transcending reality, so also is the Idea of Good

which corresponds to it in Plato’s scheme; and that the One is reached

if not grasped by a process of reasoning which, although unsound, still

offers itself as reasoning alone, and moves in complete independence of

any revelation or intuition such as those to which the genuine systems

of mysticism so freely resort.

It cannot be too often repeated that the One in no way conflicts

with the world of real existence, but, on the contrary, creates and

completes it. Now, within that world, with which alone reason is

properly concerned, Plotinus never betrays any want of confidence in

its power to discover truth; nor, contrary to what Zeller assumes,

does he seem to have been in the least affected by the efforts of the

later Sceptics to invalidate its pretensions in this respect.[508]

Their criticism was, in fact, chiefly directed against Stoicism, and

did not touch the spiritualistic position at all. That there can be no

certain knowledge afforded by sensation, or, speaking more generally,

by the action of an outward object on an inward subject, Plotinus

himself fully admits or rather contends.[509] But while distrusting

the ability of external perception, taken alone, to establish the

existence of an external object by which it is caused, he expressly

claims such a power for reason or understanding.[510] For him, as

for Aristotle, and probably for Plato also, the mind is one with its

real object; in every act of cognition the idea becomes conscious

of itself. We do not say that Scepticism is powerless against such

a theory as this, but, in point of fact, it was a theory which the

ancient Sceptics had not attacked, and their arguments no more led

Plotinus to despair of reason, than the similar arguments of Protagoras

and Gorgias had led Plato and Aristotle to despair of it six centuries

before. If Sextus and his school contributed anything to the great

philosophical revolution of the succeeding age, it was by so weakening

the materialistic systems as to render them less capable of opposing

the spiritualistic revival when it came.

Unquestionably Plotinus was influenced by the supernaturalistic

movement of his age, but only as Plato had been influenced by the

similar reaction of his time; and just as the Athenian philosopher

had protested against the superstitions which he saw gaining ground,

so also did the Alexandrian philosopher protest, with far less vigour

it is true, but still to some extent, against the worse extravagances

universally entertained by his contemporaries. Among these, to judge

by numerous allusions in his writings, astrology and magic held the

foremost place. That there was something in both, he did not venture

to deny, but he constantly endeavours to extenuate their practical

significance and to give a more philosophical interpretation to the

alleged phenomena on which they were based. Towards the old polytheism,

his attitude, without being hostile, is perfectly independent. We can

see this even in his life, notwithstanding the religious colouring

thrown over it by Porphyry. When invited by his disciple Amelius to

join in the public worship of the gods, he proudly answered, ‘It

is their business to come to me, not mine to go to them.’[511] In

allegorising the old myths, he handles them with as much freedom

as Bacon, and evidently with no more belief in their historical

character.[512] In giving the name of God to his supreme principle, he

is careful to exclude nearly every attribute associated with divinity

even in the purest forms of contemporary theology. Personality,

intelligence, will, and even existence, are expressly denied to the

One. Although the first cause and highest good of all things, it is

so not in a religious but in an abstract, metaphysical sense. The

Nous with its ideal offspring and the world-soul are also spoken of

as gods; but their personality, if they have any, is of the most

shadowy description, and there is no reason for thinking that Plotinus

ever worshipped them himself or intended them to be worshipped by

his disciples. Like Aristotle, he attributes animation and divinity

to the heavenly bodies, but with such careful provisions against an

anthropomorphic conception of their nature, that not much devotional

feeling is likely to have mingled with the contemplation of their

splendour. Finally, we arrive at the daemons, those intermediate

spirits which play so great a part in the religion of Plutarch and the

other Platonists of the second century. With regard to these, Plotinus

repeats many of the current opinions as if he shared them; but his

adhesion is of an extremely tepid character; and it may be doubted

whether the daemons meant much more for him than for Plato.[513]

