In the history, too, of the development of the Grecian mind we discover a similar doctrine advanced in one of its latest epochs. The Neo-Platonists were very well acquainted with this doctrine and idea of a divine trinity; as, indeed, it may also be traced in the still earlier writings of Plato himself. How far the expressions and formularies employed by the former writers scientifically to convey this idea were perfect and correct is a question which does not concern us at present to inquire. Moreover, the determination of it would carry us far beyond our proper limits, inasmuch as its exact solution would require a nice and accurate classification of the several writers and systems which belong to this school. It is, however, sufficient to remark that this profound metaphysical school of the Neo-Platonists, which reckoned among its adherents the Emperor Julian, stood in direct and hostile collision with Christianity. To adapt to the purpose of their opposition the old Grecian mythology, a faith in which had sensibly declined even among the masses, they attempted to mold it according to their own views and notions, into such a theological shape and direction as would make it more closely resemble the Indian. By this means they believed it possible to revive and reanimate the popular faith. But, even if their ulterior view and their whole object and actuating motive had not taken a direction so decidedly hostile to the truth, still their enterprise, even as such, could not but miscarry. No doubt the mythology of Greece, in its earliest times and original shape, did contain, in some of its less prominent and more hidden passages, esoterically interpreted, a few symbolical doctrines and somewhat theistic ideas, as many a profound examiner of it, in modern times, has recognized and demonstrated. But, notwithstanding all these traces, which we must regard as the remains of an older tradition of the primary knowledge and full revelation belonging to primeval times, still, in subsequent ages, the Grecian mythology had, on the whole, assumed exclusively and pre-eminently a poetic development and form, which even subordinated to itself that political tendency which in so many of its details is so strong. It was, therefore, nothing less than an absurd and inconsistent attempt to try, so late in the day, to metamorphose this beautiful world of fable into a factitious theory of metaphysics, and a colossal system of mysticism, after the manner and fashion of the Indian. Accordingly, like every other attempt that is fundamentally false and directly opposed to the spirit of the age, it passed away at last, without leaving a trace of its influence.