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GREEK PHILOSOPHY. 



The Qrst 

 principle. 

 Absolute 

 unity. 



The second 

 principle. 

 Supreme 

 intelligence. 



The third 

 principle. 

 The soul. 



touching essentially on moral subjects, treats, among other points, of 

 Man, of the Virtues, of Happiness, of Beauty, of the Chief Good, of 

 the Origin of Evils, of the Emancipation of the Soul from the Body. 

 The second, relating essentially to Physics, treats, besides other subjects, 

 of the World, of Circular Motion, of the Action of the Stars, of the 

 two kinds of Matter. The third treats of Destiny, of Providence, of 

 each man's Demon, of Love, of Eternity and Time, and other general 

 considerations on the Laws of the Universe. The fourth is on the 

 Essence, the Nature, Lhe Faculties, and the Immortality of the Soul ; 

 its descent into the body and its diversities. The fifth is on Intelligence 

 on the three principal Substances, on Unity, on Ideas, &c. The sixth 

 and last is a kind of recapitulation, treating on Being, Unity, Numbers, 

 Ideas, Liberty, &c. The six Enneades are composed of three 

 divisions : the 1st contains the first three Enneades ; the 2d, the fourth 

 and fifth ; and the 3d, the sixth. 1 



The Plotinian doctrine has been defined u the theory of absolute 

 unity, perfect and primordial, and the graduated relations by which 

 variety proceeds." 



The triads of Pythagoras and Plato, and the doctrines of the 

 Christians, probably suggested the idea of three Principles. 



The First Principle is above all things. From it all things proceed ; 

 without it nothing could be. It is One. It is simple. From it 

 emanate motion and rest; but itself, having no place, has neither 

 motion nor rest. It is infinite, not as matter is immense, but as being 

 one, and as having nothing by which it can be limited. As there 

 can be nothing better than that from which all things proceed, it is 

 the best of all things. It is essentially good. It is the source and 

 end of beauty. It is free, but its freedom, and its other attributes, 

 must not be understood in the sense in which they are ascribed to 

 other beings, but in a manner altogether inexplicable. 



From this First Principle proceeds mind, or intellect, its lively 

 image. It proceeds from it without action and without will, without 

 altering or modifying the First Principle, even as light proceeds from 

 the sun. Intelligence is at once the object conceived ; the subject 

 which conceives ; the act of conceiving : these three things are identical. 

 It contemplates itself incessantly ; this contemplation is its essence. 



The third Principle, subordinate to the two others, is the universal 

 soul, the principle of life, subsisting, as well as intellect, of which it 

 is the image, in the Divine essence. It is supramundane. It is the 

 source of the principle which is diffused through and animates the world. 



This procession is not operated in time; it is from all eternity. 

 The three Principles, though forming a hierarchy in order and dignity, 

 are contemporaneous. 2 



1 The ninth book of the second Ennead is Against the Gnostics. The object of 

 Plotinus is to refute the theory of the two principles and that of successive emana- 

 tions. 



2 Brucker thus describes the Plotinian Trinity. Plotinus, he says, taught, " Prin- 



