that language expresses a connection between the two worlds: what it indicates respecting the nature of the connection is the difficulty which all in some way or other have been trying to solve. If Augustin does not solve it, he at least makes us feel how it arises, how it is involved in all our common speech, how it may beset those who take most pains to give an account of their thoughts and their words. When we say that Augustin discusses the relation between Reason and Ratiocination, and C. 27 and 29. between Sense and Science, that he inquires how far science and reason exist in beasts,-whether the soul knows of itself,— whether it is said to grow really or metaphorically,—we have indicated how near he has touched many of the controversies of C. 20 and 21. the most modern world. And his description of the seven degrees of the soul's ascent is a preparation for some of the most curious parts of the practical divinity as well as of the moral philosophy of the later Church.

The books on Music.

30. Long as have been our commentaries on Augustin, we cannot quite resolve to pass unmentioned the six books on Music, because it is evident that the thoughts which are expressed in them soothed the mind of the writer after the conflicts of his earlier years, and because he looked back upon them with great tenderness in his mature life. These six books, he says, are on Rhythm; he should have added six more on Melody, if the burden of his ecclesiastical duties had not made all such delights impossible. He is sure there is a passage by regular stages from these corporeal and changeable numbers, to the unchangeable which are in the immutable Truth itself; that through them we may strive after those inmost mysteries where Wisdom joyfully meets those who love her." The Master. Nor can we forget the little book on the Master," which is so much the more interesting and striking, because it is a conversation with the child who reminded him of his youthful errors, and for whom he so frankly and courageously at all times expresses his affection; and because it exhibits the method of his own teaching as well as his idea of the highest teacher. These are his properly philosophical books. Those "On Free-will," "On the Manners of the Church, and the Manicheans," and the more elaborate and better-known treatise "On the City of God," though strictly theological, are full of passages which throw light upon his philosophy, and ought to be considered by ail who wish thoroughly to understand it.

Later
Treatises.

disputes of

phers

if not

1. A CENTURY which opens with the reigns of Arcadius and Theological Honorius holds out small promise of blessings to mankind in the fifth the east or in the west. Yet it is one rich in the materials of century. history, if not in history itself, one which no philosopher can pass over, whatever he may think of its contributions to philosophy. The theological battles of the Greek church and the Greek empire, which aroused the most violent and the pettiest passions of Egyptians, Syrians, and Byzantines, pointed to principles in which all ages and countries are alike interested. Nestorius and Eutyches may be treated by many merely as movers of subtleties which have no significance for the world; the councils which strove to silence them, merely as haughty and ferocious dogmatists. There is excuse enough for each charge. But the question, whether there is a divine foundation for man's Philosolife, and whether that is also a human foundation, was involved engaged in in these controversies; the philosophers who most hated and them really despised the Church were really engaged in them as much as direct)). its members could be. We cannot interpret Proclus any more than Cyril, if we overlook them, or do not remember what multitudes of hearts were occupied with them. How such debates should have anything to do with the stirring events which were changing the condition of society in western Europe, with the sacking of Rome, the occupation of the different provinces by Visigoths or Vandals, the overthrow of the Western Empire, Outward the establishment of Paganism in Britain, of Frankish orthodoxy the time. in Gaul, we may find it hard at first to discover. And yet the Their schools and the world were in this time, as in all times, inter- relation to preters of each other. The principles which men were acting philosophy out in one sphere were those on which they were tormenting their thoughts in the other. We must understand what concerned the people if we would know what is meant by the speculations of those who strove most to keep aloof from them, and affected most to despise them.

2. The struggles between the Neo-Platonic school and the Christian Church belong as much to this century as to the last. But the Church has won an outward triumph. The sages can

events of

War of the have little hope of finding another imperial champion. When Church with the temple of Serapis was thrown down by the Christian zealots Platonists. in Egypt, stirred up by the unprincipled Bishop Theophilus, a

The Neo

the position

and character of the

sign was given that the rites of Paganism belonged to the past and not to the present. They might be loved all the more by the antiquarian and sentimentalist, but a leader of armies, even if he had all Julian's natural taste and acquired cultivation, could scarcely seek to re-establish them. Hence an evident Change in change is visible on both sides. A predominance of mysticism over every other tendency is characteristic of the Heathen devotee. Practical wisdom, degenerating in most cases into combatants. worldly wisdom, becomes characteristic of the Churchman. The one asserts the invisible as his possession, and only now and then dreams that he may master the visible. The other begins to think that that is given to him to use and to rule; the The Chur b Spiritual region, the Kingdom of Heaven, he claims as his too, governing. but often chiefly that he may exclude the rest of men from it. The noble-hearted Chrysostom is as essentially a practical and governing man as the proud and unscrupulous Cyril. Even Augustin in this century becomes more occupied with the management of the African Church, and with Donatist quarrels, than with the transcendant thoughts of his earlier years.

Alexandria.

Hypatia.

Athens.

Proclus,

A. D.

3. We have spoken much of Alexandria in former centuries. This city was still to be the focus of philosophical thought and philosophical contentions. There it was that the Church and the Schools stood out in formal opposition to each other; there both were exhibited in their glory and their humiliation, there the practical power of the Christian faith as a ruler of the world, there the detestable crimes of many of its professors, presented themselves in glaring contrast to the social impotence of the Neo-Platonists, to the high aims of one or two among their teachers. The tragedy of Hypatia brings all these aspects of the fifth century together, and prepares us for the downfall of the antichristian sages, for the temporary triumph of something scarcely less antichristian, for the great judgment upon the eastern world, when Alexandria stooped to Mecca. But Athens is the place in which Neo-Platonism flourished comparatively undisturbed by ecclesiastical influences. There philosophy in its nakedness, or as some say in its purity, put forth its last efforts, and endeavoured to crown and unite all the past achievements of Greek schools.

