Philosophy
"Philosophy," says Hierocles, "is the purification and perfection of human life. It is the purification, indeed, from material irrationality, and the mortal body; but the perfection, in consequence of being the resumption of our proper felicity, and a reascent to the divine li...
In the first place, therefore, Providence, according to common conceptions, is the cause of good to the subjects of its care; and Fate is the cause of a certain connection to ge...
10. Chapter 10Of the ten dialogues translated by Dacier, I can say nothing with accuracy, because I have no knowledge whatever of the French language; but if any judgment may be formed of thi...
1. Chapter 1"Philosophy," says Hierocles, "is the purification and perfection of human life. It is the purification, indeed, from material irrationality, and the mortal body; but the perfec...
8. Chapter 8If such then are the consequences, such the tendencies of experimental inquiries, when prosecuted as the criterion of truth, and daily experience[15] unhappily shows that they a...
5. Chapter 5The next important Platonic dogma in order, is that doctrine concerning ideas, about which the reader will find so much said in the notes on the Parmenides, that but little rema...
2. Chapter 2Further still, the simple subsists according to a transcendency of other things, the most powerful according to power with relation to the subjects of it; and the good, the desi...
4. Chapter 4"But those," says Proclus, "who treat of divine concerns in an indicative manner, either speak symbolically and fabulously, or through images. And of those who openly announce t...
3. Chapter 3But it is also necessary that the principle of all things should possess the highest, and all, power. For the amplitude of power consists in producing all things from itself, an...
9. Chapter 9Socrates indeed is in almost all of them the principal speaker: but when he falls into the company of some arrogant sophist; when the modest wisdom, and clear science of the one...
6. Chapter 6After this follows the irrational nature, the summit of which is the phantasy, or that power which perceives every thing accompanied with figure and interval; and on this accoun...
11. Chapter 11A Politician, [Greek: politikos]. This word, as Mr. Sydenham justly observes in his notes in the Rivals, is of a very large and extensive import as used by Plato, and the other...