In short, if the words all and every, with which every page of theoretic mathematics is full, mean what they are conceived by all men to mean, and if the universals which they signify are the proper objects of science, such universals must subsist in the soul prior to the energies of sense. Hence it will follow that induction is no otherwise subservient to science, than as it produces credibility in axioms and petitions; and this by exciting the universal conception of these latent in the soul. The particulars, therefore, of which an induction is made in order to produce science, must be so simple, that they may be immediately apprehended, and that the universal may be predicated of them without hesitation. The particulars of the experimentalists are not of this kind, and therefore never can be sources of science truly so called.
Of this, however, the man of experiment appears to be totally ignorant, and in consequence of this, he is likewise ignorant that parts can only be truly known through wholes, and that this is particularly the case with parts when they belong to a whole, which, as we have already observed, from comprehending in itself the parts which it produces, is called a whole prior to parts. As he, therefore, would by no means merit the appellation of a physician who should attempt to cure any part of the human body, without a previous knowledge of the whole; so neither can he know any thing truly of the vegetable life of plants, who has not a previous knowledge of that vegetable life which subsists in the earth as a whole prior to, because the principle and cause of all partial vegetable life, and who still prior to this has not a knowledge of that greater whole of this kind which subsists in nature herself; nor, as Hippocrates justly observes, can he know any thing truly of the nature of the human body who is ignorant what nature is considered as a great comprehending whole. And if this be true, and it is so most indubitably, with all physiological inquiries, how much more must it be the case with respect to a knowledge of those incorporeal forms to which we ascended in the first part of this Introduction, and which in consequence of proceeding from wholes entirely exempt from body are participated by it, with much greater obscurity and imperfection? Here then is the great difference, and a mighty one it is, between the knowledge gained by the most elaborate experiments, and that acquired by scientific reasoning, founded on the spontaneous, unperverted, and self-luminous conceptions of the soul. The former does not even lead its votary up to that one nature of the earth from which the natures of all the animals and plants on its surface, and of all the minerals and metals in its interior parts, blossom as from a perennial root. The latter conducts its votary through all the several mundane wholes up to that great whole the world itself, and thence leads him through the luminous order of incorporeal wholes to that vast whole of wholes, in which all other wholes are centred and rooted, and which is no other than the principle of all principles, and the fountain of deity itself. No less remarkable likewise, is the difference between the tendencies of the two pursuits, for the one elevates the soul to the most luminous heights, and to that great ineffable which is beyond all altitude; but the other is the cause of a mighty calamity to the soul, since, according to the elegant expression of Plutarch, it extinguishes her principal and brightest eye, the knowledge of divinity. In short, the one leads to all that is grand, sublime and splendid in the universe; the other to all that is little, groveling[14] and dark. The one is the parent of the most pure and ardent piety; the genuine progeny of the other are impiety and atheism. And, in fine, the one confers on its votary the most sincere, permanent, and exalted delight; the other continual disappointment, and unceasing molestation.
————————- [14] That this must be the tendency of experiment, when prosecuted as the criterion of truth, is evident from what Bacon, the prince of modern philosophy, says in the 104th Aphorism of his Novum Organum, that "baseless fabric of a vision." For he there sagely observes that wings are not to be added to the human intellect, but rather lead and weights; that all its leaps and flights may be restrained. That this is not yet done, but that when it is we may entertain better hopes respecting the sciences. "Itaque hominum intellectui non plumae addendae, sed plumbum potius, et pondera; ut cohibeant omnem saltum et volatum. Atque hoc adhuc factum non est; quum vero factum fuerit, melius de scientiis sperare licebit." A considerable portion of lead must certainly have been added to the intellect of Bacon when he wrote this Aphorism. ————————-
If such then are the consequences, such the tendencies of experimental inquiries, when prosecuted as the criterion of truth, and daily experience[15] unhappily shows that they are, there can be no other remedy for this enormous evil than the intellectual philosophy of Plato. So obviously excellent indeed is the tendency of this philosophy, that its author, for a period of more than two thousand years, has been universally celebrated by the epithet of divine. Such too is its preeminence, that it may be shown, without much difficulty, that the greatest men of antiquity, from the time in which its salutary light first blessed the human race, have been more or less imbued with its sacred principles, have been more or less the votaries of its divine truths. Thus, to mention a few from among a countless multitude. In the catalogue of those endued with sovereign power, it had for its votaries Dion of Siracusian, Julian the Roman, and Chosroes the Persian, emperor; among the leaders of armies, it had Chabrias and Phocion, those brave generals of the Athenians; among mathematicians, those leading stars of science, Eudoxus, Archimedes[16] and Euclid; among biographers, the inimitable Plutarch; among physicians, the admirable Galen; among rhetoricians, those unrivaled orators Demosthenes and Cicero; among critics, that prince of philologists, Longinus; and among poets, the most learned and majestic Virgil. Instances, though not equally illustrious, yet approximating to these in splendour, may doubtless be adduced after the fall of the Roman empire; but then they have been formed on these great ancients as models, and are, consequently, only rivulets from Platonic streams. And instances of excellence in philosophic attainments, similar to those among the Greeks, might have been enumerated among the moderns, if the hand of barbaric despotism had not compelled philosophy to retire into the deepest solitude, by demolishing her schools, and involving the human intellect in Cimmerian darkness. In our own country, however, though no one appears to have wholly devoted himself to the study of this philosophy, and he who does not will never penetrate its depths, yet we have a few bright examples of no common proficiency in its more accessible parts.
