Hi all, just adding this for you letter-lovers
In a previous post I gave some qoutes from d'Olivet pertaining to the approach one can take to old texts. Just to give some additional voices from the past, I will give some stuff from other folks with also some interesting ideas. Not to dismiss the approach taken to search for cataclisms, but maybe more to contrast and and clearify distinctions. I know it's not exhaustive, but also that that is not my intention, it's more to give a general idea.
Further down I give just three examples to indicate some subject, which was also raised in a recent TPOD. Again not to dismiss anything, but I was able to read in that TPOD that it stated certain things were hard or not explained/explainable through the philosophic approach.
As for now, I feel a little numb, so my apologies, if I'm not very vocal at this moment, but maybe I will be able to comment in more quality a little later.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626):
The earliest antiquity lies buried in silence and oblivion; excepting the remains we have of it in sacred writ. This silence was succeeded by poetical fables; and these, at lenght, by the writings we now enjoy: so that the concealed and secret learning of the ancients , seems separated from history and knowledge of the following ages, by a veil, or partition-wall of fables, interposing between the things that are lost, and those that remain*. (*. Varro distributes the ages of the world into three periods; viz. The unknown, the fabulous, and the historical. Of the former we have no accounts but in scripture; for the second, we must consult the ancient poets; such as Hesiod, Homer, or those who wrote still earlier; and then again come back to Ovid, who in his metamorphoses, seems in imitation, perhaps, of some ancient Greek poet, to have intended a complete collection, or a kind of continued and connected history of the fabulous age; especially with regard to changes, revolutions, or transformations.)
Many may imagine that I am here entering upon a work of fancy, or amusement; and design to use a poetical liberty, in explaining poetical fables. It is true, fables in general are composed of ductile matter, that may be drawn into great variety, by a witty talent, or an invetive genius: and be delivered of plausible meanings which they never contained. But this procedure has already been carried to excess: and great numbers, to procure the sanction of antiquity to their own notions and invertions, have miserably wrested and abused the fables of the ancients.
Nor is this only of late or unfrequent practise; but of ancient date, and common, even to this day. Thus Chrysippus, like an interpreter of dreams, attributed the opinions of the Stoics to the poets of old: and the chemists, at present, more childishly apply the poetical transformations to their experiments of the furnace. And though I have well weighted and considered all this; and thoroughly seen into the levity which the mind indulges for allegories and allusions; yet I cannot but retain a high value for the ancient mythology. And certainly, it were very injudicious to suffer the fondness and licentiousness of a few, to detreact from the honour of allegory and parable in general. This would be rash, almost prophane: for, since religion delights in such shadows and disguises; to abolish them were, in a manner, to prohibit all intercourse betwist things divine and human.
Upon deliberate consideration, my judgement is, that a concealed instruction and allegory was originally intended in many of the ancient fables. This opinion may, in some respect, be owing to the veneration I have for antiquity; but more to observing, that some fables discover a great and evident similitude, relation and connection with the thing they signify; as well in the structure of the fable; as in the propriety of the names, whereby the persons or actors are characterized: insomuch, that no one could positively deny a sense and meaning, to be from the first intended, and purposely shadowed out in them.
Nor is it wonder , if sometimes a piece of history , or other things are introduced, by way of ornament; or if the times of the action are confounded; or if part of one fable be tacked to another; or if the allegory be new turned: for all this must necessarily happen; as the fables were the inventions of men who lived in different ages, and had different views; some of them being ancient, and others more modern; some having an eye to natural philosophy; and others, to morality, or civil polity.
It may pass for a farther indication of a concealed and secret meaning, that some of these fables are so absurd, and idle, in their narration, as to shew and proclaim an allegory, even afar off. A fable that carries probability with it, may be supposed invented for pleasure, or in imitation of history; but those that could never be conceived, or related in this way must surely have a different use.
