existence and sensuous notions, but absolute doubt,
aspiration beyond all reality. The highest intelligible is not that
which constitutes the real content of thought, but only that which is
presupposed and earnestly desired by man as the unknowable ground of his
thought." Neoplatonism recognised that a religious ethic can be built
neither on sense-perception nor on knowledge gained by the
understanding, and that it cannot be justified by these; it therefore
broke both with intellectual ethics and with utilitarian morality. But
for that very reason, having as it were parted with perception and
understanding in relation to the ascertaining of the highest truth, it
was compelled to seek for a new world and a new function in the human
spirit, in order to ascertain the existence of what it desired, and to
comprehend and describe that of which it had ascertained the existence.
But man cannot transcend his psychological endowment. An iron ring
incloses him. He who does not allow his thought to be determined by
experience falls a prey to fancy, that is, thought, which cannot be
suppressed, assumes a mythological aspect: superstition takes the place
of reason, dull gazing at something incomprehensible is regarded as the
highest goal of the spirit's efforts, and every conscious activity of
the spirit is subordinated to visionary conditions artificially brought
about. But that every conceit may not be allowed to assert itself, the
gradual exploration of every region of knowledge according to every
method of acquiring it, is demanded as a preliminary--the Neoplatonists
did not make matters easy for themselves,--and a new and mighty
principle is set up which is to bridle fancy, viz., _the authority of a
sure tradition_. This authority must be superhuman, otherwise it would
not come under consideration; it must therefore be divine. On divine
disclosures, that is revelations, must rest both the highest
super-rational region of knowledge and the possibility of knowledge
itself. In a word, the philosophy which Neoplatonism represents, whose
final interest is the religious, and whose highest object is the
super-rational, must be a _philosophy of revelation_.

In the case of Plotinus himself and his immediate disciples, this does
not yet appear plainly. They still shew confidence in the objective
presuppositions of their philosophy, and have, especially in psychology,
done great work and created something new. But this confidence vanishes