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THE FIFTH ENNEAD
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FIRST TRACTATE.
THE THREE INITIAL HYPOSTASES.
1. What can it be that has brought the souls to forget the father, God,
and, though members of the Divine and entirely of that world, to ignore
at once themselves and It?
The evil that has overtaken them has its source in self-will, in the
entry into the sphere of process, and in the primal differentiation
with the desire for self ownership. They conceived a pleasure in this
freedom and largely indulged their own motion; thus they were hurried
down the wrong path, and in the end, drifting further and further, they
came to lose even the thought of their origin in the Divine. A child
wrenched young from home and brought up during many years at a distance
will fail in knowledge of its father and of itself: the souls, in the
same way, no longer discern either the divinity or their own nature;
ignorance of their rank brings self-depreciation; they misplace their
respect, honouring everything more than themselves; all their awe and
admiration is for the alien, and, clinging to this, they have broken
apart, as far as a soul may, and they make light of what they have
deserted; their regard for the mundane and their disregard of
themselves bring about their utter ignoring of the divine.
Admiring pursuit of the external is a confession of inferiority; and
nothing thus holding itself inferior to things that rise and perish,
nothing counting itself less honourable and less enduring than all else
it admires could ever form any notion of either the nature or the power
of God.
A double discipline must be applied if human beings in this pass are to
be reclaimed, and brought back to their origins, lifted once more
towards the Supreme and One and First.
There is the method, which we amply exhibit elsewhere, declaring the
dishonour of the objects which the Soul holds here in honour; the
second teaches or recalls to the soul its race and worth; this latter
is the leading truth, and, clearly brought out, is the evidence of the
other.
It must occupy us now for it bears closely upon our enquiry to which it
is the natural preliminary: the seeker is soul and it must start from a
true notion of the nature and quality by which soul may undertake the
search; it must study itself in order to learn whether it has the
faculty for the enquiry, the eye for the object proposed, whether in
fact we ought to seek; for if the object is alien the search must be
futile, while if there is relationship the solution of our problem is
at once desirable and possible.
2. Let every soul recall, then, at the outset the truth that soul is
the author of all living things, that it has breathed the life into
them all, whatever is nourished by earth and sea, all the creatures of
the air, the divine stars in the sky; it is the maker of the sun;
itself formed and ordered this vast heaven and conducts all that
rhythmic motion; and it is a principle distinct from all these to which
it gives law and movement and life, and it must of necessity be more
honourable than they, for they gather or dissolve as soul brings them
life or abandons them, but soul, since it never can abandon itself, is
of eternal being.
How life was purveyed to the universe of things and to the separate
beings in it may be thus conceived:
That great soul must stand pictured before another soul, one not mean,
a soul that has become worthy to look, emancipate from the lure, from
all that binds its fellows in bewitchment, holding itself in quietude.
Let not merely the enveloping body be at peace, body's turmoil stilled,
but all that lies around, earth at peace, and sea at peace, and air and
the very heavens. Into that heaven, all at rest, let the great soul be
conceived to roll inward at every point, penetrating, permeating, from
all sides pouring in its light. As the rays of the sun throwing their
brilliance upon a lowering cloud make it gleam all gold, so the soul
entering the material expanse of the heavens has given life, has given
immortality: what was abject it has lifted up; and the heavenly system,
moved now in endless motion by the soul that leads it in wisdom, has
become a living and a blessed thing; the soul domiciled within, it
takes worth where, before the soul, it was stark body -- clay and water
-- or, rather, the blankness of Matter, the absence of Being, and, as
an author says, "the execration of the Gods."
The Soul's nature and power will be brought out more clearly, more
brilliantly, if we consider next how it envelops the heavenly system
and guides all to its purposes: for it has bestowed itself upon all
that huge expanse so that every interval, small and great alike, all
has been ensouled.
The material body is made up of parts, each holding its own place, some
in mutual opposition and others variously interdependent; the soul is
in no such condition; it is not whittled down so that life tells of a
part of the soul and springs where some such separate portion impinges;
each separate life lives by the soul entire, omnipresent in the
likeness of the engendering father, entire in unity and entire in
diffused variety. By the power of the soul the manifold and diverse
heavenly system is a unit: through soul this universe is a God: and the
sun is a God because it is ensouled; so too the stars: and whatsoever
we ourselves may be, it is all in virtue of soul; for "dead is viler
than dung."
This, by which the gods are divine, must be the oldest God of them all:
and our own soul is of that same Ideal nature, so that to consider it,
purified, freed from all accruement, is to recognise in ourselves that
same value which we have found soul to be, honourable above all that is
bodily. For what is body but earth, and, taking fire itself, what [but
soul] is its burning power? So it is with all the compounds of earth
and fire, even with water and air added to them?
If, then, it is the presence of soul that brings worth, how can a man
slight himself and run after other things? You honour the Soul
elsewhere; honour then yourself.
3. The Soul once seen to be thus precious, thus divine, you may hold
the faith that by its possession you are already nearing God: in the
strength of this power make upwards towards Him: at no great distance
you must attain: there is not much between.
But over this divine, there is still a diviner: grasp the upward
neighbour of the soul, its prior and source.
Soul, for all the worth we have shown to belong to it, is yet a
secondary, an image of the Intellectual-Principle: reason uttered is an
image of the reason stored within the soul, and in the same way soul is
an utterance of the Intellectual-Principle: it is even the total of its
activity, the entire stream of life sent forth by that Principle to the
production of further being; it is the forthgoing heat of a fire which
has also heat essentially inherent. But within the Supreme we must see
energy not as an overflow but in the double aspect of integral
inherence with the establishment of a new being. Sprung, in other
words, from the Intellectual-Principle, Soul is intellective, but with
an intellection operation by the method of reasonings: for its
perfecting it must look to that Divine Mind, which may be thought of as
a father watching over the development of his child born imperfect in
comparison with himself.
Thus its substantial existence comes from the Intellectual-Principle;
and the Reason within it becomes Act in virtue of its contemplation of
that prior; for its thought and act are its own intimate possession
when it looks to the Supreme Intelligence; those only are soul-acts
which are of this intellective nature and are determined by its own
character; all that is less noble is foreign [traceable to Matter] and
is accidental to the soul in the course of its peculiar task.
In two ways, then, the Intellectual-Principle enhances the divine
quality of the soul, as father and as immanent presence; nothing
separates them but the fact that they are not one and the same, that
there is succession, that over against a recipient there stands the
ideal-form received; but this recipient, Matter to the Supreme
Intelligence, is also noble as being at once informed by divine
intellect and uncompounded.
What the Intellectual-Principle must be is carried in the single word
that Soul, itself so great, is still inferior.
4. But there is yet another way to this knowledge:
Admiring the world of sense as we look out upon its vastness and beauty
and the order of its eternal march, thinking of the gods within it,
seen and hidden, and the celestial spirits and all the life of animal
and plant, let us mount to its archetype, to the yet more authentic
sphere: there we are to contemplate all things as members of the
Intellectual -- eternal in their own right, vested with a
self-springing consciousness and life -- and, presiding over all these,
the unsoiled Intelligence and the unapproachable wisdom.
That archetypal world is the true Golden Age, age of Kronos, who is the
Intellectual-Principle as being the offspring or exuberance of God. For
here is contained all that is immortal: nothing here but is Divine
Mind; all is God; this is the place of every soul. Here is rest
unbroken: for how can that seek change, in which all is well; what need
that reach to, which holds all within itself; what increase can that
desire, which stands utterly achieved? All its content, thus, is
perfect, that itself may be perfect throughout, as holding nothing that
is less than the divine, nothing that is less than intellective. Its
knowing is not by search but by possession, its blessedness inherent,
not acquired; for all belongs to it eternally and it holds the
authentic Eternity imitated by Time which, circling round the Soul,
makes towards the new thing and passes by the old. Soul deals with
thing after thing -- now Socrates; now a horse: always some one entity
from among beings -- but the Intellectual-Principle is all and
therefore its entire content is simultaneously present in that
identity: this is pure being in eternal actuality; nowhere is there any
future, for every then is a now; nor is there any past, for nothing
there has ever ceased to be; everything has taken its stand for ever,
an identity well pleased, we might say, to be as it is; and everything,
in that entire content, is Intellectual-Principle and Authentic
Existence; and the total of all is Intellectual-Principle entire and
Being entire. Intellectual-Principle by its intellective act
establishes Being, which in turn, as the object of intellection,
becomes the cause of intellection and of existence to the
Intellectual-Principle -- though, of course, there is another cause of
intellection which is also a cause to Being, both rising in a source
distinct from either.
Now while these two are coalescents, having their existence in common,
and are never apart, still the unity they form is two-sided; there is
Intellectual-Principle as against Being, the intellectual agent as
against the object of intellection; we consider the intellective act
and we have the Intellectual-Principle; we think of the object of that
act and we have Being.
Such difference there must be if there is to be any intellection; but
similarly there must also be identity [since, in perfect knowing,
subject and object are identical.]
Thus the Primals [the first "Categories"] are seen to be:
Intellectual-Principle; Existence; Difference; Identity: we must
include also Motion and Rest: Motion provides for the intellectual act,
Rest preserves identity as Difference gives at once a Knower and a
Known, for, failing this, all is one, and silent.
So too the objects of intellection [the ideal content of the Divine
Mind] -- identical in virtue of the self-concentration of the principle
which is their common ground -- must still be distinct each from
another; this distinction constitutes Difference.
The Intellectual Kosmos thus a manifold, Number and Quantity arise:
Quality is the specific character of each of these ideas which stand as
the principles from which all else derives.
5. As a manifold, then, this God, the Intellectual-Principle, exists
within the Soul here, the Soul which once for all stands linked a
member of the divine, unless by a deliberate apostasy.
Bringing itself close to the divine Intellect, becoming, as it were,
one with this, it seeks still further: What Being, now, has engendered
this God, what is the Simplex preceding this multiple; what the cause
at once of its existence and of its existing as a manifold; what the
source of this Number, this Quantity?
Number, Quantity, is not primal: obviously before even duality, there
must stand the unity.
The Dyad is a secondary; deriving from unity, it finds in unity the
determinant needed by its native indetermination: once there is any
determination, there is Number, in the sense, of course, of the real
[the archetypal] Number. And the soul is such a number or quantity. For
the Primals are not masses or magnitudes; all of that gross order is
later, real only to the sense-thought; even in seed the effective
reality is not the moist substance but the unseen -- that is to say
Number [as the determinant of individual being] and the
Reason-Principle [of the product to be].
Thus by what we call the Number and the Dyad of that higher realm, we
mean Reason Principles and the Intellectual-Principle: but while the
Dyad is, as regards that sphere, undetermined -- representing, as it
were, the underly [or Matter] of The One -- the later Number [or
Quantity] -- that which rises from the Dyad [Intellectual-Principle]
and The One -- is not Matter to the later existents but is their
forming-Idea, for all of them take shape, so to speak, from the ideas
rising within this. The determination of the Dyad is brought about
partly from its object -- The One -- and partly from itself, as is the
case with all vision in the act of sight: intellection [the Act of the
Dyad] is vision occupied upon The One.
6. But how and what does the Intellectual-Principle see and,
especially, how has it sprung from that which is to become the object
of its vision?
The mind demands the existence of these Beings, but it is still in
trouble over the problem endlessly debated by the most ancient
philosophers: from such a unity as we have declared The One to be, how
does anything at all come into substantial existence, any multiplicity,
dyad, or number? Why has the Primal not remained self-gathered so that
there be none of this profusion of the manifold which we observe in
existence and yet are compelled to trace to that absolute unity?
In venturing an answer, we first invoke God Himself, not in loud word
but in that way of prayer which is always within our power, leaning in
soul towards Him by aspiration, alone towards the alone. But if we seek
the vision of that great Being within the Inner Sanctuary --
self-gathered, tranquilly remote above all else -- we begin by
considering the images stationed at the outer precincts, or, more
exactly to the moment, the first image that appears. How the Divine
Mind comes into being must be explained:
Everything moving has necessarily an object towards which it advances;
but since the Supreme can have no such object, we may not ascribe
motion to it: anything that comes into being after it can be produced
only as a consequence of its unfailing self-intention; and, of course,
we dare not talk of generation in time, dealing as we are with eternal
Beings: where we speak of origin in such reference, it is in the sense,
merely, of cause and subordination: origin from the Supreme must not be
taken to imply any movement in it: that would make the Being resulting
from the movement not a second principle but a third: the Movement
would be the second hypostasis.
Given this immobility in the Supreme, it can neither have yielded
assent nor uttered decree nor stirred in any way towards the existence
of a secondary.
What happened then? What are we to conceive as rising in the
neighbourhood of that immobility?
It must be a circumradiation -- produced from the Supreme but from the
Supreme unaltering -- and may be compared to the brilliant light
encircling the sun and ceaselessly generated from that unchanging
substance.
All existences, as long as they retain their character, produce --
about themselves, from their essence, in virtue of the power which must
be in them -- some necessary, outward-facing hypostasis continuously
attached to them and representing in image the engendering archetypes:
thus fire gives out its heat; snow is cold not merely to itself;
fragrant substances are a notable instance; for, as long as they last,
something is diffused from them and perceived wherever they are
present.
Again, all that is fully achieved engenders: therefore the eternally
achieved engenders eternally an eternal being. At the same time, the
offspring is always minor: what then are we to think of the All-Perfect
but that it can produce nothing less than the very greatest that is
later than itself. The greatest, later than the divine unity, must be
the Divine Mind, and it must be the second of all existence, for it is
that which sees The One on which alone it leans while the First has no
need whatever of it. The offspring of the prior to Divine Mind can be
no other than that Mind itself and thus is the loftiest being in the
universe, all else following upon it -- the soul, for example, being an
utterance and act of the Intellectual-Principle as that is an utterance
and act of The One. But in soul the utterance is obscured, for soul is
an image and must look to its own original: that Principle, on the
contrary, looks to the First without mediation -- thus becoming what it
is -- and has that vision not as from a distance but as the immediate
next with nothing intervening, close to the One as Soul to it.
The offspring must seek and love the begetter; and especially so when
begetter and begotten are alone in their sphere; when, in addition, the
begetter is the highest good, the offspring [inevitably seeking its
Good] is attached by a bond of sheer necessity, separated only in being
distinct.
7. We must be more explicit:
The Intellectual-Principle stands as the image of The One, firstly
because there is a certain necessity that the first should have its
offspring, carrying onward much of its quality, in other words that
there be something in its likeness as the sun's rays tell of the sun.
Yet The One is not an Intellectual-Principle; how then does it engender
an Intellectual-Principle?
Simply by the fact that in its self-quest it has vision: this very
seeing is the Intellectual-Principle. Any perception of the external
indicates either sensation or intellection, sensation symbolized by a
line, intellection by a circle... [corrupt passage].
Of course the divisibility belonging to the circle does not apply to
the Intellectual-Principle; all, there too, is a unity, though a unity
which is the potentiality of all existence.
The items of this potentiality the divine intellection brings out, so
to speak, from the unity and knows them in detail, as it must if it is
to be an intellectual principle.
It has besides a consciousness, as it were, within itself of this same
potentiality; it knows that it can of itself beget an hypostasis and
can determine its own Being by the virtue emanating from its prior; it
knows that its nature is in some sense a definite part of the content
of that First; that it thence derives its essence, that its strength
lies there and that its Being takes perfection as a derivative and a
recipient from the First. It sees that, as a member of the realm of
division and part, it receives life and intellection and all else it
has and is, from the undivided and partless, since that First is no
member of existence, but can be the source of all on condition only of
being held down by no one distinctive shape but remaining the
undeflected unity.
[(CORRUPT) -- Thus it would be the entire universe but that...]
And so the First is not a thing among the things contained by the
Intellectual-Principle though the source of all. In virtue of this
source, things of the later order are essential beings; for from that
fact there is determination; each has its form: what has being cannot
be envisaged as outside of limit; the nature must be held fast by
boundary and fixity; though to the Intellectual Beings this fixity is
no more than determination and form, the foundations of their
substantial existence.
A being of this quality, like the Intellectual-Principle, must be felt
to be worthy of the all-pure: it could not derive from any other than
from the first principle of all; as it comes into existence, all other
beings must be simultaneously engendered -- all the beauty of the
Ideas, all the Gods of the Intellectual realm. And it still remains
pregnant with this offspring; for it has, so to speak, drawn all within
itself again, holding them lest they fall away towards Matter to be
"brought up in the House of Rhea" [in the realm of flux]. This is the
meaning hidden in the Mysteries, and in the Myths of the gods: Kronos,
as the wisest, exists before Zeus; he must absorb his offspring that,
full within himself, he may be also an Intellectual-Principle manifest
in some product of his plenty; afterwards, the myth proceeds, Kronos
engenders Zeus, who already exists as the [necessary and eternal]
outcome of the plenty there; in other words the offspring of the Divine
Intellect, perfect within itself, is Soul [the life-principle carrying
forward the Ideas in the Divine Mind].
Now, even in the Divine the engendered could not be the very highest;
it must be a lesser, an image; it will be undetermined, as the Divine
is, but will receive determination, and, so to speak, its shaping idea,
from the progenitor.
Yet any offspring of the Intellectual-Principle must be a
Reason-Principle; the thought of the Divine Mind must be a substantial
existence: such then is that [Soul] which circles about the Divine
Mind, its light, its image inseparably attached to it: on the upper
level united with it, filled from it, enjoying it, participant in its
nature, intellective with it, but on the lower level in contact with
the realm beneath itself, or, rather, generating in turn an offspring
which must lie beneath; of this lower we will treat later; so far we
deal still with the Divine.
8. This is the explanation of Plato's Triplicity, in the passage where
he names as the Primals the Beings gathered about the King of All, and
establishes a Secondary containing the Secondaries, and a Third
containing the Tertiaries.
He teaches, also, that there is an author of the Cause, that is of the
Intellectual-Principle, which to him is the Creator who made the Soul,
as he tells us, in the famous mixing bowl. This author of the causing
principle, of the divine mind, is to him the Good, that which
transcends the Intellectual-Principle and transcends Being: often too
he uses the term "The Idea" to indicate Being and the Divine Mind. Thus
Plato knows the order of generation -- from the Good, the
Intellectual-Principle; from the Intellectual-Principle, the Soul.
These teachings are, therefore, no novelties, no inventions of today,
but long since stated, if not stressed; our doctrine here is the
explanation of an earlier and can show the antiquity of these opinions
on the testimony of Plato himself.
Earlier, Parmenides made some approach to the doctrine in identifying
Being with Intellectual-Principle while separating Real Being from the
realm of sense.
"Knowing and Being are one thing he says, and this unity is to him
motionless in spite of the intellection he attributes to it: to
preserve its unchanging identity he excludes all bodily movement from
it; and he compares it to a huge sphere in that it holds and envelops
all existence and that its intellection is not an outgoing act but
internal. Still, with all his affirmation of unity, his own writings
lay him open to the reproach that his unity turns out to be a
multiplicity.
The Platonic Parmenides is more exact; the distinction is made between
the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a
One-Many and a third which is a One-and-many; thus he too is in
accordance with our thesis of the Three Kinds.
9. Anaxagoras, again, in his assertion of a Mind pure and unmixed,
affirms a simplex First and a sundered One, though writing long ago he
failed in precision.
Heraclitus, with his sense of bodily forms as things of ceaseless
process and passage, knows the One as eternal and intellectual.
In Empedocles, similarly, we have a dividing principle, "Strife," set
against "Friendship" -- which is The One and is to him bodiless, while
the elements represent Matter.
Later there is Aristotle; he begins by making the First transcendent
and intellective but cancels that primacy by supposing it to have
self-intellection. Further he affirms a multitude of other intellective
beings -- as many indeed as there are orbs in the heavens; one such
principle as in -- over to every orb -- and thus his account of the
Intellectual Realm differs from Plato's and, failing reason, he brings
in necessity; though whatever reasons he had alleged there would always
have been the objection that it would be more reasonable that all the
spheres, as contributory to one system, should look to a unity, to the
First.
We are obliged also to ask whether to Aristotle's mind all Intellectual
Beings spring from one, and that one their First; or whether the
Principles in the Intellectual are many.
If from one, then clearly the Intellectual system will be analogous to
that of the universe of sense-sphere encircling sphere, with one, the
outermost, dominating all -- the First [in the Intellectual] will
envelop the entire scheme and will be an Intellectual [or Archetypal]
Kosmos; and as in our universe the spheres are not empty but the first
sphere is thick with stars and none without them, so, in the
Intellectual Kosmos, those principles of Movement will envelop a
multitude of Beings, and that world will be the realm of the greater
reality.
If on the contrary each is a principle, then the effective powers
become a matter of chance; under what compulsion are they to hold
together and act with one mind towards that work of unity, the harmony
of the entire heavenly system? Again what can make it necessary that
the material bodies of the heavenly system be equal in number to the
Intellectual moving principles, and how can these incorporeal Beings be
numerically many when there is no Matter to serve as the basis of
difference?
For these reasons the ancient philosophers that ranged themselves most
closely to the school of Pythagoras and of his later followers and to
that of Pherekudes, have insisted upon this Nature, some developing the
subject in their writings while others treated of it merely in
unwritten discourses, some no doubt ignoring it entirely.
10. We have shown the inevitability of certain convictions as to the
scheme of things:
There exists a Principle which transcends Being; this is The One, whose
nature we have sought to establish in so far as such matters lend
themselves to proof. Upon The One follows immediately the Principle
which is at once Being and the Intellectual-Principle. Third comes the
Principle, Soul.
Now just as these three exist for the system of Nature, so, we must
hold, they exist for ourselves. I am not speaking of the material order
-- all that is separable -- but of what lies beyond the sense realm in
the same way as the Primals are beyond all the heavens; I mean the
corresponding aspect of man, what Plato calls the Interior Man.
Thus our soul, too, is a divine thing, belonging to another order than
sense; such is all that holds the rank of soul, but [above the
life-principle] there is the soul perfected as containing
Intellectual-Principle with its double phase, reasoning and giving the
power to reason. The reasoning phase of the soul, needing no bodily
organ for its thinking but maintaining, in purity, its distinctive Act
that its thought may be uncontaminated -- this we cannot err in
placing, separate and not mingled into body, within the first
Intellectual. We may not seek any point of space in which to seat it;
it must be set outside of all space: its distinct quality, its
separateness, its immateriality, demand that it be a thing alone,
untouched by all of the bodily order. This is why we read of the
universe that the Demiurge cast the soul around it from without --
understand that phase of soul which is permanently seated in the
Intellectual -- and of ourselves that the charioteer's head reaches
upwards towards the heights.
The admonition to sever soul from body is not, of course, to be
understood spatially -- that separation stands made in Nature -- the
reference is to holding our rank, to use of our thinking, to an
attitude of alienation from the body in the effort to lead up and
attach to the over-world, equally with the other, that phase of soul
seated here and, alone, having to do with body, creating, moulding,
spending its care upon it.
11. Since there is a Soul which reasons upon the right and good -- for
reasoning is an enquiry into the rightness and goodness of this rather
than that -- there must exist some permanent Right, the source and
foundation of this reasoning in our soul; how, else, could any such
discussion be held? Further, since the soul's attention to these
matters is intermittent, there must be within us an
Intellectual-Principle acquainted with that Right not by momentary act
but in permanent possession. Similarly there must be also the principle
of this principle, its cause, God. This Highest cannot be divided and
allotted, must remain intangible but not bound to space, it may be
present at many points, wheresoever there is anything capable of
accepting one of its manifestations; thus a centre is an independent
unity; everything within the circle has its term at the centre; and to
the centre the radii bring each their own. Within our nature is such a
centre by which we grasp and are linked and held; and those of us are
firmly in the Supreme whose collective tendency is There.
12. Possessed of such powers, how does it happen that we do not lay
hold of them, but for the most part, let these high activities go idle
-- some, even, of us never bringing them in any degree to effect?
The answer is that all the Divine Beings are unceasingly about their
own act, the Intellectual-Principle and its Prior always self-intent;
and so, too, the soul maintains its unfailing movement; for not all
that passes in the soul is, by that fact, perceptible; we know just as
much as impinges upon the faculty of sense. Any activity not
transmitted to the sensitive faculty has not traversed the entire soul:
we remain unaware because the human being includes sense-perception;
man is not merely a part [the higher part] of the soul but the total.
None the less every being of the order of soul is in continuous
activity as long as life holds, continuously executing to itself its
characteristic act: knowledge of the act depends upon transmission and
perception. If there is to be perception of what is thus present, we
must turn the perceptive faculty inward and hold it to attention there.
Hoping to hear a desired voice, we let all others pass and are alert
for the coming at last of that most welcome of sounds: so here, we must
let the hearings of sense go by, save for sheer necessity, and keep the
soul's perception bright and quick to the sounds from above.
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SECOND TRACTATE.
THE ORIGIN AND ORDER OF THE BEINGS.
FOLLOWING ON THE FIRST.
1. The One is all things and no one of them; the source of all things
is not all things; all things are its possession -- running back, so to
speak, to it -- or, more correctly, not yet so, they will be.
But a universe from an unbroken unity, in which there appears no
diversity, not even duality?
It is precisely because that is nothing within the One that all things
are from it: in order that Being may be brought about, the source must
be no Being but Being's generator, in what is to be thought of as the
primal act of generation. Seeking nothing, possessing nothing, lacking
nothing, the One is perfect and, in our metaphor, has overflowed, and
its exuberance has produced the new: this product has turned again to
its begetter and been filled and has become its contemplator and so an
Intellectual-Principle.
That station towards the one [the fact that something exists in
presence of the One] establishes Being; that vision directed upon the
One establishes the Intellectual-Principle; standing towards the One to
the end of vision, it is simultaneously Intellectual-Principle and
Being; and, attaining resemblance in virtue of this vision, it repeats
the act of the One in pouring forth a vast power.
This second outflow is a Form or Idea representing the Divine Intellect
as the Divine Intellect represented its own prior, The One.
This active power sprung from essence [from the Intellectual-Principle
considered as Being] is Soul.
Soul arises as the idea and act of the motionless
Intellectual-Principle -- which itself sprang from its own motionless
prior -- but the soul's operation is not similarly motionless; its
image is generated from its movement. It takes fulness by looking to
its source; but it generates its image by adopting another, a downward,
movement.
This image of Soul is Sense and Nature, the vegetal principle.
Nothing, however, is completely severed from its prior. Thus the human
Soul appears to reach away as far down as to the vegetal order: in some
sense it does, since the life of growing things is within its province;
but it is not present entire; when it has reached the vegetal order it
is there in the sense that having moved thus far downwards it produces
-- by its outgoing and its tendency towards the less good -- another
hypostasis or form of being just as its prior (the loftier phase of the
Soul) is produced from the Intellectual-Principle which yet remains in
untroubled self-possession.
2. To resume: there is from the first principle to ultimate an outgoing
in which unfailingly each principle retains its own seat while its
offshoot takes another rank, a lower, though on the other hand every
being is in identity with its prior as long as it holds that contact.
In the case of soul entering some vegetal form, what is there is one
phase, the more rebellious and less intellectual, outgone to that
extreme; in a soul entering an animal, the faculty of sensation has
been dominant and brought it there; in soul entering man, the movement
outward has either been wholly of its reasoning part or has come from
the Intellectual-Principle in the sense that the soul, possessing that
principle as immanent to its being, has an inborn desire of
intellectual activity and of movement in general.
But, looking more minutely into the matter, when shoots or topmost
boughs are lopped from some growing thing, where goes the soul that was
present in them? Simply, whence it came: soul never knew spatial
separation and therefore is always within the source. If you cut the
root to pieces, or burn it, where is the life that was present there?
In the soul, which never went outside of itself.
No doubt, despite this permanence, the soul must have been in something
if it reascends; and if it does not, it is still somewhere; it is in
some other vegetal soul: but all this means merely that it is not
crushed into some one spot; if a Soul-power reascends, it is within the
Soul-power preceding it; that in turn can be only in the soul-power
prior again, the phase reaching upwards to the Intellectual-Principle.
Of course nothing here must be understood spatially: Soul never was in
space; and the Divine Intellect, again, is distinguished from soul as
being still more free.
Soul thus is nowhere but in the Principle which has that characteristic
existence at once nowhere and everywhere.
If the soul on its upward path has halted midway before wholly
achieving the supreme heights, it has a mid-rank life and has centred
itself upon the mid-phase of its being. All in that mid-region is
Intellectual-Principle not wholly itself -- nothing else because
deriving thence [and therefore of that name and rank], yet not that
because the Intellectual-Principle in giving it forth is not merged
into it.
There exists, thus, a life, as it were, of huge extension, a total in
which each several part differs from its next, all making a
self-continuous whole under a law of discrimination by which the
various forms of things arise with no effacement of any prior in its
secondary.
But does this Soul-phase in the vegetal order, produce nothing?
It engenders precisely the Kind in which it is thus present: how, is a
question to be handled from another starting-point.
__________________________________________________________________
THIRD TRACTATE.
THE KNOWING HYPOSTASES AND THE
TRANSCENDENT.
1. Are we to think that a being knowing itself must contain diversity,
that self-knowledge can be affirmed only when some one phase of the
self perceives other phases, and that therefore an absolutely simplex
entity would be equally incapable of introversion and of
self-awareness?
No: a being that has no parts or phases may have this consciousness; in
fact there would be no real self-knowing in an entity presented as
knowing itself in virtue of being a compound -- some single element in
it perceiving other elements -- as we may know our own form and entire
bodily organism by sense-perception: such knowing does not cover the
whole field; the knowing element has not had the required cognisance at
once of its associates and of itself; this is not the self-knower asked
for; it is merely something that knows something else.
Either we must exhibit the self-knowing of an uncompounded being -- and
show how that is possible -- or abandon the belief that any being can
possess veritable self-cognition.
To abandon the belief is not possible in view of the many absurdities
thus entailed.
It would be already absurd enough to deny this power to the soul or
mind, but the very height of absurdity to deny it to the nature of the
Intellectual-Principle, presented thus as knowing the rest of things
but not attaining to knowledge, or even awareness, of itself.
It is the province of sense and in some degree of understanding and
judgement, but not of the Intellectual-Principle, to handle the
external, though whether the Intellectual-Principle holds the knowledge
of these things is a question to be examined, but it is obvious that
the Intellectual-Principle must have knowledge of the Intellectual
objects. Now, can it know those objects alone or must it not
simultaneously know itself, the being whose function it is to know just
those things? Can it have self-knowledge in the sense [dismissed above
as inadequate] of knowing its content while it ignores itself? Can it
be aware of knowing its members and yet remain in ignorance of its own
knowing self? Self and content must be simultaneously present: the
method and degree of this knowledge we must now consider.
2. We begin with the soul, asking whether it is to be allowed
self-knowledge and what the knowing principle in it would be and how
operating.
The sense-principle in it we may at once decide, takes cognisance only
of the external; even in any awareness of events within the body it
occupies, this is still the perception of something external to a
principle dealing with those bodily conditions not as within but as
beneath itself.
The reasoning-principle in the Soul acts upon the representations
standing before it as the result of sense-perception; these it judges,
combining, distinguishing: or it may also observe the impressions, so
to speak, rising from the Intellectual-Principle, and has the same
power of handling these; and reasoning will develop to wisdom where it
recognizes the new and late-coming impressions [those of sense] and
adapts them, so to speak, to those it holds from long before -- the act
which may be described as the soul's Reminiscence.
So far as this, the efficacy of the Intellectual-Principle in the Soul
certainly reaches; but is there also introversion and self-cognition or
is that power to be reserved strictly for the Divine Mind?
If we accord self-knowing to this phase of the soul we make it an
Intellectual-Principle and will have to show what distinguishes it from
its prior; if we refuse it self-knowing, all our thought brings us step
by step to some principle which has this power, and we must discover
what such self-knowing consists in. If, again, we do allow
self-knowledge in the lower we must examine the question of degree; for
if there is no difference of degree, then the reasoning principle in
soul is the Intellectual-Principle unalloyed.
We ask, then, whether the understanding principle in the soul has
equally the power of turning inwards upon itself or whether it has no
more than that of comprehending the impressions, superior and inferior,
which it receives.
The first stage is to discover what this comprehension is.
3. Sense sees a man and transmits the impression to the understanding.
What does the understanding say? It has nothing to say as yet; it
accepts and waits; unless, rather, it questions within itself "Who is
this?" -- someone it has met before -- and then, drawing on memory,
says, "Socrates."
If it should go on to develop the impression received, it distinguishes
various elements in what the representative faculty has set before it;
supposing it to say "Socrates, if the man is good," then, while it has
spoken upon information from the senses, its total pronouncement is its
own; it contains within itself a standard of good.
But how does it thus contain the good within itself?
It is, itself, of the nature of the good and it has been strengthened
still towards the perception of all that is good by the irradiation of
the Intellectual-Principle upon it; for this pure phase of the soul
welcomes to itself the images implanted from its prior.
But why may we not distinguish this understanding phase as
Intellectual-Principle and take soul to consist of the later phases
from the sensitive downwards?
Because all the activities mentioned are within the scope of a
reasoning faculty, and reasoning is characteristically the function of
soul.
Why not, however, absolve the question by assigning self-cognisance to
this phase?
Because we have allotted to soul the function of dealing -- in thought
and in multiform action -- with the external, and we hold that
observation of self and of the content of self must belong to
Intellectual-Principle.
If any one says, "Still; what precludes the reasoning soul from
observing its own content by some special faculty?" he is no longer
posting a principle of understanding or of reasoning but, simply,
bringing in the Intellectual-Principle unalloyed.
But what precludes the Intellectual-Principle from being present,
unalloyed, within the soul? Nothing, we admit; but are we entitled
therefore to think of it as a phase of soul?
We cannot describe it as belonging to the soul though we do describe it
as our Intellectual-Principle, something distinct from the
understanding, advanced above it, and yet ours even though we cannot
include it among soul-phases: it is ours and not ours; and therefore we
use it sometimes and sometimes not, whereas we always have use of the
understanding; the Intellectual-Principle is ours when we act by it,
not ours when we neglect it.
But what is this acting by it? Does it mean that we become the
Intellectual-Principle so that our utterance is the utterance of the
Intellectual-Principle, or that we represent it?
We are not the Intellectual-Principle; we represent it in virtue of
that highest reasoning faculty which draws upon it.
Still; we perceive by means of the perceptive faculty and are,
ourselves, the percipients: may we not say the same of the intellective
act?
No: our reasoning is our own; we ourselves think the thoughts that
occupy the understanding -- for this is actually the We -- but the
operation of the Intellectual-Principle enters from above us as that of
the sensitive faculty from below; the We is the soul at its highest,
the mid-point between two powers, between the sensitive principle,
inferior to us, and the intellectual principle superior. We think of
the perceptive act as integral to ourselves because our
sense-perception is uninterrupted; we hesitate as to the
Intellectual-Principle both because we are not always occupied with it
and because it exists apart, not a principle inclining to us but one to
which we incline when we choose to look upwards.
The sensitive principle is our scout; the Intellectual-Principle our
King.
4. But we, too, are king when we are moulded to the
Intellectual-Principle.
That correspondence may be brought about in two ways: either the radii
from that centre are traced upon us to be our law or we are filled full
of the Divine Mind, which again may have become to us a thing seen and
felt as a presence.
Hence our self-knowing comes to the knowing of all the rest of our
being in virtue of this thing patently present; or by that power itself
communicating to us its own power of self-knowing; or by our becoming
identical with that principle of knowledge.
Thus the self-knower is a double person: there is the one that takes
cognisance of the principle in virtue of which understanding occurs in
the soul or mind; and there is the higher, knowing himself by the
Intellectual-Principle with which he becomes identical: this latter
knows the self as no longer man but as a being that has become
something other through and through: he has thrown himself as one thing
over into the superior order, taking with him only that better part of
the soul which alone is winged for the Intellectual Act and gives the
man, once established There, the power to appropriate what he has seen.
