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The Philosophy of Plotinus; the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews, 1917-1918

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The Philosophy of Plotinus; the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews, 1917-1918 6 Z7 QJorncU IttttiBrBitg Hihtarg 3Itl)aca, Wem ^otk BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE IS9I CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 103 069 773 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924103069773 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. PERSONAL IDEALISM AND MYSTI- CISM. The Paddock Lectures for 1906, delivered at the General Seminary, New York. With Preface. Fcp. 8vo, 4*. net. SPECULUM ANIMAE: Four Devotional Addresses given in the Chapel of Corpus Christ! College, Cambridge, to Public School- masters and College Tutors. Fcp. 8vo, 2i. net. THE CHURCH AND THE AGE. Fcp. 8vo, 2s. 6rf. net. AUTHORITY AND THE INNER LIGHT. %d. net. SELECTIONS FROM LUCIAN. With Notes. By the Very Rev. W. R. Inge, C.V.O., D.D., Dean of St. Paul's, and H. MTaCnaghten, M. A. , Assistant Master at Eton College. Crown 8vo, Z$. ed. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS. THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS THE GIFFORD LECTURES AT ST. ANDREWS, 1917-1918 BY WILLIAM RALPH INGE, C.V.O., D.D. Dean of St. Paul's ; Hon. D.D., Aberdeen ; Hon. Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and Hertford College, Oxford. Formerly Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. 1 LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA., AND MADRAS 1918 4l, TO THE VISCOUNT HALDANE OF CLOAN, F.R.S., O.M., ETC. GIFFORD LECTURER AT ST. ANDREWS, I902-4 All Truth is a Shadow except the last. But every Truth is Substance in its own place, though it be but a Shadow in another place. And the Shadow is a true Shadow, as the Substance is a true Substance. Isaac Pennington. ; PREFACE I ''HE Gifford Lectureships have given many English ^ and some foreign scholars the pleasantest of intro- ductions to the life of the Scottish Universities. The unique charm of St. Andrews is but half reaUsed by those who only know it as the Mecca of the golfer. Those who have had the privilege of being admitted to the academic society of the ancient city will understand why Andrew Lang confessed that even Oxford had a successful rival in his affections. The present writer mil always look back upon his two visits to St. Andrews as the brightest inter- lude in four sad years. It is my agreeable duty to acknowledge the help which I have received from several friends. I have been en- couraged and gratified by the interest in my lectures shown by those two distinguished Platonists, Professors Burnet and Taylor, of St. Andrews. For several years I have received the kindest sympathy in my philosophical studies from Lord Haldane. Three Oxford friends have been good enough to read my book in manuscript or in the proof-sheets : Captain Ross, Fellow of Oriel ; the Rev. H. H. Williams, d.d., Principal of St. Edmund Hall and Mr. C. C. J. Webb, Fellow of Magdalen and at present Gifford Lecturer at Aberdeen. SYLLABUS OF LECTURES I-Xl LECTURE I INTRODUCTORY Plotinus is generally regarded as the great philosopher of mysticism. The word is loosely used, and in many different senses. The psychical experiences which are often supposed to distinguish it are really a sub- sidiary and not indispensable part of the mystical quest, which is the journey of the soul, by an inner ascent, to immediate knowledge of God and communion with Him. The close agreement which we find between mystics of all ages and countries indicates that the mystical experience is a genuine part of human nature, and that it assumes the same general forms wherever it is earnestly cultivated. Mysticism is now studied chiefly as a branch of the psychology of religion. But, valuable as these recent studies are, they remain outside the position of the mystics themselves, whose aim is the attainment of ultimate, objective truth. The mystic is not interested in the states of his consciousness ; he desires to unite himself with reality, to have a vision of the eternal Ideas, and perchance of the supreme Unity that lies behind them. This kind of philosophy may not be in fashion just now ; but when we see what havoc popular subjectivism has made of religious phil- osophy, and how it has encouraged a recrudescence of superstition, we may be glad to return to Plato and his successors. For them, mysticism involves and rests upon metaphysics. Mysticism, thus understood, is a spiritual philosophy, which demands the concurrent activity of thought, will, and feeling, which in real life are never sundered from each other. By the proper discipline of these faculties a man becomes effectively what he is