59 



posed in an orderly manner, the human race 

 sharpened its inventive power. And because the 

 noble genius in man could not preserve [uniformly] 

 one course of life, the improbity of evil increased 

 from various institutes, and confused manners and 

 the crimes of a life of wickedness prevailed : hence 

 the human race in this period both invented and 

 delivered to others more enormous machinations. 

 On this account these wise men thought that this 

 last period should be assigned to Mercury ( d ), so 

 that, in imitation of that star, the human race 

 might give birth to inventions replete with evil*. 



" That nothing, however, may be omitted by us 

 requisite to the elucidation of this subject, all 

 things are to be explained, which prove that man 

 was formed in the imitation and similitude of the 

 world f . And that the mundane apocatastasis is 

 effected through a conflagration and a deluge, we 

 also have asserted, and is confirmed by all men. 

 The substance likewise of the human body, the 



* Is not what is here said about the last period verified in the 

 present age? 



f* Man, says Proclus, is a microcosm, and all such things sub- 

 sist in him partially, as the world contains divinely and totally. For 

 there is an intellect in us which is in energy, and a rational soul 

 proceeding from the same father, and the same vivific goddess, 

 as the soul of the universe ; also an ethereal vehicle analogous to 

 the heavens, and a terrestrial body derived from the four elements, 

 and with which likewise it is co-ordinate." See my Translation of 

 Proclus on the Timaeus, vol. i. p. 4. 



