OCELLUS LUCANUS ON THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE; _&c. &c. &c._ OCELLUS LUCANUS ON THE NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE. TAURUS, THE PLATONIC PHILOSOPHER, ON THE ETERNITY OF THE WORLD. JULIUS FIRMICUS MATERNUS OF THE THEMA MUNDI; IN WHICH THE POSITIONS OF THE STARS AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SEVERAL MUNDANE PERIODS IS GIVEN. SELECT THEOREMS ON THE PERPETUITY OF TIME, BY PROCLUS. TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINALS BY THOMAS TAYLOR. Αρχα και αιτια και κανων εντι τας ανθρωπινας ευδαιμοσυνας α τω θειων και τιμιωτατων επιγνωσις. _i. e._ The knowledge of divine and the most honourable things, is the principle and cause and rule of human felicity.—ARCHYTAS. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE TRANSLATOR; AND SOLD BY JOHN BOHN, HENRIETTA-STREET; HENRY BOHN, YORK-STREET; AND THOMAS RODD, GREAT NEWPORT-STREET. MDCCCXXXI. PRINTED BY RICHARD TAYLOR, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. INTRODUCTION. The Tracts contained in this small volume will, I trust, be perused with considerable interest by every English reader who is a lover of ancient lore; and whatever innovations may have been made in the philosophical theories of the ancients by the accumulated experiments of the moderns, yet the scientific deductions of the former will, I am persuaded, ultimately predominate over the futile and ever-varying conclusions of the latter. For science, truly so called, is, as Aristotle accurately defines it to be, the knowledge of things eternal, and which have a necessary existence. Hence it has for its basis _universals_, and not _particulars_; since the former are _definite_, _immutable_, and _real_; but the latter are _indefinite_, are so incessantly changing, that they are not for a moment the same, and are so destitute of reality, that, in the language of the great Plotinus, they may be said to be “shadows falling upon shadow[1], like images in water, or in a mirror, or a dream.”