be carefully and cautiously dealt with, but the success already attained in the older British Colonies shows that our system may be relied on to provide the men and the measures which may be found necessary. It seems to have been proved in practice that native institutions and modes of government should be maintained, wherever they still exist and show signs of stability, and it may be found possible to revive them in many cases where they have only recently been suppressed. Each colony will have its own problems, which can only be dealt with on the spot by men of tact and experience. Such men, having been found-as they will be foundshould not be hampered by multifarious instructions or details, but should be given a free hand within wide limits, to devise means for dealing with the difficulties they will encounter.

Some of the officers who are or have recently been in charge of tropical dependencies have already recorded opinions on many of the points which will have to be decided. Among these may be mentioned Sir Hugh Clifford, K.C.M.G., the Governor of the Gold Coast Colony, Mr C. L. Temple, C.M.G., lately Lieutenant-Governor of Northern Nigeria, and Sir Sydney Olivier, K.C.M.G. Sir H. Clifford and Mr Temple have recently expressed their views in two little books of great interest mentioned at the head of this article; * and Sir S. Olivier has recorded his opinions in the 'Contemporary Review' (January 1919) in an article entitled 'The Repartition of Africa.' These authorities are in agreement on the main questions of importance, and especially on the labour question.

One of the most illuminating instances of what can be done by native labour, without European supervision but with Government encouragement, is the extraordinary development of cocoa-cultivation in the Gold Coast Colony; and this may be contrasted with the gradual decay and depopulation which was going on in the neighbouring and very similar regions of Togoland at the same time. Sir Hugh Clifford may well point to the successful results of this policy as an argument for the British as distinguished from the German system. Another

* Cf. also the article by Mr Temple in this Review, No. 457, for October 1918.

instance, mentioned by Mr Temple, is the great production of ground-nuts by the small cultivators near Kano in Northern Nigeria. Similar results may be hoped for wherever conditions are favourable, although equally rapid progress is not of course to be expected in all cases. The social conditions in the north of the Cameroons are similar to those in Northern Nigeria, and in Togoland to those of the Gold Coast Colony. In all these cases, the moist forest-covered lands near the coast have much in common; and the drier pastoral lands in the interior, with a mainly Mohammedan population, also present strong resemblances, so that experience gained in our older colonies may often be utilised in the new acquisitions. East Africa has been more disorganised by the war and its population more demoralised. Here the difficulties to be encountered will doubtless be much greater; and time and patience will be required before satisfactory results are attained.

Other important questions, which it is only possible to allude to here, are those connected with finance and trade. What is the best method of raising a revenue, direct or indirect taxation; what is the best machinery for granting mining and other concessions; how best to attract capital to the new districts, and so forth-these are subjects of such wide scope and affect so many interests that they demand separate discussion; and no decision on such questions should be arrived at in a hurry. Our country has taken the lead among the nations of the world in settling such questions in a fair and liberal spirit, and has been the first to show due regard to the interests of primitive and undeveloped races; and it is entitled to demand that it should now be endowed with adequate authority to deal with all these questions by its own methods and in accordance with its own traditions.

M. LONGWORTH DAMES.

Art. 13. THE MYSTICISM OF PLOTINUS.

1. The Philosophy of Plotinus: The Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews, 1915-1918. By W. R. Inge, D.D. Two vols. London: Longmans, 1918.

2. Plotinus: The Ethical Treatises. Being the Treatises of the First Ennead with Porphyry's Life. Translated from the Greek by Stephen Mackenna. London: Lee Warner, 1917.

3. The Neoplatonists: A Study in the History of Hellenism. By. Thomas Whittaker. 2nd Ed. Cambridge: The

University Press, 1918.

4. The Problem of Evil in Plotinus. By B. A. G. Fuller. Cambridge: The University Press, 1912.

And other works.

In spite of his enormous importance for the history of Christian philosophy, Plotinus is still one of the least known and least understood among the great thinkers of the ancient world. The extreme difficulty of his style, which Porphyry well described as 'dense with thought, and more lavish of ideas than words,' together with the natural laziness of man, may perhaps account for this neglect. He was by choice a thinker, contemplative, and teacher, not a writer. Therefore the Enneads, which represent merely notes of lectures, hastily and unwillingly written down during the last fifteen years of his life, offer few inducements to hurried readers. The fact that he was a mystic' has been held a further excuse for failure to understand the more cryptic passages of his works; though as a matter of fact these are the precipitations of a singularly clear and logical intellect, and will yield all their secrets to a sympathetic and industrious attention. His few translators have often been content to leave difficult phrases unelucidated, or surrounded by a haze of suggestive words; and though his splendid and poetic rhapsodies are quoted again and again, even those later mystics who are most indebted to him show few signs of first-hand study and comprehension of his system as a whole. Thanks to this same obscurity, and the richness, intricacy and suggestive quality of his thought, most of his interpreters have tended to do for him that which he did for his master

Plato: they have rehandled him in the interests of their own religion or philosophy. Of this, the Cambridge Platonists are the most notorious example; but the same inclination is seen in modern scholars. Thus Baron von Hügel seeks to introduce a dualism between his mysticism and his metaphysics, whilst Mr Fuller rationalises his most spiritual conceptions. Even the brilliant exposition of the Dean of St Paul's is not wholly exempt from this criticism. A comparison of his analysis with that of Mr Whittaker makes plain the part which temperament has played in both works.

Plotinus himself would probably have been astonished by this charge of obscurity. His teaching had, by declaration, two aims. The first was the definitely religious aim of bringing men to a knowledge of Divine reality; for he had the missionary ardour inseparable from the saintly type. The second was the faithful interpretation of Platonic philosophy, especially the doctrines of Plato, and of his own immediate master, the unknown Alexandrian Ammonius. His system is therefore a synthesis of practical spirituality and formal philosophy, and will only be grasped by those who keep this twofold character in mind. There must always seem to be a conflict between any closed and self-consistent metaphysical system and the freedom and richness of the spiritual life; but, since few metaphysicians are mystics, and few mystics are able to take metaphysics more seriously than the soldier takes the lectures of the armchair strategist, these two readings of reality are seldom brought into direct opposition. In Plotinus we have an almost unique example of the philosopher who is also a practical mystic; and, consequently, of a mind that cannot be satisfied with anything less than an intellectual system which finds room for the most profound experiences of the spirit. In this peculiarity some scholars have found his principal merit; others a source of weakness. The position of his critics has been excellently stated by Baron von Hügel in Eternal Life.' He finds in the Enneads a 'ceaseless conflict' between the formal principles of the philosopher' and 'the experiences of a profoundly religious soul.' The philosophy issues in an utterly transcendent Godhead without qualities, activity, or being; the mysticism issues in ecstatic union, actual