We can scarcely suppose this understanding faculty to be unaware that
it has understanding; that it takes cognisance of things external; that
in its judgements it decides by the rules and standards within itself
held directly from the Intellectual-Principle; that there is something
higher than itself, something which, moreover, it has no need to seek
but fully possesses. What can we conceive to escape the self-knowledge
of a principle which admittedly knows the place it holds and the work
it has to do? It affirms that it springs from Intellectual-Principle
whose second and image it is, that it holds all within itself, the
universe of things, engraved, so to say, upon it as all is held There
by the eternal engraver. Aware so far of itself, can it be supposed to
halt at that? Are we to suppose that all we can do is to apply a
distinct power of our nature and come thus to awareness of that
Intellectual-Principle as aware of itself? Or may we not appropriate
that principle -- which belongs to us as we to it -- and thus attain to
awareness, at once, of it and of ourselves? Yes: this is the necessary
way if we are to experience the self-knowledge vested in the
Intellectual-Principle. And a man becomes Intellectual-Principle when,
ignoring all other phases of his being, he sees through that only and
sees only that and so knows himself by means of the self -- in other
words attains the self-knowledge which the Intellectual-Principle
possesses.
5. Does it all come down, then, to one phase of the self knowing
another phase?
That would be a case of knower distinguished from known, and would not
be self-knowing.
What, then, if the total combination were supposed to be of one piece,
knower quite undistinguished from known, so that, seeing any given part
of itself as identical with itself, it sees itself by means of itself,
knower and known thus being entirely without differentiation?
To begin with, the distinction in one self thus suggested is a strange
phenomenon. How is the self to make the partition? The thing cannot
happen of itself. And, again, which phase makes it? The phase that
decides to be the knower or that which is to be the known? Then how can
the knowing phase know itself in the known when it has chosen to be the
knower and put itself apart from the known? In such self-knowledge by
sundering it can be aware only of the object, not of the agent; it will
not know its entire content, or itself as an integral whole; it knows
the phase seen but not the seeing phase and thus has knowledge of
something else, not self-knowledge.
In order to perfect self-knowing it must bring over from itself the
knowing phase as well: seeing subject and seen objects must be present
as one thing. Now if in this coalescence of seeing subject with seen
objects, the objects were merely representations of the reality, the
subject would not possess the realities: if it is to possess them it
must do so not by seeing them as the result of any self-division but by
knowing them, containing them, before any self-division occurs.
At that, the object known must be identical with the knowing act [or
agent], the Intellectual-Principle, therefore, identical with the
Intellectual Realm. And in fact, if this identity does not exist,
neither does truth; the Principle that should contain realities is
found to contain a transcript, something different from the realities;
that constitutes non-Truth; Truth cannot apply to something conflicting
with itself; what it affirms it must also be.
Thus we find that the Intellectual-Principle, the Intellectual Realm
and Real Being constitute one thing, which is the Primal Being; the
primal Intellectual-Principle is that which contains the realities or,
rather, which is identical with them.
But taking Primal Intellection and its intellectual object to be a
unity, how does that give an Intellective Being knowing itself? An
intellection enveloping its object or identical with it is far from
exhibiting the Intellectual-Principle as self-knowing.
All turns on the identity. The intellectual object is itself an
activity, not a mere potentiality; it is not lifeless; nor are the life
and intellection brought into it as into something naturally devoid of
them, some stone or other dead matter; no, the intellectual object is
essentially existent, the primal reality. As an active force, the first
activity, it must be, also itself, the noblest intellection,
intellection possessing real being since it is entirely true; and such
an intellection, primal and primally existent, can be no other than the
primal principle of Intellection: for that primal principle is no
potentiality and cannot be an agent distinct from its act and thus,
once more, possessing its essential being as a mere potentiality. As an
act -- and one whose very being is an act -- it must be
undistinguishably identical with its act: but Being and the
Intellectual object are also identical with that act; therefore the
Intellectual-Principle, its exercise of intellection and the object of
intellection all are identical. Given its intellection identical with
intellectual object and the object identical with the Principle itself,
it cannot but have self-knowledge: its intellection operates by the
intellectual act which is itself upon the intellectual object which
similarly is itself. It possesses self-knowing, thus, on every count;
the act is itself; and the object seen in that act -- self, is itself.
6. Thus we have shown that there exists that which in the strictest
sense possesses self-knowing.
This self-knowing agent, perfect in the Intellectual-Principle, is
modified in the Soul.
The difference is that, while the soul knows itself as within something
else, the Intellectual-Principle knows itself as self-depending, knows
all its nature and character, and knows by right of its own being and
by simple introversion. When it looks upon the authentic existences it
is looking upon itself; its vision as its effective existence, and this
efficacy is itself since the Intellectual-Principle and the
Intellectual Act are one: this is an integral seeing itself by its
entire being, not a part seeing by a part.
But has our discussion issued in an Intellectual-Principle having a
persuasive activity [furnishing us with probability]?
No: it brings compulsion not persuasion; compulsion belongs to the
Intellectual-Principle, persuasion to the soul or mind, and we seem to
desire to be persuaded rather than to see the truth in the pure
intellect.
As long as we were Above, collected within the Intellectual nature, we
were satisfied; we were held in the intellectual act; we had vision
because we drew all into unity -- for the thinker in us was the
Intellectual-Principle telling us of itself -- and the soul or mind was
motionless, assenting to that act of its prior. But now that we are
once more here -- living in the secondary, the soul -- we seek for
persuasive probabilities: it is through the image we desire to know the
archetype.
Our way is to teach our soul how the Intellectual-Principle exercises
self-vision; the phase thus to be taught is that which already touches
the intellective order, that which we call the understanding or
intelligent soul, indicating by the very name that it is already of
itself in some degree an Intellectual-Principle or that it holds its
peculiar power through and from that Principle. This phase must be
brought to understand by what means it has knowledge of the thing it
sees and warrant for what it affirms: if it became what it affirms, it
would by that fact possess self-knowing. All its vision and affirmation
being in the Supreme or deriving from it -- There where itself also is
-- it will possess self-knowledge by its right as a Reason-Principle,
claiming its kin and bringing all into accord with the divine imprint
upon it.
The soul therefore [to attain self-knowledge] has only to set this
image [that is to say, its highest phase] alongside the veritable
Intellectual-Principle which we have found to be identical with the
truths constituting the objects of intellection, the world of Primals
and Reality: for this Intellectual-Principle, by very definition,
cannot be outside of itself, the Intellectual Reality: self-gathered
and unalloyed, it is Intellectual-Principle through all the range of
its being -- for unintelligent intelligence is not possible -- and thus
it possesses of necessity self-knowing, as a being immanent to itself
and one having for function and essence to be purely and solely
Intellectual-Principle. This is no doer; the doer, not self-intent but
looking outward, will have knowledge, in some kind, of the external,
but, if wholly of this practical order, need have no self-knowledge;
where, on the contrary, there is no action -- and of course the pure
Intellectual-Principle cannot be straining after any absent good -- the
intention can be only towards the self; at once self-knowing becomes
not merely plausible but inevitable; what else could living signify in
a being immune from action and existing in Intellect?
7. The contemplating of God, we might answer.
But to admit its knowing God is to be compelled to admit its
self-knowing. It will know what it holds from God, what God has given
forth or may; with this knowledge, it knows itself at the stroke, for
it is itself one of those given things -- in fact is all of them.
Knowing God and His power, then, it knows itself, since it comes from
Him and carries His power upon it; if, because here the act of vision
is identical with the object, it is unable to see God clearly, then all
the more, by the equation of seeing and seen, we are driven back upon
that self-seeing and self-knowing in which seeing and thing seen are
undistinguishably one thing.
And what else is there to attribute to it?
Repose, no doubt; but, to an Intellectual-Principle, Repose is not an
abdication from intellect; its Repose is an Act, the act of abstention
from the alien: in all forms of existence repose from the alien leaves
the characteristic activity intact, especially where the Being is not
merely potential but fully realized.
In the Intellectual-Principle, the Being is an Act and in the absence
of any other object it must be self-directed; by this self-intellection
it holds its Act within itself and upon itself; all that can emanate
from it is produced by this self-centering and self-intention; first --
self-gathered, it then gives itself or gives something in its likeness;
fire must first be self-centred and be fire, true to fire's natural
Act; then it may reproduce itself elsewhere.
Once more, then; the Intellectual-Principle is a self-intent activity,
but soul has the double phase, one inner, intent upon the
Intellectual-Principle, the other outside it and facing to the
external; by the one it holds the likeness to its source; by the other,
even in its unlikeness, it still comes to likeness in this sphere, too,
by virtue of action and production; in its action it still
contemplates, and its production produces Ideal-forms -- divine
intellections perfectly wrought out -- so that all its creations are
representations of the divine Intellection and of the divine Intellect,
moulded upon the archetype, of which all are emanations and images, the
nearer more true, the very latest preserving some faint likeness of the
source.
8. Now comes the question what sort of thing does the
Intellectual-Principle see in seeing the Intellectual Realm and what in
seeing itself?
We are not to look for an Intellectual realm reminding us of the colour
or shape to be seen on material objects: the intellectual antedates all
such things; and even in our sphere the production is very different
from the Reason-Principle in the seeds from which it is produced. The
seed principles are invisible and the beings of the Intellectual still
more characteristically so; the Intellectuals are of one same nature
with the Intellectual Realm which contains them, just as the
Reason-Principle in the seed is identical with the soul, or
life-principle, containing it.
But the Soul (considered as apart from the Intellectual-Principle) has
no vision of what it thus contains, for it is not the producer but,
like the Reason-Principles also, an image of its source: that source is
the brilliant, the authentic, the primarily existent, the thing
self-sprung and self-intent; but its image, soul, is a thing which can
have no permanence except by attachment, by living in that other; the
very nature of an image is that, as a secondary, it shall have its
being in something else, if at all it exist apart from its original.
Hence this image (soul) has not vision, for it has not the necessary
light, and, if it should see, then, as finding its completion
elsewhere, it sees another, not itself.
In the pure Intellectual there is nothing of this: the vision and the
envisioned are a unity; the seen is as the seeing and seeing as seen.
What, then, is there that can pronounce upon the nature of this
all-unity?
That which sees: and to see is the function of the
Intellectual-Principle. Even in our own sphere [we have a parallel to
this self-vision of a unity], our vision is light or rather becomes one
with light, and it sees light for it sees colours. In the intellectual,
the vision sees not through some medium but by and through itself
alone, for its object is not external: by one light it sees another not
through any intermediate agency; a light sees a light, that is to say a
thing sees itself. This light shining within the soul enlightens it;
that is, it makes the soul intellective, working it into likeness with
itself, the light above.
Think of the traces of this light upon the soul, then say to yourself
that such, and more beautiful and broader and more radiant, is the
light itself; thus you will approach to the nature of the
Intellectual-Principle and the Intellectual Realm, for it is this
light, itself lit from above, which gives the soul its brighter life.
It is not the source of the generative life of the soul which, on the
contrary, it draws inward, preserving it from such diffusion, holding
it to the love of the splendour of its Prior.
Nor does it give the life of perception and sensation, for that looks
to the external and to what acts most vigorously upon the senses
whereas one accepting that light of truth may be said no longer to see
the visible, but the very contrary.
This means in sum that the life the soul takes thence is an
intellective life, a trace of the life in the [divine] Intellect, in
which alone the authentic exists.
The life in the Divine Intellect is also an Act: it is the primal light
outlamping to itself primarily, its own torch; light-giver and lit at
once; the authentic intellectual object, knowing at once and known,
seen to itself and needing no other than itself to see by,
self-sufficing to the vision, since what it sees it is; known to us by
that very same light, our knowledge of it attained through itself, for
from nowhere else could we find the means of telling of it. By its
nature, its self-vision is the clearer but, using it as our medium, we
too may come to see by it.
In the strength of such considerations we lead up our own soul to the
Divine, so that it poses itself as an image of that Being, its life
becoming an imprint and a likeness of the Highest, its every act of
thought making it over into the Divine and the Intellectual.
If the soul is questioned as to the nature of that
Intellectual-Principle -- the perfect and all-embracing, the primal
self-knower -- it has but to enter into that Principle, or to sink all
its activity into that, and at once it shows itself to be in effective
possession of those priors whose memory it never lost: thus, as an
image of the Intellectual-Principle, it can make itself the medium by
which to attain some vision of it; it draws upon that within itself
which is most closely resemblant, as far as resemblance is possible
between divine Intellect and any phase of soul.
9. In order, then, to know what the Divine Mind is, we must observe
soul and especially its most God-like phase.
One certain way to this knowledge is to separate first, the man from
the body -- yourself, that is, from your body -- next to put aside that
soul which moulded the body, and, very earnestly, the system of sense
with desires and impulses and every such futility, all setting
definitely towards the mortal: what is left is the phase of the soul
which we have declared to be an image of the Divine Intellect,
retaining some light from that sun, while it pours downward upon the
sphere of magnitudes [that is, of Matter] the light playing about
itself which is generated from its own nature.
Of course we do not pretend that the sun's light [as the analogy might
imply] remains a self-gathered and sun-centred thing: it is at once
outrushing and indwelling; it strikes outward continuously, lap after
lap, until it reaches us upon our earth: we must take it that all the
light, including that which plays about the sun's orb, has travelled;
otherwise we would have a void expanse, that of the space -- which is
material -- next to the sun's orb. The Soul, on the contrary -- a light
springing from the Divine Mind and shining about it -- is in closest
touch with that source; it is not in transit but remains centred there,
and, in likeness to that principle, it has no place: the light of the
sun is actually in the air, but the soul is clean of all such contact
so that its immunity is patent to itself and to any other of the same
order.
And by its own characteristic act, though not without reasoning
process, it knows the nature of the Intellectual-Principle which, on
its side, knows itself without need of reasoning, for it is ever
self-present whereas we become so by directing our soul towards it; our
life is broken and there are many lives, but that principle needs no
changings of life or of things; the lives it brings to being are for
others not for itself: it cannot need the inferior; nor does it for
itself produce the less when it possesses or is the all, nor the images
when it possesses or is the prototype.
Anyone not of the strength to lay hold of the first soul, that
possessing pure intellection, must grasp that which has to do with our
ordinary thinking and thence ascend: if even this prove too hard, let
him turn to account the sensitive phase which carries the ideal forms
of the less fine degree, that phase which, too, with its powers, is
immaterial and lies just within the realm of Ideal-principles.
One may even, if it seem necessary, begin as low as the reproductive
soul and its very production and thence make the ascent, mounting from
those ultimate ideal principles to the ultimates in the higher sense,
that is to the primals.
10. This matter need not be elaborated at present: it suffices to say
that if the created were all, these ultimates [the higher] need not
exist: but the Supreme does include primals, the primals because the
producers. In other words, there must be, with the made, the making
source; and, unless these are to be identical, there will be need of
some link between them. Similarly, this link which is the
Intellectual-Principle demands yet a Transcendent. If we are asked why
this Transcendent also should not have self-vision, our answer is that
it has no need of vision; but this we will discuss later: for the
moment we go back, since the question at issue is gravely important.
We repeat that the Intellectual-Principle must have, actually has,
self-vision, firstly because it has multiplicity, next because it
exists for the external and therefore must be a seeing power, one
seeing that external; in fact its very essence is vision. Given some
external, there must be vision; and if there be nothing external the
Intellectual-Principle [Divine Mind] exists in vain. Unless there is
something beyond bare unity, there can be no vision: vision must
converge with a visible object. And this which the seer is to see can
be only a multiple, no undistinguishable unity; nor could a universal
unity find anything upon which to exercise any act; all, one and
desolate, would be utter stagnation; in so far as there is action,
there is diversity. If there be no distinctions, what is there to do,
what direction in which to move? An agent must either act upon the
extern or be a multiple and so able to act upon itself: making no
advance towards anything other than itself, it is motionless and where
it could know only blank fixity it can know nothing.
The intellective power, therefore, when occupied with the intellectual
act, must be in a state of duality, whether one of the two elements
stand actually outside or both lie within: the intellectual act will
always comport diversity as well as the necessary identity, and in the
same way its characteristic objects [the Ideas] must stand to the
Intellectual-Principle as at once distinct and identical. This applies
equally to the single object; there can be no intellection except of
something containing separable detail and, since the object is a
Reason-principle [a discriminated Idea] it has the necessary element of
multiplicity. The Intellectual-Principle, thus, is informed of itself
by the fact of being a multiple organ of vision, an eye receptive of
many illuminated objects. If it had to direct itself to a memberless
unity, it would be dereasoned: what could it say or know of such an
object? The self-affirmation of [even] a memberless unity implies the
repudiation of all that does not enter into the character: in other
words, it must be multiple as a preliminary to being itself.
Then, again, in the assertion "I am this particular thing," either the
"particular thing" is distinct from the assertor -- and there is a
false statement -- or it is included within it, and, at once,
multiplicity is asserted: otherwise the assertion is "I am what I am,"
or "I am I."
If it be no more than a simple duality able to say "I and that other
phase," there is already multiplicity, for there is distinction and
ground of distinction, there is number with all its train of separate
things.
In sum, then, a knowing principle must handle distinct items: its
object must, at the moment of cognition, contain diversity; otherwise
the thing remains unknown; there is mere conjunction, such a contact,
without affirmation or comprehension, as would precede knowledge, the
intellect not yet in being, the impinging agent not percipient.
Similarly the knowing principle itself cannot remain simplex,
especially in the act of self-knowing: all silent though its
self-perception be, it is dual to itself. Of course it has no need of
minute self-handling since it has nothing to learn by its intellective
act; before it is [effectively] Intellect, it holds knowledge of its
own content. Knowledge implies desire, for it is, so to speak,
discovery crowning a search; the utterly undifferentiated remains
self-centred and makes no enquiry about that self: anything capable of
analysing its content, must be a manifold.
11. Thus the Intellectual-Principle, in the act of knowing the
Transcendent, is a manifold. It knows the Transcendent in very essence
but, with all its effort to grasp that prior as a pure unity, it goes
forth amassing successive impressions, so that, to it, the object
becomes multiple: thus in its outgoing to its object it is not [fully
realised] Intellectual-Principle; it is an eye that has not yet seen;
in its return it is an eye possessed of the multiplicity which it has
itself conferred: it sought something of which it found the vague
presentment within itself; it returned with something else, the
manifold quality with which it has of its own act invested the simplex.
If it had not possessed a previous impression of the Transcendent, it
could never have grasped it, but this impression, originally of unity,
becomes an impression of multiplicity; and the Intellectual-Principle,
in taking cognisance of that multiplicity, knows the Transcendent and
so is realized as an eye possessed of its vision.
It is now Intellectual-Principle since it actually holds its object,
and holds it by the act of intellection: before, it was no more than a
tendance, an eye blank of impression: it was in motion towards the
transcendental; now that it has attained, it has become
Intellectual-Principle henceforth absorbed; in virtue of this
intellection it holds the character of Intellectual-Principle, of
Essential Existence and of Intellectual Act where, previously, not
possessing the Intellectual Object, it was not Intellectual Perception,
and, not yet having exercised the Intellectual Act, it was not
Intellectual-Principle.
The Principle before all these principles is no doubt the first
principle of the universe, but not as immanent: immanence is not for
primal sources but for engendering secondaries; that which stands as
primal source of everything is not a thing but is distinct from all
things: it is not, then, a member of the total but earlier than all,
earlier, thus, than the Intellectual-Principle -- which in fact
envelops the entire train of things.
Thus we come, once more, to a Being above the Intellectual-Principle
and, since the sequent amounts to no less than the All, we recognise,
again, a Being above the All. This assuredly cannot be one of the
things to which it is prior. We may not call it "Intellect"; therefore,
too, we may not call it "the Good," if "the Good" is to be taken in the
sense of some one member of the universe; if we mean that which
precedes the universe of things, the name may be allowed.
The Intellectual-Principle is established in multiplicity; its
intellection, self-sprung though it be, is in the nature of something
added to it [some accidental dualism] and makes it multiple: the
utterly simplex, and therefore first of all beings, must, then,
transcend the Intellectual-Principle; and, obviously, if this had
intellection it would no longer transcend the Intellectual-Principle
but be it, and at once be a multiple.
12. But why, after all, should it not be such a manifold as long as it
remains one substantial existence, having the multiplicity not of a
compound being but of a unity with a variety of activities?
Now, no doubt, if these various activities are not themselves
substantial existences -- but merely manifestations of latent
potentiality -- there is no compound; but, on the other hand, it
remains incomplete until its substantial existence be expressed in act.
If its substantial existence consists in its Act, and this Act
constitutes multiplicity, then its substantial existence will be
strictly proportioned to the extent of the multiplicity.
We allow this to be true for the Intellectual-Principle to which we
have allotted [the multiplicity of] self-knowing; but for the first
principle of all, never. Before the manifold, there must be The One,
that from which the manifold rises: in all numerical series, the unit
is the first.
But -- we will be answered -- for number, well and good, since the
suite makes a compound; but in the real beings why must there be a unit
from which the multiplicity of entities shall proceed?
Because [failing such a unity] the multiplicity would consist of
disjointed items, each starting at its own distinct place and moving
accidentally to serve to a total.
But, they will tell us, the Activities in question do proceed from a
unity, from the Intellectual-Principle, a simplex.
By that they admit the existence of a simplex prior to the Activities;
and they make the Activities perdurable and class them as substantial
existences [hypostases]; but as Hypostases they will be distinct from
their source, which will remain simplex; while its product will in its
own nature be manifold and dependent upon it.
Now if these activities arise from some unexplained first activity in
that principle, then it too contains the manifold: if, on the contrary,
they are the very earliest activities and the source and cause of any
multiple product and the means by which that Principle is able, before
any activity occurs, to remain self-centred, then they are allocated to
the product of which they are the cause; for this principle is one
thing, the activities going forth from it are another, since it is not,
itself, in act. If this be not so, the first act cannot be the
Intellectual-Principle: the One does not provide for the existence of
an Intellectual-Principle which thereupon appears; that provision would
be something [an Hypostasis] intervening between the One and the
Intellectual-Principle, its offspring. There could, in fact, be no such
providing in The One, for it was never incomplete; and such provision
could name nothing that ought to be provided. It cannot be thought to
possess only some part of its content, and not the whole; nor did
anything exist to which it could turn in desire. Clearly anything that
comes into being after it, arises without shaking to its permanence in
its own habit. It is essential to the existence of any new entity that
the First remain in self-gathered repose throughout: otherwise, it
moved before there was motion and had intellectual act before any
intellection -- unless, indeed, that first act [as motionless and
without intelligence] was incomplete, nothing more than a tendency. And
what can we imagine it lights upon to become the object of such a
tendency?
The only reasonable explanation of act flowing from it lies in the
analogy of light from a sun. The entire intellectual order may be
figured as a kind of light with the One in repose at its summit as its
King: but this manifestation is not cast out from it: we may think,
rather, of the One as a light before the light, an eternal irradiation
resting upon the Intellectual Realm; this, not identical with its
source, is yet not severed from it nor of so remote a nature as to be
less than Real-Being; it is no blind thing, but is seeing and knowing,
the primal knower.
The One, as transcending Intellect, transcends knowing: above all need,
it is above the need of the knowing which pertains solely to the
Secondary Nature. Knowing is a unitary thing, but defined: the first is
One, but undefined: a defined One would not be the One-absolute: the
absolute is prior to the definite.
13. Thus The One is in truth beyond all statement: any affirmation is
of a thing; but the all-transcending, resting above even the most
august divine Mind, possesses alone of all true being, and is not a
thing among things; we can give it no name because that would imply
predication: we can but try to indicate, in our own feeble way,
something concerning it: when in our perplexity we object, "Then it is
without self-perception, without self-consciousness, ignorant of
itself"; we must remember that we have been considering it only in its
opposites.
If we make it knowable, an object of affirmation, we make it a
manifold; and if we allow intellection in it we make it at that point
indigent: supposing that in fact intellection accompanies it,
intellection by it must be superfluous.
Self-intellection -- which is the truest -- implies the entire
perception of a total self formed from a variety converging into an
integral; but the Transcendent knows neither separation of part nor any
such enquiry; if its intellectual act were directed upon something
outside, then, the Transcendent would be deficient and the intellection
faulty.
The wholly simplex and veritable self-sufficing can be lacking at no
point: self-intellection begins in that principle which, secondarily
self-sufficing, yet needs itself and therefore needs to know itself:
this principle, by its self-presence, achieves its sufficiency in
virtue of its entire content [it is the all]: it becomes thus competent
from the total of its being, in the act of living towards itself and
looking upon itself.
Consciousness, as the very word indicates, is a conperception, an act
exercised upon a manifold: and even intellection, earlier [nearer to
the divine] though it is, implies that the agent turns back upon
itself, upon a manifold, then. If that agent says no more than "I am a
being," it speaks [by the implied dualism] as a discoverer of the
extern; and rightly so, for being is a manifold; when it faces towards
the unmanifold and says, "I am that being," it misses both itself and
the being [since the simplex cannot be thus divided into knower and
known]: if it is [to utter] truth it cannot indicate by "being"
something like a stone; in the one phrase multiplicity is asserted; for
the being thus affirmed -- [even] the veritable, as distinguished from
such a mere container of some trace of being as ought not to be called
a being since it stands merely as image to archetype -- even this must
possess multiplicity.
But will not each item in that multiplicity be an object of
intellection to us?
Taken bare and single, no: but Being itself is manifold within itself,
and whatever else you may name has Being.
This accepted, it follows that anything that is to be thought of as the
most utterly simplex of all cannot have self-intellection; to have that
would mean being multiple. The Transcendent, thus, neither knows itself
nor is known in itself.
14. How, then, do we ourselves come to be speaking of it?
No doubt we deal with it, but we do not state it; we have neither
knowledge nor intellection of it.
But in what sense do we even deal with it when we have no hold upon it?
We do not, it is true, grasp it by knowledge, but that does not mean
that we are utterly void of it; we hold it not so as to state it, but
so as to be able to speak about it. And we can and do state what it is
not, while we are silent as to what it is: we are, in fact, speaking of
it in the light of its sequels; unable to state it, we may still
possess it.
Those divinely possessed and inspired have at least the knowledge that
they hold some greater thing within them though they cannot tell what
it is; from the movements that stir them and the utterances that come
from them they perceive the power, not themselves, that moves them: in
the same way, it must be, we stand towards the Supreme when we hold the
Intellectual-Principle pure; we know the divine Mind within, that which
gives Being and all else of that order: but we know, too, that other,
know that it is none of these, but a nobler principle than any-thing we
know as Being; fuller and greater; above reason, mind and feeling;
conferring these powers, not to be confounded with them.
15. Conferring -- but how? As itself possessing them or not? How can it
convey what it does not possess, and yet if it does possess how is it
simplex? And if, again, it does not, how is it the source of the
manifold?
A single, unmanifold emanation we may very well allow -- how even that
can come from a pure unity may be a problem, but we may always explain
it on the analogy of the irradiation from a luminary -- but a
multitudinous production raises question.
The explanation is that what comes from the Supreme cannot be identical
with it and assuredly cannot be better than it -- what could be better
than The One or the utterly transcendent? The emanation, then, must be
less good, that is to say, less self-sufficing: now what must that be
which is less self-sufficing than The One? Obviously the Not-One, that
is to say, multiplicity, but a multiplicity striving towards unity;
that is to say, a One-that-is-many.
All that is not One is conserved by virtue of the One, and from the One
derives its characteristic nature: if it had not attained such unity as
is consistent with being made up of multiplicity we could not affirm
its existence: if we are able to affirm the nature of single things,
this is in virtue of the unity, the identity even, which each of them
possesses. But the all-transcendent, utterly void of multiplicity, has
no mere unity of participation but is unity's self, independent of all
else, as being that from which, by whatever means, all the rest take
their degree of unity in their standing, near or far, towards it.
In virtue of the unity manifested in its variety it exhibits, side by
side, both an all-embracing identity and the existence of the
secondary: all the variety lies in the midst of a sameness, and
identity cannot be separated from diversity since all stands as one;
each item in that content, by the fact of participating in life, is a
One-many: for the item could not make itself manifest as a One-and-all.
Only the Transcendent can be that; it is the great beginning, and the
beginning must be a really existent One, wholly and truly One, while
its sequent, poured down in some way from the One, is all, a total
which has participation in unity and whose every member is similarly
all and one.
What then is the All?
The total of which the Transcendent is the Source.
But in what way is it that source? In the sense, perhaps, of sustaining
things as bestower of the unity of each single item?
That too; but also as having established them in being.
But how? As having, perhaps, contained them previously?
We have indicated that, thus, the First would be a manifold.
May we think, perhaps, that the First contained the universe as an
indistinct total whose items are elaborated to distinct existence
within the Second by the Reason-Principle there? That Second is
certainly an Activity; the Transcendent would contain only the
potentiality of the universe to come.
But the nature of this contained potentiality would have to be
explained: it cannot be that of Matter, a receptivity, for thus the
Source becomes passive -- the very negation of production.
How then does it produce what it does not contain? Certainly not at
haphazard and certainly not by selection. How then?
We have observed that anything that may spring from the One must be
different from it. Differing, it is not One, since then it would be the
Source. If unity has given place to duality, from that moment there is
multiplicity; for here is variety side by side with identity, and this
imports quality and all the rest.
We may take it as proved that the emanation of the Transcendent must be
a Not-One something other than pure unity, but that it is a
multiplicity, and especially that it is such a multiplicity as is
exhibited in the sequent universe, this is a statement worthy of
deliberation: some further enquiry must be made, also, as to the
necessity of any sequel to the First.
16. We have, of course, already seen that a secondary must follow upon
the First, and that this is a power immeasurably fruitful; and we
indicated that this truth is confirmed by the entire order of things
since there is nothing, not even in the lowest ranks, void of the power
of generating. We have now to add that, since things engendered tend
downwards and not upwards and, especially, move towards multiplicity,
the first principle of all must be less a manifold than any.
That which engenders the world of sense cannot itself be a sense-world;
it must be the Intellect and the Intellectual world; similarly, the
prior which engenders the Intellectual-Principle and the Intellectual
world cannot be either, but must be something of less multiplicity. The
manifold does not rise from the manifold: the intellectual multiplicity
has its source in what is not manifold; by the mere fact of being
manifold, the thing is not the first principle: we must look to
something earlier.
All must be grouped under a unity which, as standing outside of all
multiplicity and outside of any ordinary simplicity, is the veritably
and essentially simplex.
Still, how can a Reason-Principle [the Intellectual],
characteristically a manifold, a total, derive from what is obviously
no Reason-Principle?
But how, failing such origin in the simplex, could we escape [what
cannot be accepted] the derivation of a Reason-Principle from a
Reason-Principle?
And how does the secondarily good [the imaged Good] derive from The
Good, the Absolute? What does it hold from the Absolute Good to entitle
it to the name?
Similarity to the prior is not enough, it does not help towards
goodness; we demand similarity only to an actually existent Good: the
goodness must depend upon derivation from a Prior of such a nature that
the similarity is desirable because that Prior is good, just as the
similarity would be undesirable if the Prior were not good.
Does the similarity with the Prior consist, then, in a voluntary
resting upon it?
It is rather that, finding its condition satisfying, it seeks nothing:
the similarity depends upon the all-sufficiency of what it possesses;
its existence is agreeable because all is present to it, and present in
such a way as not to be even different from it [Intellectual-Principle
is Being].
All life belongs to it, life brilliant and perfect; thus all in it is
at once life-principle and Intellectual-Principle, nothing in it aloof
from either life or intellect: it is therefore self-sufficing and seeks
nothing: and if it seeks nothing this is because it has in itself what,
lacking, it must seek. It has, therefore, its Good within itself,
either by being of that order -- in what we have called its life and
intellect -- or in some other quality or character going to produce
these.
If this [secondary principle] were The Good [The Absolute], nothing
could transcend these things, life and intellect: but, given the
existence of something higher, this Intellectual-Principle must possess
a life directed towards that Transcendent, dependent upon it, deriving
its being from it, living towards it as towards its source. The First,
then, must transcend this principle of life and intellect which directs
thither both the life in itself, a copy of the Reality of the First,
and the intellect in itself which is again a copy, though of what
original there we cannot know.
17. But what can it be which is loftier than that existence -- a life
compact of wisdom, untouched by struggle and error, or than this
Intellect which holds the Universe with all there is of life and
intellect?
If we answer "The Making Principle," there comes the question, "making
by what virtue?" and unless we can indicate something higher there than
in the made, our reasoning has made no advance: we rest where we were.
We must go higher -- if it were only for the reason that the maker of
all must have a self-sufficing existence outside of all things -- since
all the rest is patently indigent -- and that everything has
participated in The One and, as drawing on unity, is itself not unity.
What then is this in which each particular entity participates, the
author of being to the universe and to each item of the total?
Since it is the author of all that exists, and since the multiplicity
in each thing is converted into a self-sufficing existence by this
presence of The One, so that even the particular itself becomes
self-sufficing, then clearly this principle, author at once of Being
and of self-sufficingness, is not itself a Being but is above Being and
above even self-sufficing.
May we stop, content, with that? No: the Soul is yet, and even more, in
pain. Is she ripe, perhaps, to bring forth, now that in her pangs she
has come so close to what she seeks? No: we must call upon yet another
spell if anywhere the assuagement is to be found. Perhaps in what has
already been uttered, there lies the charm if only we tell it over
often? No: we need a new, a further, incantation. All our effort may
well skim over every truth and through all the verities in which we
have part, and yet the reality escape us when we hope to affirm, to
understand: for the understanding, in order to its affirmation must
possess itself of item after item; only so does it traverse all the
field: but how can there be any such peregrination of that in which
there is no variety?
All the need is met by a contact purely intellective. At the moment of
touch there is no power whatever to make any affirmation; there is no
leisure; reasoning upon the vision is for afterwards. We may know we
have had the vision when the Soul has suddenly taken light. This light
is from the Supreme and is the Supreme; we may believe in the Presence
when, like that other God on the call of a certain man, He comes
bringing light: the light is the proof of the advent. Thus, the Soul
unlit remains without that vision; lit, it possesses what it sought.
And this is the true end set before the Soul, to take that light, to
see the Supreme by the Supreme and not by the light of any other
principle -- to see the Supreme which is also the means to the vision;
for that which illumines the Soul is that which it is to see just as it
is by the sun's own light that we see the sun.
But how is this to be accomplished?
Cut away everything.
__________________________________________________________________
FOURTH TRACTATE.
HOW THE SECONDARIES RISE FROM THE FIRST:
AND ON THE ONE.
1. Anything existing after The First must necessarily arise from that
First, whether immediately or as tracing back to it through
intervenients; there must be an order of secondaries and tertiaries, in
which any second is to be referred to The First, any third to the
second.
Standing before all things, there must exist a Simplex, differing from
all its sequel, self-gathered not inter-blended with the forms that
rise from it, and yet able in some mode of its own to be present to
those others: it must be authentically a unity, not merely something
elaborated into unity and so in reality no more than unity's
counterfeit; it will debar all telling and knowing except that it may
be described as transcending Being -- for if there were nothing outside
all alliance and compromise, nothing authentically one, there would be
no Source. Untouched by multiplicity, it will be wholly self-sufficing,
an absolute First, whereas any not-first demands its earlier, and any
non-simplex needs the simplicities within itself as the very
foundations of its composite existence.
There can be only one such being: if there were another, the two [as
indiscernible] would resolve into one, for we are not dealing with two
corporal entities.
Our One-First is not a body: a body is not simplex and, as a thing of
process cannot be a First, the Source cannot be a thing of generation:
only a principle outside of body, and utterly untouched by
multiplicity, could be The First.
Any unity, then, later than The First must be no longer simplex; it can
be no more than a unity in diversity.
Whence must such a sequent arise?
It must be an offspring of The First; for suppose it the product of
chance, that First ceases to be the Principle of All.
But how does it arise from The First?
