The Tracts contained in this small volume will, I trust, be perused with
considerable interest by every English reader who is a lover of ancient
lore; and whatever innovations may have been made in the philosophical
theories of the ancients by the accumulated experiments of the moderns,
yet the scientific deductions of the former will, I am persuaded,
ultimately predominate over the futile and ever-varying conclusions of
the latter. For science, truly so called, is, as Aristotle accurately
defines it to be, the knowledge of things eternal, and which have a
necessary existence. Hence it has for its basis _universals_, and not
_particulars_; since the former are _definite_, _immutable_, and _real_;
but the latter are _indefinite_, are so incessantly changing, that they
are not for a moment the same, and are so destitute of reality, that,
in the language of the great Plotinus, they may be said to be “shadows
falling upon shadow[1], like images in water, or in a mirror, or a dream.”
With respect to Ocellus Lucanus, the author of the first of these Tracts,
though it is unknown at what _precise_ period he lived, yet as Archytas,
in his epistle to Plato (apud Diog. Laert. viii. 80.), says “that he
conversed with the descendants of Ocellus, and received from them the
treatises of this philosopher On Laws, On Government, Piety, and the
Generation of the Universe[2],” “we cannot be a great way off the truth,”
as my worthy and very intelligent friend Mr. J. J. Welsh, in a letter
to me, observes, “if we say that he lived about the time Pythagoras
first opened his school in Italy, B.C. 500; which would give him for
contemporaries in the _political_ world, Phalaris, Pisistratus, Crœsus,
Polycrates, and Tarquin the Proud; and in the _philosophical_ world, the
seven sages of Greece, Heraclitus of Ephesus, Democritus of Abdera, &c.
&c.”
All that is extant of his works is the treatise On the Universe[3], and
a Fragment preserved by Stobæus of his treatise On Laws. And in such
estimation was the former of these works held by Plato and Aristotle,
that the latter, as Syrianus observes (in Aristot. Metaphys.), “has
nearly taken the whole of his two books on Generation and Corruption from
this work;” and that the former anxiously desired to see it, is evident
from his Epistle to Archytas, of which the following is a translation:
“Plato to Archytas the Tarentine, prosperity.
“It is wonderful with what pleasure we received the
Commentaries which came from you, and how very much we were
delighted with the genius of their author. To us, indeed, he
appeared to be a man worthy of his ancient progenitors. For
these men are said to have been _ten thousand_[4] in number;
and, according to report, were the best of all those Trojans
that migrated under Laomedon.
“With respect to the Commentaries by me about which you write,
they are not yet finished. However, such as they are, I have
sent them to you. As to guardianship, we both accord in our
sentiments, so that in this particular there is no need of
exhortation.”
“In the Preface to the Marquis d’Argens’ French translation of
this Tract, he says: ‘I have often thought that it would be
much more advantageous to read what some of the Greek authors
have said of the philosophy of the ancients, in order to obtain
a knowledge of it, than to consult modern writers, who, though
they may perhaps write well, are in general too prolix[5].’
“In 1762 the Marquis d’Argens published Ocellus Lucanus, and
afterwards Timæus Locrus, both writers, who according to
Chalmers’ Biography had been neglected by universal consent. To
show, however, the glaring absurdity and outrageous injustice
of what Chalmers says of this Tract of Ocellus, it is necessary
to observe, that independently of the approbation of this
work by those two great luminaries of philosophy, Plato and
Aristotle, an enumeration of the various editions of it will
be sufficient. Ocellus was first printed in Greek at Paris
1539, and afterwards with a Latin version by Chretien 1541; by
Bosch 1554 and 1556; by Nogarola, Ven. 1559; by Commelin 1596;
at Heidelberg 1598; Bologna, 1646, and revised by Vizanius
1661; and lastly, by Gale, Cambridge, 1671. Here are ten
editions, the last of which is only 49 years prior to the year
1700; so that the universal consent had not yet been given to
neglect this work. Let us see when it could have taken place
afterwards. D’Argens’ translation appeared in 1762. A new
French translation by the Abbé Batteux was printed in 1768;
and he made it without knowing of the other. D’Argens’ version
was reprinted in 1794; and an amended Greek and Latin text by
Rudolph was printed at Leipsic in 1801; so that there are in
all fourteen known editions, of which Gale’s is the best. This
book has certainly been read in Greek, Latin, and French, and
it most certainly will be read in English, if any competent
translator will favour us with a good version.
“In addition to the testimonies of Plato and Aristotle in
favour of this work, Philo, the platonizing Jew, says: ‘Some
are of opinion, that it was not Aristotle, but certain
Pythagoreans, who first maintained the eternity of the world;
but I have seen a treatise of Ocellus, in which he says, the
world was not generated, and is imperishable, and indeed he
proves it by most exquisite reasoning. Censorinus also, De Die
natali, cap. ii. says, ‘that the opinion that the human race is
perpetual, has for its authors Pythagoras the Samian, Ocellus
Lucanus, and Archytas of Tarentum.’ He is likewise mentioned by
Jamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras; by Syrianus in Aristot.
Metaphys.; by Proclus in his Commentary on the Timæus of Plato,
who, as we have shown in the Notes on Ocellus, demonstrates
that he was wrong in ascribing two powers only instead of three
to each of the elements; and in the last place, this Tract
is cited by Stobæus in Ecl. Phys. lib. i. c. 24: all which
testimonies clearly prove that Chalmers is a man who cannot say
with Socrates (in Plat. Gorg.) that he has bid farewell to the
honours of the multitude, and has his eye solely directed to
truth[6].”
To the treatise of Ocellus I have subjoined a translation of a Fragment
of Taurus, a Platonic philosopher, On the Eternity of the World[7]; and
also a translation of the Mundi Thema, or _Geniture of the World_, from
the celebrated astrological work of Julius Firmicus Maternus, because it
not only admits with Ocellus the perpetuity of the universe, but unfolds
the position of the stars at the commencement of each of the periods
comprehended in the greater mundane apocatastasis, which consists of
300,000 years; the first period after a deluge and conflagration, being,
as it were, a reproduction of the world.
I have likewise annexed a translation of select theorems from the
2nd Book of Proclus on Motion, in which the perpetuity of time, and
of the bodies which are naturally moved with a circular motion, is
incontrovertibly proved, and is demonstrated by what Plato calls
“_geometrical necessities_” (γεωμετρικαις αναγκαις).
In the last place, I have added copious Notes to these treatises, in
order that nothing might be wanting to render the meaning of them
perspicuous to the unprejudiced and intelligent reader.