SECTIONIV.
We are informed by Proclus, in the ensuing Commentaries, that the end of geometry, and, indeed, of mathematics in general, is to be referred to the energies of intellect; and that it is degraded when made subservient to the common utilities of a mere animal life. But as the very opposite to this is the prevailing opinion of the present age, let us examine the truth of this doctrine, and attend to the arguments which the Platonic philosophy affords in its defence. For if we can prove that this assertion of Proclus is supported by the strongest evidence, we shall vindicate the dignity of true geometry, restore it to its ancient esteem in the minds of the liberal, and shew how much it is perverted by applying it to contrary purposes.
In order to this, I shall endeavour to prove the following position, that things valuable for their own sakes, are preferable to such as refer to something else. Now, this may be demonstrated, by considering that every natural production was made with reference to some end, as is evident from an induction of particulars; and if this be the case, it may be safely inferred, that every thing exists for the sake of the end. But that for the sake of which any being subsists is the best of all; and the end, according to nature, is that which is perfected the last of all, from the birth of any being. Hence the human body receives its end or perfection first, but the soul last. And hence the soul is posterior to the body, in the accomplishment of its nature; and its ultimate perfection is wisdom. It is on this account that old age alone pursues and desires the goods of prudence and wisdom. Hence, wisdom is a certain end to us according to nature; and to be wise, is the extremeor final cause for which we were produced. It was, therefore, beautifully said by Pythagoras, that man was constituted by divinity, that he might know, and contemplate. If then wisdom be the end of our nature, to be endued with wisdom must be the best of all. So that other things are to be performed for the sake of the good which this contains. But to enquire in every science something besides this, and to require that it should be useful, is alone the employment of one ignorant of the great difference between the most illustrious goods, and things necessary. For they differ, indeed, widely; since things are to be called necessaries, which are the objects of desire for the sake of others, and without which it is impossible to live. But those concerns alone are properly good, which are loved by themselves, though nothing else should fall to the lot of their possessor; for one thing is not to be desired for the sake of another infinitely, but it is requisite to stop at some limited object of desire, of which it would be ridiculous to require any utility abstracted from itself. But you will ask, What is the emolument of contemplative wisdom, what the good it confers on its possessor? What if we should say (for such is the truth of the case) that it transports us by intellect and cogitation, to regions similar to the fortunate islands; for utility and necessity are strangers to those happy and liberal realms. And if this be admitted, ought we not to blush, that having it in our power to become inhabitants of the fortunate islands, we neglect the pursuit, through a sordid enquiry after what is useful and profitable according to vulgar estimation? The rewards of science, therefore, are not to be reprehended, nor is it a trifling good which results from its acquisition. Besides, as men travel to the mountain Olympus for its spectacle alone, preferring a view of its lofty summit to much wealth; andas many other spectacles are desired for their own sakes, and valued beyond gold, in like manner the speculation of the universe is to be prized above every thing which appears useful to the purposes of life: for it is surely shameful that we should eagerly frequent the theatre, and the race, for the sake of the delight afforded to our corporeal sight, and should look for no farther utility in these than the pleasure they produce; and yet should be so sordidly stupid as to think that the nature of things, and truth itself are not to be speculated without some farther reward than the sincere delight their contemplation affords.
It is on this account that the apprehension of truth is compared to corporeal vision; for the sight is the most liberal of all the senses, as is confirmed by the general testimony of mankind. Hence, the sight of the sun and moon, and the glorious spectacle of the stars is desired by the most illiterate as well as the most knowing, for the delight such visions afford; while, on the contrary, the desires of the other senses are for the most part directed to something farther than the mere objects of their energy. Thus, even the sense of hearing, which is the next in dignity to the sight, is not always desirable for its own sake; for light is the general object of sight, and sound that of hearing; but it is evident that light is more universally desired than sound, since all light, when not excessive, is always pleasing, but this is by no means the case with every kind of sound. Hence it is, that all contemplation is so delightful, and this in proportion as it becomes abstracted from sensible objects; for the most beautiful forms do not produce genuine delight, until they are strongly represented in the phantasy, as is evident in the passion of love; since the fairest face then alone causes love when it presents itself clearly to the inward eye of thought, in the mirror ofimagination, accompanied with living elegance, and a resistless energy of form.
Indeed, so liberal and so exalted an employment is contemplation, that Plotinus, with his usual profundity, proves that the universe subsists for its sake; that all the productions of nature originate from this; and that even actions themselves are undertaken with a view to the enjoyment of after-speculation. May we not, therefore, say that the sportsman follows the chace for the sake of a subsequent review of his favourite pursuit? That the glutton for this rejoices in the meal; and even the miser in his wealth? And that conversation is alone sollicited, that it may recal past images to the soul? In short, contemplation is the first spring of action, and its only end; since we are first incited to any external object by speculating its image in the phantasy: and our subsequent conduct tends, without ceasing, to the energy of reflection; for destroy prior and posterior contemplation, and action is no more.