potentially, a partaker of the divine nature and a denizen of the spiritual world. We cUmb the pathway to reality by a power which all possess, though few use it. It is the amor intellectualis Dei which draws us upward, and not merely a susceptibility to passionate or rapturous emotion. No other guide on this pathway equals Plotinus in power and insight and spiritual penetration. He leaves us, it is true, much to do our- selves ; but this is because the spiritual life cannot be described to those who are not Uving it. He demands of us a strict moral discipline as well as intellectual capacity for learning. On the intellectual side, Neoplatonism sums up the results of 700 years of untrammelled thinking, the longest period of free speculation which the human race has enjoyed. The greater part of it passed over into Christian philosophy, which it shaped for all time. Neoplatonism is part of the vital structure of Christian theology, and it would be im- possible to tear them apart. X THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS The neglect of Plotinus, alike by students of Greek philosophy and of Christian dogma, is therefore much to be regretted. It makes a gap where no gap exists. Apart from prejudices, which have operated from the side of the theologians, the extreme difficulty of reading the Enneads in the original has Contributed to this neglect. [An account follows of the literature of the subject, with a criticism of some of the chief modem books on Plotinus.] The lecturer has found Plotinus a most inspiring and fortifying spiritual guide, as weU as a great thinker. In times of trouble like the present he has much to teach us, lifting us up from the miseries of this world to the pure air and sunshine of eternal truth, beauty, and good- ness. LECTURES II, III THE THIRD CENTURY Plotinus is the one great genius in an age singularly barren of great- ness. It was a dismEj and pessimistic age, when civilisation seemed to be stricken with mortal sickness. And though Plotinus deliberately detaches himself from current affairs, the great man always gives voice to the deepest thought of his own time, and cannot be understood apart from his historical setting. A blight had fallen upon the Greek and Roman stocks, and the Em- pire was full of Orientals and Germans. This change of population pro- foundly affected the social Ufe, the morals, and the religion of the Empire. Except in law, reUgion, and religious philosophy there was stagnation or retrogression everywhere. The revival of the reUgious sentiments was strongly marked. Tolera- tion and fusion of cults were general ; only atheism and impiety were frowned upon. The old Gods were again honoured ; but the reUgions of the East were far more potent! These came chiefly from four coun- tries—Egypt, Sjrria, Phrygia, and Palestine. Characteristics of the worship of Isis, Cybele and Attis, Mithra. The new syncretism (fleoK-po<r!o) differed widely from the old poly- theism. It was now the fashion to worship one God with many names. The deity, says Themistius, takes pleasure in the diversity of homage. Paganism had no dogma and no church. It tolerated Lucian, who made few disciples, and persecuted the Christians, who made many. But the real rivals of Christianity were the Eastern cults, not the official paganism, the object of the rhetorical polemic of the Fathers. The real enemy was ignored, not attacked, by controversalists on both sides. The Christians hardly mention Mithra ; Plotinus leaves the Christians severely alone. There was a great revival of superstition, especially of magic, white and black, and of astrology, which was called the queen of the sciences. We probably underestimate greatly the pernicious influences of these pseudo-sciences in the last age of pagan antiquity. Christianity deserves credit for reducing a permanent nightmare of the spirit to a discredited and slowly dying superstition. Eschatology is always vague and contradictory, and it is most diffi- cult to discover what was really beUeved in a past age. But it is clear that behef in immortality was much stronger in the third century than in the first. The Orphic and Neopythagorean faith in the essential imperishableness of the soul was quite independent of spiritualistic ; SYLLABUS OF LECTURES xi superstitions, and the Oriental cults owed much of their attractiveness ' to their definite promises of a future life. The revival of the ' mysteries was not unconnected with the same tendency. Judaism could not offer this particular attraction ; and in our period it was returning to its former exclusiveness, and was relapsing into an Oriental reUgion. Meanwhile, Christianity was developing rapidly into a syucretistic European religion, which challenged the other religions of the Empire on their own ground.
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