4. A very high authority, M. Cousin, supposes this attempt to have been perfectly successful. The sacred Platonical succession 412-485. he believes was faithfully and religiously preserved; the torch was transmitted in undimmed lustre from hand to hand; it never burned so brightly as when Proclus resigned it. The following

THE ANCIENT AND MODERN ECLECTIC.

379

"Procli

Victor

1820."

p. 23.

is but a specimen of the language in which he speaks of him. "He was illustrious as a mathematician and an astronomer; he M. Cousin's judgment of was the first among existing philologers; he had so compre- him: hended all religions in his mind, and paid them such equal re- Opera, etc. verence, that he was as it were the priest of the whole universe: illustravit nor was it wonderful that a man possessing such a high Cousin: knowledge of nature and science should have this initiation into Parisiis, all sacred mysteries.". "As he was the head of the Præfatio Athenian school and of all later philosophy, so I venture to generalis, affirm that all the earlier is found gathered up in him, and that P. 24. he may be taken as the one interpreter of the whole philosophy of the Greeks.". '. . . . . . . . I shall set it down as an esta- F. 25 blished fact that nothing great was thought out by Iamblichus, Porphyry, and Plotinus, either in ethics, in metaphysics, or in physics, which is not found expressed more clearly and methodically in Proclus.".. "The three-fold division of Greek P. 25 and 20. philosophy may be reduced at last to one, which being the same always, by a natural and certain progress enlarges and unfolds itself, and moves on through three stages intimately connected, the first being contained in the second, the second in the third, so that the man who after the lapse of ages finds himself at the end of this gradually evolving series, on the highest apex of that third age, as he embraces all the accumulations of former times Unites all in himself, stands as the representative of each sect of Greece, Greek emphatically the Greek philosopher. Such a man I say was himself. Proclus, in whom it seems to me are combined and from whom shine forth in no irregular or uncertain rays all the philosophical lights which have illustrated Greece in various times; to wit Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Plotinus, Porphyry. and Iamblichus."

wisdom in

opinion in

writer.

5. Besides the weight which this testimony acquires from the Strangeness learning and genius of M. Cousin, it is more impressive from of this the country to which he belongs and which he represents. We, a French and still more our diligent German brethren, are generally supposed to be capable of enduring a considerable amount of tediousness with the tolerance which results from our consciousness of needing the like for our own compositions. But that excellence must be very great indeed which can induce a Frenchman, with his natural liveliness and sense of the ridiculous, to suffer the elaboration through long pages of points which his wit must have reached by a single spring. This, and far more than this, had M. Cousin to bear while he was ascertaining for himself that Proclus was a compendious Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Tediousness and Aristotle. Thus, for instance, one of the most celebrated of of Proclus his works is a commentary on the first Alcibiades of Plato. It was evidently a lecture to his class. It aims of course at exhi

Commentary on

the first

biting the particular worth of the dialogue under discussion, but that only for the purpose of elucidating the method and principles of Plato, and of all science. The dialogue opens with these words, "O! son of Cleinias, I think that you sometimes wonder," &c. Considering the great field which the commentator has Alcibiades. before him, a dialogue of some compass in itself, and then the Ed. Paris. gathering together in one the three periods of Greek wisdom, Vol. 2, p. 49. one would have supposed that these words might have been dismissed with some rapidity; that at all events the teacher might have told his pupils at once what Socrates supposed would cause the wonder of Alcibiades. The Athenian youths were in great error if they looked for any such superficial treatment of the subject from Proclus. First of all we have a discussion on the importance of the openings of the dialogues. It must never be supposed that they are mere easy dramatical introductions to what follows. All great principles are involved in them. But, secondly, Socrates says "I think." Why does he say "I think"? Is it not his great object to lead us into science or knowledge, and could he who was guiding other men out of uncertainty and mere opinion be himself subject to such uncertainties? This great difficulty must be cleared up. It must EL Tórov Kai be shewn that there are variable subjects as well as fixed and

Examina word oluat,

tion of the

p. 57-61.

P. 61.

οι γνώσεις

διαφέρουσι

τῶν τε ἀεὶ

καὶ ὡσάντως

ἐχόντων καὶ τῶν

ἐνδεχομενών

Kai of Aoyo

ἔλαχον

καὶ τὰ

ay,

constant. Aristotle must be quoted to prove that the geometer is not to use rhetoric in his study, nor the rhetorician to apply geometry in persuasion. Necessary things are to be spoken of in necessary language, probable in probable. Moreover, Alcibiades was a hasty and presumptuous youth. It was a peculiarly winning and graceful method of addressing him, to begin with a somewhat doubtful expression of this kind. So that altogether Proclus seems to have proved in the most irrefragable manner, taking the subject out of the region of mere doubt and probability, and bringing it very near to demonstration, that Ti lavorov Socrates might consistently with the general maxims and objects of his philosophy use the word " I think" in familiar convesation. But, next, why does he say Son of Cleinias," when he might ἀστάτου have called him simply Alcibiades? The propriety of this language, τῷ διμαί too, is established after painful and accurate enquiry. The KaTeXpGarw phrase admits of a partial justification on the grounds that

μὲν ἄλλα

προσήκει τοῖς δε άλλα

ἐι καὶ ὁ

Σωκράτης

ενταυθα

περὶ φύσεως

διαλέγομενος

K.T.λ.

p. 62.

P. 65-73.

children are advantaged by reflection on the glory of him who begat them, and that Cleinias had distinguished himself in an Athenian war; that Homer is fond of patronymics; that it is an old Greek custom to use them. But there is a far deeper motive: Alcibiades might think of the divine reason from which souls issue, when he was reminded that he was the son of somebody.

6. We do not quote these passages as if they were conclusive