The immortality of the soul is a subject on which idealistic

philosophers habitually express themselves in terms of apparently

studied ambiguity, and this is especially true of Plotinus. Here, as

elsewhere, he repeats the opinions and arguments of Plato, but with

certain developments which make his adhesion to the popular belief in a

personal duration after death considerably more doubtful than was that

of his master. One great difficulty in the way of Plato’s doctrine, as

commonly understood, is that it attributes a permanence to individuals,

which, on the principles of his system, should belong only to general

ideas. Now, at first sight, Plotinus seems to evade this difficulty

by admitting everlasting ideas of individuals no less than of generic

types.[514] A closer examination, however, shows that this view is even

more unfavourable than Plato’s to the hope of personal immortality. For

either our real self is independent of our empirical consciousness,

which is just what we wish to have preserved, or, as seems more

probable, the eternal existence which it enjoys is of an altogether

ideal character, like that which Spinoza also attributed to the human

soul, and which, in his philosophy, certainly had nothing to do with a

prolongation of individual consciousness beyond the grave. As Madame de

Staël observes of a similar view held at one time by Schelling, ‘cette

immortalité-là ressemble terriblement à la mort.’ And when, in addition

to his own theory of individual ideas, we find Plotinus adopting

the theory of the Stoics, that the whole course of mundane affairs

periodically returns to its starting-point and is repeated in the same

order as before,[515] we cannot help concluding that human immortality

in the popular sense must have seemed as impossible to him as it did to

them. We must, therefore, suppose that the doctrine of metempsychosis

and future retributions which he unquestionably professes, applies only

to certain determinate cycles of psychic life; or that it was to him,

what it had probably been to Plato, only a figurative way of expressing

the essential unity of all souls, and the transcendent character of

ethical distinctions.[516]

In this connexion we may deal with the question whether the philosophy

of Plotinus is properly described as a pantheistic system. Plotinus

was certainly not a pantheist in the same sense as Spinoza and Hegel.

With him, the One and the All are not identical; although impersonal

and unconscious, his supreme principle is not immanent in the universe,

but transcends and creates it: the totality of things are dependent

on it, but it is independent of them. Even were we to assume that the

One is only ideally distinct from the existence which it causes, still

the Nous would remain separate from the world-soul, the higher Soul

from Nature, and, within the sphere of Nature herself, Matter would

continue to be perpetually breaking away from Form, free-will would

be left in unreconciled hostility to fate. Once, and once only, if we

remember rightly, does our philosopher rise to the modern conception

of the universe as an absolute whole whose parts are not caused but

constituted by their fundamental unity, and are not really separated

from one another in Nature, but only ideally distinguished in our

thoughts. And he adds that we cannot keep up this effort of abstraction

for long at a time; things escape from us, and return to their original

unity.[517] With Plotinus himself, however, the contrary was true: what

he could not keep up was his grasp on the synthetic unity of things.

And he himself supplies us with a ready explanation why it should be

so, when he points to the dividing tendency of thought as opposed to

the uniting tendency of Nature. What he and the other Hellenic thinkers

wanted above all, was to make the world clear to themselves and to

their pupils, and this they accomplished by their method of serial

classification, by bringing into play what we have often spoken of as

the moments of antithesis, mediation, and circumscription, Stoicism

also had just touched the pantheistic idea, only to let it go again.

After being nominally identified with the world, the Stoic God was

represented as a designing intelligence, like the Socratic God—an idea

wholly alien from real pantheism.

If Plotinus rose above the vulgar superstitions of the West, while,

at the same time, using their language for the easier expression of

his philosophical ideas, there was one more refined superstition of

mixed Greek and Oriental origin which he denounced with the most

uncompromising vigour. This was Gnosticism, as taught by Valentinus

and his school. Towards the close of our last chapter, we gave some

account of the theory in question. It was principally as enemies of the

world and maligners of its perfection that the Gnostics made themselves

offensive to the founder of Neo-Platonism. To him, the antithesis of

good and evil was represented, not by the opposition of spirit and

Nature, but by the opposition between his ideal principle through all

degrees of its perfection, and unformed Matter. Like Plato, he looked

on the existing world as a consummate work of art, an embodiment

of the archetypal Ideas, a visible presentation of reason. But in

the course of his attack on the Gnostics,[518] other points of great

interest are raised, showing how profoundly his philosophy differed

from theirs, how entirely he takes his stand on the fixed principles

of Hellenic thought. Thus he particularly reproaches his opponents for

their systematic disparagement of Plato, to whom, after all, they owe

whatever is true and valuable in their metaphysics.[519] He ridicules

their belief in demoniacal possession, with its wholly gratuitous and

clumsy employment of supernatural agencies to account for what can be

sufficiently explained by the operation of natural causes.[520] And,

more than anything else, he severely censures their detachment of

religion from morality. On this last point, some of his remarks are so

striking and pertinent that they deserve to be quoted.