But the argument of most weight with me is this; that many of these fables, by no means appear to have been invented by the persons who relate and divulge them; whether Homer, Hesiod, or others : for if I were assured they first flowed from those later times and authors that transmit them to us, I should never expect any thing singularly great or noble from such an origin. But whoever attentively considers the thing, will find that these fables are deliverd down, and related by these writers, not as matters then first invented and proposed, but as things recieved and embraced in earlier ages. Besides, as they are differently related by writers nearly of the same ages, it is easily percieved, that the relaters drew from the common stock of ancient tradition; and varied but in point of embelleshment, which is their own. And this principally raises my esteem of these fables; which I recieve, not as the product of the age, or the invention of the poets, but as sacred reliques, gentle whispers, and the breath of better times; that from the traditions of more ancient nations came, at lenght, into the flutes and trumpets of the Greeks. But, if any one shall, notwithstanding this, contend that allegories are always adventitious, or imposed upon the ancient fables, and no way native, or genuinely contained in them; we might here leave him undisturbed in that gravity of judgemet he affect; (though we cannot help accounting it somewhat dull and phlegmatic) and if it were worth the trouble, proceed to another kind of argument.
Men have proposed to answer two different, and contrary ends, by the use of parable; for parables serve, as well to instruct or illustrate, as to wrap up and envelope: so that though for the present, we drop the concealed use, and suppose the ancient fables to be vague, undeteminate things, formed for amusement; still the other use must remain, and can never be given up. And every man, of any learning, must readily allow, that this method of instucting is grave, sober, or exceedingly useful; and sometimes necessary in the sciences: as it opens an easy and familiar passage to the human understanding, in all new discoveries that are abstruse, and out of the road of vulgar opinions. Hence, in the first ages, when such inventions and conclusions of the human reason, as are now trite and common, were new and little known; all thoings abounded with fables, parables, similes, comparisons, and allusions; which were not intended to conceal, but to inform and teach; whilst theminds of men continued rude and unpractised in matters of subtilty and speculation; or even impatient, and in a manner uncapable of recieving such things as did not directly fall under and strike the senses. For as hieroglyphics, were in use before writing; so were parables in use before arguments. And even, to this day, if any man would let new light in upon the human understanding, and conquer prejudice, without raising contests, animosities, opposition, or disturbance, he must still go in the same path, and have recourse to the like method of allegory, metaphor, and allusion.
To conclude, the knowledge of the early ages was either great or happy; great, if they by design made this use of trope and figure; happy, if whilst they had other views, they afforded matter and occasion to such noble contemplations. Let either be he case, our pains, perhaps, will not be misemployed; whether we illustrate antiquity, or things themselves.
The like indeed has been attempted by others; but to speak ingeniously, their great and voluminous labours have almost destroyed the energy, the eeficacy, and grace of the thing, whilst being unskilled in nature, and their learning no morethan that of common-place, they have applied the sense of the parables to certain general and vulgar matters, without reaching to their real purport, genuine interpretation, and full depth. For myself, therefore, I expect to appear new in these common things; because, leaving untouched such as are sufficiently plain, and open, I shall drive only at those that are either deep or rich.
(From: Fables of the Ancients – Francis Bacon)
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963):
Philosophia perennis- the phrase was coined by Leibnitz; but the thing- the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being- the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the tradionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every oneof the higher religions.....
......The Perennial Philosophy is primarily concerned with the one divine Reality substancila to the manifold world of things and lives and minds. But the nature of this one Reality is such that it cannot be directly and immediately apprehended except by those who have chosen to fulfil certain conditions, making themselves loving, pure in heart, and poor in spirit. Why should this be so? We do not know. It is justr one of those facts which we have to accept, wether we like them or not and however implausable and inlikely they may seem. Nothing in our everyday experience gives us any reason for supposing that water is made up of hydrogen and oxygen; and yet when we subject water to certain rather drastic treatments, the nature of its constituent elements becomes manifest. Similarly, nothing in our everyday experience gives us much reason for supposing that the mind of the average sensual man has, as one of its constituents, something resembling, or identical with, the Reality substantial to the manifold world; and yet, when that mind is subjected to certain rather drastic treatments, the divine element, of which it is in part at least composed, becomes manifest, not only to the mind itself, but also, by its reflection in external behaviour, to other minds. It is only by making physical experiments that we can discover the intimate nature of matter and its potentialities.And it is only by making psychological and moral experiments that we can discover the intimate nature of the mind and its potentialities. In the ordinary circumstances of average sensual life these potentialities of the mind remain latent and unmanifested. If we would realize them, we must fulfil certain conditions and obey certain rules, which experience has shown empirically to be valid.
