But these commentators and expositors of Plato were not remarkable for their philo sophical power; a fresh stream of life was first poured into the old channels of Platonic speculation by Ammonius Saccas (q.v.) and Plotinus (q.v.), and it is this fact winrl gives the school which they established its best claim to the exclusive title of Xeoplato nist. " In no species of grandeur was the Alexandrian school deficient," as M. baisset justly observes : "genius, power, and duration have consecrated it. Reanimating dur ing an epoch of decline the fecundity of an aged civilization, it created a whole family of illustrious names. Plotinus, its real founder, resuscitated Plato; Prochis gave the world another Aristotle; and in the person of Julian the apostate, it became master of the world. For three centuries it was a formidable rival to the greatest power that ever appeared on earth—the power of Christianity; and if it succumbed in the struggle, it only fell with the civilization of which it had been the last rampart" (Lewes's Biog. 111.4t.
p. 259). The essence of all the Alexandrian speculations, we have stated, consists in the blending. of Platonic ideas with oriental mysticism: the peculiarity of the• platonists, strictly so-called, lies simply in the novelty, audacity, and ingenuity of their reasonings. They aimed at constructing a religion on a basis of dialectics. They strove to attain a knowledge of the highest, and the way in which they endeavored to accom plish this was by assuming the existence of a capacity in man for passing beyond the limits of his personality, and acquiring an intuitive knowledge of the absolute, the true —that which is beyond and above the fluctuations and dubieties of "opinion." This impersonal faculty is called ecstasy. By means of it, man—ceasing, however, it should lie observed, to be individual man, i.e., himself—can identify himself with the absolute (or infinite). Plotinus, in fact, set out from the belief that "philosophy" (i.e., "absolute truth") is only possible' through the identity of the thinker, or rather of the subjective thought, with the thing thought of, or the objective thought. This intuitive grasp or "vision" of the absolute is not constant; we can neither force nor retain it by an effort of will; it springs from a divine inspiration and enthusiasm, higher and purer than that of poet or prophet, and is the choicest "gift of God." The god of Plotinus and the other Alexandrians is a. mystical trinity, in the exposi tion of which they display a dialectical subtlety that even the most ingenious of the school men never reached. The divine nature contains within it three hypostases (substances); its basis, if we may so speak, is called unity, also poetically primitive light, etc. This unity is not itself any thing, but the principle of all things; it is absolute good. absolute perfection; and though utterly incapable of being conceived by the understanding, there is that in man that assures him that it—the incomprehensible, the ineffable, is. "It has neither quantity nor quality; neither reason nor soul; it exists neither in motion nor repose; neither in space nor time; it is not a numeric tinily nor a point; . . . . it is pure ease without accident- it is exempt from all want or dependency, as well as from all thought or will; it is not a thinking being, but thoughtitself—the principle and cause of all things." To the tbiiP'pririiitirolight," we not seem very luminous. Fren1 "unitjil as the primordial source of all things, emanates "pure intelligence (nous—the vernunft of modern German metaphysics); its reflection and image, that by which it is tutuitively apprehended; from pure iutellisence, in turn, emanates the "soul of the world" (psyche tom pantos), whose creative activity produces the souls of men and animals, and " nature." and finally, from nature proceeds " matter," which, however, is subjected by Plotinus to such refinement of definition that it loses all ha grossness. Unity, pure intelligence, and the world-soul thus constitute the Plotinian triad, with which is connected, as we have seen. the doctrine of an eternal emanation,
the necessity of which he endeavors to demonstrate by the most stringent logic. Human souls, whose source is the pure intelligence, are—by some mysterious fate—imprisoned here in perishable bodies, and the higher sort are ever striving to reaseend to their origi nal home. So Plotiuus, when in the agonies of death, said calmly to his friends: "I am struggling to liberate the divinity within me." The most distinguished pupil of Plotinus was Porphyrius (q.v.), who mainly devoted hint elfto expounding and qualifying the philosophy of his master. In hint we see, for the first time, the presence of a distinctively antichristian tendency. Neoplatonism, which can only be properly understood when we regard it as an attempt to place pagan ism on a philosophical basis—to make the Greek religion philosophical, nod Greek phi losophy religious—did not eonseiousisi set out as the antagonist of Christianity. Neither Ammonius Ss:nee:is nor Plotmus assailed the new faith; but as the latter continued to grow. and to attract many of the most powerful intellects of the age into its service, this latent antipathy began to show itself. Porphyry wrote i.gainst it; Iambliehus (q.v.). the most noted of his pupils, did the same. The latter also introduced a theurgie or " magi cal " element into Neoplatonism, teaching, among other timings, that certain mysterious practices and symbols exercised a supernatural influence over the divinities, and made them grant our desires. Magic is always popular, and it is therefore not wonderful that Iambliehus should have had e-merous followers. seEdesius succeeded to his master's chair, and appears to have had also a considerable number of disciples. To the school of one of them the emperor Julian belonged, whose patronage for a moment shed agleam of splendor over Neoplatonism, and seemed to promise it a universal victory. After a succession of able but not always consistent teachers, we reach Proclus (q.v.), the last great Neoplatonist, who belongs to the 5th c., a man of prodigious learning, and of an enthusiastic temperament, in whom the pagan-religious, and consequently antiehristian, tendency of the Neoplatonic philosophy culminated. His ontology was based on the Triad of Plotinus, but was considerably modified in detail; he exalted "faith" above "science" as a means of reaching the absolute unity; was a believer in Theurgy, and so naturally laid great stress upon the ancient Chaldean oracles, Orphic hymns, mysteries, etc., which he regarded as divine revelations, and of which he considered himself—as, indeed, he was—the last great " interpreter." Il s hostility to the Christian religion was keen; in its success he saw only the triumph of a vulgar popular superstition over the refined and beautiful theories of philosophy; it was as if he beheld a horde of bar barians defacing the statues and records of the Pantheon. The disciples of Proclus were pretty numerous, but not remarkable for high talent. Perhaps the ablest of his successors was Damaseius, in whose time the emperor Justinian, by an arbitrary decree, closed the schools of the heathen philosophers. "The victims," says Cousin (emirs d'H:doice de la Philosophic Moderns.). fierce retaliation, and of an obstinate persecu tion, these poor Alexandrine's, after having sought an asylum in their dear east, at the court of Chosroes, returned to Europe (533 A.D.), were dispersed over the face of the earth. and the most part extinguished in the deserts of Egypt, which were converted for them into a philosophic Thehais." See Fichte. De Philosophies _Nora Platonices Or igtne (Berl. 1818): Bouterwek. Philosophorum Alerandrinorum ac Xeo-Pledonicornm, Tccensio Accuratior (G1Stt. 1321): Matter, Essai llistorigne sur r Ecole d 'Alexandrie (2 Par. 1820): Simon. Ristoire de d' Alexandrie (2 vols. Par. 1845); Barthelemy St. Hilaire, De r Bede d'Alexandrie (Par. 1845): Lewes, Biographical History of PhirostgAy (1857); and Ueberweg's History of Philosophy (Translation, Hodder and Stoughton: 1872).