Above all, he exclaims, we must not fail to notice what effect this

doctrine has on the minds of those whom they have persuaded to despise

the world and all that it contains. Of the two chief methods for

attaining the supreme good, one has sensual pleasure for its end,

the other virtue, the effort after which begins and ends with God.

Epicurus, by his denial of providence, leaves us no choice but to

pursue the former. But this doctrine [Gnosticism], involving as it

does a still more insolent denial of divine order and human law,

laughs to scorn what has always been the accepted ideal of conduct,

and, in its rage against beauty, abolishes temperance and justice—the

justice that is associated with natural feeling and perpetuated by

discipline and reason—along with every other ennobling virtue. So,

in the absence of true morality, they are given over to pleasure and

utility and selfish isolation from other men—unless, indeed, their

nature is better than their principles. They have an ideal that

nothing here below can satisfy, and so they put off the effort for its

attainment to a future life, whereas they should begin at once, and

prove that they are of divine race by fulfilling the duties of their

present state. For virtue is the condition of every higher aspiration,

and only to those who disdain sensual enjoyment is it given to

understand the divine. How far our opponents are from realising this

is proved by their total neglect of ethical science. They neither

know what virtue is, nor how many virtues there are, nor what ancient

philosophy has to teach us on the subject, nor what are the methods of

moral training, nor how the soul is to be tended and cleansed. They

tell us to look to God; but merely saying this is useless unless they

can tell us what the manner of the looking is to be. For it might be

asked, what is to prevent us from looking to God, while at the same

time freely indulging our sensual appetites and angry passions. Virtue

perfected, enlightened, and rooted in the soul, will reveal God to us,

but without it he will remain an empty name.[521]

Even M. Vacherot, with all his anxiety to discover an Oriental origin

for Neo-Platonism, cannot help seeing that this attack on the Gnostics

was inspired by an indignant reaction of Greek philosophy against the

inroads of Oriental superstition, and that the same character belongs

more or less to the whole system of its author. But, so far as we

are aware, Kirchner is the only critic who has fully worked out this

idea, and exhibited the philosophy of Plotinus in its true character

as a part of the great classical revival, which after producing the

literature of the second century reached its consummation in a return

to the idealism of Plato and Aristotle.[522]

Neo-Platonism may itself furnish us with no inapt image of the age

in which it arose. Like the unformed Matter about which we have been

hearing so much, the consciousness of that period was in itself dark,

indeterminate and unsteady, uncreative, unspontaneous, unoriginating,

but with a receptive capacity which enabled it to seize, reflect, and

transmit the power of living Reason, the splendour of eternal thought.

XI.

In fixing the relation of Plotinus to his own age, we have gone far

towards fixing his relation to all ages, the place which he occupies

in the development of philosophy as a connected whole. We have seen

that as an attempt to discover the truth of things, his speculations

are worthless and worse than worthless, since their method no less than

their teaching is false. Nevertheless, Wisdom is justified of all her

children. Without adding anything to the sum of positive knowledge,

Plotinus produced an effect on men’s thoughts not unworthy of the great

intellect and pure life which he devoted to the service of philosophy.

No other thinker has ever accomplished a revolution so immediate, so

comprehensive, and of such prolonged duration. He was the creator of

Neo-Platonism, and Neo-Platonism simply annihilated every school of

philosophy to which it was opposed. For thirteen centuries or more,

the three great systems which had so long divided the suffrages of

educated minds—Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Scepticism—ceased to exist,

and were allowed to lapse into such complete oblivion that only a few

fragments of the works in which they were originally embodied have

been preserved. And Plotinus was enabled to do this by the profound

insight which led him to strike less at any particular doctrine held

by his opponents than at the common foundation on which they all

stood, the materialism openly professed by the Stoics and Epicureans,

and assumed by the Sceptics as the necessary presupposition of every

dogmatic philosophy. It is true that the principle which he opposed

to theirs was not of his own origination, although he stated it more

powerfully than it had ever been stated before. But to have revived

the spiritualism of Plato and Aristotle in such a way as to win for it

universal acceptance, was precisely his greatest merit. It is also the

only one that he would have claimed for himself. As we have already

mentioned, he professed to be nothing more than the disciple of Plato.

And although Aristotelian ideas abound in his writings, still not only

are they overbalanced by the Platonic element, but Plotinus might

justly have contended that they also belong, in a sense, to Plato,

having been originally acquired by a simple development from his

teaching.

