This attempt to solve the problem in question is of course a failure. It is still more open than the system of Plato to Aristotle’s objection, that it resembled the expedient of an arithmetician who should endeavour to simplify a calculation he found perplexing by taking still higher figures. Plotinus does not explain what he means by a Hypostasis. If the Hypostases in his Trinity have reality, the ideal unity he is so anxious to preserve in the Divine Nature is after all destroyed. If they have not, the gap between the One and the Manifold is still without a bridge, and the difficulty they are introduced to remove remains in effect where it was. If this hypothesis had made no part of the system of Plotinus, the great occasion for the doctrine of Ecstasy and the most powerful internal inducement to mysticism would have been wanting. The philosopher escapes from his labyrinth by borrowing the wings of the mystic.—See _Jules Simon_, tom. i. pp. 63, 84; ii. 462. Footnote 22: There is above a light which makes visible the Creator to that creature who finds his peace only in the vision of Him. Footnote 23: See Schelling’s _System des Trancendentalen Idealismus_, pp. 19-23 (Tübingen, 1800), and Chalybæus, _Hist. Entw. d. Spec. Phil._ p. 244. Footnote 24: _Aids to Reflection_, pp. 225, 249. The reader is referred to a discriminating criticism of this doctrine in the _British Quarterly Review_, No. xxxvii. Footnote 25: See Note, p. 92. CHAPTER IV. _Stargaze._ ’Tis drawn, I assure you, from the aphorisms of the old Chaldeans, Zoroaster the first and greatest magician; Mercurius Trismegistus, the later Ptolemy, and the everlasting prognosticator, old Erra Pater.—MASSINGER. WILLOUGHBY. We have now about done, I suppose, with the theosophic branch of the Neo-Platonist school; with its latest leaders it degenerates into theurgic mysticism. KATE. I hope it is going to degenerate into something one can understand. GOWER. The great metaphysician, Plotinus, is off the stage, that is some comfort for you, Miss Merivale. Magic is less wearisome than metaphysics.