Now if this be the case, and if geometry is a speculative science (I mean the geometry of the ancients), it is both desirable for its own sake, and for still higher contemplations, the visions of intellect, to which it is ultimately subservient. For, when studied with this view, it opens the eye of the soul to spectacles of perfect reality, and purifies it from the darkness of material oblivion. Away then, ye sordid vulgar, who are perpetually demanding the utility of abstract speculations, and who are impatient to bring down and debase the noblest energies, to the most groveling purposes; ignorant of that mighty principle of action, which influences every part of the universe, and through which even division and discord tend as much as possible to union and consent; ignorant that from the depravity of your nature, and the blindness of your inward eye, youare incapable of speculating the substance of reality, and are therefore eagerly gazing on its shadow: and lastly, unconscious that this is the point about which you are continually making excentric revolutions, mistaking the circumference for the centre, motion for rest, and a departure from good for a tendency to felicity.
It was for the sake of this most exalted and liberal contemplation that Heraclitus yielded his right of succession to a throne, to his brother; and that Anaxagoras neglected his patrimony, esteeming one drop of genuine wisdom preferable to whole tuns of riches. Led by a desire of this, as by some guiding star, Pythagoras travelled into Egypt, and cheerfully encountered the greatest difficulties, and maintained the most obstinate perseverance, until at length he happily penetrated the depths of Egyptian wisdom, and brought into Greece a treasury of truth for future speculation. But these were happy days; this was the period destined to the reign oftrue philosophy, and to the advancement of the human soul to the greatest perfection its union with this terrene body can admit. For in our times, the voice of wisdom is no longer heard in the silence of sacred solitude; butfollyusurping her place, has filled every quarter with the barbarous and deafning clamours of despicable sectaries; while the brutal hand of commerce has blinded the liberal eye of divine contemplation. For unfortunately, the circle of time, as it produces continual variations, at length reverses the objects of pursuit; and hence, that which was once deservedly first, becomes at length, by a degraded revolution, the last in the general esteem.
2. If geometry, therefore, be both valuable for its own sake, and for its subserviency to the most exalted contemplations, there can be no doubt but that the great perfectionto which this science was brought by the Greeks, was entirely owing to their deep conviction of this important truth. Euclid, we are informed by Proclus, in this work, was of the Platonic sect; and Archimedes is reported, by Plutarch, in his Life of Marcellus, to have possessed such elevated sentiments of the intrinsic dignity of geometry, that he considered it perverted and degraded, when subservient to mechanical operations; though, at the request of king Hiero, he fabricated such admirable engines for the defence of Syracuse. From this source alone, the great accuracy and elegance of their demonstrations was derived, which have been so deservedly applauded by the greatest modern mathematicians, and the warmest advocates for the farrago of algebraic calculation. Algebra, indeed, or as it is called,specious analysis, is the modern substitute for the perfect method adopted by the ancients in geometrical demonstrations; and this solely, because it is capable of being applied with greater facility to the common purposes of life. Hence, hypotheses have been eagerly admitted in geometry, which the ancients would have blushed to own: I mean the multiplications and divisions of lines and spaces as if they were numbers, and considering geometry and arithmetic as sciences perfectly the same. But we have fortunately the testimony of the first mathematicians among the moderns against the unlawfulness of this ungeometrical invasion. And to begin with the great sir Isaac Newton, in his Universal Arithmetic[29]: “Equations (says he) are expressions of arithmetical computation, and properly have no place in geometry, except so far as quantities truly geometrical (that is, lines, surfaces, solids, and proportions), may be said to be some equal to others.Multiplications, divisions, and such sort of computations, are newly receivedinto geometry, and that unwarily, and contrary to the first design of this science.For whoever considers the construction of problems by a right-line and a circle, found out by the first geometricians, will easily perceive that geometry was invented that we might expeditiously avoid, by drawing lines, thetediousness of computation.Therefore, these two sciences ought not to be confounded.The ancients so industriously distinguished them from one another, that they never introduced arithmetical terms into geometry.And the moderns, by confounding both, have lost the simplicity in which all the elegancy of geometry consists.” And in another part[30]of the same work he observes, that “the modern geometers are too fond of the speculation of equations.” To this very high authority we may add that of Dr. Halley, in the preface to his translation of Apollonius de Sectione Rationis; for which work he conceived so great an esteem, that he was at the pains to learn Arabic in order to accomplish its translation into Latin[31]: “This method, says he, (of Apollonius) contends with specious algebra in facility, but far excels it in evidence and elegance of demonstrations; as will be abundantly manifest if any one compares this doctrine of Apollonius de Sectione Rationis, with the algebraic analysis of the same problem, which the most illustrious Wallis exhibits in the second volume of his mathematical works, cap. liv. p. 220.” And in the conclusion of his preface, he observes[32], “that it is one thing to give the resolution of a problem some how or other, which may beaccomplished by various ways, but another to effect this by the most elegant method; by an analysis the shortest, and at the same time perspicuous; by a synthesis elegant, and by no means operose.” And Dr. Barrow, notwithstanding he was so great an advocate for the identity of arithmetic and geometry, expressly asserts[33], thatalgebra is no science. To these authorities we may add Simson and Lawson, who, sensible of the superior skill of the ancients, both in analysis and synthesis, have made laudable attempts to restore theGreek geometryto its pristine purity and perfection.
