Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

Stewart translates : " Man must needs understand the Specific Form which proceedeth from the perceiving of many things, and is made one by Thought ; " Jowett : " For a man must have intelligence of universals, and be able to proceed from the many particulars of sense to one conception of reason ; " Taylor : " Indeed it is necessary to understand man, denominated according to species, as a being proceeding from the information of many senses, to a perception contracted into one reasoning power."

3 Sc. collecting into one.

4 That is to say, revolved in the Cosmos Order.

6 Cf. G. H., i. 14 : " So [Man] . . . bent his face downwards through the Harmony."

"The man then who doth make a right use of memories such as these, ever being made perfect in perfect perfectionings, alone becometh really Perfect.1

" But in as much as he eschews the things that men strive after, and is engaged in the Divine [alone], he is admonished by the many as though he were beside himself,2 for they cannot perceive he is inspired by God."

PLOTINUS ON METEMPSYCHOSIS

Let us now turn to the genuine disciples of the master for further light on this tenet, and first of all to Plotinus.

The most sympathetic notice of this tenet in Plotinus is to be found in Jules Simon's Histoire de I'ficole d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1845), i. 588 ff., based for the most part on En., I. i. 12 ; II. ix. 6 ; IV. iii. 9 ; V. ii. 2 ; and on Ficinus' Commentary (p. 508 of Creuzer's edition).

After citing some " ironical " passages from Plotinus (in which the philosopher disguised the real doctrine which in his day still pertained to the teachings of a higher initiation), Jules Simon goes on to say :

" Even though admitting that this doctrine of metempsychosis is taken literally by Plotinus, we should still have to ask for him as for Plato, whether the human soul really inhabits the body of an animal, and whether it is not reborn only into a human body which reflects the nature of a certain animal by the character of its passions.

" The commentators of the Alexandrian school sometimes interpreted Plato in this sense. Thus, according

1 All these are technical terms of the Mysteries.

2 Cf. G. H., ix. (x.) 4 : " For this cause they who Gnostic are please not the many nor the many them. They are thought mad and laughed at."

to Proclus, Plato in the PTicedriLs condemns the wicked to live as brutes and not to become them, Karievai et? fiiov Qripeiov, KOI OVK et? <r5)/j.a Orfpeiov (Proc., Comin. Tim., p. 329). Chalcidius gives the same interpretation, for he distinguishes between the doctrines of Plato and those of Pythagoras and Empedocles, qui non naturam modo feram, sed etiam formas.1 Hermes (Comm. of Chalcidius on Timceus ; ed. Fabric., p. 350) declares in unmistakable terms that a human soul can never return to the body of an animal, and that the will of the Gods for ever preserves it from such disgrace." 2

PROCLUS ON THE DESCENT OF SOULS INTO IRRATIONAL

NATURES

Again, Proclus in his Commentaries on the Timceus, writes very definitely with reference to the following passage of Plato :

" And if he still in these conditions did not cease from vice, he would keep on changing into some brutish nature according as he acted in a way resembling the expression in genesis of such a mode of vicious living." 3

For he says :

"With reference to this descent of souls into irrational animals, it is usual for men to enquire how it is meant.

" And some think that what are called brute-like lives are certain resemblances of men to brutes, for that it is not possible for the rational essence to become the soul of a brute.

" Others allow that even this [human soul] may be

1 Who not only made the soul go into an animal nature but into animal forms.

2 The last sentence of C. H., x. (xi.) being quoted textually by
Chalcidius.

3 Tim., 42 c.

immediately degraded to reason-less creatures, for that all souls are of one and the same species, so that they may become wolves and panthers and ichneumons.

" But the true reason (logos) asserts that though the human soul may be degraded to brutes, it is [only] to brutes which possess the life suited to such a purpose, while the degraded soul is as it were vehicled on this [life], and bound to it sympathetically.