————————- [15] I never yet knew a man who made experiment the test of truth, and I have known many such, that was not atheistically inclined.
[16] I have ranked Archimedes among the Platonists, because he cultivated the mathematical sciences Platonically, as is evident from the testimony of Plutarch in his Life of Marcellus, p. 307. For he there informs us that Archimedes considered the being busied about mechanics, and in short, every art which is connected with the common purposes of life, as ignoble and illiberal; and that those things alone were objects of his ambition with which the beautiful and the excellent were present, unmingled with the necessary. The great accuracy and elegance in the demonstrations of Euclid and Archimedes, which have not been equaled by any of our greatest modern mathematicians, were derived from a deep conviction of this important truth. On the other hand modern mathematicians, through a profound ignorance of this divine truth, and looking to nothing but the wants and conveniences of the animal life of man, as if the gratification of his senses was his only end, have corrupted pure geometry, by mingling with it algebraical calculations, and through eagerness to reduce it as much as possible to practical purposes, have more anxiously sought after conciseness than accuracy, facility than elegance of geometrical demonstration. ————————-
The instances I allude to are Shaftesbury, Akenside, Harris, Petwin, and Sydenham. So splendid is the specimen of philosophic abilities displayed by these writers, like the fair dawning of same unclouded morning, that we have only deeply to regret that the sun of their genius sat before we were gladdened with its effulgence. Had it shone with its full strength, the writer of this Introduction would not have attempted either to translate the works, or elucidate the doctrines of Plato; but though it rose with vigor, it dispersed not the clouds in which its light was gradually involved, and the eye in vain anxiously waited for it's meridian beam. In short, the principles of the philosophy of Plato are of all others the most friendly to true piety, pure morality, solid learning, and sound government. For as it is scientific in all its parts, and in these parts comprehends all that can be known by man in theology and ethics, and all that is necessary for him to know in physics, it must consequently contain in itself the source of all that is great and good both to individuals and communities, must necessarily exalt while it benefits, and deify while it exalts.
We have said that this philosophy at first shone forth through Plato with an occult and venerable splendor; and it is owing to the hidden manner in which it is delivered by him, that its depth was not fathomed till many ages after it's promulgation, and when fathomed, was treated by superficial readers with ridicule and contempt. Plato indeed, is not singular in delivering his philosophy occultly: for this was the custom of all the great ancients; a custom not originating from a wish to become tyrants in knowledge, and keep the multitude in ignorance, but from a profound conviction that the sublimest truths are profaned when clearly unfolded to the vulgar. This indeed must necessarily follow; since, as Socrates in Plato justly observes, "it is not lawful for the pure to be touched by the impure;" and the multitude are neither purified from the defilements of vice, nor the darkness of twofold ignorance. Hence, while they are thus doubly impure, it is as impossible for them to perceive the splendors of truth, as for an eye buried in mire to survey the light of day.
The depth of this philosophy then does not appear to have been perfectly penetrated except by the immediate disciples of Plato, for more than five hundred years after its first propagation. For though Crantor, Atticus, Albinus, Galen and Plutarch, were men of great genius, and made no common proficiency in Philosophic attainments, yet they appear not to have developed the profundity of Plato's conceptions; they withdrew not the veil which covers his secret meaning, like the curtains which guarded the adytum of temples from the profane eye; and they saw not that all behind the veil is luminous, and that there divine spectacles[17] every where present themselves to the view. This task was reserved for men who were born indeed in a baser age, but, who being allotted a nature similar to their leader, were the true interpreters of his mystic speculations. The most conspicuous of these are the great Plotinus, the most learned Porphyry, the divine Jamblichus, the most acute Syrianus, Proclus the consummation of philosophic excellence, the magnificent Hierocles, the concisely elegant Sallust, and the most inquisitive Damascius. By these men, who were truly links of the golden chain of deity, all that is sublime, all that is mystic in the doctrines of Plato (and they are replete with both these in a transcendent degree), was freed from its obscurity and unfolded into the most pleasing and admirable light. Their labors, however, have been ungratefully received. The beautiful light which they benevolently disclosed has hitherto unnoticed illumined philosophy in her desolate retreats, like a lamp shining on some venerable statue amidst dark and solitary ruins. The prediction of the master has been unhappily fulfilled in these his most excellent disciples. "For an attempt of this kind," says he,[18] "will only be beneficial to a few, who from small vestiges, previously demonstrated, are themselves able to discover these abstruse particulars. But with respect to the rest of mankind, some it will fill with a contempt by no means elegant, and others with a lofty and arrogant hope, that they shall now learn certain excellent things." Thus with respect to these admirable men, the last and the most legitimate of the followers of Plato, some from being entirely ignorant of the abstruse dogmas of Plato, and finding these interpreters full of conceptions which are by no means obvious to every one in the writings of that philosopher, have immediately concluded that such conceptions are mere jargon and revery, that they are not truly Platonic, and that they are nothing more than streams, which, though, originally derived from a pure fountain, have become polluted by distance from their source. Others, who pay attention to nothing but the most exquisite purity of language, look down with contempt upon every writer who lived after the fall of the Macedonian empire; as if dignity and weight of sentiment were inseparable from splendid and accurate diction; or as if it were impossible for elegant writers to exist in a degenerate age. So far is this from being the case, that though the style of Plotinus[19] and Jamblichus[20] is by no means to be compared with that of Plato, yet this inferiority is lost in the depth and sublimity of their conceptions, and is as little regarded by the intelligent reader, as motes in a sunbeam by the eye that gladly turns itself to the solar light.
——————— [17] See my Dissertation on the Mysteries.