Again, the greatest men of the present times have been of opinion, that algebra was not unknown to the ancients; and if this be true, their silence respecting it is a sufficient proof of their disapprobation. Indeed, if we consider it when applied to geometry, as an art alone subservient to the facility of practice, as conveying no evidence, and possessing no elegance of demonstration, we shall not wonder at its being unnoticed by the ancients, with whom practice was ever considered as subservient to speculation; and in whose writings elegance of theory and accuracy of reasoning are found perpetually united.
3. But the lives of the first cultivators of this science (I mean the Egyptian priests) as well as of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, by whom it afterwards received such improvements, sufficiently evince that this science advanced to perfection from an intellectual theory as its source, and from being referred to contemplation as its end; and this will be evident, by attending to the following history of the Egyptian priests, as preserved to us by Porphyry, in his excellent work on abstinence[34]; a translation of which will not, I presume, be unacceptable to the philosophicalreader, “Chæremon, the Stoic (says he) explaining the rites of the Egyptian priests, who, he says, are accounted philosophers by the Egyptians, relates, that they choose a place best adapted to the study and performance of sacred rites; so that a desire of contemplation is excited by only frequenting those recesses which are dedicated to their use, and which procure safety to the priests, on account of that reverence of the divinity, whose sacred mysteries they perform; so that all possible honour is paid to these philosophers, in the same manner as to some sacred animals. But he says they live entirely solitary, except at particular times, when they mix with others in such assemblies as are usually held, and in public feasts; and that on all other occasions they are scarcely to be approached. For he who desires to converse with them must first purify himself, and abstain from a multitude of things after the manner of these Egyptian priests. He adds, that these men, renouncing every other occupation, and all human affairs, give themselves entirety, through the whole of life, to the contemplation of divine concerns, and to enquiring into the divine will: by the latter of these employments procuring to themselves honour, security, and the estimation of piety; by contemplation, tracing out the latent paths of science; and by both these occupations united, accustoming themselves to manners truly occult, andworthy of antiquity. For to dwell always on divine knowledge, and be disposed for divine inspiration, removes a man beyond all immoderate desires, calms the passions of the soul, and raises her intellectual eye to the perception of that which is real and true. But they studied tenuity of aliment, and frugality in their apparel, and cultivated temperance and patience, together with justice and equity, in all their concerns. Indeed, a solitary life rendered them perfectly venerable; for during that periodwhich they call the time of purification, they scarcely mixed with the associates of their own order, or saw any one of them, except him who was conversant with them in that exercise of purity, on account of necessary uses. But they by no means concerned themselves with those who were unemployed in the business of purification. The remaining part of their time they conversed familiarly with those similar to themselves; but they lived separate and apart from those who were estranged from their ceremonies and manner of living. He adds, they are always seen employed among the resemblances of the gods, either carrying their images, or preceding them in their accustomed processions, and disposing them with gravity of deportment, and in a graceful order. In all which operations they did not indicate any pride of disposition; but exhibited some particular natural reason. But their gravity was conspicuous from their habit; for when they walked, their pace was equable, and their aspect so perfectly steady, that they refrained from winking whenever they pleased. Their risibility too, extended no farther than to a smile. But their hands were always contained within their garments; and as there were many orders of priests, every one carried about him some remarkable symbol of the order he was allotted in sacred concerns. Their sustenance too was slender and simple; and with respect to wine, some of them entirely refrained from it; and others drank it very sparingly, affirming that it hurt the nerves, was an impediment to the invention of things, and an incentive to venereal desires. They also abstained from many other things, never using bread in exercises of purity; and if they ate it at other times, it was first cut in pieces, and mingled with hyssop. But they abstained, for the most part, from oil, and when they used it mixt with olives, it was only insmall quantities, and as much as was sufficient to mitigate the taste of the herbs.
In the mean time, it was not lawful for any one to taste of the aliment, whether solid or fluid, which was brought into Egypt from foreign parts. They likewise abstained from the fish which Egypt produced; and from all quadrupeds having solid or many fissured hoofs; from such as were without horns; and from all carniverous birds: but many of them abstained entirely from animal food. And at those times when they all rendered themselves pure, they did not even eat an egg. But when the time drew near in which they were to celebrate some sacred rites, or festival, they employed many days in previous preparation, some of them setting apart forty-two days, others a greater length of time than this; and others again a shorter; but never less than seven days; abstaining, during this period, from all animals, and from all leguminous and oily nutriment, but especially from venereal congress. Every day, they washed themselves three times in cold water; after rising from bed, before dinner, and when they betook themselves to rest. And if they happened to be polluted in their sleep, they immediately purified their bodies in a bath. They made cold water too subservient to the purposes of purification at other times, but not so often as the bath. Their beds were composed from the branches of palm, which they called βαίς,bais. A piece of wood, of a semi-cylindrical form, and well planed, served them for a pillow. But through the whole of life, they were exercised in the endurance of hunger and thirst, and accustomed to a paucity and simplicity of nutriment.