We have said that the founder of Neo-Platonism contrived to blend the

systems of his two great authorities in such a manner as to eliminate

much of the relative truth which is contained in each of them taken

by itself. It has been reserved for modern thought to accomplish the

profounder synthesis which has eliminated their errors in combining

their truths. Yet, perhaps, no other system would have satisfied

the want of the time so well as that constructed by Plotinus out of

the materials at his disposal. Such as it was, that system held its

ground as the reigning philosophy until all independent thinking was

suppressed by Justinian, somewhat more than two and a half centuries

after its author’s death. Even then it did not become extinct, but

reappeared in Christian literature, in the writings attributed to

Dionysius the Areopagite, and again in the daring speculations of

Erigena, the father of mediaeval philosophy, to pass under more diluted

forms into the teaching of the later Schoolmen, until the time arrived

for its renewed study in the original sources as an element of the

Platonic revival in the fifteenth century. All this popularity proves,

as we say, that Plotinus suited his own age and other ages which

reproduced the same general intellectual tendencies. But the important

thing was that he made Plato and Aristotle more interesting, and thus

led men to study their writings more eagerly than before. The true

reign of those philosophers does not begin until we reach the Middle

Ages, and the commanding position which they then enjoyed was due, in

great measure, to the revolution effected by Plotinus.

But when Neo-Platonism, as a literature and a system, had given way

to the original authorities from which it was derived, its influence

did not, on that account, cease to be felt. In particular, Plotinus

gave currency to a certain interpretation of Plato’s teaching which

has been universally accepted until a comparatively recent period,

perhaps one may say until the time of Schleiermacher. We have seen how

many elements of Platonism he left out of sight; and, thanks to his

example, followed as it naturally was by Catholic theologians, the

world was content to leave them out of sight as well. The charming

disciple of Socrates whom we all know and love—the literary and

dramatic artist, the brilliant parodist, the sceptical _railleur_ from

the shafts of whose irony even his own theories are not safe, the

penetrating observer of human life, the far-seeing critic and reformer

of social institutions—is a discovery of modern scholarship. Not as

such did the master of idealism appear to Marsilio Ficino and Michael

Angelo, to Lady Jane Grey and Cudworth and Henry More, to Berkeley and

Hume and Thomas Taylor, to all the great English poets from Spenser

to Shelley; not as such does he now appear to popular imagination;

but as a mystical enthusiast, a dreamer of dreams which, whether they

be realised or not in some far-off sphere, are, at any rate, out of

relation to the world of sensuous experience and everyday life. So

absolute, indeed, is the reaction from this view that we are in danger

of rushing to the contrary extreme, of forgetting what elements of

truth the Plotinian interpretation contained, and substituting for

it an interpretation still more one-sided, still more inadequate to

express the scope and splendour of Plato’s thoughts. Plato believed

in truth and right and purity, believed in them still more profoundly

than Plotinus; and his was a more effectual faith precisely because he

did not share the sterile optimism of his Alexandrian disciple, but

worked and watched for the realisation of what, as yet, had never been

realised.[523]

Finally, by the form which he gave to Platonism, Plotinus has had

a large share in determining the direction of modern metaphysics.

Although, as we have seen, not, properly speaking, a pantheist himself,

he showed how the ideal theory could be transformed into a pantheistic

system, and pantheism it immediately became when the peculiar

limitations and subtleties of Greek thought had ceased to dominate

over the western mind, and when the restraints of Catholic orthodoxy

had been removed or relaxed. The stream of tendency in this direction

runs all through the Middle Ages, and acquires new volume and momentum

at the Renaissance, until, by a process which will be analysed in the

next chapter, it reaches its supreme expansion in the philosophy of

Spinoza. Then, after a long pause, it is taken up by Kant’s successors,

and combined with the subjective idealism of modern psychology, finally

passing, through the intervention of Victor Cousin and Sir William

Hamilton, into the philosophy of Mr. Herbert Spencer.

The last-named thinker would, no doubt, repudiate the title of

pantheist; and it is certain that, under his treatment, pantheism has

reverted, by a curious sort of atavism, to something much more nearly

resembling the original doctrine of the Neo-Platonic school. Mr.

