Thomas Taylor - Fragments that Remain of the Lost Writings of Proclus - Preface lyrics

PREFACE. To the lovers of the wisdom of the Greeks, any remains of the writings of Proclus will always be invaluable, as he was a man who, for the variety of his powers, the beauty of his diction, the magnificence of his conceptions, and his luminous development of the abstruse dogmas of the ancients, is unrivalled among the disciples of Plato. As, therefore, of all his philosophical works that are extant, I have translated the whole of some, and parts of others, I was also desirous to present the English reader with a translation of the existing Fragments of such of his works as are lost. Of these Fragments, the largest, which is on the Eternity of the World, and originally consisted of eighteen arguments, wants only the first argument to render it complete; and of this I have endeavoured to collect the substance, from what Philoponus has written against it. There is a Latin translation of the work of Philoponus * in which these Arguments are alone to be found—by Joannes Mahotius: Lugdun. 1557. fol.; from which, as the learned reader will perceive, I have frequently been enabled to correct the printed Greek text. The acute Simplicius is of opinion, that this work of Philoponus is replete with garrulity and nugacity, and a considerable portion of his Commentary on Aristotle's Treatise on the Heavens, consists of a confutation of the sophistical reasoning of this smatterer in philosophy. In doing this, likewise, he invokes Hercules to a**ist him in the purification of such an Augean stable. It is remarkable, that though the writings of Proclus are entirely neglected, and even unknown to many who are called scholars, in this country, yet they are so much esteemed in France and Germany, that such of his works as were only before extant in man*script, have been recently published by the very learned Professors Boissonade, Victor Cousin, and Creuzer. The second of these learned men, indeed, conceived so highly of the merits of Proclus, as to say of him, "that, like Homer himself, he obscures, by his own name, the names of all those that preceded him, and has drawn to himself alone the merits and praises of all [the Platonic philosophers]." The eulogy therefore, of Ammonius Hermeas, "that Proclus possessed the power of unfolding the opinions of the ancients, and a scientific judgment of the nature of things, in the highest perfection possible to humanity," will be immediately a**ented to by every one who is much conversant with the writings of this most extraordinary man. Perhaps, however, the ignorance in this country, of the writings of this Coryphean philosopher, may be very reasonably accounted for, by what Mr. Harris says in the Preface to his Hermes, viz. "'Tis perhaps too much the case with the multitude in every nation, that as they know little beyond themselves and their own affairs, so, out of this narrow sphere of knowledge, they think nothing worth knowing. As we, Britons, by our situation, live divided from the whole world, this, perhaps, will be found to be more remarkably our case. And hence the reason, that our studies are usually satisfied in the works of our own countrymen; that in philosophy, in poetry, in every kind of subject, whether serious or ludicrous, whether sacred or profane, we think perfection with ourselves, and that it is superfluous to search farther."