Primary movements, when the Inductive process, by which science is for — History of the Inductive Sciences

"Plotinus, the philosopher of our time," Porphyry thus begins his biography, "appeared like a person ashamed that he was in the body. In consequence of this disposition, he could not bear to talk concerning his family, or his parents, or his country. He would not allow himself to be represented by a painter or statuary; and... said, Is it not enough for us to carry this image in which nature has enclosed us, but we must also try to leave a more durable image of this image, as if it were so great a sight?... When he was dying he said, I am trying to bring the divinity which is in us to the divinity which is in the universe." He was looked upon by his successors with extraordinary admiration and reverence; and his disciple Porphyry collected... the six Enneads of his doctrines... which he arranged and annotated."

"Proclus was one of the greatest of the teachers of this school; and was both in his life and doctrines, a worthy successor of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Iamblichus. We possess a... panegyric of him by his disciple Marinus, in which he is exhibited as a representation of the ideal perfection of the philosophic character, according to the views of the Neoplatonists. ... He appears before us rather as a hierophant than a philosopher. A large portion of his life was spent in evocations, purifications, fastings, prayers, hymns, intercourse with apparitions, and with the gods, and in the celebration of the festivals of Paganism, especially those which were held in honour of the Mother of the Gods. His religious admiration extended to all forms of mythology. The philosopher, said he, is not the priest of a single religion, but of all the religions in the world. Accordingly, he composed hymns in honour of all the divinities of Greece, Rome, Egypt, Arabia;—Christianity alone was excluded from his favour."

"Nor... was it easy for any one at Keplers time to devise a more plausible theory than the theory of vortices... It was only with the formation and progress of the science of mechanics that this theory became untenable."

"Proclus... founds his philosophy, in a great measure, on the relation of Unity and Multiple; from this, he is led to represent the causality of the Divine Mind by three Triads of abstractions; and in the developement of one part of this system, the number seven is introduced. "The intelligible and intellectual gods produce all things triadically; for the monads in these latter are divided according to number; and what the monad was in the former, the number is in these latter. And the intellectual gods produce all things hebdomically; for they evolve the intelligible, and at the same time intellectual triads, into intellectual hebdomads, and expand their contracted powers into intellectual variety.""

"To the Intelligible World, mans mind ascends, by a triple road which Plotinus figuratively calls that of the Musician, the Lover, the Philosopher. The activity of the human soul is identified by analogy with the motion of the heavens. "This activity is about a middle point, and thus it is circular... and as the sphere revolves about its center, the soul revolves about God through its affections.""

"The impressions of sense, unconnected by some rational and speculative principle, can only end in a practical acquaintance with individual objects; the operations of the rational faculties, on the other hand, if allowed to go on without a constant reference to external things, can lead only to empty abstraction and barren ingenuity."