the one on account of its excellence being alone established in true
good; but the other in apparent good, on account of its defect. Intellect
too characterizes the one, but sense the other; and the former, as
Plotinus says, is our king, but the latter our messenger. We therefore
are established in the elective power as a medium; and having the ability
of tending both to true and apparent good, when we tend to the former we
follow the guidance of intellect, when to the latter, that of sense. The
power therefore which is in us is not capable of all things. For the
power which is omnipotent is characterized by unity; and on this account
is all-powerful, because it is one, and possesses the form of good. But
the elective power is two-fold, and on this account is not able to effect
all things; because, by it's inclinations to true and apparent good, it
falls short of that nature which is prior to all things. It would however
be all-powerful, if it had not an elective impulse, and was will alone.
For a life subsisting according to will alone subsists according to good,
because the will naturally tends to good, and such a life makes that
which is characteristic in us most powerful and deiform. And hence
through this the soul, according to Plato, becomes divine, and in another
life, in conjunction with deity, governs the world. And thus much of the
outlines of the leading dogmas of the philosophy of Plato.

In the beginning of this Introduction, I observed that, in drawing these
outlines I should conduct the reader through novel and solitary paths,
solitary indeed they must be, since they have been unfrequented from the
reign of the emperor Justinian to the present time; and novel they will
doubtless appear to readers of every description, and particularly to
those who have been nursed as it were in the bosom of matter, the pupils
of experiment, the darlings of sense, and the legitimate descendants of
the earth-born race that warred on the Olympian gods. To such as these,
who have gazed on the dark and deformed face of their nurse, till they