If The First is perfect, utterly perfect above all, and is the
beginning of all power, it must be the most powerful of all that is,
and all other powers must act in some partial imitation of it. Now
other beings, coming to perfection, are observed to generate; they are
unable to remain self-closed; they produce: and this is true not merely
of beings endowed with will, but of growing things where there is no
will; even lifeless objects impart something of themselves, as far as
they may; fire warms, snow chills, drugs have their own outgoing
efficacy; all things to the utmost of their power imitate the Source in
some operation tending to eternity and to service.
How then could the most perfect remain self-set -- the First Good, the
Power towards all, how could it grudge or be powerless to give of
itself, and how at that would it still be the Source?
If things other than itself are to exist, things dependent upon it for
their reality, it must produce since there is no other source. And
further this engendering principle must be the very highest in worth;
and its immediate offspring, its secondary, must be the best of all
that follows.
2. If the Intellectual-Principle were the engendering Source, then the
engendered secondary, while less perfect than the
Intellectual-Principle, would be close to it and similar to it: but
since the engendering Source is above the Intellectual-Principle, the
secondary can only be that principle.
But why is the Intellectual-Principle not the generating source?
Because [it is not a self-sufficing simplex]: the Act of the
Intellectual-Principle is intellection, which means that, seeing the
intellectual object towards which it has turned, it is consummated, so
to speak, by that object, being in itself indeterminate like sight [a
vague readiness for any and every vision] and determined by the
intellectual object. This is why it has been said that "out of the
indeterminate dyad and The One arise the Ideas and the numbers": for
the dyad is the Intellectual-Principle.
Thus it is not a simplex; it is manifold; it exhibits a certain
composite quality -- within the Intellectual or divine order, of course
-- as the principle that sees the manifold. It is, further, itself
simultaneously object and agent of intellection and is on that count
also a duality: and it possesses besides another object of intellection
in the Order following upon itself.
But how can the Intellectual-Principle be a product of the Intellectual
Object?
In this way: the intellectual object is self-gathered [self-compact]
and is not deficient as the seeing and knowing principle must be --
deficient, mean, as needing an object -- it is therefore no unconscious
thing: all its content and accompaniment are its possession; it is
self-distinguishing throughout; it is the seat of life as of all
things; it is, itself, that self-intellection which takes place in
eternal repose, that is to say, in a mode other than that of the
Intellectual-Principle.
But if something comes to being within an entity which in no way looks
outside itself -- and especially within a being which is the sum of
being -- that entity must be the source of the new thing: stable in its
own identity, it produces; but the product is that of an unchanged
being: the producer is unchangeably the intellectual object, the
product is produced as the Intellectual Act, an Act taking intellection
of its source -- the only object that exists for it -- and so becoming
Intellectual-Principle, that is to say, becoming another intellectual
being, resembling its source, a reproduction and image of that.
But how from amid perfect rest can an Act arise?
There is in everything the Act of the Essence and the Act going out
from the Essence: the first Act is the thing itself in its realized
identity, the second Act is an inevitably following outgo from the
first, an emanation distinct from the thing itself.
Thus even in fire there is the warmth comported by its essential nature
and there is the warmth going instantaneously outward from that
characterizing heat by the fact that the fire, remaining unchangeably
fire, utters the Act native to its essential reality.
So it is in the divine also: or rather we have there the earlier form
of the double act: the divine remains in its own unchanging being, but
from its perfection and from the Act included in its nature there
emanates the secondary or issuing Act which -- as the output of a
mighty power, the mightiest there is -- attains to Real Being as second
to that which stands above all Being. That transcendent was the
potentiality of the All; this secondary is the All made actual.
And if this is all things, that must be above and outside of all, so,
must transcend real being. And again, if that secondary is all things,
and if above its multiplicity there is a unity not ranking among those
things, once more this unity transcends Real Being and therefore
transcends the Intellectual-Principle as well. There is thus something
transcending Intellectual-Principle, for we must remember that real
being is no corpse, the negation of life and of intellection, but is in
fact identical with the Intellectual-Principle. The
Intellectual-Principle is not something taking cognisance of things as
sensation deals with sense objects existing independently of sense: on
the contrary, it actually is the things it knows: the ideas
constituting them it has not borrowed: whence could it have taken them?
No: it exists here together with the things of the universe, identical
with them, making a unity with them; and the collective knowledge [in
the divine mind] of the immaterial is the universe of things.
__________________________________________________________________
FIFTH TRACTATE.
THAT THE INTELLECTUAL BEINGS ARE NOT OUTSIDE
THE INTELLECTUAL-PRINCIPLE: AND ON
THE NATURE OF THE GOOD.
1. The Intellectual-Principle, the veritably and essentially
intellective, can this be conceived as ever falling into error, ever
failing to think reality?
Assuredly no: it would no longer be intelligent and therefore no longer
Intellectual-Principle: it must know unceasingly -- and never forget;
and its knowledge can be no guesswork, no hesitating assent, no
acceptance of an alien report. Nor can it call on demonstration or, we
are told it may at times act by this or, I method, at least there must
be something patent to it in virtue of its own nature. In actual fact
reason tells us that all its knowledge is thus inherent to it, for
there is no means by which to distinguish between the spontaneous
knowledge and the other. But, in any case, some knowledge, it is
conceded, is inherent to it. Whence are we to understand the certainty
of this knowledge to come to it or how do its objects carry the
conviction of their reality?
Consider sense-knowledge: its objects seem most patently certified, yet
the doubt returns whether the apparent reality may not lie in the
states of the percipient rather than in the material before him; the
decision demands intelligence or reasoning. Besides, even granting that
what the senses grasp is really contained in the objects, none the less
what is thus known by the senses is an image: sense can never grasp the
thing itself; this remains for ever outside.
Now, if the Intellectual-Principle in its act -- that is in knowing the
intellectual -- is to know these its objects as alien, we have to
explain how it makes contact with them: obviously it might never come
upon them, and so might never know them; or it might know them only
upon the meeting: its knowing, at that, would not be an enduring
condition. If we are told that the Intellectual-Principle and the
Intellectual Objects are linked in a standing unity, we demand the
description of this unity.
Next, the intellections would be impressions, that is to say not native
act but violence from without: now how is such impressing possible and
what shape could the impressions bear?
Intellection, again, becomes at this a mere handling of the external,
exactly like sense-perception. What then distinguishes it unless that
it deals with objects of less extension? And what certitude can it have
that its knowledge is true? Or what enables it to pronounce that the
object is good, beautiful, or just, when each of these ideas is to
stand apart from itself? The very principles of judgement, by which it
must be guided, would be [as Ideas] excluded: with objects and canons
alike outside it, so is truth.
Again; either the objects of the Intellectual-Principle are senseless
and devoid of life and intellect or they are in possession of
Intellect.
Now, if they are in possession of Intellect, that realm is a union of
both and is Truth. This combined Intellectual realm will be the Primal
Intellect: we have only then to examine how this reality, conjoint of
Intellectual-Principle and its object, is to be understood, whether as
combining self-united identity with yet duality and difference, or what
other relation holds between them.
If on the contrary the objects of Intellectual-Principle are without
intelligence and life, what are they? They cannot be premises, axioms
or predicates: as predicates they would not have real existence; they
would be affirmations linking separate entities, as when we affirm that
justice is good though justice and good are distinct realities.
If we are told that they are self-standing entities -- the distinct
beings Justice and Good -- then [supposing them to be outside] the
Intellectual Realm will not be a unity nor be included in any unity:
all is sundered individuality. Where, then, are they and what spatial
distinction keeps them apart? How does the Intellectual-Principle come
to meet with them as it travels round; what keeps each true to its
character; what gives them enduring identity; what conceivable shape or
character can they have? They are being presented to us as some
collection of figures, in gold or some other material substance, the
work of some unknown sculptor or graver: but at once the
Intellectual-Principle which contemplates them becomes
sense-perception; and there still remains the question how one of them
comes to be Justice and another something else.
But the great argument is that if we are to allow that these objects of
Intellection are in the strict sense outside the
Intellectual-Principle, which, therefore, must see them as external,
then inevitably it cannot possess the truth of them.
In all it looks upon, it sees falsely; for those objects must be the
authentic things; yet it looks upon them without containing them and in
such knowledge holds only their images; that is to say, not containing
the authentic, adopting phantasms of the true, it holds the false; it
never possesses reality. If it knows that it possesses the false, it
must confess itself excluded from the truth; if it fails of this
knowledge also, imagining itself to possess the truth which has eluded
it, then the doubled falsity puts it the deeper into error.
It is thus, I suppose, that in sense-perception we have belief instead
of truth; belief is our lief; we satisfy ourselves with something very
different from the original which is the occasion of perception.
In fine, there would be on the hypothesis no truth in the
Intellectual-Principle. But such an Intellectual-Principle would not be
truth, nor truly an Intellectual-Principle. There would be no
Intellectual-Principle at all [no Divine Mind]: yet elsewhere truth
cannot be.
2. Thus we may not look for the Intellectual objects [the Ideas]
outside of the Intellectual-Principle, treating them as impressions of
reality upon it: we cannot strip it of truth and so make its objects
unknowable and non-existent and in the end annul the
Intellectual-Principle itself. We must provide for knowledge and for
truth; we must secure reality; being must become knowable essentially
and not merely in that knowledge of quality which could give us a mere
image or vestige of the reality in lieu of possession, intimate
association, absorption.
The only way to this is to leave nothing out side of the veritable
Intellectual-Principle which thus has knowledge in the true knowing
[that of identification with the object], cannot forget, need not go
wandering in search. At once truth is there, this is the seat of the
authentic Existents, it becomes living and intellective: these are the
essentials of that most lofty Principle; and, failing them, where is
its worth, its grandeur?
Only thus [by this inherence of the Ideas] is it dispensed from
demonstration and from acts of faith in the truth of its knowledge: it
is its entire self, self-perspicuous: it knows a prior by recognising
its own source; it knows a sequent to that prior by its self-identity;
of the reality of this sequent, of the fact that it is present and has
authentic existence, no outer entity can bring it surer conviction.
Thus veritable truth is not accordance with an external; it is
self-accordance; it affirms and is nothing other than itself and is
nothing other; it is at once existence and self-affirmation. What
external, then, can call it to the question, and from what source of
truth could the refutation be brought? Any counter affirmation [of
truth] must fall into identity with the truth which first uttered
itself; brought forward as new, it has to appear before the Principle
which made the earlier statement and to show itself identical with
that: for there is no finding anything truer than the true.
3. Thus we have here one identical Principle, the Intellect, which is
the universe of authentic beings, the Truth: as such it is a great god
or, better, not a god among gods but the Godhead entire. It is a god, a
secondary god manifesting before there is any vision of that other, the
Supreme which rests over all, enthroned in transcendence upon that
splendid pediment, the Nature following close upon it.
The Supreme in its progress could never be borne forward upon some
soulless vehicle nor even directly upon the soul: it will be heralded
by some ineffable beauty: before the great King in his progress there
comes first the minor train, then rank by rank the greater and more
exalted, closer to the King the kinglier; next his own honoured company
until, last among all these grandeurs, suddenly appears the Supreme
Monarch himself, and all -- unless indeed for those who have contented
themselves with the spectacle before his coming and gone away --
prostrate themselves and hail him.
In that royal progress the King is of another order from those that go
before him, but the King in the Supreme is no ruler over externs; he
holds that most just of governances, rooted in nature, the veritable
kingship, for he is King of Truth, holding sway by all reason over a
dense offspring his own, a host that shares his divinity, King over a
king and over kings and even more justly called father of Gods.
[Interpolation: Zeus (Universal Soul) is in this a symbol of him, Zeus
who is not content with the contemplation of his father (Kronos, divine
Intellect) but looks to that father's father (to Ouranos, the
Transcendent) as what may be called the divine energy working to the
establishment of a real being.]
4. We have said that all must be brought back to a unity: this must be
an authentic unity, not belonging to the order in which multiplicity is
unified by participation in what is truly a One; we need a unity
independent of participation, not a combination in which multiplicity
holds an equal place: we have exhibited, also, the Intellectual Realm
and the Intellectual-Principle as more closely a unity than the rest of
things, so that there is nothing closer to The One. Yet even this is
not The purely One.
This purely One, essentially a unity untouched by the multiple, this we
now desire to penetrate if in any way we may.
Only by a leap can we reach to this One which is to be pure of all
else, halting sharp in fear of slipping ever so little aside and
impinging on the dual: for if we fail of the centre, we are in a
duality which does not even include The authentic One but belongs on
both sides, to the later order. The One does not bear to be numbered in
with anything else, with a one or a two or any such quantity; it
refuses to take number because it is measure and not the measured; it
is no peer of other entities to be found among them; for thus, it and
they alike would be included in some container and this would be its
prior, the prior it cannot have. Not even essential [ideal or abstract]
number can belong to The One and certainly not the still later number
applying to quantities; for essential number first appears as providing
duration to the divine Intellection, while quantitative number is that
[still later and lower] which furnishes the Quantity found in
conjunction with other things or which provides for Quantity
independent of things, if this is to be thought of as number at all.
The Principle which in objects having quantitative number looks to the
unity from which they spring is a copy [or lower phase] of the
Principle which in the earlier order of number [in essential or ideal
number] looks to the veritable One; and it attains its existence
without in the least degree dissipating or shattering that prior unity:
the dyad has come into being, but the precedent monad still stands; and
this monad is quite distinct within the dyad from either of the two
constituent unities, since there is nothing to make it one rather than
the other: being neither, but simply that thing apart, it is present
without being inherent.
But how are the two unities distinct and how is the dyad a unity, and
is this unity the same as the unity by which each of the constituents
is one thing?
Our answer must be that the unity is that of a participation in the
primal unity with the participants remaining distinct from that in
which they partake; the dyad, in so far as it is one thing, has this
participation, but in a certain degree only; the unity of an army is
not that of a single building; the dyad, as a thing of extension, is
not strictly a unit either quantitatively or in manner of being.
Are we then to take it that the monads in the pentad and decad differ
while the unity in the pentad is the same as that in the decad?
Yes, in the sense in which, big and little, ship is one with ship, army
with army, city with city; otherwise, no. But certain difficulties in
this matter will be dealt with later.
5. We return to our statement that The First remains intact even when
other entities spring from it.
In the case of numbers, the unit remains intact while something else
produces, and thus number arises in dependence on the unit: much more
then does the unit, The One, remain intact in the principle which is
before all beings; especially since the entities produced in its
likeness, while it thus remains intact, owe their existence to no
other, but to its own all-sufficient power.
And just as there is, primarily or secondarily, some form or idea from
the monad in each of the successive numbers -- the later still
participating, though unequally, in the unit -- so the series of Beings
following upon The First bear, each, some form or idea derived from
that source. In Number the participation establishes Quantity; in the
realm of Being, the trace of The One establishes reality: existence is
a trace of The One -- our word for entity may probably be connected
with that for unity.
What we know as Being, the first sequent upon The One, advanced a
little outward, so to speak, then chose to go no further, turned inward
again and comes to rest and is now the reality and hearth [ousia and
hestia] of the universe. Pressing [with the rough breathing] on the
word for Being [on] we have the word "hen" [one], an indication that in
our very form of speech we tell, as far as may be, that Being [the
weaker] is that which proceeds from [the stronger] The One. Thus both
the thing that comes to be and Being itself are carriers of a copy,
since they are outflows from the power of The primal One: this power
sees and in its emotion tries to represent what it sees and breaks into
speech "On"; "einai"; "ousia," "hestia" [Existent: Existence: Essence:
Hestia or Hearth], sounds which labour to express the essential nature
of the universe produced by the travail of the utterer and so to
represent, as far as sounds may, the origin of reality.
6. All this, however, we may leave to individual judgement: to proceed:
This produced reality is an Ideal form -- for certainly nothing
springing from the Supreme can be less -- and it is not a particular
form but the form of all, beside which there is no other; it follows
that The First must be without form, and, if without form, then it is
no Being; Being must have some definition and therefore be limited; but
the First cannot be thought of as having definition and limit, for thus
it would be not the Source but the particular item indicated by the
definition assigned to it. If all things belong to the produced, which
of them can be thought of as the Supreme? Not included among them, this
can be described only as transcending them: but they are Being and the
Beings; it therefore transcends Being.
Note that the phrase transcending Being assigns no character, makes no
assertion, allots no name, carries only the denial of particular being;
and in this there is no attempt to circumscribe it: to seek to throw a
line about that illimitable Nature would be folly, and anyone thinking
to do so cuts himself off from any slightest and most momentary
approach to its least vestige.
As one wishing to contemplate the Intellectual Nature will lay aside
all the representations of sense and so may see what transcends the
sense-realm, in the same way one wishing to contemplate what transcends
the Intellectual attains by putting away all that is of the intellect,
taught by the intellect, no doubt, that the Transcendent exists but
never seeking to define it.
Its definition, in fact, could be only "the indefinable": what is not a
thing is not some definite thing. We are in agony for a true
expression; we are talking of the untellable; we name, only to indicate
for our own use as best we may. And this name, The One, contains really
no more than the negation of plurality: under the same pressure the
Pythagoreans found their indication in the symbol "Apollo" [a= not;
pollon= of many] with its repudiation of the multiple. If we are led to
think positively of The One, name and thing, there would be more truth
in silence: the designation, a mere aid to enquiry, was never intended
for more than a preliminary affirmation of absolute simplicity to be
followed by the rejection of even that statement: it was the best that
offered, but remains inadequate to express the Nature indicated. For
this is a principle not to be conveyed by any sound; it cannot be known
on any hearing but, if at all, by vision; and to hope in that vision to
see a form is to fail of even that.
7. Consider the act of ocular vision:
There are two elements here; there is the form perceptible to the sense
and there is the medium by which the eye sees that form. This medium is
itself perceptible to the eye, distinct from the form to be seen, but
the cause of the seeing; it is perceived at the one stroke in that form
and on it and, hence, is not distinguished from it, the eye being held
entirely by the illuminated object. When on the contrary this medium
presents itself alone it is seen directly -- though even then actual
sight demands some solid base; there must be something besides the
medium which, unless embracing some object, eludes perception; thus the
light inherent to the sun would not be perceived but for the solidity
of the mass. If it is objected that the sun is light entire, this would
only be a proof of our assertion: no other visible form will contain
light which must, then, have no other property than that of visibility,
and in fact all other visible objects are something more than light
alone.
So it is with the act of vision in the Intellectual Principle.
This vision sees, by another light, the objects illuminated by the
First Principle: setting itself among them, it sees veritably;
declining towards the lower Nature, that upon which the light from
above rests, it has less of that vision. Passing over the visible and
looking to the medium by which it sees, then it holds the Light and the
source of Light.
But since the Intellectual-Principle is not to see this light as
something external we return to our analogy; the eye is not wholly
dependent upon an outside and alien light; there is an earlier light
within itself, a more brilliant, which it sees sometimes in a momentary
flash. At night in the darkness a gleam leaps from within the eye: or
again we make no effort to see anything; the eyelids close; yet a light
flashes before us; or we rub the eye and it sees the light it contains.
This is sight without the act, but it is the truest seeing, for it sees
light whereas its other objects were the lit not the light.
It is certainly thus that the Intellectual-Principle, hiding itself
from all the outer, withdrawing to the inmost, seeing nothing, must
have its vision -- not of some other light in some other thing but of
the light within itself, unmingled, pure, suddenly gleaming before it;
8. So that we are left wondering whence it came, from within or
without; and when it has gone, we say, "It was here. Yet no; it was
beyond!" But we ought not to question whence; there is no whence, no
coming or going in place; now it is seen and now not seen. We must not
run after it, but fit ourselves for the vision and then wait tranquilly
for its appearance, as the eye waits on the rising of the sun, which in
its own time appears above the horizon -- out of the ocean, as the
poets say -- and gives itself to our sight.
This Principle, of which the sun is an image, where has it its dawning,
what horizon does it surmount to appear?
It stands immediately above the contemplating Intellect which has held
itself at rest towards the vision, looking to nothing else than the
good and beautiful, setting its entire being to that in a perfect
surrender, and now tranquilly filled with power and taking a new beauty
to itself, gleaming in the light of that presence.
This advent, still, is not by expectation: it is a coming without
approach; the vision is not of something that must enter but of
something present before all else, before the Intellect itself made any
movement. Yet it is the Intellect that must move, to come and to go --
going because it has not known where it should stay and where that
presence stays, the nowhere contained.
And if the Intellect, too, could hold itself in that nowhere -- not
that it is ever in place; it too is uncontained, utterly unplaced -- it
would remain for ever in the vision of its prior, or, indeed, not in
vision but in identity, all duality annulled. But it is Intellect
[having a sphere of its own] and, when it is to see, it must see by
that in it which is not Intellect [by its divinest power].
No doubt it is wonderful that The First should thus be present without
any coming, and that, while it is nowhere, nowhere is it not; but
wonderful though this be in itself, the contrary would be more
wonderful to those who know. Of course neither this contrary nor the
wonder at it can be entertained. But we must explain:
9. Everything brought into being under some principle not itself is
contained either within its maker or, if there is any intermediate,
within that: having a prior essential to its being, it needs that prior
always, otherwise it would not be contained at all. It is the order of
nature: The last in the immediately preceding lasts, things of the
order of the Firsts within their prior-firsts, and so thing within
thing up to the very pinnacle of source.
That Source, having no prior, cannot be contained: uncontained by any
of those other forms of being, each held within the series of priors,
it is orbed round all, but so as not to be pointed off to hold them
part for part; it possesses but is not possessed. Holding all -- though
itself nowhere held -- it is omnipresent, for where its presence failed
something would elude its hold. At the same time, in the sense that it
is nowhere held, it is not present: thus it is both present and not
present; not present as not being circumscribed by anything; yet, as
being utterly unattached, not inhibited from presence at any point.
That inhibition would mean that the First was determined by some other
being; the later series, then, would be without part in the Supreme;
God has His limit and is no longer self-governed but mastered by
inferiors.
While the contained must be where its container is, what is uncontained
by place is not debarred from any: for, imagine a place where it is not
and evidently some other place retains it; at once it is contained and
there is an end of its placelessness.
But if the "nowhere" is to stand and the ascription of a "where,"
implying station in the extern, is to fall, then nothing can be left
void; and at once -- nothing void, yet no point containing -- God is
sovereignly present through all. We cannot think of something of God
here and something else there, nor of all God gathered at some one
spot: there is an instantaneous presence everywhere, nothing containing
and nothing left void, everything therefore fully held by the divine.
Consider our universe. There is none before it and therefore it is not,
itself, in a universe or in any place -- what place was there before
the universe came to be? -- its linked members form and occupy the
whole. But Soul is not in the universe, on the contrary the universe is
in the Soul; bodily substance is not a place to the Soul; Soul is
contained in Intellectual-Principle and is the container of body. The
Intellectual-Principle in turn is contained in something else; but that
prior principle has nothing in which to be: the First is therefore in
nothing, and, therefore, nowhere. But all the rest must be somewhere;
and where but in the First?
This can mean only that the First is neither remote from things nor
directly within them; there is nothing containing it; it contains all.
It is The Good to the universe if only in this way, that towards it all
things have their being, all dependent upon it, each in its mode, so
that thing rises above thing in goodness according to its fuller
possession of authentic being.
10. Still, do not, I urge you, look for The Good through any of these
other things; if you do, you will see not itself but its trace: you
must form the idea of that which is to be grasped cleanly standing to
itself not in any combination, the unheld in which all have hold: for
no other is such, yet one such there must be.
Now it is clear that we cannot possess ourselves of the power of this
principle in its concentrated fulness: so to do one must be identical
with it: but some partial attainment is within our reach.
You who make the venture will throw forward all your being but you will
never tell it entire -- for that, you must yourself be the divine
Intellect in Act -- and at your utmost success it will still pass from
you or, rather, you from it. In ordinary vision you may think to see
the object entire: in this intellective act, all, less or more, that
you can take to mind you may set down as The Good.
It is The Good since, being a power [being effective outwardly], it is
the cause of the intelligent and intellective life as of life and
intellect: for these grow from it as from the source of essence and of
existence, the Source as being One, simplex and first because before it
was nothing. All derives from this: it is the origin of the primal
movement which it does not possess and of the repose which is but its
absence of need; for neither rest nor movement can belong to that which
has no place in which either could occur; centre, object, ground, all
are alike unknown to it, for it is before all. Yet its Being is not
limited; what is there to set bounds to it? Nor, on the other hand, is
it infinite in the sense of magnitude; what place can there be to which
it must extend, or why should there be movement where there is no
lacking? All its infinitude resides in its power: it does not change
and will not fail; and in it all that is unfailing finds duration.
11. It is infinite also by right of being a pure unity with nothing
towards which to direct any partial content. Absolutely One, it has
never known measure and stands outside of number, and so is under no
limit either in regard to any extern or within itself; for any such
determination would bring something of the dual into it. And having no
constituent parts it accepts no pattern, forms no shape.
Reason recognising it as such a nature, you may not hope to see it with
mortal eyes, nor in any way that would be imagined by those who make
sense the test of reality and so annul the supremely real. For what
passes for the most truly existent is most truly non-existent -- the
thing of extension least real of all -- while this unseen First is the
source and principle of Being and sovereign over Reality.
You must turn appearances about or you will be left void of God. You
will be like those at the festivals who in their gluttony cram
themselves with things which none going to the gods may touch; they
hold these goods to be more real than the vision of the God who is to
be honoured and they go away having had no share in the sanctities of
the shrine.
In these celebrations of which we speak, the unseen god leaves those in
doubt of his existence who think nothing patent but what may be known
to the flesh: it happens as if a man slept a life through and took the
dream world in perfect trust; wake him, and he would refuse belief to
the report of his open eyes and settle down to sleep again.
12. Knowing demands the organ fitted to the object; eyes for one kind,
ears for another: similarly some things, we must believe, are to be
known by the Intellectual-Principle in us. We must not confuse
intellection with hearing or seeing; this would be trying to look with
the ears or denying sound because it is not seen. Certain people, we
must keep in mind, have forgotten that to which, from the beginning
onwards, their longing and effort are pointed: for all that exists
desires and aspires towards the Supreme by a compulsion of nature, as
if all had received the oracle that without it they cannot be.
The perception of Beauty and the awe and the stirring of passion
towards it are for those already in some degree knowing and awakened:
but the Good, as possessed long since and setting up a natural
tendency, is inherently present to even those asleep and brings them no
wonder when some day they see it, since it is no occasional
reminiscence but is always with them though in their drowse they are
not aware of it: the love of Beauty on the contrary sets up pain when
it appears, for those that have seen it must pursue. This love of
Beauty then is later than the love of Good and comes with a more
sophisticated understanding; hence we know that Beauty is a secondary:
the more primal appetition, not patent to sense, our movement towards
our good, gives witness that The Good is the earlier, the prior.
Again; all that have possessed themselves of The Good feel it
sufficient: they have attained the end: but Beauty not all have known
and those that have judge it to exist for itself and not for them, as
in the charm of this world the beauty belongs only to its possessor.
Then, too, it is thought enough to appear loveable whether one is so or
not: but no one wants his Good in semblance only. All are seeking The
First as something ranking before aught else, but they struggle
venomously for beauty as something secondary like themselves: thus some
minor personage may perhaps challenge equal honour with the King's
right-hand man on pretext of similar dependence, forgetting that, while
both owe their standing to the monarch, the other holds the higher
rank.
The source of the error is that while both The Good and The Beautiful
participate in the common source, The One precedes both; and that, in
the Supreme also, The Good has no need of The Beautiful, while the
Beautiful does need The Good.
The Good is gentle and friendly and tender, and we have it present when
we but will. Beauty is all violence and stupefaction; its pleasure is
spoiled with pain, and it even draws the thoughtless away from The Good
as some attraction will lure the child from the father's side: these
things tell of youth. The Good is the older -- not in time but by
degree of reality -- and it has the higher and earlier power, all power
in fact, for the sequent holds only a power subordinate and delegated
of which the prior remains sovereign.
Not that God has any need of His derivatives: He ignores all that
produced realm, never necessary to Him, and remains identically what He
was before He brought it into being. So too, had the secondary never
existed, He would have been unconcerned, exactly as He would not have
grudged existence to any other universe that might spring into being
from Him, were any such possible; of course no other such could be
since there is nothing that has not existence once the All exists.
But God never was the All; that would make Him dependent upon the
universe: transcending all, He was able at once to make all things and
to leave them to their own being, He above.
13. The Supreme, as the Absolute Good and not merely a good being or
thing, can contain nothing, since there is nothing that could be its
good.
Anything it could contain must be either good to it or not good; but in
the supremely and primally Good there can be nothing not good; nor can
the Absolute Good be a container to the Good: containing, then, neither
the good nor the not good it contains nothing and, containing nothing,
it is alone: it is void of all but itself.
If the rest of being either is good -- without being the absolute good
-- or is not good, while on the other hand the Supreme contains neither
what is good nor what is not good, then, containing nothing, it is The
Good by that very absence of content.
Thus we rob it of its very being as The Absolute Good if we ascribe
anything to it, existence or intellect or goodness. The only way is to
make every denial and no assertion, to feign no quality or content
there but to permit only the "It is" in which we pretend to no
affirmation of non-existent attribute: there is an ignorant praise
which, missing the true description, drags in qualities beneath the
real worth and so abases; philosophy must guard against attaching to
the Supreme what is later and lower: moving above all that order, it is
the cause and source of all these, and is none of them.
For, once more, the nature of the Good is not such as to make it all
things or a thing among all: that would range it under the same
classification with them all and it would differ, thus, only by its
individual quality, some specialty, some addition. At once it becomes
not a unity but a duality; there is one common element not good and
another element that is good; but a combination so made up of good and
not good cannot be the purely good, the primarily good; the primarily
good must be that principle in which the better element has more
effectively participated and so attained its goodness. Any good thing
has become so by communion; but that in which it has communion is not a
thing among the things of the all; therefore the Good is not a thing of
the All.
Since there is this Good in any good thing -- the specific difference
by which the combination becomes good -- it must enter from elsewhere
than the world of things: that source must be a Good absolute and
isolated. Thus is revealed to us the Primarily existent, the Good,
above all that has being, good unalloyed, containing nothing in itself,
utterly unmingling, all-transcending, cause of all.
Certainly neither Being nor Beauty springs from evil or from the
neutral; the maker, as the more consummate, must surpass the made.
__________________________________________________________________
SIXTH TRACTATE.
THAT THE PRINCIPLE TRANSCENDING BEING HAS
NO INTELLECTUAL ACT. WHAT BEING HAS
INTELLECTION PRIMALLY AND WHAT
BEING HAS IT SECONDARILY.
1. There is a principle having intellection of the external and another
having self-intellection and thus further removed from duality.
Even the first mentioned is not without an effort towards the pure
unity of which it is not so capable: it does actually contain its
object, though as something other than itself.
In the self-intellective, there is not even this distinction of being:
self-conversing, the subject is its own object, and thus takes the
double form while remaining essentially a unity. The intellection is
the more profound for this internal possession of the object.
This principle is the primally intellective since there can be no
intellection without duality in unity. If there is no unity, perceiving
principle and perceived object will be different, and the intellection,
therefore, not primal: a principle concerned with something external
cannot be the primally intellective since it does not possess the
object as integrally its own or as itself; if it does possess the
object as itself -- the condition of true intellection -- the two are
one. Thus [in order to primal intellection] there must be a unity in
duality, while a pure unity with no counterbalancing duality can have
no object for its intellection and ceases to be intellective: in other
words the primally intellective must be at once simplex and something
else.
But the surest way of realizing that its nature demands this
combination of unity and duality is to proceed upwards from the Soul,
where the distinction can be made more dearly since the duality is
exhibited more obviously.
We can imagine the Soul as a double light, a lesser corresponding to
the soul proper, a purer representing its intellective phase; if now we
suppose this intellective light equal to the light which is to be its
object, we no longer distinguish between them; the two are recognised
as one: we know, indeed, that there are two, but as we see them they
have become one: this gives us the relation between the intellective
subject and the object of intellection [in the duality and unity
required by that primal intellection]: in our thought we have made the
two into one; but on the other hand the one thing has become two,
making itself into a duality at the moment of intellection, or, to be
more exact, being dual by the fact of intellection and single by the
fact that its intellectual object is itself.
2. Thus there is the primally intellective and there is that in which
intellection has taken another mode; but this indicates that what
transcends the primarily intellective has no intellection; for, to have
intellection, it must become an Intellectual-Principle, and, if it is
to become that, it must possess an intellectual object and, as
primarily intellective, it must possess that intellectual object as
something within itself.
But it is not inevitable that every intellectual object should both
possess the intellective principle in itself and exercise intellection:
at that, it would be not merely object but subject as well and,
besides, being thus dual, could not be primal: further, the
intellectual principle that is to possess the intellectual object could
not cohere unless there existed an essence purely intellectual,
something which, while standing as intellectual object to the
intellectual principle, is in its own essence neither an agent nor an
object of intellection. The intellectual object points to something
beyond itself [to a percipient]; and the intellectual agent has its
intellection in vain unless by seizing and holding an object -- since,
failing that, it can have no intellection but is consummated only when
it possesses itself of its natural term.
There must have been something standing consummate independently of any
intellectual act, something perfect in its own essence: thus that in
which this completion is inherent must exist before intellection; in
other words it has no need of intellection, having been always
self-sufficing: this, then, will have no intellectual act.
Thus we arrive at: a principle having no intellection, a principle
having intellection primarily, a principle having it secondarily.
It may be added that, supposing The First to be intellective, it
thereby possesses something [some object, some attribute]: at once it
ceases to be a first; it is a secondary, and not even a unity; it is a
many; it is all of which it takes intellectual possession; even though
its intellection fell solely upon its own content, it must still be a
manifold.
3. We may be told that nothing prevents an identity being thus
multiple. But there must be a unity underlying the aggregate: a
manifold is impossible without a unity for its source or ground, or at
least, failing some unity, related or unrelated. This unity must be
numbered as first before all and can be apprehended only as solitary
and self-existent.
When we recognize it, resident among the mass of things, our business
is to see it for what it is -- present to the items but essentially
distinguished from them -- and, while not denying it there, to seek
this underly of all no longer as it appears in those other things but
as it stands in its pure identity by itself. The identity resident in
the rest of things is no doubt close to authentic identity but cannot
be it; and, if the identity of unity is to be displayed beyond itself,
it must also exist within itself alone.
It may be suggested that its existence takes substantial form only by
its being resident among outside things: but, at this, it is itself no
longer simplex nor could any coherence of manifolds occur. On the one
hand things could take substantial existence only if they were in their
own virtue simplex. On the other hand, failing a simplex, the aggregate
of multiples is itself impossible: for the simplex individual thing
could not exist if there were no simplex unity independent of the
individual, [a principle of identity] and, not existing, much less
could it enter into composition with any other such: it becomes
impossible then for the compound universe, the aggregate of all, to
exist; it would be the coming together of things that are not, things
not merely lacking an identity of their own but utterly non-existent.
Once there is any manifold, there must be a precedent unity: since any
intellection implies multiplicity in the intellective subject, the
non-multiple must be without intellection; that non-multiple will be
the First: intellection and the Intellectual-Principle must be
characteristic of beings coming later.
4. Another consideration is that if The Good [and First] is simplex and
without need, it can neither need the intellective act nor possess what
it does not need: it will therefore not have intellection.
(Interpolation or corruption: It is without intellection because, also,
it contains no duality.)
Again; an Intellectual-Principle is distinct from The Good and takes a
certain goodness only by its intellection of The Good.
Yet again: In any dual object there is the unity [the principle of
identity] side by side with the rest of the thing; an associated member
cannot be the unity of the two and there must be a self-standing unity
[within the duality] before this unity of members can exist: by the
same reasoning there must be also the supreme unity entering into no
association whatever, something which is unity-simplex by its very
being, utterly devoid of all that belongs to the thing capable of
association.
