Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 5.6

“But I do not lay down that this is equal in all beings. Heavenly and divine beings have with them a judgment of great insight, an imperturbable will, and a power which can effect their desires.

“But human spirits must be more free when they keep themselves safe in the contemplation of the mind of God; but less free when they sink into bodies, and less still when they are bound by their earthly members.

“The last stage is mere slavery, when the spirit is given over to vices and has fallen away from the possession of its reason. For when the mind turns its eyes from the light of truth on high to lower darkness, soon they are dimmed by the clouds of ignorance, and become turbid through ruinous passions; by yielding to these passions and consenting to them, men increase the slavery which they have brought upon themselves, and their true liberty is lost in captivity.

“But God, looking upon all out of the infinite, perceives the views of Providence, and disposes each as its destiny has already fated for it according to its merits: ‘He looketh over all and heareth all.’”

—from Book 5, Prose 2

Perhaps it was simply my eccentric interest in all things medieval, but I was immediately taken by the concept of the “Great Chain of Being”. I had a college professor, a scholar of the old school, who described it with such brilliance and beauty that I could not help but come across it wherever I went. I deeply miss that man; you won’t find ones like that anymore.

I would look at all the scenes that passed before me in life, and I would suddenly no longer see a messy hodgepodge. I noticed how things fit together, both in the horizontal and in the vertical, each part playing a role, each part in the service of the whole.

Who needs all those fancy drugs when you can start thinking like that?

I could blow my own mind by watching a dog chase a cat, or a man mow a lawn, or hundreds of people milling about their business. There was actually an order, a pattern to it all, even when the pieces did not necessarily understand what they were doing.

From the boundless and immovable center, that which alone can properly be called Being, there are many emanations. They differ in the degrees of their perfection, some containing this, and other containing that, and yet they are all intended for a reason.

Go closer to the source, and creatures become more complete. Go further from the source, and they become less complete. A rock is not a fern, and a fern is not a slug, and a slug is not man. In the end, a man is most certainly not a god.

“How dare you say that a man is better than a slug!”

Nothing that is meant to be is, strictly speaking, any better than anything else, for the simple reason that is meant to be, by its own nature. No, in the way these things exist they are either more or less independent, and therefore more or less free.

The rock does not think at all, and it is only moved by other things. The fern has life, though it only grows and reproduces. The slug has sensation, but it has no consciousness. A man, however, possesses reason, and so he also possesses choice.

Does this make man the pinnacle of creation? Hardly. Above him, think of creatures of pure intellect and will, not bound to a body as we understand it, and so not limited by mortality. Now think of what is even above that, and there you will find God, the ultimate principle and measure, that by which all other things exist.

Where there is more self-sufficient being, there is also greater freedom.

Human nature fits in a wonderful place, and also a frightening place, a sort of point in the middle. My mind can rise to the highest highs, if only I allow myself to do so. My mind can also fall to the lowest lows, if only I allow myself to do so.

Sometimes I will feel called to greatness by my soul, and at other times I will feel dragged down by the weakness of my body. These two aspects of myself should work together, but I will often get the priorities confused.

The irony of it all is that I am the one who actually chooses whether I am free or a slave, at least in the ways that matter. My own judgements and decisions will determine that. Which part of myself will I allow to rule me?

Am I miserable because of my circumstances? Yes, I am beholden to them, but that was my choice to begin with. I could have chosen very differently.

I can still choose very differently now, while it remains in my power. I am sharing and participating in my fate.

Written in 1/2016

IMAGE: The Chain of Being