Note 59 — APHORISMS—BOOK I ON THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE AND THE EMPIRE OF MAN (continued 2)

Proclus flourished about the beginning of the fifth century, and was the successor of Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblicus, who, in the two preceding centuries, had revived the doctrines of Plato, and assailed the Christian religion. The allusion in the text must be assigned to Iamblicus, who, in the fourth century, had republished the Pythagorean theology of numbers, and endeavored to construct the world out of arithmetic, thinking everything could be solved by the aid of proportions and geometry. Bacon must not be understood in the text to censure the use but the abuse of mathematics and physical investigations, as in the “De Augmentis” (lib. iv. c. 6), he enumerates the multiplicity of demonstration scientific facts admit of, from this source.—Ed.