How could anything be present in anything else unless in virtue of a
source existing independently of association? The simplex [or absolute]
requires no derivation; but any manifold, or any dual, must be
dependent.
We may use the figure of, first, light; then, following it, the sun; as
a third, the orb of the moon taking its light from the sun: Soul
carries the Intellectual-Principle as something imparted and lending
the light which makes it essentially intellective;
Intellectual-Principle carries the light as its own though it is not
purely the light but is the being into whose very essence the light has
been received; highest is That which, giving forth the light to its
sequent, is no other than the pure light itself by whose power the
Intellectual-Principle takes character.
How can this highest have need of any other? It is not to be identified
with any of the things that enter into association; the self-standing
is of a very different order.
5. And again: the multiple must be always seeking its identity,
desiring self-accord and self-awareness: but what scope is there within
what is an absolute unity in which to move towards its identity or at
what term may it hope for self-knowing? It holds its identity in its
very essence and is above consciousness and all intellective act.
Intellection is not a primal either in the fact of being or in the
value of being; it is secondary and derived: for there exists The Good;
and this moves towards itself while its sequent is moved and by that
movement has its characteristic vision.
The intellective act may be defined as a movement towards The Good in
some being that aspires towards it; the effort produces the fact; the
two are coincident; to see is to have desired to see: hence again the
Authentic Good has no need of intellection since itself and nothing
else is its good. The intellective act is a movement towards the
unmoved Good: thus the self-intellection in all save the Absolute Good
is the working of the imaged Good within them: the intellectual
principle recognises the likeness, sees itself as a good to itself, an
object of attraction: it grasps at that manifestation of The Good and,
in holding that, holds self-vision: if the state of goodness is
constant, it remains constantly self-attractive and self-intellective.
The self-intellection is not deliberate: it sees itself as an incident
in its contemplation of The Good; for it sees itself in virtue of its
Act; and, in all that exists, the Act is towards The Good.
6. If this reasoning is valid, The Good has no scope whatever for
intellection which demands something attractive from outside. The Good,
then, is without Act. What Act indeed, could be vested in Activity's
self? No activity has yet again an activity; and whatever we may add to
such Activities as depend from something else, at least we must leave
the first Activity of them all, that from which all depend, as an
uncontaminated identity, one to which no such addition can be made.
That primal Activity, then, is not an intellection, for there is
nothing upon which it could Exercise intellection since it is The
First; besides, intellection itself does not exercise the intellective
act; this belongs to some principle in which intellection is vested.
There is, we repeat, duality in any thinking being; and the First is
wholly above the dual.
But all this may be made more evident by a clearer recognition of the
twofold principle at work wherever there is intellection:
When we affirm the reality of the Real Beings and their individual
identity of being and declare that these Real Beings exist in the
Intellectual Realm, we do not mean merely that they remain unchangeably
self-identical by their very essence, as contrasted with the fluidity
and instability of the sense-realm; the sense-realm itself may contain
the enduring. No; we mean rather that these principles possess, as by
their own virtue, the consummate fulness of being. The Essence
described as the primally existent cannot be a shadow cast by Being,
but must possess Being entire; and Being is entire when it holds the
form and idea of intellection and of life. In a Being, then, the
existence, the intellection, the life are present as an aggregate. When
a thing is a Being, it is also an Intellectual-Principle, when it is an
Intellectual-Principle it is a Being; intellection and Being are
co-existents. Therefore intellection is a multiple not a unitary and
that which does not belong to this order can have no Intellection. And
if we turn to the partial and particular, there is the Intellectual
form of man, and there is man, there is the Intellectual form of horse
and there is horse, the Intellectual form of Justice, and Justice.
Thus all is dual: the unit is a duality and yet again the dual reverts
to unity.
That, however, which stands outside all this category can be neither an
individual unity nor an aggregate of all the duals or in any way a
duality. How the duals rose from The One is treated elsewhere.
What stands above Being stands above intellection: it is no weakness in
it not to know itself, since as pure unity it contains nothing which it
needs to explore. But it need not even spend any knowing upon things
outside itself: this which was always the Good of all gives them
something greater and better than its knowledge of them in giving them
in their own identity to cling, in whatever measure be possible, to a
principle thus lofty.
__________________________________________________________________
SEVENTH TRACTATE.
IS THERE AN IDEAL ARCHETYPE OF
PARTICULAR BEINGS?
1. We have to examine the question whether there exists an ideal
archetype of individuals, in other words whether I and every other
human being go back to the Intellectual, every [living] thing having
origin and principle There.
If Socrates, Socrates' soul, is external then the Authentic Socrates --
to adapt the term -- must be There; that is to say, the individual soul
has an existence in the Supreme as well as in this world. If there is
no such permanent endurance and what was Socrates may with change of
time become another soul and be Pythagoras or someone else -- then the
individual Socrates has not that existence in the Divine.
But if the Soul of the individual contains the Reason-Principles of all
that it traverses, once more all men have their [archetypic] existence
There: and it is our doctrine that every soul contains all the
Reason-Principles that exist in the Kosmos: since then the Kosmos
contains the Reason-Principles not merely of man, but also of all
individual living things, so must the Soul. Its content of
Reason-Principles, then, must be limitless, unless there be a
periodical renovation bounding the boundlessness by the return of a
former series.
But if [in virtue of this periodic return] each archetype may be
reproduced by numerous existents, what need is there that there be
distinct Reason-Principles and archetypes for each existent in any one
period? Might not one [archetypal] man suffice for all, and similarly a
limited number of souls produce a limitless number of men?
No: one Reason-Principle cannot account for distinct and differing
individuals: one human being does not suffice as the exemplar for many
distinct each from the other not merely in material constituents but by
innumerable variations of ideal type: this is no question of various
pictures or images reproducing an original Socrates; the beings
produced differ so greatly as to demand distinct Reason-Principles. The
entire soul-period conveys with it all the requisite Reason-Principles,
and so too the same existents appear once more under their action.
There is no need to baulk at this limitlessness in the Intellectual; it
is an infinitude having nothing to do with number or part; what we may
think of it as its outgoing is no other than its characteristic Act.
2. But individuals are brought into being by the union of the
Reason-Principles of the parents, male and female: this seems to do
away with a definite Reason-Principle for each of the offspring: one of
the parents -- the male let us say -- is the source; and the offspring
is determined not by Reason-Principles differing from child to child
but by one only, the father's or that of the father's father.
No: a distinct Reason-Principle may be the determinant for the child
since the parent contains all: they would become effective at different
times.
And so of the differences among children of the same parents: it is a
matter of varying dominance: either the offspring -- whether it so
appears or not -- has been mainly determined by, now, the male, now,
the female or, while each principle has given itself entire and lies
there within, yet it effectively moulds one portion of the bodily
substance rather than another.
And how [by the theory of a divine archetype of each individual] are
the differences caused by place to be explained?
Is the differentiating element to be found in the varying resistance of
the material of the body?
No: if this were so, all men with the exception of one only would be
untrue to nature.
Difference everywhere is a good, and so there must be differing
archetypes, though only to evil could be attribute any power in Matter
to thwart nature by overmastering the perfect Reason-Principles, hidden
but given, all.
Still, admitting the diversity of the Reason-principles, why need there
by as many as there are men born in each Period, once it is granted
that different beings may take external manifestation under the
presence of the same principles?
Under the presence of all; agreed: but with the dominance of the very
same? That is still open to question.
May we not take it that there may be identical reproduction from one
Period to another but not in the same Period?
3. In the case of twin birth among human beings how can we make out the
Reason-Principles to be different; and still more when we turn to the
animals and especially those with litters?
Where the young are precisely alike, there is one Reason-Principle.
But this would mean that after all there are not as many Reason
Principles as separate beings?
As many as there are of differing beings, differing by something more
than a mere failure in complete reproduction of their Idea.
And why may not this [sharing of archetype] occur also in beings
untouched by differentiation, if indeed there be any such?
A craftsman even in constructing an object identical with a model must
envisage that identity in a mental differentiation enabling him to make
a second thing by bringing in some difference side by side with the
identity: similarly in nature, where the thing comes about not by
reasoning but in sole virtue of Reason-Principles, that differentiation
must be included in the archetypal idea, though it is not in our power
to perceive the difference.
The consideration of Quantity brings the same result:
If production is undetermined in regard to Quantity, each thing has its
distinct Reason-Principle: if there is a measured system the Quantity
has been determined by the unrolling and unfolding of the
Reason-Principles of all the existences.
Thus when the universe has reached its term, there will be a fresh
beginning, since the entire Quantity which the Kosmos is to exhibit,
every item that is to emerge in its course, all is laid up from the
first in the Being that contains the Reason-Principles.
Are we, then, looking to the brute realm, to hold that there are as
many Reason-Principles as distinct creatures born in a litter?
Why not? There is nothing alarming about such limitlessness in
generative forces and in Reason-Principles, when Soul is there to
sustain all.
As in Soul [principle of Life] so in Divine Mind [principle of Idea]
there is this infinitude of recurring generative powers; the Beings
there are unfailing.
__________________________________________________________________
EIGHTH TRACTATE.
ON THE INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY.
1. It is a principle with us that one who has attained to the vision of
the Intellectual Beauty and grasped the beauty of the Authentic
Intellect will be able also to come to understand the Father and
Transcendent of that Divine Being. It concerns us, then, to try to see
and say, for ourselves and as far as such matters may be told, how the
Beauty of the divine Intellect and of the Intellectual Kosmos may be
revealed to contemplation.
Let us go to the realm of magnitudes: Suppose two blocks of stone lying
side by side: one is unpatterned, quite untouched by art; the other has
been minutely wrought by the craftsman's hands into some statue of god
or man, a Grace or a Muse, or if a human being, not a portrait but a
creation in which the sculptor's art has concentrated all loveliness.
Now it must be seen that the stone thus brought under the artist's hand
to the beauty of form is beautiful not as stone -- for so the crude
block would be as pleasant -- but in virtue of the form or idea
introduced by the art. This form is not in the material; it is in the
designer before ever it enters the stone; and the artificer holds it
not by his equipment of eyes and hands but by his participation in his
art. The beauty, therefore, exists in a far higher state in the art;
for it does not come over integrally into the work; that original
beauty is not transferred; what comes over is a derivative and a minor:
and even that shows itself upon the statue not integrally and with
entire realization of intention but only in so far as it has subdued
the resistance of the material.
Art, then, creating in the image of its own nature and content, and
working by the Idea or Reason-Principle of the beautiful object it is
to produce, must itself be beautiful in a far higher and purer degree
since it is the seat and source of that beauty, indwelling in the art,
which must naturally be more complete than any comeliness of the
external. In the degree in which the beauty is diffused by entering
into matter, it is so much the weaker than that concentrated in unity;
everything that reaches outwards is the less for it, strength less
strong, heat less hot, every power less potent, and so beauty less
beautiful.
Then again every prime cause must be, within itself, more powerful than
its effect can be: the musical does not derive from an unmusical source
but from music; and so the art exhibited in the material work derives
from an art yet higher.
Still the arts are not to be slighted on the ground that they create by
imitation of natural objects; for, to begin with, these natural objects
are themselves imitations; then, we must recognise that they give no
bare reproduction of the thing seen but go back to the Ideas from which
Nature itself derives, and, furthermore, that much of their work is all
their own; they are holders of beauty and add where nature is lacking.
Thus Pheidias wrought the Zeus upon no model among things of sense but
by apprehending what form Zeus must take if he chose to become manifest
to sight.
2. But let us leave the arts and consider those works produced by
Nature and admitted to be naturally beautiful which the creations of
art are charged with imitating, all reasoning life and unreasoning
things alike, but especially the consummate among them, where the
moulder and maker has subdued the material and given the form he
desired. Now what is the beauty here? It has nothing to do with the
blood or the menstrual process: either there is also a colour and form
apart from all this, or there is nothing unless sheer ugliness or a
bare recipient, as it were the mere Matter of beauty.
Whence shone forth the beauty of Helen, battle-sought; or of all those
women like in loveliness to Aphrodite; or of Aphrodite herself; or of
any human being that has been perfect in beauty; or of any of these
gods manifest to sight, or unseen but carrying what would be beauty if
we saw?
In all these is it not the Idea, something of that realm but
communicated to the produced from within the producer just as in works
of art, we held, it is communicated from the arts to their creations?
Now we can surely not believe that, while the made thing and the Idea
thus impressed upon Matter are beautiful, yet the Idea not so alloyed
but resting still with the creator -- the Idea primal, immaterial,
firmly a unity -- is not Beauty.
If material extension were in itself the ground of beauty, then the
creating principle, being without extension, could not be beautiful:
but beauty cannot be made to depend upon magnitude since, whether in a
large object or a small, the one Idea equally moves and forms the mind
by its inherent power. A further indication is that as long as the
object remains outside us we know nothing of it; it affects us by
entry; but only as an Idea can it enter through the eyes which are not
of scope to take an extended mass: we are, no doubt, simultaneously
possessed of the magnitude which, however, we take in not as mass but
by an elaboration upon the presented form.
Then again the principle producing the beauty must be, itself, ugly,
neutral or beautiful: ugly, it could not produce the opposite; neutral,
why should its product be the one rather than the other? The Nature,
then, which creates things so lovely must be itself of a far earlier
beauty; we, undisciplined in discernment of the inward, knowing nothing
of it, run after the outer, never understanding that it is the inner
which stirs us; we are in the case of one who sees his own reflection
but not realizing whence it comes goes in pursuit of it.
But that the thing we are pursuing is something different and that the
beauty is not in the concrete object is manifest from the beauty there
is in matters of study, in conduct and custom; briefly in soul or mind.
And it is precisely here that the greater beauty lies, perceived
whenever you look to the wisdom in a man and delight in it, not wasting
attention on the face, which may be hideous, but passing all appearance
by and catching only at the inner comeliness, the truly personal; if
you are still unmoved and cannot acknowledge beauty under such
conditions, then looking to your own inner being you will find no
beauty to delight you and it will be futile in that state to seek the
greater vision, for you will be questing it through the ugly and
impure.
This is why such matters are not spoken of to everyone; you, if you are
conscious of beauty within, remember.
3. Thus there is in the Nature-Principle itself an Ideal archetype of
the beauty that is found in material forms and, of that archetype
again, the still more beautiful archetype in Soul, source of that in
Nature. In the proficient soul this is brighter and of more advanced
loveliness: adorning the soul and bringing to it a light from that
greater light which is beauty primally, its immediate presence sets the
soul reflecting upon the quality of this prior, the archetype which has
no such entries, and is present nowhere but remains in itself alone,
and thus is not even to be called a Reason-Principle but is the
creative source of the very first Reason-Principle which is the Beauty
to which Soul serves as Matter.
This prior, then, is the Intellectual-Principle, the veritable, abiding
and not fluctuant since not taking intellectual quality from outside
itself. By what image thus, can we represent it? We have nowhere to go
but to what is less. Only from itself can we take an image of it; that
is, there can be no representation of it, except in the sense that we
represent gold by some portion of gold -- purified, either actually or
mentally, if it be impure -- insisting at the same time that this is
not the total thing-gold, but merely the particular gold of a
particular parcel. In the same way we learn in this matter from the
purified Intellect in ourselves or, if you like, from the Gods and the
glory of the Intellect in them.
For assuredly all the Gods are august and beautiful in a beauty beyond
our speech. And what makes them so? Intellect; and especially Intellect
operating within them [the divine sun and stars] to visibility. It is
not through the loveliness of their corporeal forms: even those that
have body are not gods by that beauty; it is in virtue of Intellect
that they, too, are gods, and as gods beautiful. They do not veer
between wisdom and folly: in the immunity of Intellect unmoving and
pure, they are wise always, all-knowing, taking cognisance not of the
human but of their own being and of all that lies within the
contemplation of Intellect. Those of them whose dwelling is in the
heavens, are ever in this meditation -- what task prevents them? -- and
from afar they look, too, into that further heaven by a lifting of the
head. The Gods belonging to that higher Heaven itself, they whose
station is upon it and in it, see and know in virtue of their
omnipresence to it. For all There is heaven; earth is heaven, and sea
heaven; and animal and plant and man; all is the heavenly content of
that heaven: and the Gods in it, despising neither men nor anything
else that is there where all is of the heavenly order, traverse all
that country and all space in peace.
4. To "live at ease" is There; and, to these divine beings, verity is
mother and nurse, existence and sustenance; all that is not of process
but of authentic being they see, and themselves in all: for all is
transparent, nothing dark, nothing resistant; every being is lucid to
every other, in breadth and depth; light runs through light. And each
of them contains all within itself, and at the same time sees all in
every other, so that everywhere there is all, and all is all and each
all, and infinite the glory. Each of them is great; the small is great;
the sun, There, is all the stars; and every star, again, is all the
stars and sun. While some one manner of being is dominant in each, all
are mirrored in every other.
Movement There is pure [as self-caused] for the moving principle is not
a separate thing to complicate it as it speeds.
So, too, Repose is not troubled, for there is no admixture of the
unstable; and the Beauty is all beauty since it is not merely resident
[as an attribute or addition] in some beautiful object. Each There
walks upon no alien soil; its place is its essential self; and, as each
moves, so to speak, towards what is Above, it is attended by the very
ground from which it starts: there is no distinguishing between the
Being and the Place; all is Intellect, the Principle and the ground on
which it stands, alike. Thus we might think that our visible sky [the
ground or place of the stars], lit, as it is, produces the light which
reaches us from it, though of course this is really produced by the
stars [as it were, by the Principles of light alone, not also by the
ground as the analogy would require].
In our realm all is part rising from part and nothing can be more than
partial; but There each being is an eternal product of a whole and is
at once a whole and an individual manifesting as part but, to the keen
vision There, known for the whole it is.
The myth of Lynceus seeing into the very deeps of the earth tells us of
those eyes in the divine. No weariness overtakes this vision, which yet
brings no such satiety as would call for its ending; for there never
was a void to be filled so that, with the fulness and the attainment of
purpose, the sense of sufficiency be induced: nor is there any such
incongruity within the divine that one Being there could be repulsive
to another: and of course all There are unchangeable. This absence of
satisfaction means only a satisfaction leading to no distaste for that
which produces it; to see is to look the more, since for them to
continue in the contemplation of an infinite self and of infinite
objects is but to acquiesce in the bidding of their nature.
Life, pure, is never a burden; how then could there be weariness There
where the living is most noble? That very life is wisdom, not a wisdom
built up by reasonings but complete from the beginning, suffering no
lack which could set it enquiring, a wisdom primal, unborrowed, not
something added to the Being, but its very essence. No wisdom, thus, is
greater; this is the authentic knowing, assessor to the divine
Intellect as projected into manifestation simultaneously with it; thus,
in the symbolic saying, Justice is assessor to Zeus.
[Perfect wisdom] for all the Principles of this order, dwelling There,
are as it were visible images protected from themselves, so that all
becomes an object of contemplation to contemplators immeasurably
blessed. The greatness and power of the wisdom There we may know from
this, that is embraces all the real Beings, and has made all, and all
follow it, and yet that it is itself those beings, which sprang into
being with it, so that all is one, and the essence There is wisdom. If
we have failed to understand, it is that we have thought of knowledge
as a mass of theorems and an accumulation of propositions, though that
is false even for our sciences of the sense-realm. But in case this
should be questioned, we may leave our own sciences for the present,
and deal with the knowing in the Supreme at which Plato glances where
he speaks of "that knowledge which is not a stranger in something
strange to it" -- though in what sense, he leaves us to examine and
declare, if we boast ourselves worthy of the discussion. This is
probably our best starting-point.
5. All that comes to be, work of nature or of craft, some wisdom has
made: everywhere a wisdom presides at a making.
No doubt the wisdom of the artist may be the guide of the work; it is
sufficient explanation of the wisdom exhibited in the arts; but the
artist himself goes back, after all, to that wisdom in Nature which is
embodied in himself; and this is not a wisdom built up of theorems but
one totality, not a wisdom consisting of manifold detail co-ordinated
into a unity but rather a unity working out into detail.
Now, if we could think of this as the primal wisdom, we need look no
further, since, at that, we have discovered a principle which is
neither a derivative nor a "stranger in something strange to it." But
if we are told that, while this Reason-Principle is in Nature, yet
Nature itself is its source, we ask how Nature came to possess it; and,
if Nature derived it from some other source, we ask what that other
source may be; if, on the contrary, the principle is self-sprung, we
need look no further: but if we are referred to the
Intellectual-Principle we must make clear whether the
Intellectual-Principle engendered the wisdom: if we learn that it did,
we ask whence: if from itself, then inevitably, it is itself Wisdom.
The true Wisdom, then [found to be identical with the
Intellectual-Principle] is Real Being; and Real Being is Wisdom; it is
wisdom that gives value to Real Being; and Being is Real in virtue of
its origin in wisdom. It follows that all forms of existence not
possessing wisdom are, indeed, Beings in right of the wisdom which went
to their forming but, as not in themselves possessing it, are not Real
Beings.
We cannot therefore think that the divine Beings of that sphere, or the
other supremely blessed There, need look to our apparatus of science:
all of that realm, all is noble image, such images as we may conceive
to lie within the soul of the wise -- but There not as inscription but
as authentic existence. The ancients had this in mind when they
declared the Ideas to be Beings, Essentials.
6. Similarly, as it seems to me, the wise of Egypt -- whether in
precise knowledge or by a prompting of nature -- indicated the truth
where, in their effort towards philosophical statement, they left aside
the writing-forms that take in the detail of words and sentences --
those characters that represent sounds and convey the propositions of
reasoning -- and drew pictures instead, engraving in the temple --
inscriptions a separate image for every separate item: thus they
exhibited the mode in which the Supreme goes forth.
For each manifestation of knowledge and wisdom is a distinct image, an
object in itself, an immediate unity, not as aggregate of discursive
reasoning and detailed willing. Later from this wisdom in unity there
appears, in another form of being, an image, already less compact,
which announces the original in an outward stage and seeks the causes
by which things are such that the wonder rises how a generated world
can be so excellent.
For, one who knows must declare his wonder that this Wisdom, while not
itself containing the causes by which Being exists and takes such
excellence, yet imparts them to the entities produced in Being's realm.
This excellence whose necessity is scarcely or not at all manifest to
search, exists, if we could but find it out, before all searching and
reasoning.
What I say may be considered in one chief thing, and thence applied to
all the particular entities:
7. Consider the universe: we are agreed that its existence and its
nature come to it from beyond itself; are we, now, to imagine that its
maker first thought it out in detail -- the earth, and its necessary
situation in the middle; water and, again, its position as lying upon
the earth; all the other elements and objects up to the sky in due
place and order; living beings with their appropriate forms as we know
them, their inner organs and their outer limbs -- and that having thus
appointed every item beforehand, he then set about the execution?
Such designing was not even possible; how could the plan for a universe
come to one that had never looked outward? Nor could he work on
material gathered from elsewhere as our craftsmen do, using hands and
tools; feet and hands are of the later order.
One way, only, remains: all things must exist in something else; of
that prior -- since there is no obstacle, all being continuous within
the realm of reality -- there has suddenly appeared a sign, an image,
whether given forth directly or through the ministry of soul or of some
phase of soul, matters nothing for the moment: thus the entire
aggregate of existence springs from the divine world, in greater beauty
There because There unmingled but mingled here.
From the beginning to end all is gripped by the Forms of the
Intellectual Realm: Matter itself is held by the Ideas of the elements
and to these Ideas are added other Ideas and others again, so that it
is hard to work down to crude Matter beneath all that sheathing of
Idea. Indeed since Matter itself is in its degree, an Idea -- the
lowest -- all this universe is Idea and there is nothing that is not
Idea as the archetype was. And all is made silently, since nothing had
part in the making but Being and Idea further reason why creation went
without toil. The Exemplar was the Idea of an All, and so an All must
come into being.
Thus nothing stood in the way of the Idea, and even now it dominates,
despite all the clash of things: the creation is not hindered on its
way even now; it stands firm in virtue of being All. To me, moreover,
it seems that if we ourselves were archetypes, Ideas, veritable Being,
and the Idea with which we construct here were our veritable Essence,
then our creative power too would toillessly effect its purpose: as man
now stands, he does not produce in his work a true image of himself:
become man, he has ceased to be the All: ceasing to be man -- we read
-- "he soars aloft and administers the Kosmos entire"; restored to the
All he is maker of the All.
But -- to our immediate purpose -- it is possible to give a reason why
the earth is set in the midst and why it is round and why the ecliptic
runs precisely as it does, but, looking to the creating principle, we
cannot say that because this was the way therefore things were so
planned: we can say only that because the All is what it is, therefore
there is a total of good; the causing principle, we might put it,
reached the conclusion before all formal reasoning and not from any
premises, not by sequence or plan but before either, since all of that
order is later, all reason, demonstration, persuasion.
Since there is a Source, all the created must spring from it and in
accordance with it; and we are rightly told not to go seeking the
causes impelling a Source to produce, especially when this is the
perfectly sufficient Source and identical with the Term: a Source which
is Source and Term must be the All-Unity, complete in itself.
8. This then is Beauty primally: it is entire and omnipresent as an
entirety; and therefore in none of its parts or members lacking in
beauty; beautiful thus beyond denial. Certainly it cannot be anything
[be, for example, Beauty] without being wholly that thing; it can be
nothing which it is to possess partially or in which it utterly fails
[and therefore it must entirely be Beauty entire].
If this principle were not beautiful, what other could be? Its prior
does not deign to be beautiful; that which is the first to manifest
itself -- Form and object of vision to the intellect -- cannot but be
lovely to see. It is to indicate this that Plato, drawing on something
well within our observation, represents the Creator as approving the
work he has achieved: the intention is to make us feel the lovable
beauty of the autotype and of the Divine Idea; for to admire a
representation is to admire the original upon which it was made.
It is not surprising if we fail to recognise what is passing within us:
lovers, and those in general that admire beauty here, do not stay to
reflect that it is to be traced, as of course it must be, to the Beauty
There. That the admiration of the Demiurge is to be referred to the
Ideal Exemplar is deliberately made evident by the rest of the passage:
"He admired; and determined to bring the work into still closer
likeness with the Exemplar": he makes us feel the magnificent beauty of
the Exemplar by telling us that the Beauty sprung from this world is,
itself, a copy from That.
And indeed if the divine did not exist, the transcendently beautiful,
in a beauty beyond all thought, what could be lovelier than the things
we see? Certainly no reproach can rightly be brought against this world
save only that it is not That.
9. Let us, then, make a mental picture of our universe: each member
shall remain what it is, distinctly apart; yet all is to form, as far
as possible, a complete unity so that whatever comes into view shall
show as if it were the surface of the orb over all, bringing
immediately with it the vision, on the one plane, of the sun and of all
the stars with earth and sea and all living things as if exhibited upon
a transparent globe.
Bring this vision actually before your sight, so that there shall be in
your mind the gleaming representation of a sphere, a picture holding
sprung, themselves, of that universe and repose or some at rest, some
in motion. Keep this sphere before you, and from it imagine another, a
sphere stripped of magnitude and of spatial differences; cast out your
inborn sense of Matter, taking care not merely to attenuate it: call on
God, maker of the sphere whose image you now hold, and pray Him to
enter. And may He come bringing His own Universe with all the Gods that
dwell in it -- He who is the one God and all the gods, where each is
all, blending into a unity, distinct in powers but all one god in
virtue of that one divine power of many facets.
More truly, this is the one God who is all the gods; for, in the coming
to be of all those, this, the one, has suffered no diminishing. He and
all have one existence while each again is distinct. It is distinction
by state without interval: there is no outward form to set one here and
another there and to prevent any from being an entire identity; yet
there is no sharing of parts from one to another. Nor is each of those
divine wholes a power in fragment, a power totalling to the sum of the
measurable segments: the divine is one all-power, reaching out to
infinity, powerful to infinity; and so great is God that his very
members are infinites. What place can be named to which He does not
reach?
Great, too, is this firmament of ours and all the powers constellated
within it, but it would be greater still, unspeakably, but that there
is inbound in it something of the petty power of body; no doubt the
powers of fire and other bodily substances might themselves be thought
very great, but in fact, it is through their failure in the true power
that we see them burning, destroying, wearing things away, and slaving
towards the production of life; they destroy because they are
themselves in process of destruction, and they produce because they
belong to the realm of the produced.
The power in that other world has merely Being and Beauty of Being.
Beauty without Being could not be, nor Being voided of Beauty:
abandoned of Beauty, Being loses something of its essence. Being is
desirable because it is identical with Beauty; and Beauty is loved
because it is Being. How then can we debate which is the cause of the
other, where the nature is one? The very figment of Being needs some
imposed image of Beauty to make it passable and even to ensure its
existence; it exists to the degree in which it has taken some share in
the beauty of Idea; and the more deeply it has drawn on this, the less
imperfect it is, precisely because the nature which is essentially the
beautiful has entered into it the more intimately.
10. This is why Zeus, although the oldest of the gods and their
sovereign, advances first [in the Phaidros myth] towards that vision,
followed by gods and demigods and such souls as are of strength to see.
That Being appears before them from some unseen place and rising
loftily over them pours its light upon all things, so that all gleams
in its radiance; it upholds some beings, and they see; the lower are
dazzled and turn away, unfit to gaze upon that sun, the trouble falling
the more heavily on those most remote.
Of those looking upon that Being and its content, and able to see, all
take something but not all the same vision always: intently gazing, one
sees the fount and principle of Justice, another is filled with the
sight of Moral Wisdom, the original of that quality as found, sometimes
at least, among men, copied by them in their degree from the divine
virtue which, covering all the expanse, so to speak, of the
Intellectual Realm is seen, last attainment of all, by those who have
known already many splendid visions.
The gods see, each singly and all as one. So, too, the souls; they see
all There in right of being sprung, themselves, of that universe and
therefore including all from beginning to end and having their
existence There if only by that phase which belongs inherently to the
Divine, though often too they are There entire, those of them that have
not incurred separation.
This vision Zeus takes, and it is for such of us, also, as share his
love and appropriate our part in the Beauty There, the final object of
all seeing, the entire beauty upon all things; for all There sheds
radiance, and floods those that have found their way thither so that
they too become beautiful; thus it will often happen that men climbing
heights where the soil has taken a yellow glow will themselves appear
so, borrowing colour from the place on which they move. The colour
flowering on that other height we speak of is Beauty; or rather all
There is light and beauty, through and through, for the beauty is no
mere bloom upon the surface.
To those that do not see entire, the immediate impression is alone
taken into account; but those drunken with this wine, filled with the
nectar, all their soul penetrated by this beauty, cannot remain mere
gazers: no longer is there a spectator outside gazing on an outside
spectacle; the clear-eyed hold the vision within themselves, though,
for the most part, they have no idea that it is within but look towards
it as to something beyond them and see it as an object of vision caught
by a direction of the will.
All that one sees as a spectacle is still external; one must bring the
vision within and see no longer in that mode of separation but as we
know ourselves; thus a man filled with a god -- possessed by Apollo or
by one of the Muses -- need no longer look outside for his vision of
the divine being; it is but finding the strength to see divinity
within.
11. Similarly any one, unable to see himself, but possessed by that
God, has but to bring that divine -- within before his consciousness
and at once he sees an image of himself, himself lifted to a better
beauty: now let him ignore that image, lovely though it is, and sink
into a perfect self-identity, no such separation remaining; at once he
forms a multiple unity with the God silently present; in the degree of
his power and will, the two become one; should he turn back to the
former duality, still he is pure and remains very near to the God; he
has but to look again and the same presence is there.
This conversion brings gain: at the first stage, that of separation, a
man is aware of self; but, retreating inwards, he becomes possessor of
all; he puts sense away behind him in dread of the separated life and
becomes one in the Divine; if he plans to see in separation, he sets
himself outside.
The novice must hold himself constantly under some image of the Divine
Being and seek in the light of a clear conception; knowing thus, in a
deep conviction, whither he is going -- into what a sublimity he
penetrates -- he must give himself forthwith to the inner and, radiant
with the Divine Intellections [with which he is now one], be no longer
the seer but, as that place has made him, the seen.
Still, we will be told, one cannot be in beauty and yet fail to see it.
The very contrary: to see the divine as something external is to be
outside of it; to become it is to be most truly in beauty: since sight
deals with the external, there can here be no vision unless in the
sense of identification with the object.
And this identification amounts to a self-knowing, a
self-consciousness, guarded by the fear of losing the self in the
desire of a too wide awareness.
It must be remembered that sensations of the ugly and evil impress us
more violently than those of what is agreeable and yet leave less
knowledge as the residue of the shock: sickness makes the rougher mark,
but health, tranquilly present, explains itself better; it takes the
first place, it is the natural thing, it belongs to our being; illness
is alien, unnatural and thus makes itself felt by its very incongruity,
while the other conditions are native and we take no notice. Such being
our nature, we are most completely aware of ourselves when we are most
completely identified with the object of our knowledge.
This is why in that other sphere, when we are deepest in that knowledge
by intellection, we are aware of none; we are expecting some impression
on sense, which has nothing to report since it has seen nothing and
never could in that order see anything. The unbelieving element is
sense; it is the other, the Intellectual-Principle, that sees; and if
this too doubted, it could not even credit its own existence, for it
can never stand away and with bodily eyes apprehend itself as a visible
object.
12. We have told how this vision is to be procured, whether by the mode
of separation or in identity: now, seen in either way, what does it
give to report?
The vision has been of God in travail of a beautiful offspring, God
engendering a universe within himself in a painless labour and --
rejoiced in what he has brought into being, proud of his children --
keeping all closely by Him, for pleasure He has in his radiance and in
theirs.
Of this offspring -- all beautiful, but most beautiful those that have
remained within -- only one has become manifest without; from him
[Zeus, sovereign over the visible universe] the youngest born, we may
gather, as from some image, the greatness of the Father and of the
Brothers that remain within the Father's house.
Still the manifested God cannot think that he has come forth in vain
from the father; for through him another universe has arisen, beautiful
as the image of beauty, and it could not be' lawful that Beauty and
Being should fail of a beautiful image.
This second Kosmos at every point copies the archetype: it has life and
being in copy, and has beauty as springing from that diviner world. In
its character of image it holds, too, that divine perpetuity without
which it would only at times be truly representative and sometimes fail
like a construction of art; for every image whose existence lies in the
nature of things must stand during the entire existence of the
archetype.
Hence it is false to put an end to the visible sphere as long as the
Intellectual endures, or to found it upon a decision taken by its maker
at some given moment.
That teaching shirks the penetration of such a making as is here
involved: it fails to see that as long as the Supreme is radiant there
can be no failing of its sequel but, that existing, all exists. And --
since the necessity of conveying our meaning compels such terms -- the
Supreme has existed for ever and for ever will exist.
13. The God fettered [as in the Kronos Myth] to an unchanging identity
leaves the ordering of this universe to his son (to Zeus), for it could
not be in his character to neglect his rule within the divine sphere,
and, as though sated with the Authentic-Beauty, seek a lordship too
recent and too poor for his might. Ignoring this lower world, Kronos
[Intellectual-Principle] claims for his own father [Ouranoo, the
Absolute, or One] with all the upward-tending between them: and he
counts all that tends to the inferior, beginning from his son [Zeus,
the All-Soul], as ranking beneath him. Thus he holds a mid position
determined on the one side by the differentiation implied in the
severance from the very highest and, on the other, by that which keeps
him apart from the link between himself and the lower: he stands
between a greater father and an inferior son. But since that father is
too lofty to be thought of under the name of Beauty, the second God
remains the primally beautiful.
Soul also has beauty, but is less beautiful than Intellect as being its
image and therefore, though beautiful in nature, taking increase of
beauty by looking to that original. Since then the All-Soul -- to use
the more familiar term -- since Aphrodite herself is so beautiful, what
name can we give to that other? If Soul is so lovely in its own right,
of what quality must that prior be? And since its being is derived,
what must that power be from which the Soul takes the double beauty,
the borrowed and the inherent?