.....In studying the Perennial Philosophy we can begin either at the bottom, with practice and morality; or at the top, with a consideration of metaphysical truths; or, finally, in the middle, at the focal point where mind and matter, action and thought, have their meeting place in human psychology.
(from: The Perennial Philosophy - Aldous Huxley)
Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494):
....Plato himself concealed his doctrines beneath coverings of allegory, veils of myth, mathemnatical images, and unintelligible signs of fugitive meaning....
...Therefore, if we think the writings of Moses commonplace because on the surface they are ordinary and crude, let us likewise condemn for ignorance and crudity all the ancient philosophers whom we venerate as masters of all knowledge....
....Antiquity imaged three worlds. Highest of all is that ultramundane one which the theologians call the angelic and philosophers the intelligible, and of which, Plato says in the Pheadrus, no one has worthily sung. Next to this comes the celestial world, and last of all, this sublunary one which we inhabit. This is the world of darkness; that the world of light; the heavens are compounded of light and darkness. This world is symbolized by water, a flowing and unstable substance; that by fire, for the splendor of its light and the elevation of its position; of a middle nature, the heavens, composed of the fire and water. Here there is an alternation of life and death; there, eternal life and unchanging activity; in the heavens, stability of life but change of activity and position. This world is composed of the corruptible substance of bodies; that one of the divine nature of the mind; the heavens of body, but incorruptable, and of mind, but enslaved to body. The third is moved by the second; the second is governed by the first; and there are among them many furher differences which I do not propose to enumerate here, where we are skimming the surface of such things without fathoming their depths...
...But why do we pursue these remote similies? For, if the outermost part of the tabernacle was common to men and animals, the second, which shone with the splendor of gold, was illuminated by a seven-branched candlestick which, as all the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew commentators declare, signifies the seven planets. In the third part, the most sacred of all, were the winged cherubim. Does not all this put the three worlds before our eyes? This one, which both men and animals inhabit, the celestial, in which the planets shine, and the supercelestial, the dwelling of the angels?...
...This is enough on the three worlds. It should above all be observed, a fact on which our purpose almost wholly depends, that these three worlds are one world, not only because they are all related by one beginning and to the same end, or because regulated by appropriate numbers they are bound together both by certain harmonious kinship of nature and by regular series of ranks, but because whatever is in any of the worlds is at the same time contained in each, and there is no one of them in which is not found whatever is in each of the others...
.. I shall speak more precisely: among us there is the fire which is an element; the sun is fire in the sky; in the ultramundane region the fire is the seraphic intellect. But see how they differ. The elemental fire burns, the celestial gives life, and the supercelestial loves. There is water in our world; there is water in the heavens, the mover and mistress of ours, namely the moon, the vestibule of the heavens; and above the heavens, the waters are the minds of the cherubim. But see what a disparity of condition there is in the same nature; the elemental moisture quenches the heat of life; the celestial feeds it; the supercelestial understands it....
...Hence celestial or even earthly names are often given to divine things, which are presented figuratively now as stars, now as wheels and animals, now as elements; hence, also, heavenly names are often given to earthly things. Bound by the chains of concord, all these worlds exchange natures as wel as names with mutual liberality. From this principle ( in case anyone has not understood it) flows the science of all allegorical interpretation...
...There is, moreover, besides the three that we mentioned, a fourth world in which are found all those things that are in the rest. This is man himself.
