I mean the New-Platonists at Alexandria. I shall here make a few extracts regarding his principal views, and shall commence with what he says about numerals.

Plato calls him happy who understands the spiritual numerals, and perceives their mighty influence. The knowledge of the natural numerals serves, according to Plato, to the investigation of the good and beautiful; without this divine gift one can neither know human nature in its divine and mortal parts, nor yet the foundation of true religion. The numerals are the cause of universal harmony, and the production of all things. Whoever, therefore, abandons his numeral, loses all community with good, and becomes the prey of evil. Even the worship of God, from which all other virtues proceed, rests upon a true knowledge of numbers; the wise man must, therefore, study them ahove all things. The soul is immortal, and has an arithmetical as the body has a geometrical beginning; it, as the image of an universally distributed soul, is self-moving, and from the centre diffuses itself over the whole body. It is, however, divided according to fixed spaces, and forms as it were two connected circles. The one he called the movement of the soul, the other the movement of the All and the erratic stars. In this manner the soul is divided into two portions; and, placed in connection with the outward, perceives that which is, and exists harmoniously because it comprehends in itself the elements of a certain harmony.

If I make mention here of this mystical theory of numerals, it is not without special intention. On one hand, we hear the heroes of scientific antiquity, who lived not far removed from that age when mysticism treated not only of religious and poetical subjects, but also of certain unknown truths of nature; on the other hand, we cannot be blind to the fact that, in such a theory of numerals, a real and profound signification may be contained, and not alone an idle speculation or fantastical subtlety. For, through the wonderful progress of modern chemistry, the old axiom that determined numerical conditions govern the material world has gained an unexpected signification. Stechiometry shows indisputably in the combination of molecular atoms, a regularity of number as strictly observed by God in the minutest forms as in the

majestic nature of the heavens. If the modern philosopher feels his insignificance with a profound humility in presence of the admirable powers of nature, and as it were unavoidably falls into a religious feeling; if he become dumb before the Almighty, and feels himself inwardly and profoundly impelled to adore Him, does he not stand in a certain relationship to Pythagoras and Plato ?

Plato's other teachings regarding the soul, which the Alexandrians so greedily seized upon, are as follows: "Our soul is a particle of the divine breath, and therefore we are related to God: our soul's divine ideas are natural, and are created by the contemplation of divine things. Before it was associated with the body, it existed in God; even now, though enveloped by the body, it may participate in that divine contemplation through the subjection of the passions and through a contemplative life (Plato in Phædro). Whoever has elevated himself to truth—(övrwç öv)—that is, above that which is without change, without creation and decay, he lives truly and according to the divine nature. (Plato de republica, vi.) We may therefore read God through our soul, may approach and regard Him; and this contemplation fills us with the highest and truest pleasure, and makes us happy." God has implanted in the human as well as in the universal soul, of which it is a particle, the conceptions or images of all things, which, however, are obscured in it as soon as it enters the dark cavern of the body. That which Plato says of God and matter, which are the eternal causes of all things; of the world and its connection; of the universal soul, may be seen in many of his dialogues, -for instance, in Timæus, &c.,—and these are true magnetic doctrines; many passages have already been extracted from them at an earlier time.

We must not wholly pass over what Plato says of an early celestial history of man, considering this, as he does, one of the chief reasons for a belief in a future existence. As this later, present life, is simply a loss of man's wings, his whole endeavour ought now to be to regain them. To this end, the purification of true philosophy is beyond everything else, and to it must be added the initiation into the mysteries and perfection in them. For by means of the true phi

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losophy the soul raises itself from material and sensual things, to those images impressed upon it, and from these to the self-existing beings; and by aid of these, without material means, to the truth itself,-to the simple and unmixed original source. That which Plato says upon this subject is very distinct in his Politicus, Protagoras, Gorgias, Phædrus, Phædon, and Timæus.

He says: "All present conditions proceed from a revolution in man and the whole of nature. There was a time when mankind did not perpetuate itself (vide Jacob Böhme): this was followed by the earthly human race, in which the primitive history was gradually forgotten, and man sank deeper and deeper. Originally man required neither arts nor laws, because he had everything, carried a living law within himself, and was himself a living image of truth." (Timæus.)