We ourselves possess beauty when we are true to our own being; our
ugliness is in going over to another order; our self-knowledge, that is
to say, is our beauty; in self-ignorance we are ugly.
Thus beauty is of the Divine and comes Thence only.
Do these considerations suffice to a clear understanding of the
Intellectual Sphere, or must we make yet another attempt by another
road?
__________________________________________________________________
NINTH TRACTATE.
THE INTELLECTUAL-PRINCIPLE, THE IDEAS, AND
THE AUTHENTIC EXISTENCE.
1. All human beings from birth onward live to the realm of sense more
than to the Intellectual.
Forced of necessity to attend first to the material, some of them elect
to abide by that order and, their life throughout, make its concerns
their first and their last; the sweet and the bitter of sense are their
good and evil; they feel they have done all if they live along pursuing
the one and barring the doors to the other. And those of them that
pretend to reasoning have adopted this as their philosophy; they are
like the heavier birds which have incorporated much from the earth and
are so weighted down that they cannot fly high for all the wings Nature
has given them.
Others do indeed lift themselves a little above the earth; the better
in their soul urges them from the pleasant to the nobler, but they are
not of power to see the highest and so, in despair of any surer ground,
they fall back in virtue's name, upon those actions and options of the
lower from which they sought to escape.
But there is a third order -- those godlike men who, in their mightier
power, in the keenness of their sight, have clear vision of the
splendour above and rise to it from among the cloud and fog of earth
and hold firmly to that other world, looking beyond all here, delighted
in the place of reality, their native land, like a man returning after
long wanderings to the pleasant ways of his own country.
2. What is this other place and how it is accessible?
It is to be reached by those who, born with the nature of the lover,
are also authentically philosophic by inherent temper; in pain of love
towards beauty but not held by material loveliness, taking refuge from
that in things whose beauty is of the soul -- such things as virtue,
knowledge, institutions, law and custom -- and thence, rising still a
step, reach to the source of this loveliness of the Soul, thence to
whatever be above that again, until the uttermost is reached. The
First, the Principle whose beauty is self-springing: this attained,
there is an end to the pain inassuageable before.
But how is the ascent to be begun? Whence comes the power? In what
thought is this love to find its guide?
The guiding thought is this: that the beauty perceived on material
things is borrowed.
The pattern giving beauty to the corporeal rests upon it as Idea to its
Matter and the substrate may change and from being pleasant become
distasteful, a sign, in all reason, that the beauty comes by
participation.
Now, what is this that gives grace to the corporeal?
Two causes in their degree; the participation in beauty and the power
of Soul, the maker, which has imprinted that form.
We ask then is soul, of itself, a thing of beauty: we find it is not
since differences are manifest, one Soul wise and lovely, another
foolish and ugly: soul-beauty is constituted by wisdom.
The question thus becomes, "What principle is the giver of wisdom to
the soul? and the only answer is "The Intellectual-Principle," the
veritably intellectual, wise without intermission and therefore
beautiful of itself.
But does even this suffice for our First?
No; we must look still inward beyond the Intellectual, which, from our
point of approach, stands before the Supreme Beginning, in whose
forecourt, as it were, it announces in its own being the entire content
of the Good, that prior of all, locked in unity, of which this is the
expression already touched by multiplicity.
3. We will have to examine this Nature, the Intellectual, which our
reasoning identifies as the authentically existent and the veritable
essential: but first we must take another path and make certain that
such a principle does necessarily exist.
Perhaps it is ridiculous to set out enquiring whether an
Intellectual-Principle has place in the total of being: but there may
be some to hesitate even as to this and certainly there will be the
question whether it is as we describe it, whether it is a separate
existence, whether it actually is the real beings, whether it is the
seat of the Ideas; to this we now address ourselves.
All that we see, and describe as having existence, we know to be
compound; hand-wrought or compacted by nature, nothing is simplex. Now
the hand-wrought, with its metal or stone or wood, is not realized out
of these materials until the appropriate craft has produced statue,
house or bed, by imparting the particular idea from its own content.
Similarly with natural forms of being; those including several
constituents, compound bodies as we call them, may be analysed into the
materials and the Idea imposed upon the total; the human being, for
example, into soul and body; and the human body into the four elements.
Finding everything to be a compound of Matter and shaping principle --
since the Matter of the elements is of itself shapeless -- you will
enquire whence this forming idea comes; and you will ask whether in the
soul we recognise a simplex or whether this also has constituents,
something representing Matter and something else -- the
Intellectual-Principle in it -- representing Idea, the one
corresponding to the shape actually on the statue, the other to the
artist giving the shape.
Applying the same method to the total of things, here too we discover
the Intellectual-Principle and this we set down as veritably the maker
and creator of the All. The underly has adopted, we see, certain shapes
by which it becomes fire, water, air, earth; and these shapes have been
imposed upon it by something else. This other is Soul which, hovering
over the Four [the elements], imparts the pattern of the Kosmos, the
Ideas for which it has itself received from the Intellectual-Principle
as the soul or mind of the craftsman draws upon his craft for the plan
of his work.
The Intellectual-Principle is in one phase the Form of the soul, its
shape; in another phase it is the giver of the shape -- the sculptor,
possessing inherently what is given -- imparting to soul nearly the
authentic reality while what body receives is but image and imitation.
4. But, soul reached, why need we look higher; why not make this The
First?
A main reason is that the Intellectual-Principle is at once something
other and something more powerful than Soul and that the more powerful
is in the nature of things the prior. For it is certainly not true, as
people imagine, that the soul, brought to perfection, produces
Intellect. How could that potentiality come to actuality unless there
be, first, an effective principle to induce the actualization which,
left to chance, might never occur?
The Firsts must be supposed to exist in actuality, looking to nothing
else, self-complete. Anything incomplete must be sequent upon these,
and take its completion from the principles engendering it which, like
fathers, labour in the improvement of an offspring born imperfect: the
produced is a Matter to the producing principle and is worked over by
it into a shapely perfection.
And if, further, soul is passible while something impassible there must
be or by the mere passage of time all wears away, here too we are led
to something above soul.
Again there must be something prior to Soul because Soul is in the
world and there must be something outside a world in which, all being
corporeal and material, nothing has enduring reality: failing such a
prior, neither man nor the Ideas would be eternal or have true
identity.
These and many other considerations establish the necessary existence
of an Intellectual-Principle prior to Soul.
5. This Intellectual-Principle, if the term is to convey the truth,
must be understood to be not a principle merely potential and not one
maturing from unintelligence to intelligence -- that would simply send
us seeking, once more, a necessary prior -- but a principle which is
intelligence in actuality and in eternity.
Now a principle whose wisdom is not borrowed must derive from itself
any intellection it may make; and anything it may possess within itself
it can hold only from itself: it follows that, intellective by its own
resource and upon its own content, it is itself the very things on
which its intellection acts.
For supposing its essence to be separable from its intellection and the
objects of its intellection to be not itself, then its essence would be
unintellectual; and it would be intellectual not actually but
potentially. The intellection and its object must then be inseparable
-- however the habit induced by our conditions may tempt us to
distinguish, There too, the thinker from the thought.
What then is its characteristic Act and what the intellection which
makes knower and known here identical?
Clearly, as authentic Intellection, it has authentic intellection of
the authentically existent, and establishes their existence. Therefore
it is the Authentic Beings.
Consider: It must perceive them either somewhere else or within itself
as its very self: the somewhere else is impossible -- where could that
be? -- they are therefore itself and the content of itself.
Its objects certainly cannot be the things of sense, as people think;
no First could be of the sense-known order; for in things of sense the
Idea is but an image of the authentic, and every Idea thus derivative
and exiled traces back to that original and is no more than an image of
it.
Further, if the Intellectual-Principle is to be the maker of this All,
it cannot make by looking outside itself to what does not yet exist.
The Authentic Beings must, then, exist before this All, no copies made
on a model but themselves archetypes, primals, and the essence of the
Intellectual-Principle.
We may be told that Reason-Principles suffice [to the subsistence of
the All]: but then these, clearly, must be eternal; and if eternal, if
immune, then they must exist in an Intellectual-Principle such as we
have indicated, a principle earlier than condition, than nature, than
soul, than anything whose existence is potential for contingent].
The Intellectual-Principle, therefore, is itself the authentic
existences, not a knower knowing them in some sphere foreign to it. The
Authentic Beings, thus, exist neither before nor after it: it is the
primal legislator to Being or, rather, is itself the law of Being. Thus
it is true that "Intellectual and Being are identical"; in the
immaterial the knowledge of the thing is the thing. And this is the
meaning of the dictum "I sought myself," namely as one of the Beings:
it also bears on reminiscence.
For none of the Beings is outside the Intellectual-Principle or in
space; they remain for ever in themselves, accepting no change, no
decay, and by that are the authentically existent. Things that arise
and fall away draw on real being as something to borrow from; they are
not of the real; the true being is that on which they draw.
It is by participation that the sense-known has the being we ascribe to
it; the underlying nature has taken its shape from elsewhere; thus
bronze and wood are shaped into what we see by means of an image
introduced by sculpture or carpentry; the craft permeates the materials
while remaining integrally apart from the material and containing in
itself the reality of statue or couch. And it is so, of course, with
all corporeal things.
This universe, characteristically participant in images, shows how the
image differs from the authentic beings: against the variability of the
one order, there stands the unchanging quality of the other,
self-situate, not needing space because having no magnitude, holding an
existent intellective and self-sufficing. The body-kind seeks its
endurance in another kind; the Intellectual-Principle, sustaining by
its marvellous Being, the things which of themselves must fall, does
not itself need to look for a staying ground.
6. We take it, then, that the Intellectual-Principle is the authentic
existences and contains them all -- not as in a place but as possessing
itself and being one thing with this its content. All are one there and
yet are distinct: similarly the mind holds many branches and items of
knowledge simultaneously, yet none of them merged into any other, each
acting its own part at call quite independently, every conception
coming out from the inner total and working singly. It is after this
way, though in a closer unity, that the Intellectual-Principle is all
Being in one total -- and yet not in one, since each of these beings is
a distinct power which, however, the total Intellectual-Principle
includes as the species in a genus, as the parts in a whole. This
relation may be illustrated by the powers in seed; all lies
undistinguished in the unit, the formative ideas gathered as in one
kernel; yet in that unit there is eye-principle, and there is
hand-principle, each of which is revealed as a separate power by its
distinct material product. Thus each of the powers in the seed is a
Reason-Principle one and complete yet including all the parts over
which it presides: there will be something bodily, the liquid, for
example, carrying mere Matter; but the principle itself is Idea and
nothing else, idea identical with the generative idea belonging to the
lower soul, image of a higher. This power is sometimes designated as
Nature in the seed-life; its origin is in the divine; and, outgoing
from its priors as light from fire, it converts and shapes the matter
of things, not by push and pull and the lever work of which we hear so
much, but by bestowal of the Ideas.
7. Knowledge in the reasoning soul is on the one side concerned with
objects of sense, though indeed this can scarcely be called knowledge
and is better indicated as opinion or surface-knowing; it is of later
origin than the objects since it is a reflection from them: but on the
other hand there is the knowledge handling the intellectual objects and
this is the authentic knowledge; it enters the reasoning soul from the
Intellectual-Principle and has no dealing with anything in sense. Being
true knowledge it actually is everything of which it takes cognisance;
it carries as its own content the intellectual act and the intellectual
object since it carries the Intellectual-Principle which actually is
the primals and is always self-present and is in its nature an Act,
never by any want forced to seek, never acquiring or traversing the
remote -- for all such experience belongs to soul -- but always
self-gathered, the very Being of the collective total, not an extern
creating things by the act of knowing them.
Not by its thinking God does God come to be; not by its thinking
Movement does Movement arise. Hence it is an error to call the Ideas
intellections in the sense that, upon an intellectual act in this
Principle, one such Idea or another is made to exist or exists. No: the
object of this intellection must exist before the intellective act
[must be the very content not the creation of the
Intellectual-Principle]. How else could that Principle come to know it:
certainly not [as an external] by luck or by haphazard search.
8. If, then, the Intellection is an act upon the inner content [of a
perfect unity], that content is at once the Idea [as object: eidos] and
the Idea itself [as concept: idea].
What, then, is that content?
An Intellectual-Principle and an Intellective Essence, no concept
distinguishable from the Intellectual-Principle, each actually being
that Principle. The Intellectual-Principle entire is the total of the
Ideas, and each of them is the [entire] Intellectual-Principle in a
special form. Thus a science entire is the total of the relevant
considerations each of which, again, is a member of the entire science,
a member not distinct in space yet having its individual efficacy in a
total.
This Intellectual-Principle, therefore, is a unity while by that
possession of itself it is, tranquilly, the eternal abundance.
If the Intellectual-Principle were envisaged as preceding Being, it
would at once become a principle whose expression, its intellectual
Act, achieves and engenders the Beings: but, since we are compelled to
think of existence as preceding that which knows it, we can but think
that the Beings are the actual content of the knowing principle and
that the very act, the intellection, is inherent to the Beings, as fire
stands equipped from the beginning with fire-act; in this conception,
the Beings contain the Intellectual-Principle as one and the same with
themselves, as their own activity. Thus, Being is itself an activity:
there is one activity, then, in both or, rather, both are one thing.
Being, therefore, and the Intellectual-Principle are one Nature: the
Beings, and the Act of that which is, and the Intellectual-Principle
thus constituted, all are one: and the resultant Intellections are the
Idea of Being and its shape and its act.
It is our separating habit that sets the one order before the other:
for there is a separating intellect, of another order than the true,
distinct from the intellect, inseparable and unseparating, which is
Being and the universe of things.
9. What, then, is the content -- inevitably separated by our minds --
of this one Intellectual-Principle? For there is no resource but to
represent the items in accessible form just as we study the various
articles constituting one science.
This universe is a living thing capable of including every form of
life; but its Being and its modes are derived from elsewhere; that
source is traced back to the Intellectual-Principle: it follows that
the all-embracing archetype is in the Intellectual-Principle, which,
therefore, must be an intellectual Kosmos, that indicated by Plato in
the phrase "The living existent."
Given the Reason-Principle [the outgoing divine Idea] of a certain
living thing and the Matter to harbour this seed-principle, the living
thing must come into being: in the same way once there exists -- an
intellective Nature, all powerful, and with nothing to check it --
since nothing intervenes between it and that which is of a nature to
receive it -- inevitably the higher imprints form and the lower
accepts, it. The recipient holds the Idea in division, here man, there
sun, while in the giver all remains in unity.
10. All, then, that is present in the sense realm as Idea comes from
the Supreme. But what is not present as Idea, does not. Thus of things
conflicting with nature, none is There: the inartistic is not contained
in the arts; lameness is not in the seed; for a lame leg is either
inborn through some thwarting of the Reason-principle or is a marring
of the achieved form by accident. To that Intellectual Kosmos belong
qualities, accordant with Nature, and quantities; number and mass;
origins and conditions; all actions and experiences not against nature;
movement and repose, both the universals and the particulars: but There
time is replaced by eternity and space by its intellectual equivalent,
mutual inclusiveness.
In that Intellectual Kosmos, where all is one total, every entity that
can be singled out is an intellective essence and a participant in
life: thus, identity and difference, movement and rest with the object
resting or moving, essence and quality, all have essential existence.
For every real being must be in actuality not merely in potentiality
and therefore the nature of each essence is inherent in it.
This suggests the question whether the Intellectual Kosmos contains the
forms only of the things of sense or of other existents as well. But
first we will consider how it stands with artistic creations: there is
no question of an ideal archetype of evil: the evil of this world is
begotten of need, privation, deficiency, and is a condition peculiar to
Matter distressed and to what has come into likeness with Matter.
11. Now as to the arts and crafts and their productions:
The imitative arts -- painting, sculpture, dancing, pantomimic
gesturing -- are, largely, earth-based; on an earthly base; they follow
models found in sense, since they copy forms and movements and
reproduce seen symmetries; they cannot therefore be referred to that
higher sphere except indirectly, through the Reason-Principle in
humanity.
On the other hand any skill which, beginning with the observation of
the symmetry of living things, grows to the symmetry of all life, will
be a portion of the Power There which observes and meditates the
symmetry reigning among all beings in the Intellectual Kosmos. Thus all
music -- since its thought is upon melody and rhythm -- must be the
earthly representation of the music there is in the rhythm of the Ideal
Realm.
The crafts, such as building and carpentry which give us Matter in
wrought forms, may be said, in that they draw on pattern, to take their
principles from that realm and from the thinking There: but in that
they bring these down into contact with the sense-order, they are not
wholly in the Intellectual: they are founded in man. So agriculture,
dealing with material growths: so medicine watching over physical
health; so the art which aims at corporeal strength and well-being:
power and well-being mean something else There, the fearlessness and
self-sufficing quality of all that lives.
Oratory and generalship, administration and sovereignty -- under any
forms in which their activities are associated with Good and when they
look to that -- possess something derived thence and building up their
knowledge from the knowledge There.
Geometry, the science of the Intellectual entities, holds place There:
so, too, philosophy, whose high concern is Being.
For the arts and products of art, these observations may suffice.
12. It should however be added that if the Idea of man exists in the
Supreme, there must exist the Idea of reasoning man and of man with his
arts and crafts; such arts as are the offspring of intellect Must be
There.
It must be observed that the Ideas will be of universals; not of
Socrates but of Man: though as to man we may enquire whether the
individual may not also have place There. Under the heading of
individuality there is to be considered the repetition of the same
feature from man to man, the simian type, for example, and the
aquiline: the aquiline and the simian must be taken to be differences
in the Idea of Man as there are different types of the animal: but
Matter also has its effect in bringing about the degree of aquilinity.
Similarly with difference of complexion, determined partly by the
Reason-Principle, partly by Matter and by diversity of place.
13. It remains to decide whether only what is known in sense exists
There or whether, on the contrary, as Absolute-Man differs from
individual man, so there is in the Supreme an Absolute-Soul differing
from Soul and an Absolute-Intellect differing from
Intellectual-Principle.
It must be stated at the outset that we cannot take all that is here to
be image of archetype, or Soul to be an image of Absolute-Soul: one
soul, doubtless, ranks higher than another, but here too, though
perhaps not as identified with this realm, is the Absolute-Soul.
Every soul, authentically a soul, has some form of rightness and moral
wisdom; in the souls within ourselves there is true knowing: and these
attributes are no images or copies from the Supreme, as in the
sense-world, but actually are those very originals in a mode peculiar
to this sphere. For those Beings are not set apart in some defined
place; wherever there is a soul that has risen from body, there too
these are: the world of sense is one -- where, the Intellectual Kosmos
is everywhere. Whatever the freed soul attains to here, that it is
There.
Thus, if by the content of the sense-world we mean simply the visible
objects, then the Supreme contains not only what is in the realm of
sense but more: if in the content of the kosmos we mean to include Soul
and the Soul-things, then all is here that is There.
14. There is, thus, a Nature comprehending in the Intellectual all that
exists, and this Principle must be the source of all. But how, seeing
that the veritable source must be a unity, simplex utterly?
The mode by which from the unity arises the multiple, how all this
universe comes to be, why the Intellectual-Principle is all and whence
it springs, these matters demand another approach.
But on the question as to whether the repulsive and the products of
putridity have also their Idea -- whether there is an Idea of filth and
mud -- it is to be observed that all that the Intellectual-Principle
derived from The First is of the noblest; in those Ideas the base is
not included: these repulsive things point not to the
Intellectual-Principle but to the Soul which, drawing upon the
Intellectual-Principle, takes from Matter certain other things, and
among them these.
But all this will be more clearly brought out, when we turn to the
problem of the production of multiplicity from unity. Compounds, we
shall see -- as owing existence to hazard and not to the
Intellectual-Principle, having been fused into objects of sense by
their own impulse -- are not to be included under Ideas.
The products of putrefaction are to be traced to the Soul's inability
to bring some other thing to being -- something in the order of nature,
which, else, it would -- but producing where it may. In the matter of
the arts and crafts, all that are to be traced to the needs of human
nature are laid up in the Absolute Man.
And before the particular Soul there is another Soul, a universal, and,
before that, an Absolute-Soul, which is the Life existing in the
Intellectual-Principle before Soul came to be and therefore rightly
called [as the Life in the Divine] the Absolute-Soul.
__________________________________________________________________
THE SIXTH ENNEAD
__________________________________________________________________
FIRST TRACTATE.
ON THE KINDS OF BEING (1).
1. Philosophy at a very early stage investigated the number and
character of the Existents. Various theories resulted: some declared
for one Existent, others for a finite number, others again for an
infinite number, while as regards the nature of the Existents -- one,
numerically finite, or numerically infinite -- there was a similar
disagreement. These theories, in so far as they have been adequately
examined by later workers, may be passed over here; our attention must
be directed upon the results of those whose examination has led them to
posit on their awn account certain well-defined genera.
These thinkers rejected pure unity on the ground of the plurality
observed even in the Intellectual world; they rejected an infinite
number as not reconcilable with the facts and as defying knowledge:
considering the foundations of being to be "genera" rather than
elements strictly so called, they concluded for a finite number. Of
these "genera" some found ten, others less, others no doubt more.
But here again there is a divergence of views. To some the genera are
first-principles; to others they indicate only a generic classification
of the Existents themselves.
Let us begin with the well-known tenfold division of the Existents, and
consider whether we are to understand ten genera ranged under the
common name of Being, or ten categories. That the term Being has not
the same sense in all ten is rightly maintained.
But a graver problem confronts us at the outset: Are the ten found
alike in the Intellectual and in the Sensible realms? Or are all found
in the Sensible and some only in the Intellectual? All in the
Intellectual and some in the Sensible is manifestly impossible.
At this point it would be natural to investigate which of the ten
belong to both spheres, and whether the Existents of the Intellectual
are to be ranged under one and the same genus with the Existents in the
Sensible, or whether the term "Existence" [or Substance] is equivocal
as applied to both realms. If the equivocation exists, the number of
genera will be increased: if there is no equivocation, it is strange to
find the one same "Existence" applying to the primary and to the
derivative Existents when there is no common genus embracing both
primal and secondary.
These thinkers are however not considering the Intellectual realm in
their division, which was not intended to cover all the Existents; the
Supreme they overlooked.
2. But are we really obliged to posit the existence of such genera?
Take Substance, for Substance must certainly be our starting-point:
what are the grounds for regarding Substance as one single genus?
It has been remarked that Substance cannot be a single entity common to
both the Intellectual and the Sensible worlds. We may add that such
community would entail the existence of something prior to Intellectual
and Sensible Substances alike, something distinct from both as
predicated of both; and this prior would be neither body nor
unembodied; for it were one or the other, body would be unembodied, or
the unembodied would be the body.
This conclusion must not however prevent our seeking in the actual
substance of the Sensible world an element held in common by Matter, by
Form and by their Composite, all of which are designated as substances,
though it is not maintained that they are Substance in an equal degree;
Form is usually held to be Substance in a higher degree than Matter,
and rightly so, in spite of those who would have Matter to be the more
truly real.
There is further the distinction drawn between what are known as First
and Second Substances. But what is their common basis, seeing that the
First are the source from which the Second derive their right to be
called substances?
But, in sum, it is impossible to define Substance: determine its
property, and still you have not attained to its essence. Even the
definition, "That which, numerically one and the same, is receptive of
contraries," will hardly be applicable to all substances alike.
3. But perhaps we should rather speak of some single category,
embracing Intellectual Substance, Matter, Form, and the Composite of
Matter and Form. One might refer to the family of the Heraclids as a
unity in the sense, not of a common element in all its members, but of
a common origin: similarly, Intellectual Substance would be Substance
in the first degree, the others being substances by derivation and in a
lower degree.
But what is the objection to including everything in a single category,
all else of which existence is predicated being derived from that one
thing, Existence or Substance? Because, granted that things be no more
than modifications of Substance, there is a distinct grading of
substances themselves. Moreover, the single category does not put us in
a position to build on Substance, or to grasp it in its very truth as
the plausible source of the other substances.
Supposing we grant that all things known as substances are homogeneous
as possessing something denied to the other genera, what precisely is
this something, this individuality, this subject which is never a
predicate, this thing not present in any thing as in a subject, this
thing which does not owe its essential character to any other thing, as
a quality takes character from a body and a quantity from a substance,
as time is related to motion and motion to the moved?
The Second Substance is, it is true, a predicate. But predication in
this case signifies a different relation from that just considered; it
reveals the genus inherent in the subject and the subject's essential
character, whereas whiteness is predicated of a thing in the sense of
being present in the thing.
The properties adduced may indeed be allowed to distinguish Substance
from the other Existents. They afford a means of grouping substances
together and calling them by a common name. They do not however
establish the unity of a genus, and they do not bring to light the
concept and the nature of Substance.
These considerations are sufficient for our purpose: let us now proceed
to investigate the nature of Quantity.
4. We are told that number is Quantity in the primary sense, number
together with all continuous magnitude, space and time: these are the
standards to which all else that is considered as Quantity is referred,
including motion which is Quantity because its time is quantitative --
though perhaps, conversely, the time takes its continuity from the
motion.
If it is maintained that the continuous is a Quantity by the fact of
its continuity, then the discrete will not be a Quantity. If, on the
contrary, the continuous possesses Quantity as an accident, what is
there common to both continuous and discrete to make them quantities?
Suppose we concede that numbers are quantities: we are merely allowing
them the name of quantity; the principle which gives them this name
remains obscure.
On the other hand, line and surface and body are not called quantities;
they are called magnitudes: they become known as quantities only when
they are rated by number-two yards, three yards. Even the natural body
becomes a quantity when measured, as does the space which it occupies;
but this is quantity accidental, not quantity essential; what we seek
to grasp is not accidental quantity but Quantity independent and
essential, Quantity-Absolute. Three oxen is not a quantity; it is their
number, the three, that is Quantity; for in three oxen we are dealing
with two categories. So too with a line of a stated length, a surface
of a given area; the area will be a quantity but not the surface, which
only comes under that category when it constitutes a definite geometric
figure.
Are we then to consider numbers, and numbers only, as constituting the
category of Quantity? If we mean numbers in themselves, they are
substances, for the very good reason that they exist independently. If
we mean numbers displayed in the objects participant in number, the
numbers which give the count of the objects -- ten horses or ten oxen,
and not ten units -- then we have a paradoxical result: first, the
numbers in themselves, it would appear, are substances but the numbers
in objects are not; and secondly, the numbers inhere in the objects as
measures [of extension or weight], yet as standing outside the objects
they have no measuring power, as do rulers and scales. If however their
existence is independent, and they do not inhere in the objects, but
are simply called in for the purpose of measurement, the objects will
be quantities only to the extent of participating in Quantity.
So with the numbers themselves: how can they constitute the category of
Quantity? They are measures; but how do measures come to be quantities
or Quantity? Doubtless in that, existing as they do among the Existents
and not being adapted to any of the other categories, they find their
place under the influence of verbal suggestion and so are referred to
the so-called category of Quantity. We see the unit mark off one
measurement and then proceed to another; and number thus reveals the
amount of a thing, and the mind measures by availing itself of the
total figure.
It follows that in measuring it is not measuring essence; it pronounces
its "one" or "two," whatever the character of the objects, even summing
contraries. It does not take count of condition -- hot, handsome; it
simply notes how many.
Number then, whether regarded in itself or in the participant objects,
belongs to the category of Quantity, but the participant objects do
not. "Three yards long" does not fall under the category of Quantity,
but only the three.
Why then are magnitudes classed as quantities? Not because they are so
in the strict sense, but because they approximate to Quantity, and
because objects in which magnitudes inhere are themselves designated as
quantities. We call a thing great or small from its participation in a
high number or a low. True, greatness and smallness are not claimed to
be quantities, but relations: but it is by their apparent possession of
quantity that they are thought of as relations. All this, however,
needs more careful examination.
In sum, we hold that there is no single genus of Quantity. Only number
is Quantity, the rest [magnitudes, space, time, motion] quantities only
in a secondary degree. We have therefore not strictly one genus, but
one category grouping the approximate with the primary and the
secondary.
We have however to enquire in what sense the abstract numbers are
substances. Can it be that they are also in a manner quantitative? Into
whatever category they fall, the other numbers [those inherent in
objects] can have nothing in common with them but the name.
5. Speech, time, motion -- in what sense are these quantities?
Let us begin with speech. It is subject to measurement, but only in so
far as it is sound; it is not a quantity in its essential nature, which
nature is that it be significant, as noun and verb are significant. The
air is its Matter, as it is Matter to verb and noun, the components of
speech.
To be more precise, we may define speech as an impact [made upon the
outer air by the breath], though it is not so much the impact as the
impression which the impact produces and which, as it were, imposes
Form [upon the air]. Speech, thus, is rather an action than a quantity
-- an action with a significance. Though perhaps it would be truer to
say that while this motion, this impact, is an action, the
counter-motion is an experience [or Passion]; or each may be from
different points of view either an action or an experience: or we may
think of speech as action upon a substrate [air] and experience within
that substrate.
If however voice is not characteristically impact, but is simply air,
two categories will be involved: voice is significant, and the one
category will not be sufficient to account for this significance
without associating with a second.
With regard to time, if it is to be thought of as a measure, we must
determine what it is that applies this measure. It must clearly be
either Soul or the Present Moment. If on the contrary we take time to
be something measured and regard it as being of such and such extension
-- a year, for example -- then we may consider it as a quantity:
essentially however time is of a different nature; the very fact that
we can attribute this or that length to it shows us that it is not
length: in other words, time is not Quantity. Quantity in the strict
sense is the Quantity not inbound with things; if things became
quantities by mere participation in Quantity, then Substance itself
would be identical with Quantity.
Equality and inequality must be regarded as properties of
Quantity-Absolute, not of the participants, or of them not essentially
but only accidentally: such participants as "three yards' length,"
which becomes a quantity, not as belonging to a single genus of
Quantity, but by being subsumed under the one head, the one category.
6. In considering Relation we must enquire whether it possesses the
community of a genus, or whether it may on other grounds be treated as
a unity.
Above all, has Relation -- for example, that of right and left, double
and half -- any actuality? Has it, perhaps, actuality in some cases
only, as for instance in what is termed "posterior" but not in what is
termed "prior"? Or is its actuality in no case conceivable?
What meaning, then, are we to attach to double and half and all other
cases of less and more; to habit and disposition, reclining, sitting,
standing; to father, son, master, slave; to like, unlike, equal,
unequal; to active and passive, measure and measured; or again to
knowledge and sensation, as related respectively to the knowable and
the sensible?
Knowledge, indeed, may be supposed to entail in relation to the known
object some actual entity corresponding to that object's Ideal Form,
and similarly with sensation as related to the sense-object. The active
will perform some constant function in relation to the passive, as will
the measure in relation to the measured.
But what will emerge from the relation of like to like? Nothing will
emerge. Likeness is the inherence of qualitative identity; its entire
content is the quality present in the two objects.
From equality, similarly, nothing emerges. The relation merely
presupposes the existence of a quantitative identity; -- is nothing but
our judgement comparing objects essentially independent and concluding,
"This and that have the same magnitude, the same quality; this has
produced that; this is superior to that."
Again, what meaning can sitting and standing have apart from sitter and
stander? The term "habit" either implies a having, in which case it
signifies possession, or else it arises from something had, and so
denotes quality; and similarly with disposition.
What then in these instances can be the meaning of correlatives apart
from our conception of their juxtaposition? "Greater" may refer to very
different magnitudes; "different" to all sorts of objects: the
comparison is ours; it does not lie in the things themselves.
Right and left, before and behind, would seem to belong less to the
category of Relation than to that of Situation. Right means "situated
at one point," left means "situated at another." But the right and left
are in our conception, nothing of them in the things themselves.
Before and after are merely two times; the relation is again of our
making.
7. Now if we do not mean anything by Relation but are victims of words,
none of the relations mentioned can exist: Relation will be a notion
void of content.
Suppose however that we do possess ourselves of objective truth when in
comparing two points of time we pronounce one prior, or posterior, to
the other, that priority does entail something distinct from the
objects to which it refers; admit an objective truth behind the
relation of left and right: does this apply also to magnitudes, and is
the relation exhibiting excess and deficiency also something distinct
from the quantities involved?
Now one thing is double of another quite apart from our speech or
thought; one thing possesses and another is possessed before we notice
the fact; equals do not await our comparison but -- and this applies to
Quality as well as Quantity -- rest upon an identity existing between
the objects compared: in all the conditions in which we assert Relation
the mutual relation exists over and above the objects; we perceive it
as already existent; our knowledge is directed upon a thing, there to
be known -- a clear testimony to the reality of Relation.
In these circumstances we can no longer put the question of its
existence. We have simply to distinguish: sometimes the relation
subsists while the objects remain unaltered and even apart; sometimes
it depends upon their combination; sometimes, while they remain
unchanged, the relation utterly ceases, or, as happens with right and
near, becomes different. These are the facts which chiefly account for
the notion that Relation has no reality in such circumstances.
Our task, thus, is to give full value to this elusive character of
Relation, and, then to enquire what there is that is constant in all
these particular cases and whether this constant is generic or
accidental; and having found this constant, we must discover what sort
of actuality it possesses.
It need hardly be said that we are not to affirm Relation where one
thing is simply an attribute of another, as a habit is an attribute of
a soul or of a body; it is not Relation when a soul belongs to this
individual or dwells in that body. Relation enters only when the
actuality of the relationships is derived from no other source than
Relation itself; the actuality must be, not that which is
characteristic of the substances in question, but that which is
specifically called relative. Thus double with its correlative, half
gives actuality neither to two yards' length or the number two, nor to
one yard's length or the number one; what happens is that, when these
quantities are viewed in their relation, they are found to be not
merely two and one respectively, but to produce the assertion and to
exhibit the fact of standing one to the other in the condition of
double and half. Out of the objects in a certain conjunction this
condition of being double and half has issued as something distinct
from either; double and half have emerged as correlatives, and their
being is precisely this of mutual dependence; the double exists by its
superiority over the half, and the half by its inferiority; there is no
priority to distinguish double from half; they arise simultaneously.
It is another question whether they endure simultaneously. Take the
case of father and son, and such relationships; the father dies, but
the other is still his son, and so with brothers. Moreover, we see
likeness where one of the like people is dead.
8. But we are digressing: we must resume our enquiry into the cause of
dissimilarity among relations. Yet we must first be informed what
reality, common to all cases, is possessed by this Existence derived
from mutual conditions.
Now the common principle in question cannot be a body. The only
alternative is that, if it does exist, it be something bodiless, either
in the objects thus brought together or outside of them.
Further, if Relation always takes the same form, the term is univocal
[and specific differentiation is impossible]; if not, that is if it
differs from case to case, the term is equivocal, and the same reality
will not necessarily be implied by the mere use of the term Relation.
How then shall we distinguish relations? We may observe that some
things have an inactive or dormant relation, with which their actuality
is entirely simultaneous; others, combining power and function with
their relation, have the relation in some mode always even though the
mode be merely that of potentiality, but attain to actual being only in
contact with their correlatives. Or perhaps all distinctions may be
reduced to that between producer and product, where the product merely
gives a name to the producer of its actuality: an example of this is
the relation of father to son, though here both producer and product
have a sort of actuality, which we call life.
Are we thus, then, to divide Relation, and thereby reject the notion of
an identical common element in the different kinds of Relation, making
it a universal rule that the relation takes a different character in
either correlative? We must in this case recognise that in our
distinction between productive and non-productive relations we are
overlooking the equivocation involved in making the terms cover both
action and passion, as though these two were one, and ignoring the fact
that production takes a different form in the two correlatives. Take
the case of equality, producing equals: nothing is equal without
equality, nothing identical without identity. Greatness and smallness
both entail a presence -- the presence of greatness and smallness
respectively. When we come to greater and smaller, the participants in
these relations are greater and smaller only when greatness and
smallness are actually observed in them.
