render
them perspicuous to truly liberal and philosophic minds. My reasons
for adopting this mode of paraphrase, may be seen in the preface to
my translation of _Orpheus's Hymns._

5 "Enters deep into its essence," etc. The Platonic Philosophy insists
much on the necessity of retiring into ourselves in order to the
discovery of truth; and on this account Socrates, in the first
_Alcibiades,_ says that the soul entering into herself will
contemplate whatever exists and the divinity himself. Upon which
Proclus thus comments, with his usual elegance and depth (in
_Theol. Plat,_ p. 7): "For the soul," says he, "contracting herself
wholly into a union with herself, and into the centre of universal life,
and removing the multitude and variety of all-various powers,
ascends into the highest place of speculation, from whence she will
survey the nature of beings. For if she looks back upon things
posterior to her essence, she will perceive nothing but the shadows
and resemblances of beings; but if she returns into herself she will
evolve her own essence, and the reasons she contains. And at first
indeed she will, as it were, only behold herself; but when by her
knowledge she penetrates more profoundly in her investigations she
will find intellect seated in her essence and the universal orders of
beings; but when she advances into the more interior recesses of
herself, and as it were into the sanctuary of the soul, she will be
enabled to contemplate, with her eyes closed to corporeal vision, the
genus of the gods and the unities of beings. For all things reside in
us, after a manner correspondent to the nature of the soul; and on
this account we are naturally enabled to know all things, by exciting
our inherent powers and images of whatever exists."

6 "And such is matter," etc. There is nothing affords more
wonderful speculation than matter, which ranks as the last among
the universality of things, and has the same relation to being as
shade to substance. For, as in an ascending series of causes it is
necessary to arrive at something, which is the first cause of all, and
to which no perfection is wanting; so in a descending series of
subjects, it is equally necessary we should stop at some general
subject, the lowest in the order of things, and to which every
perfection of being is denied. But let us hear the profound and
admirable description which Plotinus gives us of matter (lib. vi.,
Ennead 3), and of which the following