Spencer tells us that the world is the manifestation of an unknowable

Power. Plotinus said nearly the same, although not in such absolutely

self-contradictory terms.[524] Mr. Spencer constantly assumes, by

speaking of it in the singular number, that the creative Power of

which we know nothing is one; having, apparently, convinced himself

of its unity by two methods of reasoning. First, he identifies the

transcendent cause of phenomena with the absolute, which is involved

in our consciousness of relation; leaving it to be inferred that as

relativity implies plurality, absoluteness must imply unity. And,

secondly, from the mutual convertibility of the physical forces, he

infers the unity of that which underlies force. Plotinus also arrives

at the same result by two lines of argument, one _à posteriori_, and

derived from the unity pervading all Nature; the other _à priori_, and

derived from the fancied dependence of the Many on the One. Even in his

use of the predicate Unknowable without a subject, Mr. Spencer has been

anticipated by Damascius, one of the last Neo-Platonists, who speaks

of the supreme principle as τὸ ἄγνωστον.[525] And the same philosopher

anticipates the late Father Dalgairns in suggesting the very pertinent

question, how, if we know nothing about the Unknowable, we know that it

is unknowable.

Nor is this all. Besides the arguments from relativity and causation,

Mr. Spencer has a third method for arriving at his absolute. He thinks

away all the determinations imposed by consciousness on its objects,

and identifies the residual substance with the ultimate reality of

things. Now, this residue, as we have seen, exactly corresponds to the

Matter, whether intelligible or sensible, of Aristotle and Plotinus.

As such, it stands in extreme antithesis to the One, and yet there

is a near kinship between them. Probably, according to Plotinus, and

certainly according to Proclus,[526] Matter is a direct product of the

One, whose infinite power it reflects. All existence is formed by the

union, in varying proportions, of these two principles. Above all, both

are unknowable. Thus it was natural that in the hands of less subtle

analysts than the Greeks they should coalesce into a single substance.

And, as a matter of fact, they have so coalesced in the systems of

Giordano Bruno, of Spinoza, and finally of Mr. Spencer.

Here we imagine an impatient reader exclaiming, ‘How can Mr. Herbert

Spencer, who knows, if possible, even less of Greek philosophy than

of his own Unknowable, have derived that principle from the Greeks?’

Well, we have already traced the genealogy by which the two systems of

agnosticism are connected. And some additional light will be thrown on

the question if we consider that the form of Neo-Platonism was largely

determined by the manner in which Plotinus brought the spiritualistic

conceptualism of Plato and Aristotle into contact with the dynamic

materialism of the Stoics; and that the form of Mr. Spencer’s

philosophy has been similarly determined by bringing the idealism of

modern German thought into contact with the mechanical evolutionism

of modern science. Thus, under the influence of old associations, has

pantheism been metamorphosed into a crude agnosticism, which faithfully

reproduces the likeness of its original ancestors, the Plotinian Matter

and the Plotinian One.

XII.[527]

The history of Neo-Platonism, subsequently to the death of Plotinus,

decomposes itself into several distinct tendencies, pursuing more

or less divergent lines of direction. First of all, it was drawn

into the supernaturalist movement against which it had originally

been, in part at least, a reaction and a protest. One sees from the

life of its founder how far his two favourite disciples, Amelius and

Porphyry, were from sharing his superiority to the superstitions of

the age. Both had been educated under Pythagorean influences, which

were fostered rather than repressed by the new philosophy. With

Porphyry, theoretical interests are, to a great extent, superseded

by practical interests; and, in practice, the religious and ascetic

predominates over the purely ethical element. Still, however great

may have been his aberrations, they never went beyond the limits

of Hellenic tradition. Although of Syrian extraction, his attitude

towards Oriental superstition was one of uncompromising hostility; and

in writing against Christianity, his criticism of the Old Testament

seems to have closely resembled that of modern rationalism. But with

Porphyry’s disciple, Iamblichus, every restraint is thrown aside, the

wildest Oriental fancies are accepted as articles of belief, and the

most senseless devotional practices are inculcated as means towards the

attainment of a truly spiritual life.

Besides the general religious movement which had long been in action,

and was daily gaining strength from the increasing barbarisation of

the empire, there was, at this juncture, a particular cause tending to

bring Greek philosophy into close alliance with the mythology which it

had formerly rejected and denounced. This was the rapid rise and spread

of Christianity. St Augustine has said that of all heathen philosophers

none came nearer to the Christian faith than the Neo-Platonists.[528]

Nevertheless, it was in them that the old religion found its only

apologists and the new religion its most active assailants. We have

already alluded to the elaborate polemic of Porphyry. Half a century

later, the same principles could boast of a still more illustrious

champion. The emperor Julian was imbued with the doctrines of

Neo-Platonism, and was won back to the ancient faith by the teaching of

its professors.

