PLOTINUS, the most famous of Neo-Platonists: b. Lycopolis, Egypt, about 204 AD.; d. Ifinturnse, Campania, 270. In his intercourse with his pupils and acquaintances he avoided all reference to the antecedent circumstances of his life, his age, nativity or parentage. It is conjectured that be was of Roman descent, probably a freedman. It was in his 28th year that the desire to study philosophy awoke in him. He then fell into great despondency and was brought by a friend to Ammomus Saccas, a Ohristian, who had written some works on Christian theology, but returned to the Hellenic faith. He remained with him some 10 years. In 242 he joined the expedition of the Emperor Gordian to the East, in order to learn the philosophy of 'the Persians and Indians. After the death of Gordian he went to Rome where he subsequently lived and taught. About 254 his friends induced him to put his doctrines in writing. The works of Plotinus were highly valued by Longinus, al though that philosopher was in no sense a Plotinist, and are distinguished by energy and enthusiasm. He was in fact a preacher. His teaching secured him great respect and popu larity among those who did not receive Chris tianity. Parents left their children to his care, and his house was full of orphans of both sexes entrusted to his guardianship. Although .neglectful of his own temporal interests, he showed no want of shrewdness in looking after the estates of his wards. Plotinus enjoyed the favor of the Emperor Gallienus, from whom he obtained the privilege of rebuilding at the expense of the government two destroyed towns in the Campania, with a view to their being governed according to the laws of Plato. Plo
tinus was one of the great masters of phi losolihy. The value of his system depends less upon the intrinsic truth it contains than upon its historical importance and its adaptation to a certain class of human sympathies. The his torical value of the system, great both in its antecedents and consequents, is due partly to the circumstances out of which it arose and partly to the genius and originality of its founder. It had its source at the junction of two independent streams of thought; mysticism and dialectics, which, already fortuitously united, received a new direction from the in dividual energy of the mind of Plotinus. He was well acquainted with the older Greek phi losophy, the Ionian and the Eleatic schools, etc., and according to the eclectic tendencies of his day believed there was a fundamental unity in these various systems. It was to Plato, how ever, that he looked as his great authority. He believed himself a strict follower of Plato; uses Plato's term, the Good, for his highest generalization; but with Plotinus it is an ab straction from which every determinate quality has been eliminated and would rather be de scribed in modern philosophical language as the Absolute. Consult Jones, Rufus M., 'Studies in Mystical Religion) (1909) ; Guthrie, K. S., 'The Philosophy of Plotinus) (1910) ; Inge, W. R., The Philosophy of Plotinus> (2 vols., London 1918).