Note 5 — (From the Greek of Plotinus)

"Enters deep into its essence," etc. The Platonic Philosophy insists much on the necessity of retiring into ourselves in order to the discovery of truth; and on this account Socrates, in the first Alcibiades, says that the soul entering into herself will contemplate whatever exists and the divinity himself. Upon which Proclus thus comments, with his usual elegance and depth (in Theol. Plat, p. 7): "For the soul," says he, "contracting herself wholly into a union with herself, and into the centre of universal life, and removing the multitude and variety of all-various powers, ascends into the highest place of speculation, from whence she will survey the nature of beings. For if she looks back upon things posterior to her essence, she will perceive nothing but the shadows and resemblances of beings; but if she returns into herself she will evolve her own essence, and the reasons she contains. And at first indeed she will, as it were, only behold herself; but when by her knowledge she penetrates more profoundly in her investigations she will find intellect seated in her essence and the universal orders of beings; but when she advances into the more interior recesses of herself, and as it were into the sanctuary of the soul, she will be enabled to contemplate, with her eyes closed to corporeal vision, the genus of the gods and the unities of beings. For all things reside in us, after a manner correspondent to the nature of the soul; and on this account we are naturally enabled to know all things, by exciting our inherent powers and images of whatever exists."