9. It follows that in the cases specified above -- agent, knowledge and
the rest -- the relation must be considered as in actual operation, and
the Act and the Reason-Principle in the Act must be assumed to be real:
in all other cases there will be simply participation in an Ideal-Form,
in a Reason-Principle.
If Reality implied embodiment, we should indeed be forced to deny
Reality to these conditions called relative; if however we accord the
pre-eminent place to the unembodied and to the Reason-Principles, and
at the same time maintain that relations are Reason-Principles and
participate in Ideal-Forms, we are bound to seek their causes in that
higher sphere. Doubleness, it is clear, is the cause of a thing being
double, and from it is derived halfness.
Some correlatives owe their designations to the same Form, others to
opposite Forms; it is thus that two objects are simultaneously double
and half of each other, and one great and the other small. It may
happen that both correlatives exist in one object-likeness and
unlikeness, and, in general, identity and difference, so that the same
thing will be at once like and unlike, identical and different.
The question arises here whether sharing in the same Form could make
one man depraved and another more depraved. In the case of total
depravity, clearly the two are made equal by the absence of a Form.
Where there is a difference of degree, the one has participated in a
Form which has failed to predominate, the other in a Form which has
failed still more: or, if we choose the negative aspect, we may think
of them both as failing to participate in a Form which naturally
belonged to them.
Sensation may be regarded as a Form of double origin [determined both
by the sense-organ and by the sensible object]; and similarly with
knowledge.
Habit is an Act directed upon something had [some experience produced
by habit] and binding it as it were with the subject having
[experiencing], as the Act of production binds producer and product.
Measurement is an Act of the measurer upon the measured object: it too
is therefore a kind of Reason-Principle.
Now if the condition of being related is regarded as a Form having a
generic unity, Relation must be allowed to be a single genus owing its
reality to a Reason-Principle involved in all instances. If however the
Reason-Principles [governing the correlatives] stand opposed and have
the differences to which we have referred, there may perhaps not be a
single genus, but this will not prevent all relatives being expressed
in terms of a certain likeness and falling under a single category.
But even if the cases of which we have spoken can be subsumed under a
single head, it is nevertheless impossible to include in a single genus
all that goes with them in the one common category: for the category
includes negations and derivatives -- not only, for example, double but
also its negative, the resultant doubleness and the act of doubling.
But we cannot include in one genus both the thing and its negative --
double and not-double, relative and not-relative -- any more than in
dealing with the genus animal we can insert in it the nonanimal.
Moreover, doubleness and doubling have only the relation to double that
whiteness has to white; they cannot be classed as identical with it.
10. As regards Quality, the source of what we call a "quale," we must
in the first place consider what nature it possesses in accordance with
which it produces the "qualia," and whether, remaining one and the same
in virtue of that common ground, it has also differences whereby it
produces the variety of species. If there is no common ground and the
term Quality involves many connotations, there cannot be a single genus
of Quality.
What then will be the common ground in habit, disposition, passive
quality, figure, shape? In light, thick and lean?
If we hold this common ground to be a power adapting itself to the
forms of habits, dispositions and physical capacities, a power which
gives the possessor whatever capacities he has, we have no plausible
explanation of incapacities. Besides, how are figure and the shape of a
given thing to be regarded as a power?
Moreover, at this, Being will have no power qua Being but only when
Quality has been added to it; and the activities of those substances
which are activities in the highest degree, will be traceable to
Quality, although they are autonomous and owe their essential character
to powers wholly their own!
Perhaps, however, qualities are conditioned by powers which are
posterior to the substances as such [and so do not interfere with their
essential activities]. Boxing, for example, is not a power of man qua
man; reasoning is: therefore reasoning, on this hypothesis, is not
quality but a natural possession of the mature human being; it
therefore is called a quality only by analogy. Thus, Quality is a power
which adds the property of being qualia to substances already existent.
The differences distinguishing substances from each other are called
qualities only by analogy; they are, more strictly, Acts and
Reason-Principles, or parts of Reason-Principles, and though they may
appear merely to qualify the substance, they in fact indicate its
essence.
Qualities in the true sense -- those, that is, which determine qualia
-- being in accordance with our definition powers, will in virtue of
this common ground be a kind of Reason-Principle; they will also be in
a sense Forms, that is, excellences and imperfections whether of soul
or of body.
But how can they all be powers? Beauty or health of soul or body, very
well: but surely not ugliness, disease, weakness, incapacity. In a
word, is powerlessness a power?
It may be urged that these are qualities in so far as qualia are also
named after them: but may not the qualia be so called by analogy, and
not in the strict sense of the single principle? Not only may the term
be understood in the four ways [of Aristotle], but each of the four may
have at least a twofold significance.
In the first place, Quality is not merely a question of action and
passion, involving a simple distinction between the potentially active
[quality] and the passive: health, disposition and habit, disease,
strength and weakness are also classed as qualities. It follows that
the common ground is not power, but something we have still to seek.
Again, not all qualities can be regarded as Reason-Principles: chronic
disease cannot be a Reason-Principle. Perhaps, however, we must speak
in such cases of privations, restricting the term "Quantities" to
Ideal-Forms and powers. Thus we shall have, not a single genus, but
reference only to the unity of a category. Knowledge will be regarded
as a Form and a power, ignorance as a privation and powerlessness.
On the other hand, powerlessness and disease are a kind of Form;
disease and vice have many powers though looking to evil.
But how can a mere failure be a power? Doubtless the truth is that
every quality performs its own function independently of a standard;
for in no case could it produce an effect outside of its power.
Even beauty would seem to have a power of its own. Does this apply to
triangularity?
Perhaps, after all, it is not a power we must consider, but a
disposition. Thus, qualities will be determined by the forms and
characteristics of the object qualified: their common element, then,
will be Form and ideal type, imposed upon Substance and posterior to
it.
But then, how do we account for the powers? We may doubtless remark
that even the natural boxer is so by being constituted in a particular
way; similarly, with the man unable to box: to generalize, the quality
is a characteristic non-essential. Whatever is seen to apply alike to
Being and to non-Being, as do heat and whiteness and colours generally,
is either different from Being -- is, for example, an Act of Being --
or else is some secondary of Being, derived from it, contained in it,
its image and likeness.
But if Quality is determined by formation and characteristic and
Reason-Principle, how explain the various cases of powerlessness and
deformity? Doubtless we must think of Principles imperfectly present,
as in the case of deformity. And disease -- how does that imply a
Reason-Principle? Here, no doubt, we must think of a principle
disturbed, the Principle of health.
But it is not necessary that all qualities involve a Reason-Principle;
it suffices that over and above the various kinds of disposition there
exist a common element distinct from Substance, and it is what comes
after the substance that constitutes Quality in an object.
But triangularity is a quality of that in which it is present; it is
however no longer triangularity as such, but the triangularity present
in that definite object and modified in proportion to its success in
shaping that object.
11. But if these considerations are sound, why has Quality more than
one species? What is the ground for distinguishing between habit and
disposition, seeing that no differentia of Quality is involved in
permanence and non-permanence? A disposition of any kind is sufficient
to constitute a quality; permanence is a mere external addition. It
might however be urged that dispositions are but incomplete "forms" --
if the term may pass -- habits being complete ones. But incomplete,
they are not qualities; if already qualities, the permanence is an
external addition.
How do physical powers form a distinct species? If they are classed as
qualities in virtue of being powers, power, we have seen, is not a
necessary concomitant of qualities. If, however, we hold that the
natural boxer owes his quality to a particular disposition, power is
something added and does not contribute to the quality, since power is
found in habits also.
Another point: why is natural ability to be distinguished from that
acquired by learning? Surely, if both are qualities, they cannot be
differentiae of Quality: gained by practice or given in nature, it is
the same ability; the differentia will be external to Quality; it
cannot be deduced from the Ideal Form of boxing. Whether some qualities
as distinguished from others are derived from experience is immaterial;
the source of the quality makes no difference -- none, I mean, pointing
to variations and differences of Quality.
A further question would seem to be involved: If certain qualities are
derived from experience but here is a discrepancy in the manner and
source of the experience, how are they to be included in the same
species? And again, if some create the experience, others are created
by it, the term Quality as applied to both classes will be equivocal.
And what part is played by the individual form? If it constitutes the
individual's specific character, it is not a quality; if, however, it
is what makes an object beautiful or ugly after the specific form has
been determined, then it involves a Reason-Principle.
Rough and smooth, tenuous and dense may rightly be classed as
qualities. It is true that they are not determined by distances and
approximations, or in general by even or uneven dispositions, of parts;
though, were they so determined, they might well even then be
qualities.
Knowledge of the meaning of "light" and "heavy" will reveal their place
in the classification. An ambiguity will however be latent in the term
"light," unless it be determined by comparative weight: it would then
implicate leanness and fineness, and involve another species distinct
from the four [of Aristotle].
12. If then we do not propose to divide Quality in this [fourfold]
manner, what basis of division have we?
We must examine whether qualities may not prove to be divisible on the
principle that some belong to the body and others to the soul. Those of
the body would be subdivided according to the senses, some being
attributed to sight, others to hearing and taste, others to smell and
touch. Those of the soul would presumably be allotted to appetite,
emotion, reason; though, again, they may be distinguished by the
differences of the activities they condition, in so far as activities
are engendered by these qualities; or according as they are beneficial
or injurious, the benefits and injuries being duly classified. This
last is applicable also to the classification of bodily qualities,
which also produce differences of benefit and injury: these differences
must be regarded as distinctively qualitative; for either the benefit
and injury are held to be derived from Quality and the quale, or else
some other explanation must be found for them.
A point for consideration is how the quale, as conditioned by Quality,
can belong to the same category: obviously there can be no single genus
embracing both.
Further, if "boxer" is in the category of Quality, why not "agent" as
well? And with agent goes "active." Thus "active" need not go into the
category of Relation; nor again need "passive," if "patient" is a
quale. Moreover, agent" is perhaps better assigned to the category of
Quality for the reason that the term implies power, and power is
Quality. But if power as such were determined by Substance [and not by
Quality], the agent, though ceasing to be a quale, would not
necessarily become a relative. Besides, "active" is not like "greater":
the greater, to be the greater, demands a less, whereas "active" stands
complete by the mere possession of its specific character.
It may however be urged that while the possession of that character
makes it a quale, it is a relative in so far as it directs upon an
external object the power indicated by its name. Why, then, is not
"boxer" a relative, and "boxing" as well? Boxing is entirely related to
an external object; its whole theory pre-supposes this external. And in
the case of the other arts -- or most of them -- investigation would
probably warrant the assertion that in so far as they affect the soul
they are qualities, while in so far as they look outward they are
active and as being directed to an external object are relatives. They
are relatives in the other sense also that they are thought of as
habits.
Can it then be held that there is any distinct reality implied in
activity, seeing that the active is something distinct only according
as it is a quale? It may perhaps be held that the tendency towards
action of living beings, and especially of those having freewill,
implies a reality of activity [as well as a reality of Quality].
But what is the function of the active in connection with those
non-living powers which we have classed as qualities? Doubtless to
recruit any object it encounters, making the object a participant in
its content.
But if one same object both acts and is acted upon, how do we then
explain the active? Observe also that the greater -- in itself perhaps
a fixed three yards' length -- will present itself as both greater and
less according to its external contacts.
It will be objected that greater and less are due to participation in
greatness and smallness; and it might be inferred that a thing is
active or passive by participation in activity or passivity.
This is the place for enquiring also whether the qualities of the
Sensible and Intellectual realms can be included under one head -- a
question intended only for those who ascribe qualities to the higher
realm as well as the lower. And even if Ideal Forms of qualities are
not posited, yet once the term "habit" is used in reference to
Intellect, the question arises whether there is anything common to that
habit and the habit we know in the lower.
Wisdom too is generally admitted to exist There. Obviously, if it
shares only its name with our wisdom, it is not to be reckoned among
things of this sphere; if, however, the import is in both cases the
same, then Quality is common to both realms -- unless, of course, it be
maintained that everything There, including even intellection, is
Substance.
This question, however, applies to all the categories: are the two
spheres irreconcilable, or can they be co-ordinated with a unity?
13. With regard to Date:
If "yesterday," "to-morrow," "last year" and similar terms denote parts
of time, why should they not be included in the same genus as time? It
would seem only reasonable to range under time the past, present and
future, which are its species. But time is referred to Quantity; what
then is the need for a separate category of Date?
If we are told that past and future -- including under past such
definite dates as yesterday and last year which must clearly be
subordinate to past time -- and even the present "now" are not merely
time but time -- when, we reply, in the first place, that the notion of
time -- when involves time; that, further, if "yesterday" is
time-gone-by, it will be a composite, since time and gone-by are
distinct notions: we have two categories instead of the single one
required.
But suppose that Date is defined not as time but as that which is in
time; if by that which is in time is meant the subject -- Socrates in
the proposition "Socrates existed last year" -- that subject is
external to the notion of time, and we have again a duality.
Consider, however, the proposition "Socrates -- or some action --
exists at this time"; what can be the meaning here other than "in a
part of time"? But if, admitted that Date is "a part of time," it be
felt that the part requires definition and involves something more than
mere time, that we must say the part of time gone by, several notions
are massed in the proposition: we have the part which qua part is a
relative; and we have "gone-by" which, if it is to have any import at
all, must mean the past: but this "past," we have shown, is a species
of time.
It may be urged that "the past" is in its nature indefinite, while
"yesterday" and "last year" are definite. We reply, first, that we
demand some place in our classification for the past: secondly, that
"yesterday," as definite past, is necessarily definite time. But
definite time implies a certain quantity of time: therefore, if time is
quantitative, each of the terms in question must signify a definite
quantity.
Again, if by "yesterday" we are expected to understand that this or
that event has taken Place at a definite time gone by, we have more
notions than ever. Besides, if we must introduce fresh categories
because one thing acts in another -- as in this case something acts in
time -- we have more again from its acting upon another in another.
This point will be made plain by what follows in our discussion of
Place.
14. The Academy and the Lyceum are places, and parts of Place, just as
"above," "below," "here" are species or parts of Place; the difference
is of minuter delimitation.
If then "above," "below," "the middle" are places -- Delphi, for
example, is the middle [of the earth] -- and "near-the-middle" is also
a place -- Athens, and of course the Lyceum and the other places
usually cited, are near the middle -- what need have we to go further
and seek beyond Place, admitting as we do that we refer in every
instance to a place?
If, however, we have in mind the presence of one thing in another, we
are not speaking of a single entity, we are not expressing a single
notion.
Another consideration: when we say that a man is here, we present a
relation of the man to that in which he is, a relation of the container
to the contained. Why then do we not class as a relative whatever may
be produced from this relation?
Besides, how does "here" differ from "at Athens"? The demonstrative
"here" admittedly signifies place; so, then, does "at Athens": "at
Athens" therefore belongs to the category of Place.
Again, if "at Athens" means "is at Athens," then the "is" as well as
the place belongs to the predicate; but this cannot be right: we do not
regard "is a quality" as predicate, but "a quality."
Furthermore, if "in time," "in place" are to be ranged under a category
other than that applying to time and place, why not a separate category
for "in a vessel"? Why not distinct categories for "in Matter," "in a
subject," "a part in a whole," "a whole in its parts," "a genus in its
species," "a species in a genus"? We are certainly on the way to a
goodly number of categories.
15. The "category of Action":
The quantum has been regarded as a single genus on the ground that
Quantity and Number are attributes of Substance and posterior to it;
the quale has been regarded as another genus because Quality is an
attribute of Substance: on the same principle it is maintained that
since activity is an attribute of Substance, Action constitutes yet
another genus.
Does then the action constitute the genus, or the activity from which
the action springs, in the same way as Quality is the genus from which
the quale is derived? Perhaps activity, action and agent should all be
embraced under a single head? But, on the one hand, the action --
unlike activity -- tends to comport the agent; and on the other, it
signifies being in some activity and therefore Being-in-Act [actual as
distinct from potential Being]. Consequently the category will be one
of Act rather than of Action.
Act moreover incontestably manifests itself in Substance, as was found
to be the case with Quality: it is connected with Substance as being a
form of motion. But Motion is a distinct genus: for, seeing that
Quality is a distinct attribute of Substance, and Quality a distinct
attribute, and Relative takes its being from the relation of one
substance to another, there can be no reason why Motion, also an
attribute of Substance, should not also constitute a distinct genus.
16. If it be urged that Motion is but imperfect Act, there would be no
objection to giving priority to Act and subordinating to it Motion with
its imperfection as a species: Act would thus be predicated of Motion,
but with the qualification "imperfect."
Motion is thought of as imperfect, not because it is not an Act, but
because, entirely an Act, it yet entails repetition [lacks finality].
It repeats, not in order that it may achieve actuality -- it is already
actual -- but that it may attain a goal distinct from itself and
posterior: it is not the motion itself that is then consummated but the
result at which it aims. Walking is walking from the outset; when one
should traverse a racecourse but has not yet done so, the deficiency
lies not in the walking -- not in the motion -- but in the amount of
walking accomplished; no matter what the amount, it is walking and
motion already: a moving man has motion and a cutter cuts before there
is any question of Quantity. And just as we can speak of Act without
implying time, so we can of Motion, except in the sense of motion over
a defined area; Act is timeless, and so is Motion pure and simple.
Are we told that Motion is necessarily in time, inasmuch as it involves
continuity? But, at this, sight, never ceasing to see, will also be
continuous and in time. Our critic, it is true, may find support in
that principle of proportion which states that you may make a division
of no matter what motion, and find that neither the motion nor its
duration has any beginning but that the division may be continued
indefinitely in the direction of the motion's origin: this would mean
that a motion just begun has been in progress from an infinity of time,
that it is infinite as regards its beginning.
Such then is the result of separating Act from Motion: Act, we aver, is
timeless; yet we are forced to maintain not only that time is necessary
to quantitative motion, but, unreservedly, that Motion is quantitative
in its very nature; though indeed, if it were a case of motion
occupying a day or some other quantity of time, the exponents of this
view would be the first to admit that Quantity is present to Motion
only by way of accident.
In sum, just as Act is timeless, so there is no reason why Motion also
should not primarily be timeless, time attaching to it only in so far
as it happens to have such and such an extension.
Timeless change is sanctioned in the expression, "as if change could
not take place all at once"; if then change is timeless, why not Motion
also? -- Change, be it noted, is here distinguished from the result of
change, the result being unnecessary to establish the change itself.
17. We may be told that neither Act nor Motion requires a genus for
itself, but that both revert to Relation, Act belonging to the
potentially active, Motion to the potentially motive. Our reply is that
Relation produces relatives as such, and not the mere reference to an
external standard; given the existence of a thing, whether attributive
or relative, it holds its essential character prior to any
relationship: so then must Act and Motion, and even such an attribute
as habit; they are not prevented from being prior to any relationship
they may occupy, or from being conceivable in themselves. Otherwise,
everything will be relative; for anything you think of -- even Soul --
bears some relationship to something else.
But, to return to activity proper and the action, is there any reason
why these should be referred to Relation? They must in every instance
be either Motion or Act.
If however activity is referred to Relation and the action made a
distinct genus, why is not Motion referred to Relation and the movement
made a distinct genus? Why not bisect the unity, Motion, and so make
Action and Passion two species of the one thing, ceasing to consider
Action and Passion as two genera?
18. There are other questions calling for consideration:
First: Are both Acts and motions to be included in the category of
Action, with the distinction that Acts are momentary while Motions,
such as cutting, are in time? Or will both be regarded as motions or as
involving Motion?
Secondly: Will all activities be related to passivity, or will some --
for example, walking and speaking -- be considered as independent of
it?
Thirdly: Will all those related to passivity be classed as motions and
the independent as Acts, or will the two classes overlap? Walking, for
instance, which is an independent, would, one supposes, be a motion;
thinking, which also does not essentially involve "passivity," an Act:
otherwise we must hold that thinking and walking are not even actions.
But if they are not in the category of Action, where then in our
classification must they fall?
It may perhaps be urged that the act of thinking, together with the
faculty of thought, should be regarded as relative to the thought
object; for is not the faculty of sensation treated as relative to the
sensible object? If then, we may ask, in the analogue the faculty of
sensation is treated as relative to the sensible object, why not the
sensory act as well? The fact is that even sensation, though related to
an external object, has something besides that relation: it has,
namely, its own status of being either an Act or a Passion. Now the
Passion is separable from the condition of being attached to some
object and caused by some object: so, then, is the Act a distinct
entity. Walking is similarly attached and caused, and yet has besides
the status of being a motion. It follows that thought, in addition to
its relationship, will have the status of being either a motion or an
Act.
19. We have to ask ourselves whether there are not certain Acts which
without the addition of a time-element will be thought of as imperfect
and therefore classed with motions. Take for instance living and life.
The life of a definite person implies a certain adequate period, just
as his happiness is no merely instantaneous thing. Life and happiness
are, in other words, of the nature ascribed to Motion: both therefore
must be treated as motions, and Motion must be regarded as a unity, a
single genus; besides the quantity and quality belonging to Substance
we must take count of the motion manifested in it.
We may further find desirable to distinguish bodily from psychic
motions or spontaneous motions from those induced by external forces,
or the original from the derivative, the original motions being
activities, whether externally related or independent, while the
derivative will be Passions.
But surely the motions having external tendency are actually identical
with those of external derivation: the cutting issuing from the cutter
and that effected in the object are one, though to cut is not the same
as to be cut.
Perhaps however the cutting issuing from the cutter and that which
takes place in the cut object are in fact not one, but "to cut" implies
that from a particular Act and motion there results a different motion
in the object cut. Or perhaps the difference [between Action and
Passion] lies not in the fact of being cut, but in the distinct emotion
supervening, pain for example: passivity has this connotation also.
But when there is no pain, what occurs? Nothing, surely, but the Act of
the agent upon the patient object: this is all that is meant in such
cases by Action. Action, thus, becomes twofold: there is that which
occurs in the external, and that which does not. The duality of Action
and Passion, suggested by the notion that Action [always] takes place
in an external, is abandoned.
Even writing, though taking place upon an external object, does not
call for passivity, since no effect is produced, upon the tablet beyond
the Act of the writer, nothing like pain; we may be told that the
tablet has been inscribed, but this does not suffice for passivity.
Again, in the case of walking there is the earth trodden upon, but no
one thinks of it as having experienced Passion [or suffering]. Treading
on a living body, we think of suffering, because we reflect not upon
the walking but upon the ensuing pain: otherwise we should think of
suffering in the case of the tablet as well.
It is so in every case of Action: we cannot but think of it as knit
into a unity with its opposite, Passion. Not that this later "Passion"
is the opposite of Action in the way in which being burned is the
opposite of burning: by Passion in this sense we mean the effect
supervening upon the combined facts of the burning and the being
burned, whether this effect be pain or some such process as withering.
Suppose this Passion to be treated as of itself producing pain: have we
not still the duality of agent and patient, two results from the one
Act? The Act may no longer include the will to cause pain; but it
produces something distinct from itself, a pain-causing medium which
enters into the object about to experience pain: this medium, while
retaining its individuality, produces something yet different, the
feeling of pain.
What does this suggest? Surely that the very medium -- the act of
hearing, for instance -- is, even before it produces pain or without
producing pain at all, a Passion of that into which it enters.
But hearing, with sensation in general, is in fact not a Passion. Yet
to feel pain is to experience a Passion -- a Passion however which is
not opposed to Action.
20. But though not opposed, it is still different from Action and
cannot belong to the same genus as activity; though if they are both
Motion, it will so belong, on the principle that alteration must be
regarded as qualitative motion.
Does it follow that whenever alteration proceeds from Quality, it will
be activity and Action, the quale remaining impassive? It may be that
if the quale remains impassive, the alteration will be in the category
of Action; whereas if, while its energy is directed outwards, it also
suffers -- as in beating -- it will cease to belong to that category:
or perhaps there is nothing to prevent its being in both categories at
one and the same moment.
If then an alteration be conditioned by Passivity alone, as is the case
with rubbing, on what ground is it assigned to Action rather than to
Passivity? Perhaps the Passivity arises from the fact that a
counter-rubbing is involved. But are we, in view of this
counter-motion, to recognize the presence of two distinct motions? No:
one only.
How then can this one motion be both Action and Passion? We must
suppose it to be Action in proceeding from an object, and Passion in
being directly upon another -- though it remains the same motion
throughout.
Suppose however Passion to be a different motion from Action: how then
does its modification of the patient object change that patient's
character without the agent being affected by the patient? For
obviously an agent cannot be passive to the operation it performs upon
another. Can it be that the fact of motion existing elsewhere creates
the Passion, which was not Passion in the agent?
If the whiteness of the swan, produced by its Reason-Principle, is
given at its birth, are we to affirm Passion of the swan on its passing
into being? If, on the contrary, the swan grows white after birth, and
if there is a cause of that growth and the corresponding result, are we
to say that the growth is a Passion? Or must we confine Passion to
purely qualitative change?
One thing confers beauty and another takes it: is that which takes
beauty to be regarded as patient? If then the source of beauty -- tin,
suppose -- should deteriorate or actually disappear, while the
recipient -- copper -- improves, are we to think of the copper as
passive and the tin active?
Take the learner: how can he be regarded as passive, seeing that the
Act of the agent passes into him [and becomes his Act]? How can the
Act, necessarily a simple entity, be both Act and Passion? No doubt the
Act is not in itself a Passion; nonetheless, the learner coming to
possess it will be a patient by the fact of his appropriation of an
experience from outside: he will not, of course, be a patient in the
sense of having himself performed no Act; learning -- like seeing -- is
not analogous to being struck, since it involves the acts of
apprehension and recognition.
21. How, then, are we to recognise Passivity, since clearly it is not
to be found in the Act from outside which the recipient in turn makes
his own? Surely we must look for it in cases where the patient remains
without Act, the passivity pure.
Imagine a case where an agent improves, though its Act tends towards
deterioration. Or, say, a a man's activity is guided by evil and is
allowed to dominate another's without restraint. In these cases the Act
is clearly wrong, the Passion blameless.
What then is the real distinction between Action and Passion? Is it
that Action starts from within and is directed upon an outside object,
while Passion is derived from without and fulfilled within? What, then,
are we to say of such cases as thought and opinion which originate
within but are not directed outwards? Again, the Passion "being heated"
rises within the self, when that self is provoked by an opinion to
reflection or to anger, without the intervention of any external. Still
it remains true that Action, whether self-centred or with external
tendency, is a motion rising in the self.
How then do we explain desire and other forms of aspiration? Aspiration
must be a motion having its origin in the object aspired to, though
some might disallow "origin" and be content with saying that the motion
aroused is subsequent to the object; in what respect, then, does
aspiring differ from taking a blow or being borne down by a thrust?
Perhaps, however, we should divide aspirations into two classes, those
which follow intellect being described as Actions, the merely impulsive
being Passions. Passivity now will not turn on origin, without or
within -- within there can only be deficiency; but whenever a thing,
without itself assisting in the process, undergoes an alteration not
directed to the creation of Being but changing the thing for the worse
or not for the better, such an alteration will be regarded as a Passion
and as entailing passivity.
If however "being heated" means "acquiring heat," and is sometimes
found to contribute to the production of Being and sometimes not,
passivity will be identical with impassivity: besides, "being heated"
must then have a double significance [according as it does or does not
contribute to Being].
The fact is, however, that "being heated," even when it contributes to
Being, involves the presence of a patient [distinct from the being
produced]. Take the case of the bronze which has to be heated and so is
a patient; the being is a statue, which is not heated except
accidentally [by the accident of being contained in the bronze]. If
then the bronze becomes more beautiful as a result of being heated and
in the same proportion, it certainly becomes so by passivity; for
passivity must, clearly, take two forms: there is the passivity which
tends to alteration for better or for worse, and there is the passivity
which has neither tendency.
22. Passivity, thus, implies the existence within of a motion
functioning somehow or other in the direction of alteration. Action too
implies motion within, whether the motion be aimless or whether it be
driven by the impulse comported by the term "Action" to find its goal
in an external object. There is Motion in both Action and Passion, but
the differentia distinguishing Action from Passion keeps Action
impassive, while Passion is recognised by the fact that a new state
replaces the old, though nothing is added to the essential character of
the patient; whenever Being [essential Being] is produced, the patient
remains distinct.
Thus, what is Action in one relation may be Passion in another. One
same motion will be Action from the point of view of A, Passion from
that of B; for the two are so disposed that they might well be
consigned to the category of Relation -- at any rate in the cases where
the Action entails a corresponding Passion: neither correlative is
found in isolation; each involves both Action and Passion, though A
acts as mover and B is moved: each then involves two categories.
Again, A gives motion to B, B receives it, so that we have a giving and
a receiving -- in a word, a relation.
But a recipient must possess what it has received. A thing is admitted
to possess its natural colour: why not its motion also? Besides,
independent motions such as walking and thought do, in fact, involve
the possession of the powers respectively to walk and to think.
We are reminded to enquire whether thought in the form of providence
constitutes Action; to be subject to providence is apparently Passion,
for such thought is directed to an external, the object of the
providential arrangement. But it may well be that neither is the
exercise of providence an action, even though the thought is concerned
with an external, nor subjection to it a Passion. Thought itself need
not be an action, for it does not go outward towards its object but
remains self-gathered. It is not always an activity; all Acts need not
be definable as activities, for they need not produce an effect;
activity belongs to Act only accidentally.
Does it follow that if a man as he walks produces footprints, he cannot
be considered to have performed an action? Certainly as a result of his
existing something distinct from himself has come into being. Yet
perhaps we should regard both action and Act as merely accidental,
because he did not aim at this result: it would be as we speak of
Action even in things inanimate -- "fire heats," "the drug worked."
So much for Action and Passion.
23. As for Possession, if the term is used comprehensively, why are not
all its modes to be brought under one category? Possession, thus, would
include the quantum as possessing magnitude, the quale as possessing
colour; it would include fatherhood and the complementary
relationships, since the father possesses the son and the son possesses
the father: in short, it would include all belongings.
If, on the contrary, the category of Possession comprises only the
things of the body, such as weapons and shoes, we first ask why this
should be so, and why their possession produces a single category,
while burning, cutting, burying or casting them out do not give another
or others. If it is because these things are carried on the person,
then one's mantle lying on a couch will come under a different category
from that of the mantle covering the person. If the ownership of
possession suffices, then clearly one must refer to the one category of
Possession all objects identified by being possessed, every case in
which possession can be established; the character of the possessed
object will make no difference.
If however Possession is not to be predicated of Quality because
Quality stands recognised as a category, nor of Quantity because the
category of Quantity has been received, nor of parts because they have
been assigned to the category of Substance, why should we predicate
Possession of weapons, when they too are comprised in the accepted
category of Substance? Shoes and weapons are clearly substances.
How, further, is "He possesses weapons," signifying as it does that the
action of arming has been performed by a subject, to be regarded as an
entirely simple notion, assignable to a single category?
Again, is Possession to be restricted to an animate possessor, or does
it hold good even of a statue as possessing the objects above
mentioned? The animate and inanimate seem to possess in different ways,
and the term is perhaps equivocal. Similarly, "standing" has not the
same connotation as applied to the animate and the inanimate.
Besides, how can it be reasonable for what is found only in a limited
number of cases to form a distinct generic category?
24. There remains Situation, which like Possession is confined to a few
instances such as reclining and sitting.
Even so, the term is not used without qualification: we say "they are
placed in such and such a manner," "he is situated in such and such a
position." The position is added from outside the genus.
In short, Situation signifies "being in a place"; there are two things
involved, the position and the place: why then must two categories be
combined into one?
Moreover, if sitting signifies an Act, it must be classed among Acts;
if a Passion, it goes under the category to which belong Passions
complete and incomplete.
Reclining is surely nothing but "lying up," and tallies with "lying
down" and "lying midway." But if the reclining belongs thus to the
category of Relation, why not the recliner also? For as "on the right"
belongs to the Relations, so does "the thing on the right"; and
similarly with "the thing on the left."
25. There are those who lay down four categories and make a fourfold
division into Substrates, Qualities, States, and Relative States, and
find in these a common Something, and so include everything in one
genus.
Against this theory there is much to be urged, but particularly against
this posing of a common Something and a single all-embracing genus.
This Something, it may be submitted, is unintelligible to themselves,
is indefinable, and does not account either for bodies or for the
bodiless. Moreover, no room is left for a differentia by which this
Something may be distinguished. Besides, this common Something is
either existent or non-existent: if existent, it must be one or other
of its [four] species; -- if non-existent, the existent is classed
under the non-existent. But the objections are countless; we must leave
them for the present and consider the several heads of the division.
To the first genus are assigned Substrates, including Matter, to which
is given a priority over the others; so that what is ranked as the
first principle comes under the same head with things which must be
posterior to it since it is their principle.
First, then: the prior is made homogeneous with the subsequent. Now
this is impossible: in this relation the subsequent owes its existence
to the prior, whereas among things belonging to one same genus each
must have, essentially, the equality implied by the genus; for the very
meaning of genus is to be predicated of the species in respect of their
essential character. And that Matter is the basic source of all the
rest of things, this school, we may suppose, would hardly deny.
Secondly: since they treat the Substrate as one thing, they do not
enumerate the Existents; they look instead for principles of the
Existents. There is however a difference between speaking of the actual
Existents and of their principles.
If Matter is taken to be the only Existent, and all other things as
modifications of Matter, it is not legitimate to set up a single genus
to embrace both the Existent and the other things; consistency requires
that Being [Substance] be distinguished from its modifications and that
these modifications be duly classified.
Even the distinction which this theory makes between Substrates and the
rest of things is questionable. The Substrate is [necessarily] one
thing and admits of no differentia -- except perhaps in so far as it is
split up like one mass into its various parts; and yet not even so,
since the notion of Being implies continuity: it would be better,
therefore, to speak of the Substrate, in the singular.
26. But the error in this theory is fundamental. To set Matter the
potential above everything, instead of recognising the primacy of
actuality, is in the highest degree perverse. If the potential holds
the primacy among the Existents, its actualization becomes impossible;
it certainly cannot bring itself into actuality: either the actual
exists previously, and so the potential is not the first-principle, or,
if the two are to be regarded as existing simultaneously, the
first-principles must be attributed to hazard. Besides, if they are
simultaneous, why is not actuality given the primacy? Why is the
potential more truly real than the actual?
Supposing however that the actual does come later than the potential,
how must the theory proceed? Obviously Matter does not produce Form:
the unqualified does not produce Quality, nor does actuality take its
origin in the potential; for that would mean that the actual was
inherent in the potential, which at once becomes a dual thing.
Furthermore, God becomes a secondary to Matter, inasmuch as even he is
regarded as a body composed of Matter and Form -- though how he
acquires the Form is not revealed. If however he be admitted to exist
apart from Matter in virtue of his character as a principle and a
rational law [logos], God will be bodiless, the Creative Power
bodiless. If we are told that he is without Matter but is composite in
essence by the fact of being a body, this amounts to introducing
another Matter, the Matter of God.
Again, how can Matter be a first-principle, seeing that it is body?
Body must necessarily be a plurality, since all bodies are composite of
Matter and Quality. If however body in this case is to be understood in
some different way, then Matter is identified with body only by an
equivocation.
If the possession of three dimensions is given as the characteristic of
body, then we are dealing simply with mathematical body. If resistance
is added, we are no longer considering a unity: besides, resistance is
a quality or at least derived from Quality.
And whence is this resistance supposed to come? Whence the three
dimensions? What is the source of their existence? Matter is not
comprised in the concept of the three-dimensional, nor the
three-dimensional in the concept of Matter; if Matter partakes thus of
extension, it can no longer be a simplex.
Again, whence does Matter derive its unifying power? It is assuredly
not the Absolute Unity, but has only that of participation in Unity.
We inevitably conclude that Mass or Extension cannot be ranked as the
first of things; Non-Extension and Unity must be prior. We must begin
with the One and conclude with the Many, proceed to magnitude from that
which is free from magnitude: a One is necessary to the existence of a
Many, Non-Magnitude to that of Magnitude. Magnitude is a unity not by
being Unity-Absolute, but by participation and in an accidental mode:
there must be a primary and absolute preceding the accidental, or the
accidental relation is left unexplained.