But as a testimony of their temperance, though they neither used the exercise of walking nor riding, yet they lived free from disease, and were moderately strong. For,indeed, they endured great labour in their sacred ceremonies, and performed many services exceeding the common strength of men. They divided the night between observations of the celestial bodies, and offices of purity; but the day was destined by them to the cultivation of the divinities, whom they worshiped with hymns each day three or four times; in the morning and evening, when the sun is at his meridian, and when he is setting. But the rest of their time they were occupied in arithmetical and geometrical speculations, always laborious and inventing, and continually employed in the investigation of things. In winter nights also, they were diligent in the same employments, and were ever vigilant to literary studies; since they were not solicitous about external concerns, and were freed from the base dominion of intemperate desires. Their unwearied and assiduous labour, therefore, is an argument of their great patience; and their continence is sufficiently indicated by their privation of desire. Besides this, it was esteemed very impious to sail from Egypt, as they were particularly careful in abstaining from the manners and luxuries of foreign nations; so that to leave Egypt was alone lawful to those who were compelled to it by state necessities. But they discoursed much concerning a retention of their native manners; and if any priest was judged to have transgressed the laws in the least particular, he was expelled from the college. Besides, the true method of philosophizing was preserved in Commentaries and Diaries, by the prophets and ministers of sacred concerns: but the remaining multitude of priests,Pastophori, or priests of Isis and Osiris, governors of temples, and servants of the gods, studied purity, yet not so exactly, nor with so great continence as those we have mentioned. And thus much is related of the Egyptians, by a man who is equally a lover of truth, and of accuratediligence, and who is deeply skilled in the Stoic philosophy.”
4. But the lives of the Pythagoreans and Platonists, who carried this divine science to its ultimate perfection, no less eminently evince the truth of our position. For, as Porphyry informs us, in the same invaluable treatise[35], “some of the ancient Pythagoreans, and wise men, inhabited the most desert places; and others retired into temples, from which the multitude and every tumult were expelled. But Plato was willing to fix his academy in a place not only solitary, and remote from the city, but, as they report, insalubrious. Others, again, have not spared their eyes, through a desire of more perfectly enjoying that blissful contemplation, from which they wished never to be separated.” After this, he presents us with a description from Plato[36]of those intellectual men, by whom the world has been enlightened with the sublimest wisdom and truth: “For it was not falsly, or in vain (says he), that a certain philosopher, speaking of contemplative men, affirms, that such as these are ignorant, from their early youth, of the way which leads to the forum, or in what place the court or senate-house is situated, or any public council of the state. They neither see nor hear the laws, whether decreed or promulgated, or written; and with respect to the factions and contentions of their companions for magistracy, for assemblies and splendid entertainments, luxurious eating and minstrels, they do not even think of these as in a dream. Such an one knows no more of the evil which has happened to some one of his ancestors, whether male or female, or any thing belonging to them, than how many pitchers of water are contained in the sea. Nor does he abstain from things of this nature for the sake of acquiringfame; but in reality, his body alone abides in the city, and wanders about from place to place, but his intellect esteeming all these as of small importance, or rather as non-entities, he despises them, and, according to Pindar, “from these on every side he soars:” by no means applying himself to things which are near him, and to sensible concerns.”
If such then were the lives of the men who brought this contemplative science to its present perfection, and who are to this day our masters in geometry; if such were the exalted sentiments they entertained of its dignity and worth, what greater proof can we require of its being valuable for its own sake, and as subservient to the energies of intellect? We have ample evidence too, of its being degraded when brought down to the common purposes of life, in the example of those who, with this view, have disguised it with the dark and sordid involutions of algebraic calculation; for it was solely to facilitate practice, that this barbarous invasion has been admitted by the moderns. Let me then be permitted to persuade the few who study geometry in its ancient purity, and who consider the ruins of Grecian literature on this, as well as on every other science, the models of perfection, to enter with avidity on the study of the ensuing Commentaries, and endeavour to fathom the depth of our profound and elegant philosopher: for by this means they may happily obtain the end of all true science, the purification of the soul; and be able to draw the light of perfect wisdom, from the undecaying and inexhaustible fountain of good.
But if it should be asked in what these energies of intellect consist, to which all science ultimately refers? I answer, in the contemplation of true being, or those ideal and divine forms, with which the intelligible world is replete.Now this great end is not to be accomplished without previous discipline, a long exercise of the reasoning power, and a continued series of philosophic endurance. For this end, when attained, is no other than the enjoyment of that felicity congenial to the soul previous to her immersion in body. But, for the further information of the liberal reader on this important subject, the following paraphrases from Porphyry and Proclus are subjoined; the former instructing us in the various purifications necessary to this end; and the latter exhibiting the gradations by which we may rise to the speculation of reality, and (leaving allmultitudebehind) ascend to the divinely solitary principle of things, the ineffableOne.