In the "Gorgias" he says,- "Our present state rather resembles death than life, and without purification man cannot be freed from the ills of this life." He also describes the original man as combining male and female nature in one person (anthropin; hermaphrodite; Kamiost of the Persians; Adam of the Cabbalists, &c.) Phædrus contains an incomparable presage of that which man once was, and which he may again become. "Before his soul sank into sensuality and was embodied with it through the loss of the wings, he lived among the gods in the airy world, where everything was true and clear. Here he saw things only as a pure spirit. But now he is happy if he can use the forms of the imagination as copies, and collect gradually from them that which smooths his path and points out the way to the lost knowledge of the great, universal light. To this end the mysteries are especially serviceable, in part to remind him of the holiest, in part to open the senses of his soul, to use the images of the visible for this purpose, but which are understood by few because their original and present connection is no longer understood."

"An excellent man in divine ecstasy, who is better than one in sane consciousness, declares divine things, in which the soul recognises, as in a radiant reflection, that which it saw in the hour of ecstasy; he following God and being filled with joy and love." "Madness," says

Socrates, in Phædrus, "is not exactly an evil, for by it the greatest blessings came to Hellas." The θεῖα μανία had four principal forms,—the μαντικὴ ἐπίπνοια, the τελεστική, ποηιτική, and ἐρωτική μανία. In this the negative as well as the positive elements of humanity are to be found. Of philosophers we find, φιλοσοφοῦ μανία τε καί βαλία; and of poets we find in Ion,-a light, winged, sacred being, which is able to be moved by a nothing. The infection of ecstasy is there spread by the magnet and rings. "The mantic," says Socrates, "is rather μavix (soothsaying art), for it does many and glorious things."

In Phædon we see that the mysteries taught much concerning the future state of man. In Timæus, we find they distinctly stated and maintained that everthing visible has been created after the fashion of the invisible and eternal, as our present nature is composed of the eternal and unchangeable in the world of light and the divisibility of matter. In Timæus we find the following:-" Man does not participate in the divinely inspired and true prophecy as a reasoning being, but alone when he either is deprived, during sleep, or through sickness, of the exercise of reason, or when, by some inspiration, he cannot command himself."

To this place belong the remaining Pythagoreans and Platonists, in whom, besides the teachings of their masters, we often find much that is instructive, but which, mostly, already has been mentioned. I shall, therefore, only quote a few principal passages.

One of the most celebrated Pythagoreans was Empedocles, of Agrigentum. On account of his agreeable exterior and miraculous cures, he was regarded as a confidant of the gods and a great prophet, who could even stay the course of nature, and command death. During a plague which arose from an eclipse of the sun, he is said to have saved many lives by fumigations and magical fires. According to Philostratus, he arrested a waterspout which had broken over the city. He recalled a woman to life who had long appeared to be dead, and is said to have performed many other astonishing cures. It is evident from one of his numerous poems, that he was deeply versed in magic; it treats of natural philosophy, and is ornamented with many poetical similes and much remarkable colouring. In it he

traces the origin of all to Monas-God and matter, whose chief principles he calls friendship and enmity :

"Good spirits love the rue and laurel well,
But base ones it doth conquer and expel."

The lines concerning his magic powers, as they are to be seen in Diogenes Laertius, are as follows:

"Thou shalt medicines learn that avert every species of evil,
And lighten old age, and these I disclose to thee only.
Storms shalt thou lay that rage o'er the outstanding harvests,
And career in wild wrath, and waste with a fury unwearied.
Again, I empower thee to give to the dying winds motion,
And afresh to restore the azure serene to the welkin;
Cheering mankind; watering the parched earth in summer;
Loading the fruit trees through soft breathing winds of Erato,
From Hades below shalt thou bear too the vigour of manhood."

Empedocles believed a spirit to be the universal principle which influences all things, and that the material portions are connected by love and hatred. I must here call especial attention to the significant, the poetic, and philosophic spirit which fills some of the most ancient Greek sages,—as, for instance, the poet Orpheus, who also wrote verses upon medical and philosophical subjects: this is equally the case with both Parmenides and Empedocles. This shows that in the highest antiquity (in the pre-historical age) natural philosophy, poetry, and theology, were intimately connected in their being: of this we shall speak later.

Socrates must be mentioned here. It is admitted on all hands, that Socrates, the great teacher of virtue and truth, the apostle of morality, had a spirit who was his guide and instructor ("esse divinum, quiddam dæmonion appellat, cui semper ipse paruerit nunquam impellenti, sæpe revocanti." Cicero de divin. lib. i. § 54). Apuleius says, "The wise man may not have required an incitement to good, but may very well have been warned against evil." This genius, or demon, as he was accustomed to call it, did not, by his own account, warn him alone of impending danger; but others also, through him, as it foretold futurity to him, and always showed him, beforehand, the propriety and im