I40 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book 11. 



poflible to fay, how far the human mind, by being conflantly em- 

 ployed in Aich meditations, and abflrat^ed almoft intirely from the 

 body, fo difpofed, by a proper diet and manner of life, as not 

 to obftrucl its operations, may go in this afccnt towards di'vinity. 

 Neither can I intirely difbelievc, though I think I am no enthufiafti- 

 cal vifionary, the accounts delivered down to us of the progrefs made 

 byPlotinus, and others of the later Platonifts in that road *. 



Thus much, I think, at leaft, we may conclude, with great certain- 

 ty, from the operations of the mind while it is in the body, that when it 

 is releafed from this prifon of flefli and blood, it will adl with much more 

 vigour, and in a manner very different from what it does at prefent : For 

 then, as Ariftotle fays, it is what it truly is, that is, immortal SLnd eternal f . 

 And he further tells us ivhat it is in the fame chapter ; for he fays, it is, 

 by its nature, feparable from body, unmixed, and impafTive ; and its 



effence 



* This Plotlnus flourifhed in the fecond century, and may be fald to be the founder 

 of the Alexandrian fchool. He was, I think, the greateft philofopher of later times, 

 and a genius truly divine. Nor do I think that ever there was a mind, merely human, 

 of more fublime fpeculation, or m.ore abftrafted from matter^ than his was. Porphyry, 

 his fcholar, who writes his life, fays, that, while he was with him, he, Plotinus, was four 

 times raifed above humanity, and united by an energy ineffable to the Divinity that 

 is above all; Tt? iTc Trtin hw. And he fays, that he himfelf was once exalted in the 

 fame manner when he was 68 years of age. This I. know will be laughed at by our 

 modern philofophers ; but, as Hamlet fays in the play, * There are more things in 

 * heaven and earth than our philofophy dreams of.' 



J- ^t/fiio-Bm ^1 ifTtfiOfty, TovS' oVe^ J5-T/, text Tovr* ^ovtv etUvuTtv kxi xiltcy, lib. 3. dc Jnima, 



cap. 6. where the difference betwixt thofe two epithets is faid, by Philoponus, to be 

 this: That ct^amrot denotes, that the mind has cflentially life in it; fo that it cannot 

 be without life, and be at all ; and that is what we call in Englifli immortal. The o- 

 ther epithet «<2*oy cxpreffes this further, that it not only mud have life always whca 

 it exifls, but that it docs always cxift ; or, as ! have tranflated it, is eternal. See 

 Philoponus's commentary upon this 0th chapter. 