What seems to us the reactionary attitude of the spiritualist school

was dictated by the circumstances of its origin. A product of the

great classical revival, its cause was necessarily linked with the

civilisation of ancient Greece, and of that civilisation the worship

of the old gods seemed to form an integral element. One need only

think of the Italian Renaissance, with its predilection for the old

mythology, to understand how much stronger and more passionate this

feeling must have been among those to whom Greek literature still spoke

in a living language, whose eyes, wherever they turned, still rested

on the monuments, unrivalled, undesecrated, unfallen, unfaded, of

Greek religious art. Nor was polytheism what some have imagined it to

have been at this period, merely a tradition, an association, a dream,

drawing shadowy sustenance from the human works and human thoughts

which it had once inspired. To Plotinus and Proclus, as formerly to

Socrates and Plato and Aristotle, the luminaries of day and night

blazed down from heaven as animated and immortal witnesses of its

truth. It was not simply that the heavens declared the glory of God; to

the pious beholder, they were visibly inhabited by glorious gods, and

their constellated fires were, as Plotinus said, a scripture in which

the secrets of destiny might be read. The same philosopher scornfully

asks the Gnostics, who, in this respect, were indistinguishable from

the Christians, whether they were so infatuated as to call the worst

men their brothers, while refusing that title to the sun; and at a

much later period, notwithstanding the heavy penalties attached to it,

the worship of the heavenly bodies continued to be practised by the

profoundest thinkers and scholars of the Neo-Platonic school.[529]

Moreover, polytheism, by the very weakness and unfixity of its dogmas,

gave a much wider scope to independent speculation than could be

permitted within the limits of the Catholic Church, just because

Catholicism itself constituted a philosophical system in which all

the great problems of existence were provided with definite and

authoritative solutions.

The final defeat of polytheism proved, in some respects, an advantage

to Neo-Platonism, by compelling it to exchange theological controversy

for studies which could be prosecuted, at least for a time, without

giving umbrage to the dominant religion. At Alexandria the new

spiritualism was associated, on genuinely Platonic principles, with

the teaching of geometry by the noble and ill-fated Hypatia. In

all the Neo-Platonic schools, whether at Rome, at Alexandria, at

Constantinople, or at Athens, the writings of Plato and Aristotle were

attentively studied, and made the subject of numerous commentaries,

many of which are still extant. This return to the two great masters

of idealism was, as we have already said, the most valuable result of

the metaphysical revival, and probably contributed more than any other

cause to the preservation of their works amidst the general wreck of

ancient philosophical literature. Finally, efforts were made to present

the doctrine of Plotinus under a more popular or a more scientific

form, and to develope it into systematic completeness.

