Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/533

478 universe, because it is a truth, and the only truth, which every intellect must entertain, and which no scepticism can invalidate. So reasoned Plotinus.

12. In recommending self-reflection, or the study of thought, as the noblest of all pursuits, Plotinus intended that men should habituate themselves to the contemplation of thought in its universality, that they should see and understand that it is not properly their own. The passions and desires of men are subjective and their own, but thought is objective still more than it is subjective; it is the common medium which brings the human mind into relation with an intelligence infinitely higher than itself, from which all things are emanations, just as the infinite intelligence itself is an emanation from a unity still more inconceivable and ineffable. But here the system loses itself in mysticism, and we shall not attempt to follow it through its fantastic and unintelligible processions of spiritual and material creation.