Select Works of Porphyry

Auxiliaries to the Perception of Intelligibles Intelligibles are things that can only be understood by the mind or intellect, rather than the physical senses. may be considered an excellent introduction to the works of Plotinus in general, from which a great part of it is extracted. In particular, it serves as an introduction to the following books by that most sublime genius: On the Virtuesh; On the Impassivity of Incorporeal Naturesi "Impassivity" here refers to the state of being unaffected by external or physical changes.; and On Truly-Existing Being, in which it is demonstrated that such being is everywhere one and the same wholek. This Porphyrian treatise is also admirably designed to assist the student of the Theological Elements of Proclus, a work that can never be praised enough for its scientific accuracy, profound concepts, and the clear original: luminous development of the most important principles original: dogmas it displays.

In the fourth place, Porphyry, in his treatise On the Cave of the Nymphs, informs us that Numenius the Pythagorean considered the character of Ulysses in the Odyssey as the image of a man who passes in an orderly manner over the stormy sea of "generation"—or a life governed by the senses—and thus at length arrives at a region where tempests and seas are unknown, and finds a nation

“Who never knew salt, or heard the billows roar:”

I have endeavored, with the assistance of this