COSMIC EMOTIOX. 



T7 



" They shall surely set thee in the way of divine 

 righteousness ; yea, hy him who gave into our 

 soul the Tetrad, well-spring of Nature everlasting. 



" Set to thy work with a will, beseeching the 

 gods for the end thereof. 



" And when thou hast mastered these command- 

 ments, thou shalt know the being of the gods that 

 die not, and of men that die ; thou shalt know of 

 things, wherein they are diverse, and the kinship 

 that binds them in one. 



" Know, so far as is permitted thee, that Nature 

 in all things is like unto herself, 



" That thou mayst not hope that of which there 

 is no hope, nor be ignorant of that which may be. 



" Know thou also that the woes of men are the 

 work of their own hands. 



"Miserable are they, because they see not and 

 hear not the good that is very nigh them ; and the 

 way of escape from evil, few there be that under- 

 stand it. 



"Like rollers they roll to and fro, having end- 

 less trouble ; so hath Fate broken the wits « of 

 mortal man. 



" A baneful strife lurketh inborn in us, and 

 goeth on the way with us to hurt us ; this let not a 

 man stir up, but avoid and ti.ee. 



" Verily, Father Zeus, thou wouldst free all 

 men from much evil, if thou wouldst teach all men 

 what manner of spirit they are of. 



" But do thou be of good cheer; for they are 

 gods' kindred whom holy Nature leadeth onward, 

 and in due order showeth them all things. 



" And if thou hast any part with them, and 

 keepest these commandments, thou shalt utterly 

 heal thy soul, and save it from travail. 



" Keep from the meats aforesaid, using judgment 

 both in cleansing and in setting free thy soul. 



" Give heed to every matter, and set Keason on 

 high, who best holdeth the reins of guidance. 



" Then, when thou lea vest the body, and comest 

 into the free ether, thou shalt be a god undying, 

 everlasting, neither shall death have any more 

 dominion over thee." 



It is worth while to notice the comment of 

 Hierokles on the self-judgment enjoined in the 

 first of these lines : 



"The judge herein appointed," he says, "is 

 the most just of all, and the one which is most at 

 home with us ; namely, conscience itself, and right 

 reason. And each man is to be judged by him- 

 self, before whom our bringing-up has taught us 

 to be more shamefast than before any other. (As 

 a previous verse commands; of all men be most 

 shamefast before thyself: ■navTiav Si fxaXiar' aio-xvveo 

 cavrov.) For what is there of which one man can 

 so admonish another, as he can himself? For the 

 free will, misusing the liberty of its nature, turns 

 away from the counsels of others, when it does not 



1 "My brains are broken."— Sir "Walter Raleigh. 



wish to be led by them ; but a man's own reason 

 must needs obey itself." 



"Whether the clear statement of this doctrine 

 of the conscience, dominans Hie deus in nobis, as 

 Cicero calls it, is originally Stoic or Pythagorean, 

 must be left for the learned to decide. Hierokles, 

 however, says expressly that the image of Reason 

 guiding the lower faculties as the charioteer guides 

 his chariot was derived by Plato from the Pytha- 

 goreans. 



Very remarkable indeed is the view of Nature 

 set forth in the subsequent verses. " Know, so 

 far as is permitted thee, that Nature is in ail 

 things uniform " (<pvati/ nep] iravrSs oyttoi'rji/). This 

 conception of the world as a great cosmos or 

 order is the primary condition of human prog- 

 ress. In the earliest steps of primitive men in 

 the simplest arts of life there is involved a dim 

 recognition and practical use of it to the extent 

 of its application in that stage. Every step for- 

 ward is an increase in the range of its applica- 

 tion. In the industrial arts, in the rules of 

 health, the methods of healing, the preparation 

 of food, in morals and politics, every advance is 

 an application of past experience to new circum- 

 stances, in accordance with an observed order of 

 Nature. Philosophy consists in the conscious 

 recognition of this method, and in the systematic 

 use of it for the complete guidance of life. Aber- 

 ration from it is the death of the rational soul ; 

 not, says Hierokles, that it ceases thereby to 

 exist, but that it falls away from harmony with 

 divine Nature and with reason. This fatal fall- 

 ing away brings about endless waste and perver- 

 sion of strenuous effort ; a hoping for things of 

 which there is no hope, an ignorance of what 

 may be ; a perpetual striving to clamber up the 

 back stairs of a universe that has no back stairs. 

 The Neoplatonists w.ere not wholly spotless in 

 this regard. They had learned evil things of the 

 Egyptians: magic, astrology, converse with spir- 

 its, theurgy, and the endeavor by trances and 

 ecstasies to arrive at feelings and ideas which are 

 alien to the healthy and wakeful mind. And so 

 the uniformity of Nature gives our commentator 

 some little trouble, and requires to be interpreted. 



" Know so far as is permitted thee (y 0e>i? eirri)," 

 says the verses. " For we ought not to yield to 

 unreasoning prejudice, and accommodate the order 

 and dignity .of things to our fancies ; but to keep 

 within the bounds of truth, and know all tilings 

 as it is permitted, namely, as the Demiurgic law 

 has assigned to every one its place." 



So the commentator, reading into the verses 



