'The best and fairest,' etc.—P. 32.
This opinion is so old, that Timaeus Locrus calls the Supreme Being [Greek: demiourgos tou beltionos], the artificer of that which is best; and represents him as resolving in the beginning to produce the most excellent work, and as copying the world most exactly from his own intelligible and essential idea; 'so that it yet remains, as it was at first, perfect in beauty, and will never stand in need of any correction or improvement.' There can be no room for a caution here, to understand the expressions, not of any particular circumstances of human life separately considered, but of the sum or universal system of life and being. See also the vision at the end of the Theodicée of Leibnitz.
ENDNOTE V.
'As flame ascends,' etc.—P. 32.
This opinion, though not held by Plato nor any of the ancients, is yet a very natural consequence of his principles. But the disquisition is too complex and extensive to be entered upon here.
ENDNOTE W.
'Philip.'—P. 44.
The Macedonian.