THE COMMBNTAEIES OF PBOCLTTS
268
on the particulars the unity of the universal*. The priest, it is true, in his insistence on the claims of age, has hold of the principle that the elder, that
is,
the ontologically prior cause,
that which preserves the stability of the whole. Yet, great as is this conservative order in the cosmos, the principle of
is
renewal figured by the creative action of Athena* goes back to a higher point of the all-inclusive causal series, in which fixity and alternating cycles alike have their source*. And he could put stress on this against what seemed too arrogant in the claims of the East while fully recognising the spirit of
admired by Plato as afterwards by Comte in its opposition to the dispersiveness of the new*. Nor is his Greek rationalism unaccompanied by a feeling for the importance of historic memory. To acquire knowledge unification in the old order,
of the past from the stable orders, where these have kept records, he remarks, contributes in the highest degree towards
perfecting
human wisdom^- In a
later passage',
he dwells on
the value for scientific theory of the empirical results attained
by the long-continued observations of Eg5^tian and
Chal-
daean astronomers; setting these against the mere agreement with hypothesis of what can at present be observed. A true conclusion, he points out, can be reached from false assumptions; and the consonance of phenomena with hypotheses is an insufficient test of the truth of these. When the priest reconstitutes from recorded history that memory of past cycles which had been lost by the younger world, Proclus finds this procedure to be imitated by the Pythagoreans,
who
set themselves to
show how
individuals
may restore the memory of their former lives. For the differr ent periods of a race may be compared to the different lives ^
i.
103, 1: ri
lii...etdos irpojSiXXoittey.
' i.
103, 8-9 :
"
i.
103, 30: t6 veilirepov if iwepHpas
*
i.
Ti)v
viav Sriiuovpyiav
rip 'ABrivas avvexpnimiv.
-qicei
ri^eus.
104, 14—17 : aiix^oKov yap rb /iiv ttoXiox
yo^irciiis
yeviffeioi otf(n;s, to de v4ov
yiyvoiUvuv. ' i.
ripi iirb
xal i.xp^'^ov fir5s xal irbppa
t^s fiepLKuiripas yvtbffetas Kal
ttjs itpawTopLiyTfS
124, 11—13: o£ ti2v TrplxrBep irtpibSav iiTToplai iieylarqv
Xovrai avvTiXeLav, » iii.
"fiSij
twv
Cf. 127, 23-27.
125-126.
els <l>p6vriinv
Tapi-