The manner of this relation demands investigation. Had this been
undertaken, the thinkers of this school would probably have lighted
upon that Unity which is not accidental but essential and underived.
27. On other grounds also, it is indefensible not to have reserved the
high place for the true first-principle of things but to have set up in
its stead the formless, passive and lifeless, the irrational, dark and
indeterminate, and to have made this the source of Being. In this
theory God is introduced merely for the sake of appearance: deriving
existence from Matter he is a composite, a derivative, or, worse, a
mere state of Matter.
Another consideration is that, if Matter is a substrate, there must be
something outside it, which, acting on it and distinct from it, makes
it the substrate of what is poured into it. But if God is lodged in
Matter and by being involved in Matter is himself no more than a
substrate, he will no longer make Matter a substrate nor be himself a
substrate in conjunction with Matter. For of what will they be
substrates, when that which could make them substrates is eliminated?
This so-called substrate turns out to have swallowed up all that is;
but a substrate must be relative, and relative not to its content but
to something which acts upon it as upon a datum.
Again, the substrate comports a relation to that which is not
substrate; hence, to something external to it: there must, then, be
something apart from the substrate. If nothing distinct and external is
considered necessary, but the substrate itself can become everything
and adopt every character, like the versatile dancer in the pantomime,
it ceases to be a substrate: it is, essentially, everything. The mime
is not a substrate of the characters he puts on; these are in fact the
realisation of his own personality: similarly, if the Matter with which
this theory presents us comports in its own being all the realities, it
is no longer the substrate of all: on the contrary, the other things
can have no reality whatever, if they are no more than states of Matter
in the sense that the poses of the mime are states through which he
passes.
Then, those other things not existing, Matter will not be a substrate,
nor will it have a place among the Existents; it will be Matter bare,
and for that reason not even Matter, since Matter is a relative. The
relative is relative to something else: it must, further, be
homogeneous with that something else: double is relative to half, but
not Substance to double.
How then can an Existent be relative to a Non-existent, except
accidentally? But the True-Existent, or Matter, is related (to what
emerges from it) as Existent to Non-Existent. For if potentiality is
that which holds the promise of existence and that promise does not
constitute Reality, the potentiality cannot be a Reality. In sum, these
very teachers who deprecate the production of Realities from
Nonrealities, themselves produce Non-reality from Reality; for to them
the universe as such is not a Reality.
But is it not a paradox that, while Matter, the Substrate, is to them
an existence, bodies should not have more claim to existence, the
universe yet more, and not merely a claim grounded on the reality of
one of its parts?
It is no less paradoxical that the living form should owe existence not
to its soul but to its Matter only, the soul being but an affection of
Matter and posterior to it. From what source then did Matter receive
ensoulment? Whence, in short, is soul's entity derived? How does it
occur that Matter sometimes turns into bodies, while another part of it
turns into Soul? Even supposing that Form might come to it from
elsewhere, that accession of Quality to Matter would account not for
Soul, but simply for organized body soulless. If, on the contrary,
there is something which both moulds Matter and produces Soul, then
prior to the produced there must be Soul the producer.
28. Many as are the objections to this theory, we pass on for fear of
the ridicule we might incur by arguing against a position itself so
manifestly ridiculous. We may be content with pointing out that it
assigns the primacy to the Non-existent and treats it as the very
summit of Existence: in short, it places the last thing first. The
reason for this procedure lies in the acceptance of sense-perception as
a trustworthy guide to first-principles and to all other entities.
This philosophy began by identifying the Real with body; then, viewing
with apprehension the transmutations of bodies, decided that Reality
was that which is permanent beneath the superficial changes -- which is
much as if one regarded space as having more title to Reality than the
bodies within it, on the principle that space does not perish with
them. They found a permanent in space, but it was a fault to take mere
permanence as in itself a sufficient definition of the Real; the right
method would have been to consider what properties must characterize
Reality, by the presence of which properties it has also that of
unfailing permanence. Thus if a shadow had permanence, accompanying an
object through every change, that would not make it more real than the
object itself. The sensible universe, as including the Substrate and a
multitude of attributes, will thus have more claim to be Reality entire
than has any one of its component entities (such as Matter): and if the
sensible were in very truth the whole of Reality, Matter, the mere base
and not the total, could not be that whole.
Most surprising of all is that, while they make sense-perception their
guarantee of everything, they hold that the Real cannot be grasped by
sensation; -- for they have no right to assign to Matter even so much
as resistance, since resistance is a quality. If however they profess
to grasp Reality by Intellect, is it not a strange Intellect which
ranks Matter above itself, giving Reality to Matter and not to itself?
And as their "Intellect" has, thus, no Real-Existence, how can it be
trustworthy when it speaks of things higher than itself, things to
which it has no affinity whatever?
But an adequate treatment of this entity [Matter] and of substrates
will be found elsewhere.
29. Qualities must be for this school distinct from Substrates. This in
fact they acknowledge by counting them as the second category. If then
they form a distinct category, they must be simplex; that is to say
they are not composite; that is to say that as qualities, pure and
simple, they are devoid of Matter: hence they are bodiless and active,
since Matter is their substrate -- a relation of passivity.
If however they hold Qualities to be composite, that is a strange
classification which first contrasts simple and composite qualities,
then proceeds to include them in one genus, and finally includes one of
the two species [simple] in the other [composite]; it is like dividing
knowledge into two species, the first comprising grammatical knowledge,
the second made up of grammatical and other knowledge.
Again, if they identify Qualities with qualifications of Matter, then
in the first place even their Seminal Principles [Logoi] will be
material and will not have to reside in Matter to produce a composite,
but prior to the composite thus produced they will themselves be
composed of Matter and Form: in other words, they will not be Forms or
Principles. Further, if they maintain that the Seminal Principles are
nothing but Matter in a certain state, they evidently identify
Qualities with States, and should accordingly classify them in their
fourth genus. If this is a state of some peculiar kind, what precisely
is its differentia? Clearly the state by its association with Matter
receives an accession of Reality: yet if that means that when divorced
from Matter it is not a Reality, how can State be treated as a single
genus or species? Certainly one genus cannot embrace the Existent and
the Non-existent.
And what is this state implanted in Matter? It is either real, or
unreal: if real, absolutely bodiless: if unreal, it is introduced to no
purpose; Matter is all there is; Quality therefore is nothing. The same
is true of State, for that is even more unreal; the alleged Fourth
Category more so.
Matter then is the sole Reality. But how do we come to know this?
Certainly not from Matter itself. How, then? From Intellect? But
Intellect is merely a state of Matter, and even the "state" is an empty
qualification. We are left after all with Matter alone competent to
make these assertions, to fathom these problems. And if its assertions
were intelligent, we must wonder how it thinks and performs the
functions of Soul without possessing either Intellect or Soul. If,
then, it were to make foolish assertions, affirming itself to be what
it is not and cannot be, to what should we ascribe this folly?
Doubtless to Matter, if it was in truth Matter that spoke. But Matter
does not speak; anyone who says that it does proclaims the predominance
of Matter in himself; he may have a soul, but he is utterly devoid of
Intellect, and lives in ignorance of himself and of the faculty alone
capable of uttering the truth in these things.
30. With regard to States:
It may seem strange that States should be set up as a third class -- or
whatever class it is -- since all States are referable to Matter. We
shall be told that there is a difference among States, and that a State
as in Matter has definite characteristics distinguishing it from all
other States and further that, whereas Qualities are States of Matter,
States properly so-called belong to Qualities. But if Qualities are
nothing but States of Matter, States [in the strict sense of the term]
are ultimately reducible to Matter, and under Matter they must be
classed.
Further, how can States constitute a single genus, when there is such
manifold diversity among them? How can we group together three yards
long" and "white" -- Quantity and Quality respectively? Or again Time
and Place? How can "yesterday," "last year," "in the Lyceum," "in the
Academy," be States at all? How can Time be in any sense a State?
Neither is Time a State nor the events in Time, neither the objects in
Space nor Space itself.
And how can Action be a State? One acting is not in a state of being
but in a state of Action, or rather in Action simply: no state is
involved. Similarly, what is predicated of the patient is not a state
of being but a state of Passion, or strictly, Passion unqualified by
state.
But it would seem that State was the right category at least for cases
of Situation and Possession: yet Possession does not imply possession
of some particular state, but is Possession absolute.
As for the Relative State, if the theory does not include it in the
same genus as the other States, another question arises: we must
enquire whether any actuality is attributed to this particular type of
relation, for to many types actuality is denied.
It is, moreover, absurd that an entity which depends upon the prior
existence of other entities should be classed in the same genus with
those priors: one and two must, clearly, exist, before half and double
can.
The various speculations on the subject of the Existents and the
principles of the Existents, whether they have entailed an infinite or
a finite number, bodily or bodiless, or even supposed the Composite to
be the Authentic Existent, may well be considered separately with the
help of the criticisms made by the ancients upon them.
__________________________________________________________________
SECOND TRACTATE.
ON THE KINDS OF BEING (2).
1. We have examined the proposed "ten genera": we have discussed also
the theory which gathers the total of things into one genus and to this
subordinates what may be thought of as its four species. The next step
is, naturally, to expound our own views and to try to show the
agreement of our conclusions with those of Plato.
Now if we were obliged to consider Being as a unity, the following
questions would be unnecessary:
Is there one genus embracing everything, or are there genera which
cannot be subsumed under such a unity? Are there first-principles? Are
first-principles to be identified with genera, or genera with
first-principles? Or is it perhaps rather the case that while not all
genera are first-principles, all first-principles are at the same time
genera? Or is the converse true? Or again, do both classes overlap,
some principles being also genera, and some genera also principles? And
do both the sets of categories we have been examining imply that only
some principles are genera and some genera principles? or does one of
them presuppose that all that belongs to the class of genera belongs
also to the class of principles?
Since, however, we affirm that Being is not a unity -- the reason for
this affirmation is stated by Plato and others -- these questions
become imperative, once we are satisfied as to the number of genera to
be posited and the grounds for our choice.
The subject of our enquiry, then, is the Existent or Existents, and it
presents immediately two problems demanding separate analysis:
What do we mean by the Existent? This is naturally the first question
to be examined.
What is that which, often taken for Being [for the Existent], is in our
view Becoming and never really Being? Note however that these concepts
are not to be taken as distinguished from each other in the sense of
belonging to a genus, Something, divided into Being and Becoming; and
we must not suppose that Plato took this view. It would be absurd to
assign Being to the same genus as non-Being: this would be to make one
genus of Socrates and his portrait. The division here [between what has
Being and what is in Becoming] means a definite marking-off, a setting
asunder, leading to the assertion that what takes the appearance of
Being is not Being and implying that the nature of True Being has been
quite misapprehended. Being, we are taught, must have the attribute of
eternity, must be so constituted as never to belie its own nature.
This, then, is the Being of which we shall treat, and in our
investigation we shall assume that it is not a unity: subsequently we
ask leave to say something on the nature of Becoming and on what it is
that comes to be, that is, on the nature of the world of Sense.
2. In asserting that Being is not a unity, we do not mean to imply a
definite number of existences; the number may well be infinite: we mean
simply that it is many as well as one, that it is, so to speak, a
diversified unity, a plurality in unity.
It follows that either the unity so regarded is a unity of genus under
which the Existents, involving as they do plurality as well as unity,
stand as species; or that while there are more genera than one, yet all
are subordinate to a unity; or there may be more genera than one,
though no one genus is subordinate to any other, but all with their own
subordinates -- whether these be lesser genera, or species with
individuals for their subordinates -- all are elements in one entity,
and from their totality the Intellectual realm -- that which we know as
Being -- derives its constitution.
If this last is the truth, we have here not merely genera, but genera
which are at the same time principles of Being. They are genera because
they have subordinates -- other genera, and successively species and
individuals; they are also principles, since from this plurality Being
takes its rise, constituted in its entirety from these its elements.
Suppose, however, a greater number of origins which by their mere
totality comprised, without possessing any subordinates, the whole of
Being; these would be first-principles but not genera: it would be as
if one constructed the sensible world from the four elements -- fire
and the others; these elements would be first principles, but they
would not be genera, unless the term "genus" is to be used equivocally.
But does this assertion of certain genera which are at the same time
first-principles imply that by combining the genera, each with its
subordinates, we find the whole of Being in the resultant combination?
But then, taken separately, their existence will not be actual but only
potential, and they will not be found in isolation.
Suppose, on the other hand, we ignore the genera and combine the
particulars: what then becomes of the ignored genera? They will,
surely, exist in the purity of their own isolation, and the mixtures
will not destroy them. The question of how this result is achieved may
be postponed.
For the moment we take it as agreed that there are genera as distinct
from principles of Being and that, on another plane, principles
[elements] are opposed to compounds. We are thus obliged to show in
what relation we speak of genera and why we distinguish them instead of
summing them under a unity; for otherwise we imply that their
coalescence into a unity is fortuitous, whereas it would be more
plausible to dispense with their separate existence.
If all the genera could be species of Being, all individuals without
exception being immediately subordinate to these species, then such a
unification becomes feasible. But that supposition bespeaks
annihilation for the genera: the species will no longer be species;
plurality will no longer be subordinated to unity; everything must be
the unity, unless there exist some thing or things outside the unity.
The One never becomes many -- as the existence of species demands --
unless there is something distinct from it: it cannot of itself assume
plurality, unless we are to think of it as being broken into pieces
like some extended body: but even so, the force which breaks it up must
be distinct from it: if it is itself to effect the breaking up -- or
whatever form the division may take -- then it is itself previously
divided.
For these and many other reasons we must abstain from positing a single
genus, and especially because neither Being nor Substance can be the
predicate of any given thing. If we do predicate Being, it is only as
an accidental attribute; just as when we predicate whiteness of a
substance, we are not predicating the Absolute Whiteness.
3. We assert, then, a plurality of Existents, but a plurality not
fortuitous and therefore a plurality deriving from a unity.
But even admitting this derivation from a unity -- a unity however not
predicated of them in respect of their essential being -- there is,
surely, no reason why each of these Existents, distinct in character
from every other, should not in itself stand as a separate genus.
Is, then, this unity external to the genera thus produced, this unity
which is their source though it cannot be predicated of them in respect
of their essence? it is indeed external; the One is beyond; it cannot,
therefore, be included among the genera: it is the [transcendent]
source, while they stand side by side as genera. Yet surely the one
must somehow be included [among the genera]? No: it is the Existents we
are investigating, not that which is beyond Existence.
We pass on, then, to consider that which is included, and find to our
surprise the cause included with the things it causes: it is surely
strange that causes and effects should be brought into the same genus.
But if the cause is included with its effects only in the sense in
which a genus is included with its subordinates, the subordinates being
of a different order, so that it cannot be predicated of them whether
as their genus or in any other relation, these subordinates are
obviously themselves genera with subordinates of their own: you may,
for example, be the cause of the operation of walking, but the walking
is not subordinate to you in the relation of species to genus; and if
walking had nothing prior to it as its genus, but had posteriors, then
it would be a [primary] genus and rank among the Existents.
Perhaps, however, it must be utterly denied that unity is even the
cause of other things; they should be considered rather as its parts or
elements -- if the terms may be allowed, -- their totality constituting
a single entity which our thinking divides. All unity though it be, it
goes by a wonderful power out into everything; it appears as many and
becomes many when there is a motion; the fecundity of its nature causes
the One to be no longer one, and we, displaying what we call its parts,
consider them each as a unity and make them into "genera," unaware of
our failure to see the whole at once. We display it, then, in parts,
though, unable to restrain their natural tendency to coalesce, we bring
these parts together again, resign them to the whole and allow them to
become a unity, or rather to be a unity.
All this will become clearer in the light of further consideration --
when, that is to say, we have ascertained the number of the genera; for
thus we shall also discover their causes. It is not enough to deny; we
must advance by dint of thought and comprehension. The way is clear:
4. If we had to ascertain the nature of body and the place it holds in
the universe, surely we should take some sample of body, say stone, and
examine into what constituents it may be divided. There would be what
we think of as the substrate of stone, its quantity -- in this case, a
magnitude; its quality -- for example, the colour of stone. As with
stone, so with every other body: we should see that in this thing,
body, there are three distinguishable characteristics -- the
pseudo-substance, the quantity, the quality -- though they all make one
and are only logically trisected, the three being found to constitute
the unit thing, body. If motion were equally inherent in its
constitution, we should include this as well, and the four would form a
unity, the single body depending upon them all for its unity and
characteristic nature.
The same method must be applied in examining the Intellectual Substance
and the genera and first-principles of the Intellectual sphere.
But we must begin by subtracting what is peculiar to body, its
coming-to-be, its sensible nature, its magnitude -- that is to say, the
characteristics which produce isolation and mutual separation. It is an
Intellectual Being we have to consider, an Authentic Existent,
possessed of a unity surpassing that of any sensible thing.
Now the wonder comes how a unity of this type can be many as well as
one. In the case of body it was easy to concede unity-with-plurality;
the one body is divisible to infinity; its colour is a different thing
from its shape, since in fact they are separated. But if we take Soul,
single, continuous, without extension, of the highest simplicity -- as
the first effort of the mind makes manifest -- how can we expect to
find multiplicity here too? We believed that the division of the living
being into body and soul was final: body indeed was manifold,
composite, diversified; but in soul we imagined we had found a simplex,
and boldly made a halt, supposing that we had come to the limit of our
course.
Let us examine this soul, presented to us from the Intellectual realm
as body from the Sensible. How is its unity a plurality? How is its
plurality a unity? Clearly its unity is not that of a composite formed
from diverse elements, but that of a single nature comprising a
plurality.
This problem attacked and solved, the truth about the genera comprised
in Being will thereby, as we asserted, be elucidated also.
5. A first point demanding consideration:
Bodies -- those, for example, of animals and plants -- are each a
multiplicity founded on colour and shape and magnitude, and on the
forms and arrangement of parts: yet all these elements spring from a
unity. Now this unity must be either Unity-Absolute or some unity less
thorough-going and complete, but necessarily more complete than that
which emerges, so to speak, from the body itself; this will be a unity
having more claim to reality than the unity produced from it, for
divergence from unity involves a corresponding divergence from Reality.
Since, thus, bodies take their rise from unity, but not "unity" in the
sense of the complete unity or Unity-Absolute -- for this could never
yield discrete plurality -- it remains that they be derived from a
unity Pluralized. But the creative principle [in bodies] is Soul: Soul
therefore is a pluralized unity.
We then ask whether the plurality here consists of the
Reason-Principles of the things of process. Or is this unity not
something different from the mere sum of these Principles? Certainly
Soul itself is one Reason-Principle, the chief of the
Reason-Principles, and these are its Act as it functions in accordance
with its essential being; this essential being, on the other hand, is
the potentiality of the Reason-Principles. This is the mode in which
this unity is a plurality, its plurality being revealed by the effect
it has upon the external.
But, to leave the region of its effect, suppose we take it at the
higher non-effecting part of Soul; is not plurality of powers to be
found in this part also? The existence of this higher part will, we may
presume, be at once conceded.
But is this existence to be taken as identical with that of the stone?
Surely not. Being in the case of the stone is not Being pure and
simple, but stone-being: so here; Soul's being denotes not merely Being
but Soul-being.
Is then that "being" distinct from what else goes to complete the
essence [or substance] of Soul? Is it to be identified with Bring [the
Absolute], while to some differentia of Being is ascribed the
production of Soul? No doubt Soul is in a sense Being, and this is not
as a man "is" white, but from the fact of its being purely an essence:
in other words, the being it possesses it holds from no source external
to its own essence.
6. But must it not draw on some source external to its essence, if it
is to be conditioned, not only by Being, but by being an entity of a
particular character? But if it is conditioned by a particular
character, and this character is external to its essence, its essence
does not comprise all that makes it Soul; its individuality will
determine it; a part of Soul will be essence, but not Soul entire.
Furthermore, what being will it have when we separate it from its other
components? The being of a stone? No: the being must be a form of Being
appropriate to a source, so to speak, and a first-principle, or rather
must take the forms appropriate to all that is comprised in Soul's
being: the being here must, that is, be life, and the life and the
being must be one.
One, in the sense of being one Reason-Principle? No; it is the
substrate of Soul that is one, though one in such a way as to be also
two or more -- as many as are the Primaries which constitute Soul.
Either, then, it is life as well as Substance, or else it possesses
life.
But if life is a thing possessed, the essence of the possessor is not
inextricably bound up with life. If, on the contrary, this is not
possession, the two, life and Substance, must be a unity.
Soul, then, is one and many -- as many as are manifested in that
oneness -- one in its nature, many in those other things. A single
Existent, it makes itself many by what we may call its motion: it is
one entire, but by its striving, so to speak, to contemplate itself, it
is a plurality; for we may imagine that it cannot bear to be a single
Existent, when it has the power to be all that it in fact is. The cause
of its appearing as many is this contemplation, and its purpose is the
Act of the Intellect; if it were manifested as a bare unity, it could
have no intellection, since in that simplicity it would already be
identical with the object of its thought.
7. What, then, are the several entities observable in this plurality?
We have found Substance [Essence] and life simultaneously present in
Soul. Now, this Substance is a common property of Soul, but life,
common to all souls, differs in that it is a property of Intellect
also.
Having thus introduced Intellect and its life we make a single genus of
what is common to all life, namely, Motion. Substance and the Motion,
which constitutes the highest life, we must consider as two genera; for
even though they form a unity, they are separable to thought which
finds their unity not a unity; otherwise, it could not distinguish
them.
Observe also how in other things Motion or life is clearly separated
from Being -- a separation impossible, doubtless, in True Being, but
possible in its shadow and namesake. In the portrait of a man much is
left out, and above all the essential thing, life: the "Being" of
sensible things just such a shadow of True Being, an abstraction from
that Being complete which was life in the Archetype; it is because of
this incompleteness that we are able in the Sensible world to separate
Being from life and life from Being.
Being, then, containing many species, has but one genus. Motion,
however, is to be classed as neither a subordinate nor a supplement of
Being but as its concomitant; for we have not found Being serving as
substrate to Motion. Motion is being Act; neither is separated from the
other except in thought; the two natures are one; for Being is
inevitably actual, not potential.
No doubt we observe Motion and Being separately, Motion as contained in
Being and Being as involved in Motion, and in the individual they may
be mutually exclusive; but the dualism is an affirmation of our thought
only, and that thought sees either form as a duality within a unity.
Now Motion, thus manifested in conjunction with Being, does not alter
Being's nature -- unless to complete its essential character -- and it
does retain for ever its own peculiar nature: at once, then, we are
forced to introduce Stability. To reject Stability would be more
unreasonable than to reject Motion; for Stability is associated in our
thought and conception with Being even more than with Motion;
unalterable condition, unchanging mode, single Reason-Principle --
these are characteristics of the higher sphere.
Stability, then, may also be taken as a single genus. Obviously
distinct from Motion and perhaps even its contrary, that it is also
distinct from Being may be shown by many considerations. We may
especially observe that if Stability were identical with Being, so also
would Motion be, with equal right. Why identity in the case of
Stability and not in that of Motion, when Motion is virtually the very
life and Act both of Substance and of Absolute Being? However, on the
very same principle on which we separated Motion from Being with the
understanding that it is the same and not the same -- that they are two
and yet one -- we also separate Stability from Being, holding it, yet,
inseparable; it is only a logical separation entailing the inclusion
among the Existents of this other genus. To identify Stability with
Being, with no difference between them, and to identify Being with
Motion, would be to identify Stability with Motion through the
mediation of Being, and so to make Motion and Stability one and the
same thing.
8. We cannot indeed escape positing these three, Being, Motion,
Stability, once it is the fact that the Intellect discerns them as
separates; and if it thinks of them at all, it posits them by that very
thinking; if they are thought, they exist. Things whose existence is
bound up with Matter have no being in the Intellect: these three
principles are however free of Matter; and in that which goes free of
Matter to be thought is to be.
We are in the presence of Intellect undefiled. Fix it firmly, but not
with the eyes of the body. You are looking upon the hearth of Reality,
within it a sleepless light: you see how it holds to itself, and how it
puts apart things that were together, how it lives a life that endures
and keeps a thought acting not upon any future but upon that which
already is, upon an eternal present -- a thought self-centred, bearing
on nothing outside of itself.
Now in the Act of Intellect there are energy and motion; in its
self-intellection Substance and Being. In virtue of its Being it
thinks, and it thinks of itself as Being, and of that as Being, upon
which it is, so to speak, pivoted. Not that its Act self-directed ranks
as Substance, but Being stands as the goal and origin of that Act, the
object of its contemplation though not the contemplation itself: and
yet this Act too involves Being, which is its motive and its term. By
the fact that its Being is actual and not merely potential, Intellect
bridges the dualism [of agent and patient] and abjures separation: it
identifies itself with Being and Being with itself.
Being, the most firmly set of all things, that in virtue of which all
other things receive Stability, possesses this Stability not as from
without but as springing within, as inherent. Stability is the goal of
intellection, a Stability which had no beginning, and the state from
which intellection was impelled was Stability, though Stability gave it
no impulsion; for Motion neither starts from Motion nor ends in Motion.
Again, the Form-Idea has Stability, since it is the goal of Intellect:
intellection is the Form's Motion.
Thus all the Existents are one, at once Motion and Stability; Motion
and Stability are genera all-pervading, and every subsequent is a
particular being, a particular stability and a particular motion.
We have caught the radiance of Being, and beheld it in its three
manifestations: Being, revealed by the Being within ourselves; the
Motion of Being, revealed by the motion within ourselves; and its
Stability revealed by ours. We accommodate our being, motion, stability
to those [of the Archetypal], unable however to draw any distinction
but finding ourselves in the presence of entities inseparable and, as
it were, interfused. We have, however, in a sense, set them a little
apart, holding them down and viewing them in isolation; and thus we
have observed Being, Stability, Motion -- these three, of which each is
a unity to itself; in so doing, have we not regarded them as being
different from each other? By this posing of three entities, each a
unity, we have, surely, found Being to contain Difference.
Again, inasmuch as we restore them to an all-embracing unity,
identifying all with unity, do we not see in this amalgamation Identity
emerging as a Real Existent?
Thus, in addition to the other three [Being, Motion, Stability], we are
obliged to posit the further two, Identity and Difference, so that we
have in all five genera. In so doing, we shall not withhold Identity
and Difference from the subsequents of the Intellectual order; the
thing of Sense has, it is clear, a particular identity and a particular
difference, but Identity and Difference have the generic status
independently of the particular.
They will, moreover, be primary genera, because nothing can be
predicated of them as denoting their essential nature. Nothing, of
course we mean, but Being; but this Being is not their genus, since
they cannot be identified with any particular being as such. Similarly,
Being will not stand as genus to Motion or Stability, for these also
are not its species. Beings [or Existents] comprise not merely what are
to be regarded as species of the genus Being, but also participants in
Being. On the other hand, Being does not participate in the other four
principles as its genera: they are not prior to Being; they do not even
attain to its level.
9. The above considerations -- to which others, doubtless, might be
added -- suffice to show that these five are primary genera. But that
they are the only primary genera, that there are no others, how can we
be confident of this? Why do we not add unity to them? Quantity?
Quality? Relation, and all else included by our various forerunners?
As for unity: If the term is to mean a unity in which nothing else is
present, neither Soul nor Intellect nor anything else, this can be
predicated of nothing, and therefore cannot be a genus. If it denotes
the unity present in Being, in which case we predicate Being of unity,
this unity is not primal.
Besides, unity, containing no differences, cannot produce species, and
not producing species, cannot be a genus. You cannot so much as divide
unity: to divide it would be to make it many. Unity, aspiring to be a
genus, becomes a plurality and annuls itself.
Again, you must add to it to divide it into species; for there can be
no differentiae in unity as there are in Substance. The mind accepts
differences of Being, but differences within unity there cannot be.
Every differentia introduces a duality destroying the unity; for the
addition of any one thing always does away with the previous quantity.
It may be contended that the unity which is implicit in Being and in
Motion is common to all other things, and that therefore Being and
unity are inseparable. But we rejected the idea that Being is a genus
comprising all things, on the ground that these things are not beings
in the sense of the Absolute Being, but beings in another mode: in the
same way, we assert, unity is not a genus, the Primary Unity having a
character distinct from all other unities.
Admitted that not everything suffices to produce a genus, it may yet be
urged that there is an Absolute or Primary Unity corresponding to the
other primaries. But if Being and unity are identified, then since
Being has already been included among the genera, it is but a name that
is introduced in unity: if, however, they are both unity, some
principle is implied: if there is anything in addition [to this
principle], unity is predicated of this added thing; if there is
nothing added, the reference is again to that unity predicated of
nothing. If however the unity referred to is that which accompanies
Being, we have already decided that it is not unity in the primary
sense.
But is there any reason why this less complete unity should not still
possess Primary Being, seeing that even its posterior we rank as Being,
and "Being" in the sense of the Primary Being? The reason is that the
prior of this Being cannot itself be Being -- or else, if the prior is
Being, this is not Primary Being: but the prior is unity; [therefore
unity is not Being].
Furthermore, unity, abstracted from Being, has no differentiae.
Again, even taking it as bound up with Being: If it is a consequent of
Being, then it is a consequent of everything, and therefore the latest
of things: but the genus takes priority. If it is simultaneous with
Being, it is simultaneous with everything: but a genus is not thus
simultaneous. If it is prior to Being, it is of the nature of a
Principle, and therefore will belong only to Being; but if it serves as
Principle to Being, it is not its genus: if it is not genus to Being,
it is equally not a genus of anything else; for that would make Being a
genus of all other things.
In sum, the unity exhibited in Being on the one hand approximates to
Unity-Absolute and on the other tends to identify itself with Being:
Being is a unity in relation to the Absolute, is Being by virtue of its
sequence upon that Absolute: it is indeed potentially a plurality, and
yet it remains a unity and rejecting division refuses thereby to become
a genus.
10. In what sense is the particular manifestation of Being a unity?
Clearly, in so far as it is one thing, it forfeits its unity; with
"one" and "thing" we have already plurality. No species can be a unity
in more than an equivocal sense: a species is a plurality, so that the
"unity" here is that of an army or a chorus. The unity of the higher
order does not belong to species; unity is, thus, ambiguous, not taking
the same form in Being and in particular beings.
It follows that unity is not a genus. For a genus is such that wherever
it is affirmed its opposites cannot also be affirmed; anything of which
unity and its opposites are alike affirmed -- and this implies the
whole of Being -- cannot have unity as a genus. Consequently unity can
be affirmed as a genus neither of the primary genera -- since the unity
of Being is as much a plurality as a unity, and none of the other
[primary] genera is a unity to the entire exclusion of plurality -- nor
of things posterior to Being, for these most certainly are a plurality.
In fact, no genus with all its items can be a unity; so that unity to
become a genus must forfeit its unity. The unit is prior to number; yet
number it must be, if it is to be a genus.
Again, the unit is a unit from the point of view of number: if it is a
unit generically, it will not be a unit in the strict sense.
Again, just as the unit, appearing in numbers, not regarded as a genus
predicated of them, but is thought of as inherent in them, so also
unity, though present in Being, cannot stand as genus to Being or to
the other genera or to anything whatever.
Further, as the simplex must be the principle of the non-simplex,
though not its genus -- for then the non-simplex too would be simplex,
-- so it stands with unity; if unity is a Principle; it cannot be a
genus to its subsequents, and therefore cannot be a genus of Being or
of other things. If it is nevertheless to be a genus, everything of
which it is a genus must be taken as a unit -- a notion which implies
the separation of unity from substance: it will not, therefore, be
all-embracing. just as Being is not a genus of everything but only of
species each of which is a being, so too unity will be a genus of
species each of which is a unity. But that raises the question of what
difference there is between one thing and another in so far as they are
both units, corresponding to the difference between one being and
another.
Unity, it may be suggested, is divided in its conjunction with Being
and Substance; Being because it is so divided is considered a genus --
the one genus manifested in many particulars; why then should not unity
be similarly a genus, inasmuch as its manifestations are as many as
those of Substance and it is divided into as many particulars?
In the first place, the mere fact that an entity inheres in many things
is not enough to make it a genus of those things or of anything else:
in a word, a common property need not be a genus. The point inherent in
a line is not a genus of lines, or a genus at all; nor again, as we
have observed, is the unity latent in numbers a genus either of the
numbers or of anything else: genus demands that the common property of
diverse objects involve also differences arising out of its own
character, that it form species, and that it belong to the essence of
the objects. But what differences can there be in unity? What species
does it engender? If it produces the same species as we find in
connection with Being, it must be identical with Being: only the name
will differ, and the term Being may well suffice.
11. We are bound however to enquire under what mode unity is contained
in Being. How is what is termed the "dividing" effected -- especially
the dividing of the genera Being and unity? Is it the same division, or
is it different in the two cases?
First then: In what sense, precisely, is any given particular called
and known to be a unity? Secondly: Does unity as used of Being carry
the same connotation as in reference to the Absolute?
Unity is not identical in all things; it has a different significance
according as it is applied to the Sensible and the Intellectual realms
-- Being too, of course, comports such a difference -- and there is a
difference in the unity affirmed among sensible things as compared with
each other; the unity is not the same in the cases of chorus, camp,
ship, house; there is a difference again as between such discrete
things and the continuous. Nevertheless, all are representations of the
one exemplar, some quite remote, others more effective: the truer
likeness is in the Intellectual; Soul is a unity, and still more is
Intellect a unity and Being a unity.
When we predicate Being of a particular, do we thereby predicate of it
unity, and does the degree of its unity tally with that of its being?
Such correspondence is accidental: unity is not proportionate to Being;
less unity need not mean less Being. An army or a choir has no less
Being than a house, though less unity.
It would appear, then, that the unity of a particular is related not so
much to Being as to a standard of perfection: in so far as the
particular attains perfection, so far it is a unity; and the degree of
unity depends on this attainment. The particular aspires not simply to
Being, but to Being-in-perfection: it is in this strain towards their
perfection that such beings as do not possess unity strive their utmost
to achieve it.
Things of nature tend by their very nature to coalesce with each other
and also to unify each within itself; their movement is not away from
but towards each other and inwards upon themselves. Souls, moreover,
seem to desire always to pass into a unity over and above the unity of
their own substance. Unity in fact confronts them on two sides: their
origin and their goal alike are unity; from unity they have arisen, and
towards unity they strive. Unity is thus identical with Goodness [is
the universal standard of perfection]; for no being ever came into
existence without possessing, from that very moment, an irresistible
tendency towards unity.
From natural things we turn to the artificial. Every art in all its
operation aims at whatsoever unity its capacity and its models permit,
though Being most achieves unity since it is closer at the start.
That is why in speaking of other entities we assert the name only, for
example man; when we say "one man," we have in mind more than one; and
if we affirm unity of him in any other connection, we regard it as
supplementary [to his essence]: but when we speak of Being as a whole
we say it is one Being without presuming that it is anything but a
unity; we thereby show its close association with Goodness.
Thus for Being, as for the others, unity turns out to be, in some
sense, Principle and Term, not however in the same sense as for things
of the physical order -- a discrepancy leading us to infer that even in
unity there are degrees of priority.
How, then, do we characterize the unity [thus diverse] in Being? Are we
to think of it as a common property seen alike in all its parts? In the
first place, the point is common to lines and yet is not their genus,
and this unity we are considering may also be common to numbers and not
be their genus -- though, we need hardly say, the unity of
Unity-Absolute is not that of the numbers, one, two and the rest.
Secondly, in Being there is nothing to prevent the existence of prior
and posterior, simple and composite: but unity, even if it be identical
in all the manifestations of Being, having no differentiae can produce
no species; but producing no species it cannot be a genus.
12. Enough upon that side of the question. But how does the perfection
[goodness] of numbers, lifeless things, depend upon their particular
unity? Just as all other inanimates find their perfection in their
unity.