5. “In the first place, then (says Porphyry[37]) my reasons are not addressed to those who are occupied in illiberal arts, nor to those engaged in corporeal exercises, neither to soldiers nor sailors, neither to rhetoricians nor to those who have undertaken the duties of an active life. But I write to the man continually employed in thinking what he is, from whence he comes, and whither he ought to tend: and who, with respect to every thing pertaining to food, and other offices of life, is entirely changed from those who propose to themselves a different manner of living; for to a man of this kind alone is my present discourse addressed. Indeed, in this common state of existence, one and the same mode of persuasion cannot be addressed to the sleeper, who, if it was possible, would conciliate to himself perpetual sleep, and who, for this purpose, seeks on every side for soporiferous incentives, as to him who studies continually to drive away sleep, and to dispose every thing about him to vigilance and intellectual activity. But to the former, it is necessary to advise intoxication, surfeiting,and satiety, and to recommend a dark house; and, as the poets say,a bed luxurious, broad, and soft. Such a one should chuse whatever tends to produce stupor, and give birth to indolence and oblivion, whether consisting of odours, ointments, or medicaments which are accustomed to be eat or drank. But it is necessary that the intellectual man should use sober drink, unmixed with the lethargic fumes of wine; nutriment slender, and almost approaching to fasting; a lucid house, receiving a subtle air and wind; that he should be continually agitated with cares and griefs; and lastly, that he prepares for himself a small and hard bed, while thus employed in purifying his soul from the stains contracted by corporeal involution. But whether we are born for this exalted purpose, I mean for vigilant intellectual energies, allowing as small a part of our life as possible to sleep; (since we do not exist in a place where souls perpetually vigilant abide), or whether we are destined to a contrary purpose, I mean, to sleep and oblivion, would be foreign from our design to explain; and would require a longer demonstration than the limits of our work will admit.
But whoever once cautiously surmizes the delusions of our life in the present world, and the inchantments of this material house in which we are employed, and who perceives himself naturally adapted to vigilant energies; lastly, who apprehends the soporiferous nature of the place in which he acts, to such a one we would prescribe a diet congruous to his suspicion of this fallacious abode, and to the knowledge he possesses of himself; in the mean time, advising him to bid a long farewel to the sleeper, stretched on his couch, as on the lap of oblivion. Nevertheless, we should be careful lest, as those who behold the bleer-eyed, contract a similar defect, and as we gape when present with those who are gaping, so we should be filled withdrowsiness and sleep, when the place in which we reside is cold, and adapted to fill the eyes with watery humours, from its abounding with marshes and vapours, which incline their inhabitants to heaviness and sleep. If then, legislators had composed the laws with a view to the utility of the state, and had referred these to a contemplative and intellectual life as their end, we ought to submit to their institutions, and acquiesce in the diet they have prescribed for our subsistence. But if they, only regarding that life which is according to nature, and is called of the middle kind, ordain such things as the vulgar admit, who only estimate good and evil as they respect the body, why should any one, adducing these laws, weary himself in endeavouring to subvert a life which is far more excellent than every law written and composed for the sake of the vulgar, and which follows a law not written, but divinely delivered? For such is the truth of the case.
Thatcontemplation which procures us felicity, is not a mass of discourses, and a multitude of disciplines; or, as some may think, consisting from hence; nor does it receive any increase from a quantity of words. For if this was the case, nothing could hinder those from being happy, who comprehend all disciplines, andare accurately skilled in a variety of languages. But the whole circle of the sciences cannot by any means accomplish this blissful contemplation, nor even those disciplines which are conversant with true and substantial being, unless there is also a conformation of our nature and life to this divine end. For since there are, as they say, three ends of living, if we regard the particular objects to which mankind tend, the end with us is to follow the contemplation oftrue being, promoting, as much as possible, by an acquisition of this kind, an intimate union of the contemplating individualwith the object of contemplation. For, in nothing else besidestrue being, is it possible for the soul to return to its pristine felicity; nor can this be effected by any other conjunction. But intellect istrue being itself: so that the proper end is to live according to intellect. And on this account, exoteric discourses and disciplines, retarding the purgation of the soul, are far from filling up the measure of our felicity. If then, felicity was defined by the comprehension of words or sciences, they who do not pay a proper attention to the kind and quantity of their food, nor to any thing else pertaining to their present existence, might obtain this end: but since it is requisite to change our life, and to be pure both in speech and action, let us consider what discourses and what works may render us partakers of this most necessary means of acquiring substantial felicity.