(from: Heptaplus; or the sevenfold narration of the six days of Genesis - Pico della Mirandola)
Plato (427 – 347 BC):
There is an irreverence, at first sight, in calling him son of Cronos (who is a proverb for stupidity), and we might rather expect Zeus to be the child of a mighty intellect. Which is the fact; for this is the meaning of his father's name: Kronos quasi Koros (Choreo, to sweep), not in the sense of a youth, but signifying to chatharon chai acheraton tou nou, the pure and garnished mind (sc. apo tou chorein). He, as we are informed by tradition, was begotten of Uranus, rightly so called (apo tou oran ta ano) from looking upwards; which, as philosophers tell us, is the way to have a pure mind, and the name Uranus is therefore correct.
Plotinus (411 - 485):
...'The Gods' are frequently mentioned in the Enneads: the words are
generally little more than a fossil survival, an accident of language not
a reality of thought. Where, however, Plotinus names Ouranos
(Caelus), Kronos (Saturn), Zeus (Jupiter), he indicates the three
Hypostases of the Divine-Being: this is part of his general assumption
that all his system is contained already in the most ancient knowledge
of the world...
That archetypal world is the true Golden Age, age of Kronos, whose
very name suggests (in Greek) Exuberance (Kopos) and Intellect (vov$).
For here is contained all that is immortal: nothing here but is Divine
Mind; all is God; this is the place of every soul...Its knowing is not by search but
by possession, its blessedness inherent, not acquired; for all belongs to
it eternally and it holds the authentic Eternity imitated by Time which,
circling round the Soul, makes towards the new thing and passes by the
old.
...‘After having admired the world of sense, its grandeur, and beauty,
the eternal regularity of its movement, the gods, visible or invisible, the
dæmons, the animals and plants which it contains, we may rise to the
archetype of this world, a world more real than ours is; we may there
contemplate all the spiritual objects which are of their own nature eternal,
and which exist in their own knowledge and life, and the pure Spirit which
presides over them, and infinite wisdom, and the true kingdom of Kronos, the
God who is κόρος and νου̑ς. For it embraces in itself all that is immortal, all
Spirit, all that is God, all Soul, eternally unchanging. For why should it seek to
change, seeing that all is well with it? And whither should it move, when it has
all things in itself ? Being perfect, it can seek for no increase....
And it still remains pregnant with this
offspring; for it has, so to speak, drawn all within itself again, holding
them lest they fall away towards Matter to be 'brought up in the House
of Rhea' (in the realm of flux). This is the meaning hidden in the
Mysteries, and in the Myths of the gods: Kronos, as the wisest, exists
before Zeus; he must absorb his offspring that, full within himself, he
may be also an Intellectual-Principle manifest in some product of his
plenty; afterwards, the myth proceeds, Kronos engenders Zeus, who
already exists as the (necessary and eternal) outcome of the plenty there;
in other words the offspring of the Divine Intellect, perfect within itself,
is Soul (the life-principle carrying forward the Ideas in the Divine
Mind). The perfection entails the offspring; a power so vast could not
remain unfruitful.
Zeus (Universal Soul) is in this a symbol of him, Zeus who is not
content with the contemplation of his father (Kronos, divine Intellect)
but looks to that father's father (to Ouranos, the Transcendent) as
what may be called the divine energy working to the establishment
of real being.
(From: The Enneads - Plotinus)
Proclus (410-485 ):
...Plato demonstrates this thruth when he presents our life as double, having both a political and a theoretical aspect, and happiness similarly as double, and traces the one life back to the patronymic supervision of Zeus, and the other to the order of Cronus and pure mind. From this is plain that he refers back our life in its entirety to the realm of the intellectual Kings; for the one of these defines the beginning, and the other the end, of this order of being. ...
...How, then, you might say, does it come about that there is a plurality of hypotheses, if the whole discourse continues to be about the One? Because, I will say, “the One” can be used in three senses. We have the One that transcends all beings, and that which is inferior to Being and that which is, as it were, “swallowed down” by it. ....
...Orpheus tells us that all things came to be in Zeus, after the swallowing of Phanes, because, although the causes of all things in the cosmos appeared primarily and in unified form in him (Phanes) , they appear secondarily and in distinct form in the Demiurge. The sun, the moon, the heaven itself, the elements, and Eros the unifier- all came into being as a unity “mixed together in the belly of Zeus”. ...
