Socrates himself had no system.
* * * * *
I hold all claims set up for Egypt having given birth to the Greek
philosophy, to be groundless. It sprang up in Greece itself, and began with
physics only.
Then it took in the idea of a living cause, and made pantheism out of the
two. Socrates introduced ethics, and taught duties; and then, finally,
Plato asserted or re-asserted the idea of a God the maker of the world. The
measure of human philosophy was thus full, when Christianity came to add
what before was wanting--assurance. After this again, the Neo-Platonists
joined theurgy with philosophy, which ultimately degenerated into magic and
mere mysticism.
Plotinus was a man of wonderful ability, and some of the sublimest passages
I ever read are in his works.
I was amused the other day with reading in Tertullian, that spirits or
demons dilate and contract themselves, and wriggle about like worms--
lumbricix similes.
_September_ 26. 1830.
SCOTCH AND ENGLISH LAKES.
The five finest things in Scotland are--1. Edinburgh; 2. The antechamber of
the Fall of Foyers; 3. The view of Loch Lomond from Inch Tavannach, the
highest of the islands; 4. The Trosachs; 5. The view of the Hebrides from a
point, the name of which I forget.
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