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and extension which enabled it to find a place for all metaphysics and mythology within reach. The great conception of the Lycian philosopher was his ternary system, by which he succeeded in deducing the whole invisible world, as well as the objective universe, in a series of triads from the supreme One to the remote apogee of matter itself.[1] All these speculations he embodied in a number of vast treatises,[2] several of which are extant and have been rendered into modern languages by some thinkers of the last century, who found his cosmology more illuminating than that of the creed of Christendom.[3]*
- ↑ Vacherot has arranged a table, in which the numerous divinities admitted by Proclus are seen according to their roll of precedence; Ecole d'Alexandrie, Paris, 1846, ii, p. 378. A comprehensive work by Jules Simon with the same title came out almost simultaneously. Zeller (Philos. d. Griech., v, pp. 548, 808) defines the position of matter according to the views of Plotinus and Proclus. The first considers it to be the original evil, but with the latter it is neutral, and bad only in relation to that which is better. These notions, however, are embedded in pages of refinements, so that no real finality is attained.
- ↑ By the age of twenty-eight Proclus had finished his commentary on the Timaeus, which exceeded in bulk the whole writings of Plato. Half of it is lost, but the portion preserved makes a ponderous tome.
- ↑ Victor Cousin and Thomas Taylor. The latter professes himself to be a complete convert to the religion of Proclus, and the former, who was a leader of thought, almost goes as far. The difference in theological standpoint between Christians, Stoics, and Neoplatonists is explained by the historians of philosophy. The Christian triune God exists apart from the universe, which he produces by his own voluntary act. With the pantheistic Stoics the Deity is pervasive without limit, and in all best things most immanent. Thus the good man may be his most perfect manifestation, and in no degree less than Zeus himself. But the essence of Neoplatonism is the Oriental conception of emanation, and in this pantheism everything is viewed as progressively inferior in proportion to its distance from the transcendent source, i.e., the One. In this system the good man cannot be equal to the Deity; he can only endeavour to elevate himself to reunion with his source by ecstatic
