Alexandria and her schools - 1854 Author:Charles Kingsley Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 110 PROCLUS THE LAST GREAT ALEXANDRIAN. the accidents of brute matter, and a part of that nature which is born to die. The culmination of all this conf... more »usion we see in Proclus. The unfortunate Hypatia, who is the most important personage between him and lamblichus, has left no writings to our times; we can only judge of her doctrine by that of her instructors and her pupils. Proclus was taught by the men who had heard her lecture ; and the golden chain of the Platonic succession descended from her to him. His throne, however, was at Athens, not at Alexandria. After the murder of the maiden philosopher, Neoplatonism prudently retired to Greece. But Proclus is so essentially the child of the Alexandrian school, that we cannot pass him over. Indeed, according to M. Cousin, as I am credibly informed, he is the Greek philosopher; the flower and crown of all its schools; in whom, says the learned Frenchman, " are combined, and from whom shine forth, in no irregular or uncertain rays, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Plotinus, Porphyry, and lamblichus;" and who " had so comprehended all religions in his mind, and paid them such equal reverence, that he was, as it were, the priest of the whole universe ! " THE MODERN ADMIRERS. 117 I have not the honour of knowing much of M. Cousin's works. I never came across them but on one small matter of fact, and on that I found him copying at second hand an anachronism which one would have conceived palpable to any reader of the original authorities. This is all I know of him, saving these his raptures over Proclus, of which I have quoted only a small portion, and of which I can only say, in Mr. Thomas Carlyle's words, " What things men will worship, in their extreme need!" Other moderns, however, have expressed their admir...« less