PLOTINUS, a Platonic philosopher of the third century. He was born at Lycopolis, a city of Egypt, in 204; and began very early to show a great singularity both in his taste and in his manners. At eight years of age, when he went to school, he used to run to his nurse, and uncover her breast to suck; and would have continued that practice longer if he had not been discouraged by her. At the age of twenty-eight he had a strong desire to study philosophy, on which occasion he was recommended to the most famous professors of Alexandria. He was not satisfied with their lectures; but upon hearing those of Ammonius, he confessed that this was the man he wanted. He studied for eleven years under that excellent master, and then went to hear the Persian and Indian philosophers. In 243, when the Emperor Gordianus intended to wage war against the Persians, he followed the Roman army, but probably repented of it; for it was with difficulty he could save his life by flight after the emperor had been slain. He was then thirty-nine. The year following he went to Rome, and read philosophical lectures in that city; but avoided following the example of Erennius and Origen, his fellowpupils, who, having like him promised not to reveal some hidden and excellent doctrines which they had received from Anunonius, had nevertheless broken their pledge. Plotinus continued ten years in Rome without writing anything; but in his fiftieth year he obtained as his scholar Porphyry, who, being of an exquisitely fine genius, was not satisfied with superficial answers, but required to have all difficulties thoroughly explained; and therefore Plotinus, to treat things with greater accuracy, was obliged to write more books. He had previously written twenty-one books, and during the six years of Porphyry’s sojourn with him he wrote twenty-four, and nine after Porphyry left Rome, making in all fifty-four. The Romans had a high veneration for him; and he passed for a man of such judgment and virtue, that many persons of both sexes, when they found themselves dying, intrusted him, as a kind of guardian angel, with the care of their estates and children. He was the arbiter of numberless lawsuits ∙, and constantly behaved with such humanity and rectitude, that he did not create a single enemy during the twenty-six years he resided in Rome. He did not meet with the same justice, however, from all of his own profession; for Olympias, a philosopher of Alexandria, being envious of his glory, used his utmost endeavours, though in vain, to ruin him. The Emperor Gallienus and the Empress Salonina had a very high regard for him; and if it had not been for the opposition of some jealous courtiers, they would have caused the city of Campania to be rebuilt, and given it to him, with the territory belonging to it, to establish a colony of philosophers, and to govern it according to the ideal laws of Plato’s commonwealth. He laboured under various disorders during the last year of his life, which obliged him to leave Rome, when he was carried to Campania, to the heirs of one of his friends, who furnished him with everything necessary; and he died there in the year 270, at the age of sixty-six, in the noblest manner that an heathen philosopher could expire. “I am labouring with all my might,” said he, “to return the divine part of me to the Divine Whole which fills the universe.”

We have already remarked that the ideas of Plotinus were singular and extraordinary; and we shall now show that they were so. He was ashamed of being lodged in a body, for which reason he did not care to tell the place of his birth or family. The contempt he had for all earthly things was the reason why he would not permit his picture to be drawn; and when his disciple Amelius urged him to do so, “Is it not enough,” said he, “to drag after us, whithersoever we go, that image in which nature has shut us up? Do you think that we should likewise transmit to future ages an image of that image, as a sight worthy of their attention ?” On the same principle, he refused to attend to his health; for he never made use of preservatives or baths, and did not even eat the flesh of tame animals. He ate but [7:18:61]little, and often abstained from bread; which, joined to his intense meditation, prevented him from sleeping. In short, he thought the body altogether below his notice, and had so little respect for it, that he considered it as a prison, from which it would be his supreme happiness to be freed. When Amelins, after his death, inquired of the oracle of Apollo about the state of his soul, he was told that it was gone to the assembly of the blessed, where charity, joy, and a love of the union with God, prevail. And the reason given for this, as related by Porphyry, is, “that Plotinus had been peaceable, gracious, and vigilant; that he had perpetually elevated his spotless soul to God; that he had loved God with his whole heart; that he had disengaged himself, to the utmost of his abilities, from this wretched life; that, elevating himself with all the powers of his soul, and by the several gradations taught by Plato, towards that Supreme Being which fills the universe, he had been enlightened by him, had enjoyed the vision of him without the help or interposition of ideas, and, in short, had often been united to him.” This is the account of Porphyry, who also tells us that he himself had once been favoured with the vision. We need scarcely add, however, that little credit is due to such a story, which agrees pretty much with modern enthusiasm and the reveries of Behmenists. Plotinus had his familiar spirit, as well as Socrates; but, according to Porphyry, it was not one of those called demons, but of the order of those who are called gods; so that he was under the protection of a spirit superior to that of other men. The superiority of his genins puffed him up not a little;

)i∙ when Amelins desired him to share in the sacrifices which he used to offer up on solemn festivals, “It is their business,” replied Plotinus, “to come to me; not mine to go to them.”

Porphyry put the fifty-four books of Plotinus in order, and divided them into six nonades. The greater part of them turn on the most high-flown ideas in metaphysics; and this philosopher seems, in certain points, to differ but little from Spinoza. He wrote two books to prove that all being is one and the same; which is, in fact, the very doctrine of Baruc Spinoza. He inquires, in another book, whether there are many souls, or only one. His manner of composing partook of the singularity of his nature. He never read over his compositions after he had written them; he wrote a bad hand, and was not exact in his orthography; he stood in need, therefore, of a faithful friend to revise and correct his writings; and he chose Porphyry for this purpose in preference to Amelius, who had been his disciple twenty-four years, and was very much esteemed by him. Some have accused Plotinus of plagiarism with regard to Numcnius; a slander which Amelius refuted. Longinus was once much prejudiced against this philosopher, and wrote against his Treatise of Ideas, and against Porphyry’s answer in defence of that treatise. He afterwards conceived a high esteem for Plotinus; sought industriously for all his books; and, in order to have them correct, desired Porphyry to lend him his copy. At the same time he wrote to the latter in the following manner. “I always observed to you, when we were together, when we were at a distance from one another, as well as when you lived at Tyre, that I did not comprehend many of the subjects treated of by Plotinus; but I was extremely fond of his manner of writing, the variety of his knowledge, and the order and disposition of his questions, which are altogether philosophical.” This single passage, says Baylc, shows the exalted genius, the exquisite discernment, and judicious penetration of Longinus. It cannot be denied that most subjects which this philosopher examines are incomprehensible; nevertheless, we discover in his works a very elevated, fruitful, and capacious genius, and a close way of reasoning. Had Longinus been an injudicious critic, had he not possessed an exalted and beautiful genius, he would not have been so sensible of Plotinus’s obscurity; for no persons complain less of the obscurity of a book, than those whose thoughts are confused, and whose understanding is shallow. Marsilius Ficinus, at the request of Cosmo de’ Medici, executed a Latin version of the works of Plotinus, with a summary and analysis of each book; which was printed at Basil, first by itself in 1559, and afterwards with the Greek in 1580, folio. His life was written by Porphyry, the most illustrious of his disciples.