The sensible world is occupied with body; and body is produced by the union of ideas with matter. The shadowy and attenuated nature of matter in the con- ception of Plato and the Platonists has already been exhibited. Sec Platonh Philosophy. Ii is the idtimate subjeel <>r substratum from which all bodies arc formed: ii is so entirely divested of all properties and accidents, which arc the means of differentiation, it N Mich a pure residuum, or caput mortuum, thai it is designated by Plotinus Bathos, the Depth thai which lies so low down in the constitution of body, so remote from apprehension, as to be accepted as its ultimate foundation. It is the lowesl extreme, as the On* is the h is eminently characteristic of Plotinus that he recognises matter in the intelligible universe i I tin. ii. iv. 1 7; vi, vii, 33), probably as one of the necessary primordia rerum. Body, which is the first and sim- plest product IV mailer, is an infinite, indeterminate
something, having three dimensions, unlimited, nol tru- ly existent, and ye ire than nothing. The Om isof
course indivisible: body is essentially divisible and mu- table, being patient of endless alterations and alterna- tions.
usible universe and its component members in all their multiplicity and variety an- created by the Spirit, by the infusion of appropriate spirits, and the union of appropriate ideas with body, or a determinate portion of matter. The idea moulds its Bubject-matter, differentiates it. individualizes (or individuates) it, ani- mal. - ii ; dwelling and moving in it. or rather itselJ inhabited by its material partner. Ii i- here that the conciliation of Plato and Aristotle is most thi a i tained by Plotinus, the Platonic ideas being idenl itied in then- plastic function with the Aristotelian forms. i ms, or specific natures, descend by a regular
concatenated ser'u fr the I niversal .Mind, which is
the fountain of forms (Enn. v, ix, 3, 5,8; vi, viii, I).
Everything, then, in the sensible world i ststs of the
corporeal and the ideal, in unutterabl nmixture the
union being transitory the corporeal being Bubjecl to endless change, thi ideal being immortal and unalter- able in its essence. The perfi ction of everything con- sists in the completeness with which ii appropriates .and manifests the idea belonging to it.. and thereby approx- imates in its own particular order of being to the Om and the G I. Everything seeks its own perfection, every- thing turns to its own idea ; and the original conversion of the first divine effluence, Mind, towards its fountain, the Good, is imitated throughout everv grade in the
descending srale of existence to the last and most rudi- mentary exhibitions of form. There is a dull, inert antagonism, a sullen insubordination in matter, which resists the process of this perfection; not a decided ma- lignancy, such as is ascribed to it by Plato, bat a re- silience which generates physical evil, as moral evil is produced by defeel of essential g Iness, and by deflec- tion and aberrancy from the g I. The operation of
spirit or mind upon matter, of souls in their several de- grees upon body, has been the stumbling-block of all philosophies, and was an insoluble enigma to Descartes and the Cartesians. Plotinus imagines a Kind of pre- established har ny, like Leibnitz, bul admits, also, a
divine and concurrent grace (irpoatpscug ovvepyovc. . . . 6 daiftwv owtpybg tig TrXjjpioaiv abrfitv . . . ru avfiireirovra Tin* irdvTwg dvayxaiov rryv "ArpoTrov iirdyuv, Enn. ii. iii. 1">: iv, iii. 13; iv. 3, 9). All this i- onl) Platonism developed; but the development is pressed to originality when Plotinus retraces the process of being, and ascends from the lowest forms to the source of all form, the One, Great, G I, which is all in all.
All derivative being turns to the superior being win ncc ii proceeds, and to the inferior being which proceeds from it, by a constant and loving lihration that directs its attention both to the exemplar above and to the product of imitation below. Hence results the best of worlds possible i Inn. ii. iii. IS ; ii. ix, 8; iii, ii, 1-3), not pure from blemishes and blurs, in conse- quence of the inevitable contamination and proration through conjunction with matter, and the limitations occasioned by material restraint, but ever involving the ideas proceeding from the divine intelligence, and ever seeking, with a multitudinous concord of aspirations, to attain the primordial perfection of the appropriate ideas, in the whole and in the parts: and thus to return to that communion and union with the One, the Good, and the true or real, from whence they have descended. The perfection of every nature, which every nature un- depraved desires, is this assimilation to the divine, [n aesthetics and in the works of art. this gives us the in- terpretation of beauty and of the beautiful; in life and conduct it explains and prescribes virtue and holiness and sand ifical ion.
The essi nee of the doctrine of Plotinus is contained and charmingly displayed iii his theory of beaut} i Enn. i, vi), and might be reproduced in its chief Hues from it. A sagacious andjusl instinct has often led to the pub- lication of this treatise by itself: for ii is nol only the mosl satisfactory and complete appreciati f the beau- tiful, it is also a miniature of the philosophy of Ploti- nus; and his theory of beauty is the counterpart and complement of his theory of righteousness i Eim. iii. v, 1 ). ( If course, only the briefest abstract of this part of hi- speculations can be offered here. The simplest and most elementary form of beauty is the beautj of colors, sounds, forms; bul the same principles arc involved in