on the knowledge they repudiated; but the masses were trained to a superstition with which the Christian church, as the executor of Neoplatonism, had to reckon and contend. By a fortunate coincidence, at the very moment when this bankruptcy of the old culture must have become apparent, the stage of history was occupied by barbaric peoples. This has obscured the fact that the inner history of antiquity, ending as it did in despair of this world, must in any event have seen a recurrence of barbarism. The present world was a thing that men would neither enjoy nor master nor study. A new world was discovered, for the sake of which everything else was abandoned; to make sure of that world insight and intelligence were freely sacrificed; and, in the light that streamed from beyond, the absurdities of the present became wisdom, and its wisdom became foolishness.
Such is Neoplatonism. The pre-Socratic philosophy took its stand on natural science, to the exclusion of ethics and religion. The systems of Plato and Aristotle sought to adjust the rival claims of physics and ethics (although the supremacy of the latter was already acknowledged); but the popular religions were thrown overboard. The post-Aristotelian philosophy in all its branches makes withdrawal from the objective world its starting-point. It might seem, indeed, that Stoicism indicates a falling off from Plato and Aristotle towards materialism, but the ethical dualism, which was the ruling tendency of the Stoa, could not long endure its materialistic physics, and took refuge in the metaphysical dualism of the Platonists. But this originated no permanent philosophical creation. From one-sided Platonism issued the various forms of scepticism, the attempt to undermine the trustworthiness of empirical knowledge. Neoplatonism, coming last, borrowed something from all the schools. First, it stands in the line of post-Aristotelian systems; it is, in fact, as a subjective philosophy, their logical completion. Secondly, it is founded on scepticism; for it has neither interest in, nor reliance upon, empirical knowledge. Thirdly, it can justly claim the honour of Plato’s name, since it expressly goes back to him for its metaphysics, directly combating those of the Stoa. Yet even on this point it learned something from the Stoics; the Neoplatonic conception of the action of the Deity on the world and of the essence and origin of matter can only be explained by reference to the dynamic pantheism of the Stoa. Fourthly, the study of Aristotle also exercised an influence on Neoplatonism. This appears not only in its philosophical method, but also—though less prominently—in its metaphysic. And, fifthly, Neoplatonism adopted the ethics of Stoicism; although it was found necessary to supplement them by a still higher conception of the functions of the spirit.
Thus, with the exception of Epicureanism—which was always treated by Neoplatonism as its mortal enemy—there is no outstanding earlier system which did not contribute something to the new philosophy. And yet Neoplatonism cannot be described as an eclectic system, in the ordinary sense of the word. For, in the first place, it is dominated by one all-pervading interest—the religious; and in the second place, it introduced a new first principle into philosophy, viz. the supra-rational, that which lies beyond reason and beyond reality. This principle is not to be identified with the “idea” of Plato or with the “form” of Aristotle. Neoplatonism perceived that neither sense perception nor rational cognition is a sufficient basis or justification for religious ethics; consequently it broke away from rationalistic ethics as decidedly as from utilitarian morality. It had therefore to find out a new world and a new spiritual function, in order first to establish the existence of what it desiderated, and then to realize and describe what it had proved to exist. Man, however, cannot transcend his psychological endowment. If he will not allow his thought to be determined by experience, he falls a victim to his imagination. In other words, thought, which will not stop, takes to mythology; and in the place of reason we have superstition. Still, as we cannot allow every fancy of the subjective reason to assert itself, we require some new and potent principle to keep the imagination within bounds. This is found in the authority of a sound tradition. Such authority must be superhuman, otherwise it can have no claim on our respect; it must, therefore, be divine. The highest sphere of knowledge—the supra-rational—as well as the very possibility of knowledge, must depend on divine communications—that is, on revelations. In short, philosophy as represented by Neoplatonism, its sole interest being a religious interest, and its highest object the supra-rational, must be a philosophy of revelation.
This is not a prominent feature in Plotinus or his immediate disciples, who still exhibit full confidence in the subjective presuppositions of their philosophy. But the later adherents of the school did not possess this confidence[1]; they based their philosophy on revelations of the Deity, and they found these in the religious traditions and rites of all nations. The Stoics had taught them to overstep the political boundaries of states and nationalities, and rise from the Hellenic to a universal human consciousness. Through all history the spirit of God has breathed; everywhere we discover the traces of His revelation. The older any religious tradition or mode of worship is, the more venerable is it, the richer in divine ideas. Hence the ancient religions of the East had a peculiar interest for the Neoplatonist. In the interpretation of myths Neoplatonism followed the allegorical method, as practised especially by the Stoa; but the importance it attached to the spiritualized myths was unknown to the Stoic philosophers. The latter interpreted the myths and were done with them; the later Neoplatonists treated them as the proper material and the secure foundation of philosophy. Neoplatonism claimed to be not merely the absolute philosophy, the keystone of all previous systems, but also the absolute religion, reinvigorating and transforming all previous religions. It contemplated a restoration of all the religions of antiquity, by allowing each to retain its traditional forms, and at the same time making each a vehicle for the religious attitude and the religious truth embraced in Neoplatonism; while every form of ritual was to become a stepping-stone to a high morality worthy of mankind. In short, Neoplatonism seizes on the aspiration of the human soul after a higher life, and treats this psychological fact as the key to the interpretation of the universe. Hence the existing religions, after being refined and spiritualized, were made the basis of philosophy.
Neoplatonism thus represents a stage in the history of religion; indeed this is precisely where its historical importance lies. In the progress of science and enlightenment it has no positive significance, except as a necessary transition which the race had to make in order to get rid of nature-religion, and that undervaluing of the spiritual life which formed an insuperable obstacle to the advance of human knowledge. Neoplatonism, however, failed as signally in its religious enterprise as it did in its philosophical. While seeking to perfect ancient philosophy, it really extinguished it; and in like manner its attempted reconstruction of ancient religions only resulted in their destruction. For in requiring these religions to impart certain prescribed religious truths, and to inculcate the highest moral tone, it burdened them with problems to which they were unequal. And further, by inviting them to loosen, though not exactly to dissolve, their political allegiance—the very thing that gave them stability—it removed the foundation on which they rested. But might it not then have placed them on a broader and firmer foundation? Was not the universal empire of Rome ready at hand, and might not the new religion have stood to it in the same relation of dependence which the earlier religions had held to the smaller nations and states? This was no longer possible. It is true that the political and spiritual histories of the peoples on the Mediterranean run in parallel lines, the one leading up to the universal monarchy of Rome, the other leading up to monotheism and universal human morality. But the spiritual development had shot far ahead of the political; even the Stoa occupied a height far beyond the reach of anything in the political sphere. It is also true that Neoplatonism sought to come to an understanding
- ↑ Porphyry wrote a book, περὶ τῆς ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας, but this was before he became a pupil of Plotinus; as a philosopher he was independent of the λόγια.