Driven by Christian intolerance from every other centre of

civilisation, Greek philosophy found a last refuge in Athens, where

it continued to be taught through the whole of the fifth century and

the first quarter of the sixth. During that period, all the tendencies

already indicated as characteristic of Neo-Platonism exhibited

themselves once more, and contributed in about equal degrees to the

versatile activity of its last original representative, Proclus

(410-485). This remarkable man offers one of the most melancholy

examples of wasted power to be found in the history of thought. Endowed

with an enormous faculty for acquiring knowledge, a rare subtlety in

the analysis of ideas, and an unsurpassed genius for their systematic

arrangement, he might, under more favourable auspices, have been the

Laplace or Cuvier of his age. As it was, his immense energies were

devoted to the task of bringing a series of lifeless abstractions into

harmony with a series of equally lifeless superstitions. A commentator

both on Euclid and on Plato, he aspired to present transcendental

dialectic under the form of mathematical demonstration. In his

_Institutes of Theology_, he offers proofs equally elaborate and

futile of much that had been taken for granted in the philosophy of

Plotinus. Again, where there seems to be a gap in the system of his

master, he fills it up by inserting new figments of his own. Thus,

between the super-essential One and the absolute Nous, he interposes

a series of henads or unities, answering to the multiplicity of

intelligences or self-conscious Ideas which Plotinus had placed within

the supreme Reason, or to the partial souls which he had placed after

the world-soul. In this manner, Proclus, following the usual method of

Greek thought, supplies a transition from the creative One to the Being

which had hitherto been regarded as its immediate product; while, at

the same time, providing a counterpart to the many lesser gods with

which polytheism had surrounded its supreme divinity. Finally, as

Plotinus had arranged all things on the threefold scheme of a first

principle, a departure from that principle, and a subsequent reunion

with it, Proclus divides the whole series of created substances into

a succession of triads, each reproducing, on a small scale, the

fundamental system of an origin, a departure, and a return. And he

even multiplies the triads still further by decomposing each separate

moment into a secondary process of the same description. For example,

Intelligence as a whole is divided into Being, Life, and Thought,

and the first of these, again, into the Limit, the Unlimited, and

the absolute Existence (οὐσία), which is the synthesis of both. The

Hegelian system is, as is well known, constructed on a similar plan;

but while with Hegel the logical evolution is a progress from lower to

higher and richer life, with Proclus, as with the whole Neo-Platonic

school, and, indeed, with almost every school of Greek thought, each

step forward is also a step downward, involving a proportionate loss of

reality and power.

Thus Proclus was to Plotinus what Plotinus himself had been to Plato

and Aristotle: that is to say, he stood one degree further removed

from the actual truth of things and from the spontaneity of original

reflection. And what we have said about the philosophic position of the

master may be applied, with some modification, to the claims of his

most eminent disciple. From a scientific point of view, the system, of

Proclus is a mere mass of wearisome rubbish; from an aesthetic point

of view it merits our admiration as the most comprehensive, the most

coherent, and the most symmetrical work of the kind that antiquity

has to show. It would seem that just as the architectural skill of

the Romans survived all their other great gifts, and even continued

to improve until the very last—the so-called temple of Minerva Medica

being the most technically perfect of all their monuments—so also did

the Greek power of concatenating ideas go on developing itself as long

as Greece was permitted to have any ideas of her own.

The time arrived when this last liberty was to be taken away. In the

year 529, Justinian issued his famous decree prohibiting the public

teaching of philosophy in Athens, and confiscating the endowments

devoted to the maintenance of its professors. It is probable that

this measure formed part of a comprehensive scheme for completing

the extirpation of paganism throughout the empire. For some two

centuries past, the triumph of Christianity had been secured by an

unsparing exercise of the imperial authority, as the triumph of

Catholicism over heresy was next to be secured with the aid of the

Frankish sword. A few years afterwards, the principal representatives

of the Neo-Platonic school, including the Damascius of whom we have

already spoken, and Simplicius, the famous Aristotelian commentator,

repaired to the court of Khosru Nuschirvan, the King of Persia,

with the intention of settling in his country for the rest of their

lives. They were soon heartily sick of their adopted home. Khosru was

unquestionably an enlightened monarch, greatly interested in Hellenic

culture, and sincerely desirous of diffusing it among his people. It

is also certain that Agathias, our only authority on this subject,

was violently prejudiced against him. But it may very well be, as

stated by that historian[530] that Khosru by no means came up to the

exaggerated expectations formed of him by the exiled professors. He

had been described to them as the ideal of a Platonic ruler, and,

like inexperienced bookmen, they accepted the report in good faith.

They found that he cared a great deal more for scientific questions

about the cause of the tides and the modifications superinduced on

plants and animals by transference to a new environment, than about

the metaphysics of the One.[531] Moreover, the immorality of Oriental

society and the corruption of Oriental government were something

for which they were totally unprepared. Better, they thought, to

die at once, so that it were but on Roman soil, than to live on any

conditions in such a country as Persia. Khosru was most unwilling to

lose his guests, but on finding that they were determined to leave

him, he permitted them to depart, and even made it a matter of express

stipulation with the imperial government that they should be allowed to

live in their old homes without suffering any molestation on account of

their religious opinions.[532]

Simplicius continued to write commentaries on Aristotle after his

return, and was even succeeded by a younger generation of Platonic

expositors; but before the end of the sixth century paganism was

extinct, and Neo-Platonism, as a separate school of philosophy, shared

its fate. It will be the object of our next and concluding chapter to

show that the disappearance of the old religion and the old methods of

teaching did not involve any real break in the continuity of thought,

and that modern speculation has been, through the greater part of its

history, a reproduction of Greek ideas in new combinations and under

altered names.