Are, then, those things which separate us from sensible objects, and from the affections which they excite, and which lead to a life intellectual, and void of imagination and passion, are these the means we are in pursuit of? So that every thing contrary is foreign from our purpose, and worthy to be rejected? And in such proportion as it draws us aside from intellect? Indeed, I think it is consonant to truth, that we should eagerly contend where intellect leads; for in this material abode, we are similar to those who enter or depart from a foreign region, not only in casting aside our native manners and customs, but from the long use of a strange country, we are imbued with affections, manners, and laws foreign from our natural and true region, and with a strong propensity to these unnatural habits. Such an one, therefore, should not only think earnestly of the way, however long and laborious, by which he may return to his own, but that he may meet with amore favourable reception from his proper kindred, should also meditate by what means he may divest himself of every thing alien from his true country, which he has contracted; and in what manner he may best recal to his memory, those habits and dispositions without which he cannot be admitted by his own, and which, from long disuse, have departed from his soul. In like manner, it is requisite, if we wish to return to such things as are truly our own, and proper to man considered as a rational soul, to lay aside whatever we have associated to ourselves from a mortal nature, together with all that propensity to material connections, by which the soul is allured, and descends into the obscure regions of sense; but to be mindful of that blessed and eternal essence intellect, our true father, and hastening our return to the contemplation of the uncoloured light ofgood, to take especial care of these two things; one, that we divest ourselves (as of foreign garments) of every thing mortal and material; the other how we may return with safety, since thus, ascending to our native land, we are different from ourselves before we descended into mortality. For we were formerly intellectual natures; and even now we are essences purified from every stain contracted by sense, and from that part which is destitute of reason: but we are complicated with sensible connections, on account of our impotence and infirmity, which is the cause that we cannot always be conversant with intellectual concerns; but with mundane affairs we can be present with frequency and ease; for all our energetic powers are stupified and clouded with oblivion, through body and sense; the soul not remaining in an intellectual state; (as the earth when badly affected, though good fruit is deposited in its bosom, produces nothing but weeds); and this, through the improbity of the soul, which does not,indeed, destroy its essence, while it acquires brutality; but by such an accession it becomes complicated with a perishing nature, is bound in the dark folds of matter, and is drawn aside from its proper state, into one that is foreign and base.
So that it is highly requisite to study, if we are solicitous of returning to our pristine state of felicity, how to depart from sense and imagination, and her attendant brutality, and from those passions which are raised by her phantastic eye, as much as the necessity of our nature will permit. For the intellect must be accurately composed; and it is proper it should obtain a peace and tranquility free from the contentions of that part which is destitute of reason, that we may not only hear with attention concerning intellect and intelligible objects, but to the utmost of our ability, may enjoy their contemplation; and thus, being reduced into an incorporeal nature, may truly lead an intellectual life, and not in a false delusive manner, like these who are at the same time entangled with corporeal concerns. We must, therefore, divest ourselves of the various garments of mortality by which our vigour is impeded; as well this visible and fleshly garment, as that more interior one with which we are invested contiguous to the skin. We must enter the place of contest naked, and without the incumbrance of dress, striving for the most glorious of all prizes, the Olympiad of the soul. But the first requisite, and without which it is not lawful to contend, is, that we strip off our garments. And since our vestments are some of them exterior, and some interior, so with respect to the denudation of the soul, one process is by things more open, another by such as are more occult. For instance, not to eat, or not to accept what is offered, is among things obvious and open; but not to desire is more obscure; so thatit is here requisite not only to abstain from things improper in deeds, but likewise in desire. For what does it profit to abstain in actions from what is base, in the mean time adhering to the causes which produce such actions, as if bound in indissoluble chains?
But this receding from material affections is brought about partly by force, and partly by persuasion; and by the assistance of reason the affections languish, and are, as it were, buried in oblivion, or in a certain philosophical death; which is, indeed, the best mode of desertion, without oppressing the terrene bandage from which the soul departs. For in things which are the objects of sense, a violent devulsion cannot take place without either a laceration of some part, or at least a vestige of separation. But vice steals in upon the soul through continual negligence: and carelessness is produced by not sufficiently attending to intelligible objects; the affections in the mean time being excited by the drowsy perceptions of sense, among which must be also reckoned the sensations arising from food. We must therefore abstain, not less than from other things, from such food as usually excites the passions of our soul. Let us then in this particular enquire a little farther.
There are two fountains, whose noxious streams detain the soul in matter, and with which, as if saturated with lethargic potions, she forgets her own proper speculations: I mean pleasure and grief, the artificer of which is sense and its perceptions, together with the operations attendant on the senses, imaginations, opinions, and memory. The passions, roused by the energies of these, and the irrational part, now fattened with noxious nutriment, draw down the soul, and avert her inclinations from her native love of true being. It is requisite, therefore, that we revoltfrom these to the utmost of our ability. But true defections can alone take place by avoiding the passions and rash motions produced by the senses. But, sensation respects whatever moves the sight, or the hearing, or the taste, or the smell. And sense is, as it were, the metropolis of that foreign colony of passions which reside in the soul, and which must be expelled by him who wishes, while connected with body, to become an inhabitant of the royal regions of intellect. Let us then enquire how much fuel of the passions enters into us through each of the senses; and this either when we behold the spectacles of horses in the race, and the labours of the athletic, or the contests of those who twist and bend their bodies in leaping, or when we survey beautiful women. For all these insnare us, unconscious of the danger, and subject to their dominion the irrational appetite, by proffered inchantments of every kind.
