PREFACE. Ixvii 



ning of the extradl he has given us of Hierocles' book upon Provi- 

 dence and Fate, Before his time the Platonics and Peripatetics dif- 

 puted together very fiercely, and (q\. up the one Philofophy in direct 

 oppofition to the other. But Porphyry, the third from Ammonius, 

 wrote feveral books to prove that the two Philofophies were the 

 fame. Thefe are unfortunately loft *. The want of them I have 

 endeavoured to fupply as well as I could ; and, by what I have faid 

 of thofe two Philofophies, I think I have proved, that, though they 

 differed in fome particulars, they agreed in the main, being both 

 derived from the fame fource, namely, the School of Pythagoras. 



And this leads me to another obfervation, that the Philofophers 

 of this School joined to thefe two Philofophies a third, namely, the 

 Philofophy of Pythagoras ; and Suidas tells us, that both Syrianus 

 and Proclus wrote books to prove that the Philofophy of Orpheus, 

 Pythagoras, and Plato, were all the fame f ; and accordingly w^e find 

 the writings of fome of them, fuch as Porphyry, Jamblichus, and 

 particularly PlierocleSj full of the Philofophy of Pythagoras. Sim- 

 plicius, too, the commentator upon Ariftotle, appears to have col- 

 lected very diligently the Pythagorean books, which even then were 

 very rare and hard to be got, and other books of Anticnt Philofophy 

 now loft, which makes his Commentaries upon Ariftotle more va- 

 luable, in my opinion, than any othen There V/as, too, a Pytha- 

 gorean philofopher by profefTion, Nichomachus Gerafmus, who lived 

 about that time, of v/hom there is yet extant a moft learned trea- 



k 2 • tife 



* Fabrlclus, BihUotheca Graca, Vol. IV. p. 257, where h6 quotes Proclus to 

 ^rove, tliat Porphyry applied the decifions of Ariftotle to clear the doubts of Plato; 

 For it is certain that Plato has left many things undeterminedj efpecially in Morals, 

 >vhich it appears to me evident that Ariftotle intended to determine^ aiid to anfwer the 

 doubts which Plato had ftarted concerning thcin in his Dialogues, where there is eom- 

 tnonly more difputation than decifion. 



t Scr-Vahrklus's Bil'liot/jccaj Vol.1, p. Jii, 



