Unknown a perfection which, after all, the entire gamut of existence suggests to us has never yet been reached through all the æons even though we may be approaching nearer to it every day and every hour? The creation of the universe, if we are to accept the system of Plotinus, did not actually take place in time. He argues this point out with much subtlety and ingenuity in his essay “on Providence,” rejecting the hypothesis of “a certain foresight and discursive consideration on the part of Deity, deliberating in what condition the world should be especially formed, and by what means it may be constituted as far as possible for the best”; and accepting in place of it the assumption that the universe always had a being, and that it was “formed according to intellect, and intellect not preceding _in time_ but prior[7]; because the world is its offspring, and because intellect is the cause and the world its image, perpetually subsisting in the same manner and flowing from this as its source.” In other words, being faced with the alternative of assuming a definite date at which life began, or postulating existence from all eternity, he accepts the latter as presenting the lesser difficulty of the two; but in order to do so, he finds himself involved in the necessity of admitting a sequence of cause and effect which the finite mind is quite unable to dissociate from the conception of time. Failing this, his whole theory of the three Divine Hypostases falls to the ground. If we adopt the alternative which Plotinus rejected, we are plunged into still greater embarrassment; for if creation began in time, why did the All or the One wait through all the æons of eternity[8] for its commencement? And how, indeed, did time itself evolve from eternity, in view of the fact that the two ideas have no apparent relation to each other? The philosopher may plunge into eternity where recorded time Seems but a point, and the reluctant mind Flags wearily in its unending flight Till it sink dizzy, blind, lost, shelterless.[9] He may do this, indeed, but after all he will not have solved the Riddle of the Sphinx. Footnote 4: Constantine became sole Emperor in 323 A.D. The Athenian schools of philosophy were suppressed by Justinian in 529 A.D. Footnote 5: To whose book, _The Wisdom of Plotinus_ (Rider, 3s. 6d. net) I must acknowledge my indebtedness. Footnote 6: Plotinus on _The Nature and Origin of Evil_ (Taylor’s Translation). Footnote 7: _I.e._, prior in the sense that cause precedes effect. Footnote 8: The Indian conception of the inbreathing and outbreathing of Brahma may help us here, but it does not entirely get over the difficulty. Footnote 9: Shelley, “Prometheus Unbound.” III MICHAEL SCOT