For by all such inchantments the soul, as if driven into fury, compels the compound man to leap rashly, and without reason, and full of the brutal nature to bellow and exclaim. In the mean time, the perturbation appearing from without, being inflamed by the internal, which was first of all roused by sense. But the vehement motions excited by the hearing, arise from certain noises and sounds, from base discourse, and mixed assemblies; so that some, exiled from reason, behave as if struck mad; and others, enervated by effeminate softness, agitate themselves by a multitude of trifling gesticulations. And who is ignorant how much the soul is fattened, and infested with material grossness, by the ointments and perfumes which commend lovers to each other? But why is it necessary to speak of the passions originating from the taste: in this respect especially, binding the soul in a double band; one of which isthickened by the passions excited by the taste; the other becomes strong and powerful by the different bodies which we receive in food. For as a certain physician observed, those are not the only poisons which are prepared by the medical art, but such things as we daily receive for food, as well liquid as solid, are to be reckoned among this number; and much greater danger arises to our life from these, than to our bodies from poisons. But the touch does all but transmute the soul into body, and excites in it, as in a dissonant body, certain broken and enervated sounds. The remembrance, imagination, and cogitation of all these raise a collected swarm of passions, i. e. of fear, desire, anger, love, emulation, cares, and griefs, they fill the soul with perturbations of this kind, cloud its intellectual eye with oblivion, and bury its divine light in material darkness.
On which account it is a great undertaking to be purified from all this rout of pollutions; and to bestow much labour in meditating day and night, what measures we shall adopt to be freed from these bonds, and this because we are complicated with sense, from a certain necessity. From whence, as much as our ability will permit, we ought to recede from those places in which we may (perhaps unwillingly), meet with this hostile rout; and it is requisite we should be solicitous not to engage in combat with these dangerous foes, lest, through too great a confidence of victory and success, instead of vigorous contention, we produce only unskilfulness and indolence.”
And in the conclusion of the first book, he adds, “For, indeed, if it be lawful to speak freely, and without fear, we can by no other means obtain the true end of a contemplative, intellectual life, but by adhering to the Deity (if I may be allowed the expression), as if fastened by a nail, at the same time being torn away and separated frombody and corporeal delights; having procured safety from our deeds, and not from the mere attention to words. But if friendship is not to be conciliated with a divinity, who is only the governor of some particular region, with any kind of food, or by the use of animal nutriment, much less can a gross diet effect an union with that God who is exalted above all things, and who is superior to a nature simply incorporeal; but after every mode of purgation, and the greatest chastity of body, and purity of soul, we shall scarcely be thought worthy to obtain the vision of his ineffable beauty; though this is sometimes permitted to him whose soul is well disposed, and who has passed through life with the greatest sanctity and purity of manners. So that, by how much the Father of all exceeds every nature in simplicity, purity, and self-sufficiency, as being infinitely remote from all suspicion of material contagion, by so much the more ought he who approaches to the Deity, to be entirely pure and holy, first in his body, and afterwards in the most secret recesses of his soul; having distributed a purgation adapted to every part, and being completely invested with purity, as with a transparent garment, fit for the intimate reception of divine illumination.” Thus far Porphyry, whose excellent sentiments on this subject are a lasting monument of the elevation and purity of soul which the Platonic philosophy affords; and at the same time sufficiently prove the arrogance and ignorance of those who depreciate the wisdom of the ancients, and consider their greatest philosophers as involved in mental darkness and delusion. But presumption of this kind is continually increased by indolence, and strengthened by interest; and it is common to findscribblers of every kind, laughing at Plato and his philosophy, who are too mean for criticism, and even too insignificant for contempt. Let us, therefore, leave suchin their native inanity, and listen to the instructions of the divinely elegant Proclus, by which we may ascend to the contemplation of true being, and the ineffable principle of things.
