design which underlies the maze of metaphysical contradictions so perplexing to the reader of the Timæus, is but too evident. But has Plato ever been read understandingly by one of the expounders of the classics? This is a question warranted by the criticisms to be found in such authors as Stalbaüm, Schleirmacher, Ficinus (Latin translation), Heindorf, Sydenham, Buttmann, Taylor and Burges, to say nothing of lesser authorities. The covert allusions of the Greek philosopher to esoteric things have manifestly baffled these commentators to the last degree. They not only with unblushing coolness suggest as to certain difficult passages that another phraseology was evidently intended, but they audaciously make the changes! The Orphic line:
which can only be interpreted as a reference to the sixth race evolved in the consecutive evolution of the spheres,* Burges says: ". . . was evidently taken from a cosmogony where man was feigned to be created the last."†—Ought not one who undertakes to edit another's works at least understand what his author means?
Indeed, the ancient philosophers seem to be generally held, even by the least prejudiced of our modern critics, to have lacked that profundity and thorough knowledge in the exact sciences of which our century is so boastful. It is even questioned whether they understood that basic scientific principle: ex nihilo nihil fit. If they suspected the indestructibility of matter at all,—say these commentators—it was not in consequence of a firmly-established formula but only through an intuitional reasoning and by analogy.
We hold to the contrary opinion. The speculations of these philosophers upon matter were open to public criticism: but their teachings in regard to spiritual things were profoundly esoteric. Being thus sworn to secrecy and religious silence upon abstruse subjects involving the relations of spirit and matter, they rivalled each other in their ingenious methods for concealing their real opinions.
The doctrine of Metempsychosis has been abundantly ridiculed by men of science and rejected by theologians, yet if it had been properly understood in its application to the indestructibility of matter and the immortality of spirit, it would have been perceived that it is a sublime conception. Should we not first regard the subject from the stand-point
* In another place, we explain with some minuteness the Hermetic philosophy of the evolution of the spheres and their several races.
† J. Burges: "The Works of Plato," p. 207, note.
