Plutarch's Morals Theosophical Essays

Plutarch's Morals: Theosophical Essays
tr. by Charles William King

The works which go by the name of Plutarch's "Morals" (though certainly not all from his hand) are a collection of short treatises upon a great variety of subjects—Ethics, History, Politics, Preservation of Health, Facetiæ, Love-stories, and Philosophy. The last of these comprise dissertations upon the nature of the unseen world and spiritual beings, upon the creation and government of the universe, upon the human soul, upon the hidden sense of religious institutions, and similar speculations, which the ancients classed under the general head of "Theosophy," that is, "knowledge of the things pertaining unto God." In this series is preserved the only complete and circumstantial account of the religion of Egypt that has come down to us; and written at a time when that religion was still in full vigour, when, in fact, it alone (besides the Mithraic), of all the ancient creeds, as yet preserved its. original vitality—written, too, by a person who had been initiated into its deepest mysteries, and who had sought out the hidden sense of its myths and ceremonies with equal intelligence and industry.