RELIANCE ON PUNNING.
Punning has of course a hoary antiquity, and even the revered Plato was an adept at it—as we see in his Cratylos. Moreover, not till a man's work is translated can we uncover all the unconscious cases of "undistributed middle." Nevertheless, in an inquiry as to the permanent objective validity of a train of reasoning, we are compelled to note extent and scope of his tendency. So he puns on aeons;[753] on science and knowledge;[754] on "agalmata";[755] on Aphrodite, as "delicate";[756] on Being;[757] on "koros," as creation or adornment";[758] on difference in others;[759] on idea;[760] on heaven, world, universe, animal and all;[761] on Vesta, and standing;[762] on Hexis;[763] on inclination;[764] on doxa;[765] on love and vision;[766] on "einai" and "henos;"[767] on "mous," "noêsis," and to "noêfon";[768] on paschein;[769] on Poros;[770] on Prometheus and Providence;[771] on reason and characteristic;[772] on "schesis" and "schema";[773] and "soma" and "sozesthai";"[774] on suffering;[775] on thinking, thinkable, and intellection;[776] on "timely" and "sovereign."[777] It will be noted that these puns refer to some of the most important conceptions, and are found in all periods of his life. We must therefore conclude that his was not a clear thinking ability; that he depended on accidental circumstances, and may not always have been fully conscious how far he was following others. This popular judgment that he was revamping Numenius's work may then not have been entirely unfounded, as we indeed have shown.
Nevertheless, he achieved some permanent work, that will never be forgotten; for instance:
1. His description of the ecstatic state.
2. His polemic against the Aristotelian and Stoic categories.
3. His establishment of his own categories.
4. His allegoric treatment of the birth of love, the several Eroses, Poros and Penia, and other myths.
5. His building of a Trinitarian philosophy.
6. His threefold spheres of existence, underlying Swedenborgian interpretation.
7. His aesthetic theories.