THREE:Hetty laughed. It was past eleven, and Lawrence was going down to his club for an hour. The little girl had been a bit more fretful than usual.By cutting up some of the longer essays into parts, Porphyry succeeded, much to his delight, in bringing the whole number up to fifty-four, which is a product of the two perfect numbers six and nine. He then divided them into six volumes, each containing nine booksthe famous Enneads of Plotinus. His principle of arrangement was to bring together the books in which similar subjects were discussed, placing the easier disquisitions first. This disposition has been adhered to by subsequent editors, with the single exception of Kirchhoff, who has printed the works of Plotinus according to the order in which they were written.418 Porphyrys scrupulous information has saved modern scholars an incalculable amount of trouble, but has not, apparently, earned all the gratitude it deserved, to judge by Zellers intimation that the chronological order of the separate pieces cannot even now be precisely determined.419 Unfortunately, what could have been of priceless value in the case of Plato and Aristotle, is of comparatively small value in the case of Plotinus. His280 system must have been fully formed when he began to write, and the dates in our possession give no clue to the manner in which its leading principles were evolved.420
