That Plato borrowed from Timæus we fee in his copying his very phraseology. For he fays that, "the origin of the world " is mixed, being produced from the con'junction of neceffity and mind, nous*" He also says "we must distinguish two "causes of things, the one neceffary, the "other divine." Nothing could be more exactly copied.

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CHAPTER VII.

A View of the Principles of the later Platonifts.

THOSE who are usually called the later Platonifts, were those philofophers, chiefly of Alexandria, who, a little before, and after the commencement of the chriftian æra, adopted the general principles of Plato, but not without incorporating with them thofe of other philofophers, fo that theirs was not an abfolutely pure and unmixed platonifm. However, in their notions concerning God, and the general fyftem of things, they aimed at this, pretending only to interpret the meaning of Plato, and to reason from his principles, though their refinements have only ferved to make the fyftem more mysterious and abfurd.

SEC

SECTION

ION I.

The Doctrines of the later Platonifts concerning God and Nature.

WE fee, in the writings of these later Platonifts, or may better conjecture from them, what was meant by the ideal or intelligible world, which makes fo great a figure in this fyftem, and which is fometimes confounded with nous or logos, the feat, receptacle, or place of this ideal world. But in their writings, the term logos, of which fo much account is made in the works of Philo, and the philofophizing christians, does not much occur; though there can be no difficulty in admitting that it was fynonymous to nous, or mind, each of them fignifying the principle of reason, or that from which logos in its usual acceptation, viz. that of Speech, proceeds; every thing that is uttered, being first conceived in the mind, and existing there.

Befide the visible world, which is perceived by the organs of fight, these philofophers,

A a 3

phers supposed that there was also an invisible world, exactly corresponding to it, capable of being perceived and contemplated by the mind only. And the only probable key to their meaning is to suppose, that this invisible world of ideas, which furnished a pattern for the visible world (always existing in the divine mind, and sometimes confounded with it) was at other times considered as a thing different from the divine being himself, whose mind

it was.

When they consider this intelligible world as the source and cause from which the visible world was derived, they sometimes speak of it as a person, the maker, or demiurgus of the world; but though they supposed that there was another principle higher than this nous, or demiurgus, they seldom or never speak of that as of a person also, fo as to have the idea of two intelli, gent persons at the same time; or if they do, it may be presumed to be only in a mystical or figurative way of speaking. For as, on some occasions, they speak of their nous, as a mere repository of ideas, the place

of

of the intelligible world, or the intelligible world itself, and no proper perfon; sò, on other occafions, they fpeak of the highest principle of all, what they call the good, not as a perfon, but a property only, fomething belonging to every thing that is divine, to the terreftrial as well as the celeftial gods, and even to the foul of man itself. There was, however, enough of personification in what the Platonifts faid of the divine nous or logos, to give a handle to Philo, and the chriftian Fathers, to make a little more of it, as it was very convenient to their purpose to do.