"I have tried my hand on Plotinus, and find it easy to render the text into modern philosophical phraseology. Until lately I have been unable to procure a good critical edition of the Greek philosopher. And now, if my energies are spared, a translation of his entire works is not very far in the future."[9]
It were a good test of one's aptitude for metaphysical studies, his appreciation of Plotinus. Profound as any predecessor of the Platonic school of idealism, he had the remarkable merit of treating ideas in a style at once transparent and subtle, dealing with these as if they were palpable things, such was his grasp of thought and felicity in handling. His themes are of universal concernment at all times. Promoting a catholic and manly method, his books were good correctives of any exclusiveness still adhering in our schools of science and divinity, while the tendencies of his time, as in ours, were towards comparative studies.
A like tendency appeared, also, in England in the studies of the British Platonists, or Latitudinarians,—Dr. Henry More, Dr. Cudworth, Dr. Rust, Norris, Glanvil, John Smith, whose writings deserve a place in theological libraries, and the study of divines especially.
Norris thus praises his friend Dr. More, whose works had high repute and were much studied in his day:—
"Others in learning's chorus bear their part,
And the great work distinctly share;
Thou, our great catholic professor art,
All science is annexed to thy unerring chair;