PREFACE. Ixv 



Proclus was by far the moft eminent ; and from his life written by 

 Marinus, his fcholar and fucceflbr, he appears to have been a very 

 extraordinary man, and more like to Pythagoras than any of thofe 

 philofophers of later times. Like him he was believed to have com- 

 munication with fuperior powers, and by a certain way of living, 

 w^hich they called Kathartic and Theurgic^ to have raifed himfelf 

 above ordinary humanity, and, in fome meafure, to have feparated 

 himfelf from body, even in this life. Like Pythagoras, too, he ap- 

 plied himfelf to poUtical affairs, though the ftate of the world at that 

 time did not permit him to do any thing confiderable of that kind ; 

 for he was obliged to content himfelf with direding the fmall affairs 

 of Athens, where he refided. And he may be compared with Py- 

 thagoras in another refped, that no man appears to have been more 

 admired and revered by his followers. 



From Proclus fpiung a new branch of this Phllofophy of Ammonius 

 Saccas, which returned again to Alexandria, from whence it came, under 

 the direction of one of the fame name, but diftinguiflied from the other 

 Ammonius by the addition of Hermeias to his name. He was the 

 fcholar of Proclus, and in his fchool of Alexandria had many fcho- 

 lars, and among others Simplicius and Johannes Philoponus, of 

 whom the laft mentioned lived to fee Alexandria taken by the Sa- 

 racens, and the famous library there employed to warm the baths of 

 thofe barbarous conquerors. It is to the writings of this Ammo- 

 nius Hermeias, and to thofe of his two fcholars juft mentioned, that 

 we are chiefly indebted for the underflanding of Ariftotle's works of 

 abftrufe Philofophy, or Efoteric, as he calls them, which to me at 

 Icaft would have been abfolutely unintelligible without their afliil- 

 ance *. 



Vol. in. k There 



■* The account I have given of the faccefuon of thefe philofophers of the Alexan- 

 drian, and Athenian School, is takca from Authors quoted by Fabricius, in his Biblio- 



iheca 