6.[38]“Pythagoras and Plato command us to fly from the multitude, that we may pursue the most simple truth, and apply ourselves wholly to the contemplation of real being. From the multitude of exterior people drawing us aside in various ways, and deceiving us by fallacious appearances. But much more to shun the multitude of interior people; for this much more distracts and deceives. We must, therefore, fly from the various multitude of affections, the obscure informations of sense, the shadowy objects of imagination, and the dusky light of opinion. For every multitude of this kind is so different in itself, that its parts are contrary to one another; from whence it is necessary to betake ourselves to the sciences, in which multitude has no contrariety. For though affections are contrary to affections, one perception of sense to another, imaginations to imaginations, and opinions to opinions, yet no one science is found contrary to another. In this multitude, therefore, of propositions and notions, we may collect into one the number of sciences binding them in one according bond. For they are so remote from contrariety to each other, that notion is subservient to notion, and inferior sciences minister to superior, depending on them for their origin. Above all, it is here necessary, from many sciences which pre-suppose one, to betake ourselves to one science itself, no longer supposing another, and in an orderly series to refer them all to this original one. But after science, and its study, it will be necessary to lay aside compositions, divisions,and multiform discourses, and from thence to ascend to intellectual life, to its simple vision, and intimate perception. For science is not the summit of knowledge, but beyond it is intellect; not that intellect only which is separated from soul, but the illustration infused from thence into the soul, which Aristotle affirms to be the intellect by which we acknowledge the principles of science; and Timæus says, that this exists in no place but the soul. Ascending, therefore, to this intellect, we must contemplate together with it intelligible essence, by indivisible and simple perceptions, speculating the simple genera of beings. But after venerable intellect itself, it will be proper to contemplate that summit of the soul, by which we are one, and under whose influence our multitude is united. For as by our intellect we touch the divine intellect; so by our unity, and as it were theflowerof our essence, it will be lawful to touch that first one, from whom all subordinate unities proceed. And by this ourone, we are especially conjoined with divinity. For similitude may be every where comprehended by that which is similar; the objects of knowledge by science; things intelligible by intellect; and the most unifying measures of being, by the unity of the soul. But this unity and its energy is the summit of our actions; for by this we become divine, when, flying from all multitude, we retire into the depths of our unity, and, being collected into one, uniformly energize. Thus far we admonish to shun the multitude, by steps proceeding from the order of knowledge: in the next place, we shall proceed in the same design by the series of knowable objects. Fly then every sensible species, for they are heaped together, are divisible, and perfectly mutable, and incapable of affording sincere and genuine knowledge. From these dark informations, therefore, betake yourselfto incorporeal essence; since every sensible object possesses adventitious unity, is by itself scattered and confused, and full of formless infinity. Hence its good is divisible, and adventitious, distant and separated from itself, and residing in a foreign seat. When you have ascended thither, and are placed among incorporeal beings, you will behold above the fluctuating empire of bodies, the sublime animal order, self-moving, spontaneously energizing in itself, and from itself possessing its own essence, yet multiplied, and anticipating in itself a certain apparition or image of the essence divisible about the unstable order of bodies. You will there perceive many habitudes of reasons, various proportions, and according bonds. Likewise the whole and parts, vivid circles, and a multiform variety of powers; together with a perfection of souls not-eternal, not subsisting, together as a whole, but, unfolded by time, gradually departing from their integrity, and conversant with continual circulations. For such is the nature of the soul.
But after the multitude belonging to souls, betake yourself to intellect, and the intellectual kingdoms, that you may possess the unity of things. There remain in contemplation of a nature ever abiding in eternity, of life ever flourishing, intelligence ever vigilant, to which no perfection of being is wanting, and which does not desire the chariot of time, for the full energy of its essence. When you have beheld natures of this exalted kind, and have seen by how great an interval they are superior to souls; in the next place enquire whether any multitude is there, and if intellect, since it is one, is also universal; and again, since it is uniform, if not also multiform: for you will find it subsists after this manner. When, therefore, you have intimately beheld this intellectual multitude, though profoundly indivisible and united, transport yourself againto another principle, and having considered, as in a more exalted rank, theunitiesof intellectual essences, in the last place proceed to unity perfectly separate and free from all things. And when advanced thus far, lay aside all multitude, and you will at length arrive at the ineffable fountain ofgood. And since it appears, from these various gradations, that the soul then properly obtains perfection, when she flies from all external and internal multitude, and the boundless variety of the universe, we may likewise conclude from hence, that our souls do not alone collect their knowledge from the obscure objects of sense, nor from things particular and divisible discover a perfect whole, and a perfect one, but draw forth science from their inmost recesses, and produce accuracy and perfection from whatever in appearances is inaccurate and imperfect. For it is not proper to suppose that things false and obscure, should be the principal sources of knowledge to the soul; and that things discordant among themselves, which require the reasonings and arguments of the soul, and which are ambiguous and confused, should precede science which is immutable; nor that things variously changed, should generate reasons abiding in one; nor that indeterminate beings should exist as the causes of determinate intelligence. It is not, therefore, fit to receive the truth of eternal entities from boundless multitude; nor from sensible objects the judgment of universals; nor from things destitute of reason, accurate discrimination of that which is good: but it is proper that the soul, retiring into her immortal essence, should there scrutinize thegoodand thetrue, and the immutable reasons of all things: for the essence of the soul is full of these, though they are clouded by oblivion. The soul, therefore, beholding exteriors, enquires after truth, in the mean time possessing it in the depths of her essence,and deserting herself, explores the good in the dark regions of matter. Hence, every one in the pursuit of reality ought to begin with the knowledge of himself. For, if we constantly extend our views among the multitude of men, we shall never discern the one species man, obscured by the multitude, and distracted by the division and discord, and the various mutations of those who participate the species. But if we turn our eye inwards, there, remote from perturbation, we shall behold one reason and nature of men; since multitude is an impediment to the conversion of the soul into herself. For here variety darkens unity, difference obscures identity, and dissimilitude clouds similitude; since species are confused in the folds of matter; and every where that which is excellent is mixed with the base.” Thus far Proclus; and thus much for our intended Dissertation.