If it should be objected that numbers are simply non-existent, we
should point out that our discussion is concerned [not with units as
such, but] with beings considered from the aspect of their unity.
We may again be asked how the point -- supposing its independent
existence granted -- participates in perfection. If the point is chosen
as an inanimate object, the question applies to all such objects: but
perfection does exist in such things, for example in a circle: the
perfection of the circle will be perfection for the point; it will
aspire to this perfection and strive to attain it, as far as it can,
through the circle.
But how are the five genera to be regarded? Do they form particulars by
being broken up into parts? No; the genus exists as a whole in each of
the things whose genus it is.
But how, at that, can it remain a unity? The unity of a genus must be
considered as a whole-in-many.
Does it exist then only in the things participating in it? No; it has
an independent existence of its own as well. But this will, no doubt,
become clearer as we proceed.
13. We turn to ask why Quantity is not included among the primary
genera, and Quality also.
Quantity is not among the primaries, because these are permanently
associated with Being. Motion is bound up with Actual Being
[Being-in-Act], since it is its life; with Motion, Stability too gained
its foothold in Reality; with these are associated Difference and
Identity, so that they also are seen in conjunction with Being. But
number [the basis of Quantity] is a posterior. It is posterior not only
with regard to these genera but also within itself; in number the
posterior is divided from the prior; this is a sequence in which the
posteriors are latent in the priors [and do not appear simultaneously].
Number therefore cannot be included among the primary genera; whether
it constitutes a genus at all remains to be examined.
Magnitude [extended quantity] is in a still higher degree posterior and
composite, for it contains within itself number, line and surface. Now
if continuous magnitude derives its quantity from number, and number is
not a genus, how can magnitude hold that status? Besides, magnitudes,
like numbers, admit of priority and posteriority.
If, then, Quantity be constituted by a common element in both number
and magnitude, we must ascertain the nature of this common element, and
consider it, once discovered, as a posterior genus, not as one of the
Primaries: thus failing of primary status, it must be related, directly
or indirectly, to one of the Primaries.
We may take it as clear that it is the nature of Quantity to indicate a
certain quantum, and to measure the quantum of the particular; Quantity
is moreover, in a sense, itself a quantum. But if the quantum is the
common element in number and magnitude, either we have number as a
primary with magnitude derived from it, or else number must consist of
a blending of Motion and Stability, while magnitude will be a form of
Motion or will originate in Motion, Motion going forth to infinity and
Stability creating the unit by checking that advance.
But the problem of the origin of number and magnitude, or rather of how
they subsist and are conceived, must be held over. It may, thus, be
found that number is among the primary genera, while magnitude is
posterior and composite; or that number belongs to the genus Stability,
while magnitude must be consigned to Motion. But we propose to discuss
all this at a later stage.
14. Why is Quality, again, not included among the Primaries? Because
like Quantity it is a posterior, subsequent to Substance. Primary
Substance must necessarily contain Quantity and Quality as its
consequents; it cannot owe its subsistence to them, or require them for
its completion: that would make it posterior to Quality and Quantity.
Now in the case of composite substances -- those constituted from
diverse elements -- number and qualities provide a means of
differentiation: the qualities may be detached from the common core
around which they are found to group themselves. But in the primary
genera there is no distinction to be drawn between simples and
composites; the difference is between simples and those entities which
complete not a particular substance but Substance as such. A particular
substance may very well receive completion from Quality, for though it
already has Substance before the accession of Quality, its particular
character is external to Substance. But in Substance itself all the
elements are substantial.
Nevertheless, we ventured to assert elsewhere that while the
complements of Substance are only by analogy called qualities, yet
accessions of external origin and subsequent to Substance are really
qualities; that, further, the properties which inhere in substances are
their activities [Acts], while those which are subsequent are merely
modifications [or Passions]: we now affirm that the attributes of the
particular substance are never complementary to Substance [as such]; an
accession of Substance does not come to the substance of man qua man;
he is, on the contrary, Substance in a higher degree before he arrives
at differentiation, just as he is already "living being" before he
passes into the rational species.
15. How then do the four genera complete Substance without qualifying
it or even particularizing it?
It has been observed that Being is primary, and it is clear that none
of the four -- Motion, Stability, Difference, Identity -- is distinct
from it. That this Motion does not produce Quality is doubtless also
clear, but a word or two will make it clearer still.
If Motion is the Act of Substance, and Being and the Primaries in
general are its Act, then Motion is not an accidental attribute: as the
Act of what is necessarily actual [what necessarily involves Act], it
is no longer to be considered as the complement of Substance but as
Substance itself. For this reason, then, it has not been assigned to a
posterior class, or referred to Quality, but has been made contemporary
with Being.
The truth is not that Being first is and then takes Motion, first is
and then acquires Stability: neither Stability nor Motion is a mere
modification of Being. Similarly, Identity and Difference are not later
additions: Being did not grow into plurality; its very unity was a
plurality; but plurality implies Difference, and unity-in-plurality
involves Identity.
Substance [Real Being] requires no more than these five constituents;
but when we have to turn to the lower sphere, we find other principles
giving rise no longer to Substance (as such) but to quantitative
Substance and qualitative: these other principles may be regarded as
genera but not primary genera.
16. As for Relation, manifestly an offshoot, how can it be included
among primaries? Relation is of thing ranged against thing; it is not
self-pivoted, but looks outward.
Place and Date are still more remote from Being. Place denotes the
presence of one entity within another, so that it involves a duality;
but a genus must be a unity, not a composite. Besides, Place does not
exist in the higher sphere, and the present discussion is concerned
with the realm of True Being.
Whether time is There, remains to be considered. Apparently it has less
claim than even Place. If it is a measurement, and that a measurement
of Motion, we have two entities; the whole is a composite and posterior
to Motion; therefore it is not on an equal footing with Motion in our
classification.
Action and Passivity presuppose Motion; if, then, they exist in the
higher sphere, they each involve a duality; neither is a simplex.
Possession is a duality, while Situation, as signifying one thing
situated in another, is a threefold conception.
17. Why are not beauty, goodness and the virtues, together with
knowledge and intelligence, included among the primary genera?
If by goodness we mean The First -- what we call the Principle of
Goodness, the Principle of which we can predicate nothing, giving it
this name only because we have no other means of indicating it -- then
goodness, clearly, can be the genus of nothing: this principle is not
affirmed of other things; if it were, each of these would be Goodness
itself. The truth is that it is prior to Substance, not contained in
it. If, on the contrary, we mean goodness as a quality, no quality can
be ranked among the primaries.
Does this imply that the nature of Being is not good? Not good, to
begin with, in the sense in which The First is good, but in another
sense of the word: moreover, Being does not possess its goodness as a
quality but as a constituent.
But the other genera too, we said, are constituents of Being, and are
regarded as genera because each is a common property found in many
things. If then goodness is similarly observed in every part of
Substance or Being, or in most parts, why is goodness not a genus, and
a primary genus? Because it is not found identical in all the parts of
Being, but appears in degrees, first, second and subsequent, whether it
be because one part is derived from another -- posterior from prior --
or because all are posterior to the transcendent Unity, different parts
of Being participating in it in diverse degrees corresponding to their
characteristic natures.
If however we must make goodness a genus as well [as a transcendent
source], it will be a posterior genus, for goodness is posterior to
Substance and posterior to what constitutes the generic notion of
Being, however unfailingly it be found associated with Being; but the
Primaries, we decided, belong to Being as such, and go to form
Substance.
This indeed is why we posit that which transcends Being, since Being
and Substance cannot but be a plurality, necessarily comprising the
genera enumerated and therefore forming a one-and-many.
It is true that we do not hesitate to speak of the goodness inherent in
Being" when we are thinking of that Act by which Being tends, of its
nature, towards the One: thus, we affirm goodness of it in the sense
that it is thereby moulded into the likeness of The Good. But if this
"goodness inherent in Being" is an Act directed toward The Good, it is
the life of Being: but this life is Motion, and Motion is already one
of the genera.
18. To pass to the consideration of beauty:
If by beauty we mean the primary Beauty, the same or similar arguments
will apply here as to goodness: and if the beauty in the Ideal-Form is,
as it were, an effulgence [from that primary Beauty], we may observe
that it is not identical in all participants and that an effulgence is
necessarily a posterior.
If we mean the beauty which identifies itself with Substance, this has
been covered in our treatment of Substance.
If, again, we mean beauty in relation to ourselves as spectators in
whom it produces a certain experience, this Act [of production] is
Motion -- and none the less Motion by being directed towards Absolute
Beauty.
Knowledge again, is Motion originating in the self; it is the
observation of Being -- an Act, not a State: hence it too falls under
Motion, or perhaps more suitably under Stability, or even under both;
if under both, knowledge must be thought of as a complex, and if a
complex, is posterior.
Intelligence, since it connotes intelligent Being and comprises the
total of existence, cannot be one of the genera: the true Intelligence
[or Intellect] is Being taken with all its concomitants [with the other
four genera]; it is actually the sum of all the Existents: Being on the
contrary, stripped of its concomitants, may be counted as a genus and
held to an element in Intelligence.
Justice and self-control [sophrosyne], and virtue in general -- these
are all various Acts of Intelligence: they are consequently not primary
genera; they are posterior to a genus, that is to say, they are
species.
19. Having established our four primary genera, it remains for us to
enquire whether each of them of itself alone produces species. And
especially, can Being be divided independently, that is without drawing
upon the other genera? Surely not: the differentiae must come from
outside the genus differentiated: they must be differentiae of Being
proper, but cannot be identical with it.
Where then is it to find them? Obviously not in non-beings. If then in
beings, and the three genera are all that is left, clearly it must find
them in these, by conjunction and couplement with these, which will
come into existence simultaneously with itself.
But if all come into existence simultaneously, what else is produced
but that amalgam of all Existents which we have just considered
[Intellect]? How can other things exist over and above this
all-including amalgam? And if all the constituents of this amalgam are
genera, how do they produce species? How does Motion produce species of
Motion? Similarly with Stability and the other genera.
A word of warning must here be given against sinking the various genera
in their species; and also against reducing the genus to a mere
predicate, something merely seen in the species. The genus must exist
at once in itself and in its species; it blends, but it must also be
pure; in contributing along with other genera to form Substance, it
must not destroy itself. There are problems here that demand
investigation.
But since we identified the amalgam of the Existents [or primary
genera] with the particular intellect, Intellect as such being found
identical with Being or Substance, and therefore prior to all the
Existents, which may be regarded as its species or members, we may
infer that the intellect, considered as completely unfolded, is a
subsequent.
Our treatment of this problem may serve to promote our investigation;
we will take it as a kind of example, and with it embark upon our
enquiry.
20. We may thus distinguish two phases of Intellect, in one of which it
may be taken as having no contact whatever with particulars and no Act
upon anything; thus it is kept apart from being a particular intellect.
In the same way science is prior to any of its constituent species, and
the specific science is prior to any of its component parts: being none
of its particulars, it is the potentiality of all; each particular, on
the other hand, is actually itself, but potentially the sum of all the
particulars: and as with the specific science, so with science as a
whole. The specific sciences lie in potentiality in science the total;
even in their specific character they are potentially the whole; they
have the whole predicated of them and not merely a part of the whole.
At the same time, science must exist as a thing in itself, unharmed by
its divisions.
So with Intellect. Intellect as a whole must be thought of as prior to
the intellects actualized as individuals; but when we come to the
particular intellects, we find that what subsists in the particulars
must be maintained from the totality. The Intellect subsisting in the
totality is a provider for the particular intellects, is the
potentiality of them: it involves them as members of its universality,
while they in turn involve the universal Intellect in their
particularity, just as the particular science involves science the
total.
The great Intellect, we maintain, exists in itself and the particular
intellects in themselves; yet the particulars are embraced in the
whole, and the whole in the particulars. The particular intellects
exist by themselves and in another, the universal by itself and in
those. All the particulars exist potentially in that self-existent
universal, which actually is the totality, potentially each isolated
member: on the other hand, each particular is actually what it is [its
individual self], potentially the totality. In so far as what is
predicated of them is their essence, they are actually what is
predicated of them; but where the predicate is a genus, they are that
only potentially. On the other hand, the universal in so far as it is a
genus is the potentiality of all its subordinate species, though none
of them in actuality; all are latent in it, but because its essential
nature exists in actuality before the existence of the species, it does
not submit to be itself particularized. If then the particulars are to
exist in actuality -- to exist, for example, as species -- the cause
must lie in the Act radiating from the universal.
21. How then does the universal Intellect produce the particulars
while, in virtue of its Reason-Principle, remaining a unity? In other
words, how do the various grades of Being, as we call them, arise from
the four primaries? Here is this great, this infinite Intellect, not
given to idle utterance but to sheer intellection, all-embracing,
integral, no part, no individual: how, we ask, can it possibly be the
source of all this plurality? Number at all events it possesses in the
objects of its contemplation: it is thus one and many, and the many are
powers, wonderful powers, not weak but, being pure, supremely great
and, so to speak, full to overflowing powers in very truth, knowing no
limit, so that they are infinite, infinity, Magnitude-Absolute.
As we survey this Magnitude with the beauty of Being within it and the
glory and light around it, all contained in Intellect, we see,
simultaneously, Quality already in bloom, and along with the continuity
of its Act we catch a glimpse of Magnitude at Rest. Then, with one, two
and three in Intellect, Magnitude appears as of three dimensions, with
Quantity entire. Quantity thus given and Quality, both merging into one
and, we may almost say, becoming one, there is at once shape.
Difference slips in to divide both Quantity and Quality, and so we have
variations in shape and differences of Quality. Identity, coming in
with Difference, creates equality, Difference meanwhile introducing
into Quantity inequality, whether in number or in magnitude: thus are
produced circles and squares, and irregular figures, with number like
and unlike, odd and even.
The life of Intellect is intelligent, and its activity [Act] has no
failing-point: hence it excludes none of the constituents we have
discovered within it, each one of which we now see as an intellectual
function, and all of them possessed by virtue of its distinctive power
and in the mode appropriate to Intellect.
But though Intellect possesses them all by way of thought, this is not
discursive thought: nothing it lacks that is capable of serving as
Reason-Principle, while it may itself be regarded as one great and
perfect Reason-Principle, holding all the Principles as one and
proceeding from its own Primaries, or rather having eternally
proceeded, so that "proceeding" is never true of it. It is a universal
rule that whatever reasoning discovers to exist in Nature is to be
found in Intellect apart from all ratiocination: we conclude that Being
has so created Intellect that its reasoning is after a mode similar to
that of the Principles which produce living beings; for the
Reason-Principles, prior to reasoning though they are, act invariably
in the manner which the most careful reasoning would adopt in order to
attain the best results.
What conditions, then, are we to think of as existing in that realm
which is prior to Nature and transcends the Principles of Nature? In a
sphere in which Substance is not distinct from Intellect, and neither
Being nor Intellect is of alien origin, it is obvious that Being is
best served by the domination of Intellect, so that Being is what
Intellect wills and is: thus alone can it be authentic and primary
Being; for if Being is to be in any sense derived, its derivation must
be from Intellect.
Being, thus, exhibits every shape and every quality; it is not seen as
a thing determined by some one particular quality; there could not be
one only, since the principle of Difference is there; and since
Identity is equally there, it must be simultaneously one and many. And
so Being is; such it always was: unity-with-plurality appears in all
its species, as witness all the variations of magnitude, shape and
quality. Clearly nothing may legitimately be excluded [from Being], for
the whole must be complete in the higher sphere which, otherwise, would
not be the whole.
Life, too, burst upon Being, or rather was inseparably bound up with
it; and thus it was that all living things of necessity came to be.
Body too was there, since Matter and Quality were present.
Everything exists forever, unfailing, involved by very existence in
eternity. Individuals have their separate entities, but are at one in
the [total] unity. The complex, so to speak, of them all, thus
combined, is Intellect; and Intellect, holding all existence within
itself, is a complete living being, and the essential Idea of Living
Being. In so far as Intellect submits to contemplation by its
derivative, becoming an Intelligible, it gives that derivative the
right also to be called "living being."
22. We may here adduce the pregnant words of Plato: "Inasmuch as
Intellect perceives the variety and plurality of the Forms present in
the complete Living Being...." The words apply equally to Soul; Soul is
subsequent to Intellect, yet by its very nature it involves Intellect
in itself and perceives more clearly in that prior. There is Intellect
in our intellect also, which again perceives more clearly in its prior,
for while of itself it merely perceives, in the prior it also perceives
its own perception.
This intellect, then, to which we ascribe perception, though not
divorced from the prior in which it originates, evolves plurality out
of unity and has bound up with it the principle of Difference: it
therefore takes the form of a plurality-in-unity. A plurality-in-unity,
it produces the many intellects by the dictate of its very nature.
It is certainly no numerical unity, no individual thing; for whatever
you find in that sphere is a species, since it is divorced from Matter.
This may be the import of the difficult words of Plato, that Substance
is broken up into an infinity of parts. So long as the division
proceeds from genus to species, infinity is not reached; a limit is set
by the species generated: the lowest species, however -- that which is
not divided into further species -- may be more accurately regarded as
infinite. And this is the meaning of the words: "to relegate them once
and for all to infinity and there abandon them." As for particulars,
they are, considered in themselves, infinite, but come under number by
being embraced by the [total] unity.
Now Soul has Intellect for its prior, is therefore circumscribed by
number down to its ultimate extremity; at that point infinity is
reached. The particular intellect, though all-embracing, is a partial
thing, and the collective Intellect and its various manifestations [all
the particular intellects] are in actuality parts of that part. Soul
too is a part of a part, though in the sense of being an Act
[actuality] derived from it. When the Act of Intellect is directed upon
itself, the result is the manifold [particular] intellects; when it
looks outwards, Soul is produced.
If Soul acts as a genus or a species, the various [particular] souls
must act as species. Their activities [Acts] will be twofold: the
activity upward is Intellect; that which looks downward constitutes the
other powers imposed by the particular Reason-Principle [the
Reason-Principle of the being ensouled]; the lowest activity of Soul is
in its contact with Matter to which it brings Form.
This lower part of Soul does not prevent the rest from being entirely
in the higher sphere: indeed what we call the lower part is but an
image of Soul: not that it is cut off from Soul; it is like the
reflection in the mirror, depending upon the original which stands
outside of it.
But we must keep in mind what this "outside" means. Up to the
production of the image, the Intellectual realm is wholly and
exclusively composed of Intellectual Beings: in the same way the
Sensible world, representing that in so far as it is able to retain the
likeness of a living being, is itself a living being: the relation is
like that of a portrait or reflection to the original which is regarded
as prior to the water or the painting reproducing it.
The representation, notice, in the portrait or on the water is not of
the dual being, but of the one element [Matter] as formed by the other
[Soul]. Similarly, this likeness of the Intellectual realm carries
images, not of the creative element, but of the entities contained in
that creator, including Man with every other living being: creator and
created are alike living beings, though of a different life, and both
coexist in the Intellectual realm.
__________________________________________________________________
THIRD TRACTATE.
ON THE KINDS OF BEING (3).
1. We have now explained our conception of Reality [True Being] and
considered how far it agrees with the teaching of Plato. We have still
to investigate the opposed principle [the principle of Becoming].
There is the possibility that the genera posited for the Intellectual
sphere will suffice for the lower also; possibly with these genera
others will be required; again, the two series may differ entirely; or
perhaps some of the sensible genera will be identical with their
intellectual prototypes, and others different -- "identical," however,
being understood to mean only analogous and in possession of a common
name, as our results will make dear.
We must begin on these lines:
The subject of our discussion is the Sensible realm: Sensible Existence
is entirely embraced by what we know as the Universe: our duty, then,
would seem to be clear enough -- to take this Universe and analyse its
nature, classifying its constituent parts and arranging them by
species. Suppose that we were making a division of speech: we should
reduce its infinity to finite terms, and from the identity appearing in
many instances evolve a unity, then another and another, until we
arrived at some definite number; each such unit we should call a
species if imposed upon individuals, a genus if imposed upon species.
Thus, every species of speech -- and similarly all phenomena -- might
be referred to a unity; speech -- or element -- might be predicated of
them all.
This procedure however is as we have already shown, impossible in
dealing with the subject of our present enquiry. New genera must be
sought for this Universe-genera distinct from those of the
Intellectual, inasmuch as this realm is different from that, analogous
indeed but never identical, a mere image of the higher. True, it
involves the parallel existence of Body and Soul, for the Universe is a
living form: essentially however Soul is of the Intellectual and does
not enter into the structure of what is called Sensible Being.
Remembering this fact, we must -- however great the difficulty --
exclude Soul from the present investigation, just as in a census of
citizens, taken in the interests of commerce and taxation, we should
ignore the alien population. As for the experiences to which Soul is
indirectly subject in its conjunction with Body and by reason of Body's
presence, their classification must be attempted at a later stage, when
we enquire into the details of Sensible Existence.
2. Our first observations must be directed to what passes in the
Sensible realm for Substance. It is, we shall agree, only by analogy
that the nature manifested in bodies is designated as Substance, and by
no means because such terms as Substance or Being tally with the notion
of bodies in flux; the proper term would be Becoming.
But Becoming is not a uniform nature; bodies comprise under the single
head simples and composites, together with accidentals or consequents,
these last themselves capable of separate classification.
Alternatively, Becoming may be divided into Matter and the Form imposed
upon Matter. These may be regarded each as a separate genus, or else
both may be brought under a single category and receive alike the name
of Substance.
But what, we may ask, have Matter and Form in common? In what sense can
Matter be conceived as a genus, and what will be its species? What is
the differentia of Matter? In which genus, Matter or Form, are we to
rank the composite of both? It may be this very composite which
constitutes the Substance manifested in bodies, neither of the
components by itself answering to the conception of Body: how, then,
can we rank them in one and the same genus as the composite? How can
the elements of a thing be brought within the same genus as the thing
itself? Yet if we begin with bodies, our first-principles will be
compounds.
Why not resort to analogy? Admitted that the classification of the
Sensible cannot proceed along the identical lines marked out for the
Intellectual: is there any reason why we should not for
Intellectual-Being substitute Matter, and for Intellectual Motion
substitute Sensible Form, which is in a sense the life and consummation
of Matter? The inertia of Matter would correspond with Stability, while
the Identity and Difference of the Intellectual would find their
counterparts in the similarity and diversity which obtain in the
Sensible realm.
But, in the first place, Matter does not possess or acquire Form as its
life or its Act; Form enters it from without, and remains foreign to
its nature. Secondly, Form in the Intellectual is an Act and a motion;
in the Sensible Motion is different from Form and accidental to it:
Form in relation to Matter approximates rather to Stability than to
Motion; for by determining Matter's indetermination it confers upon it
a sort of repose.
In the higher realm Identity and Difference presuppose a unity at once
identical and different: a thing in the lower is different only by
participation in Difference and in relation to some other thing;
Identity and Difference are here predicated of the particular, which is
not, as in that realm, a posterior.
As for Stability, how can it belong to Matter, which is distorted into
every variety of mass, receiving its forms from without, and even with
the aid of these forms incapable of offspring.
This mode of division must accordingly be abandoned.
3. How then do we go to work?
Let us begin by distinguishing Matter, Form, the Mixture of both, and
the Attributes of the Mixture. The Attributes may be subdivided into
those which are mere predicates, and those serving also as accidents.
The accidents may be either inclusive or included; they may, further,
be classified as activities, experiences, consequents.
Matter will be found common to all substances, not however as a genus,
since it has no differentiae -- unless indeed differentiae be ascribed
to it on the ground of its taking such various forms as fire and air.
It may be held that Matter is sufficiently constituted a genus by the
fact that the things in which it appears hold it in common, or in that
it presents itself as a whole of parts. In this sense Matter will
indeed be a genus, though not in the accepted sense of the term.
Matter, we may remark, is also a single element, if the element as such
is able to constitute a genus.
Further, if to a Form be added the qualification "bound up with,
involved in Matter," Matter separates that Form from other Forms: it
does not however embrace the whole of Substantial Form [as, to be the
genus of Form, it must].
We may, again, regard Form as the creator of Substance and make the
Reason-Principle of Substance dependent upon Form: yet we do not come
thereby to an understanding of the nature of Substance.
We may, also, restrict Substance to the Composite. Matter and Form then
cease to be substances. If they are Substance equally with the
Composite, it remains to enquire what there is common to all three.
The "mere predicates" fall under the category of Relation: such are
cause and element. The accidents included in the composite substances
ire found to be either Quality or Quantity; those which are inclusive
are of the nature of Space and Time. Activities and experiences
comprise Motions; consequents Space and Time, which are consequents
respectively of the Composites and of Motion.
The first three entities [Matter, Form, Composite] go, as we have
discovered, to make a single common genus, the Sensible counterpart of
Substance. Then follow in order Relation, Quantity, Quality,
Time-during-which, Place-in-which, Motion; though, with Time and Space
already included [under Relation], Time-during-which and Place-in-which
become superfluous.
Thus we have five genera, counting the first three entities as one. If
the first three are not massed into a unity, the series will be Matter,
Form, Composite, Relation, Quantity, Quality, Motion. The last three
may, again, be included in Relation, which is capable of bearing this
wider extension.
4. What, then, we have to ask, is the constant element in the first
three entities? What is it that identifies them with their inherent
Substance?
Is it the capacity to serve as a base? But Matter, we maintain, serves
as the base and seat of Form: Form, thus, will be excluded from the
category of Substance. Again, the Composite is the base and seat of
attributes: hence, Form combined with Matter will be the basic ground
of Composites, or at any rate of all posteriors of the Composite --
Quantity, Quality, Motion, and the rest.
But perhaps we may think Substance validly defined as that which is not
predicated of anything else. White and black are predicated of an
object having one or other of these qualities; double presupposes
something distinct from itself -- we refer not to the half, but to the
length of wood of which doubleness is affirmed. father qua father is a
predicate; knowledge is predicated of the subject in whom the knowledge
exists; space is the limit of something, time the measure of something.
Fire, on the other hand, is predicated of nothing; wood as such is
predicated of nothing; and so with man, Socrates, and the composite
substance in general.
Equally the Substantial Form is never a predicate, since it never acts
as a modification of anything. Form is not an attribute of Matter
hence, is not predicable of Matter it is simply a constituent of the
Couplement. On the other hand, the Form of a man is not different from
the man himself [and so does not "modify" the Couplement].
Matter, similarly, is part of a whole, and belongs to something else
only as to a whole and not as to a separate thing of which it is
predicated. White, on the contrary, essentially belongs to something
distinct from itself.
We conclude that nothing belonging to something else and predicated of
it can be Substance. Substance is that which belongs essentially to
itself, or, in so far as it is a part of the differentiated object,
serves only to complete the Composite. Each or either part of the
Composite belongs to itself, and is only affirmed of the Composite in a
special sense: only qua part of the whole is it predicated of something
else; qua individual it is never in its essential nature predicated of
an external.
It may be claimed as a common element in Matter, Form and the
Couplement that they are all substrates. But the mode in which Matter
is the substrate of Form is different from that in which Form and the
Couplement are substrates of their modifications.
And is it strictly true to say that Matter is the substrate of Form?
Form is rather the completion which Matter's nature as pure
potentiality demands.
Moreover, Form cannot be said to reside in Matter [as in a substrate].
When one thing combines with another to form a unity, the one does not
reside in the other; both alike are substrates of a third: thus, Man
[the Form] and a man [the Composite] are substrates of their
experiences, and are prior to their activities and consequents.
Substance, then, is that from which all other things proceed and to
which they owe their existence; it is the centre of passivity and the
source of action.
5. These are incontrovertible facts in regard to the pseudo-substance
of the Sensible realm: if they apply also in some degree to the True
Substance of the Intellectual, the coincidence is, doubtless, to be
attributed to analogy and ambiguity of terms.
We are aware that "the first" is so called only in relation to the
things which come after it: "first" has no absolute significance; the
first of one series is subsequent to the last of another. "Substrate,"
similarly, varies in meaning [as applied to the higher and to the
lower], while as for passivity its very existence in the Intellectual
is questionable; if it does exist there, it is not the passivity of the
Sensible.
It follows that the fact of "not being present in a subject [or
substrate] is not universally true of Substance, unless presence in a
subject be stipulated as not including the case of the part present in
the whole or of one thing combining with another to form a distinct
unity; a thing will not be present as in a subject in that with which
it co-operates in the information of a composite substance. Form,
therefore, is not present in Matter as in a subject, nor is Man so
present in Socrates, since Man is part of Socrates.
Substance, then, is that which is not present in a subject. But if we
adopt the definition "neither present in a subject nor predicated of a
subject," we must add to the second "subject" the qualification
"distinct," in order that we may not exclude the case of Man predicated
of a particular man. When I predicate Man of Socrates, it is as though
I affirmed, not that a piece of wood is white, but that whiteness is
white; for in asserting that Socrates is a man, I predicate Man [the
universal] of a particular man, I affirm Man of the manhood in
Socrates; I am really saying only that Socrates is Socrates, or that
this particular rational animal is an animal.
It may be objected that non-presence in a subject is not peculiar to
Substance, inasmuch as the differentia of a substance is no more
present in a subject than the substance itself; but this objection
results from taking a part of the whole substance, such as "two-footed"
in our example, and asserting that this part is not present in a
subject: if we take, not "two-footed" which is merely an aspect of
Substance, but "two-footedness" by which we signify not Substance but
Quality, we shall find that this "two-footedness" is indeed present in
a subject.
We may be told that neither Time nor Place is present in a subject. But
if the definition of Time as the measure of Motion be regarded as
denoting something measured, the "measure" will be present in Motion as
in a subject, while Motion will be present in the moved: if, on the
contrary, it be supposed to signify a principle of measurement, the
"measure" will be present in the measurer.
Place is the limit of the surrounding space, and thus is present in
that space.
The truth is, however, that the "Substance" of our enquiry may be
apprehended in directly opposite ways: it may be determined by one of
the properties we have been discussing, by more than one, by all at
once, according as they answer to the notions of Matter, Form and the
Couplement.
6. Granted, it may be urged, that these observations upon the nature of
Substance are sound, we have not yet arrived at a statement of its
essence. Our critic doubtless expects to see this "Sensible": but its
essence, its characteristic being, cannot be seen.
Do we infer that fire and water are not Substance? They certainly are
not Substance because they are visible. Why, then? Because they possess
Matter? No. Or Form? No. Nor because they involve a Couplement of
Matter and Form. Then why are they Substance? By existing. But does not
Quantity exist, and Quality? This anomaly is to be explained by an
equivocation in the term "existence."
What, then, is the meaning of "existence" as applied to fire, earth and
the other elements? What is the difference between this existence and
existence in the other categories? It is the difference between being
simply -- that which merely is -- and being white. But surely the being
qualified by "white" is the same as that having no qualification? It is
not the same: the latter is Being in the primary sense, the former is
Being only by participation and in a secondary degree. Whiteness added
to Being produces a being white; Being added to whiteness produces a
white being: thus, whiteness becomes an accident of Being, and Being an
accident of whiteness.
The case is not equivalent to predicating white of Socrates and
Socrates of white: for Socrates remains the same, though white would
appear to have a different meaning in the two propositions, since in
predicating Socrates of white we include Socrates in the [whole] sphere
of whiteness, whereas in the proposition "Socrates is white" whiteness
is plainly an attribute of Socrates.
"Being is white" implies, similarly, that Being possesses whiteness as
an attribute, while in the proposition "whiteness is Being [or, is a
being]" Being is regarded as comprising whiteness in its own extension.
In sum, whiteness has existence because it is bound up with Being and
present in it: Being is, thus, the source of its existence. Being is
Being on its own account, but the white is due to whiteness -- not
because it is "present in" whiteness, but because whiteness is present
in it.
The Being of the Sensible resembles the white in not originating in
itself. It must therefore be regarded as dependent for its being upon
the Authentic Being, as white is dependent upon the Authentic
Whiteness, and the Authentic Whiteness dependent for its whiteness upon
participation in that Supreme Being whose existence is underived.
7. But Matter, it may be contended, is the source of existence to the
Sensible things implanted in it. From what source, then, we retort,
does Matter itself derive existence and being?
That Matter is not a Primary we have established elsewhere. If it be
urged that other things can have no subsistence without being implanted
in Matter, we admit the claim for Sensible things. But though Matter be
prior to these, it is not thereby precluded from being posterior to
many things-posterior, in fact, to all the beings of the Intellectual
sphere. Its existence is but a pale reflection, and less complete than
that of the things implanted in it. These are Reason-Principles and
more directly derived from Being: Matter has of itself no
Reason-Principle whatever; it is but a shadow of a Principle, a vain
attempt to achieve a Principle.
But, our critic may pursue, Matter gives existence to the things
implanted in it, just as Socrates gives existence to the whiteness
implanted in himself? We reply that the higher being gives existence to
the lower, the lower to the higher never.
But once concede that Form is higher in the scale of Being than Matter,
and Matter can no longer be regarded as a common ground of both, nor
Substance as a genus embracing Matter, Form and the Couplement. True,
these will have many common properties, to which we have already
referred, but their being [or existence] will nonetheless be different.
When a higher being comes into contact with a lower, the lower, though
first in the natural order, is yet posterior in the scale of Reality:
consequently, if Being does not belong in equal degrees to Matter, to
Form and to the Couplement, Substance can no longer be common to all
three in the sense of being their genus: to their posteriors it will
bear a still different relation, serving them as a common base by being
bound up with all alike. Substance, thus, resembles life, dim here,
clearer there, or portraits of which one is an outline, another more
minutely worked. By measuring Being by its dim manifestation and
neglecting a fuller revelation elsewhere, we may come to regard this
dim existence as a common ground.
But this procedure is scarcely permissible. Every being is a distinct
whole. The dim manifestation is in no sense a common ground, just as
there is no common ground in the vegetal, the sensory and the
intellectual forms of life.
We conclude that the term "Being" must have different connotations as
applied to Matter, to Form and to both conjointly, in spite of the
single source pouring into the different streams.
Take a second derived from a first and a third from the second: it is
not merely that the one will rank higher and its successor be poorer
and of lower worth; there is also the consideration that, even deriving
from the same source, one thing, subjected in a certain degree to fire,
will give us an earthen jar, while another, taking less of the heat,
does not produce the jar.
Perhaps we cannot even maintain that Matter and Form are derived from a
single source; they are clearly in some sense different.
8. The division into elements must, in short, be abandoned, especially
in regard to Sensible Substance, known necessarily by sense rather than
by reason. We must no longer look for help in constituent parts, since
such parts will not be substances, or at any rate not sensible
substances.
Our plan must be to apprehend what is constant in stone, earth, water
and the entities which they compose -- the vegetal and animal forms,
considered purely as sensibles -- and to confine this constant within a
single genus. Neither Matter nor Form will thus be overlooked, for
Sensible Substance comports them; fire and earth and the two
intermediaries consist of Matter and Form, while composite things are
actually many substances in one. They all, moreover, have that common
property which distinguishes them from other things: serving as
subjects to these others, they are never themselves present in a
subject nor predicated of any other thing. Similarly, all the
characteristics which we have ascribed to Substance find a place in
this classification.
But Sensible Substance is never found apart from magnitude and quality:
how then do we proceed to separate these accidents? If we subtract them
-- magnitude, figure, colour, dryness, moistness -- what is there left
to be regarded as Substance itself? All the substances under
consideration are, of course, qualified.
There is, however, something in relation to which whatever turns
Substance into qualified Substance is accidental: thus, the whole of
fire is not Substance, but only a part of it -- if the term "part" be
allowed.
What then can this "part" be? Matter may be suggested. But are we
actually to maintain that the particular sensible substance consists of
a conglomeration of qualities and Matter, while Sensible Substance as a
whole is merely the sum of these coagulations in the uniform Matter,
each one separately forming a quale or a quantum or else a thing of
many qualities? Is it true to say that everything whose absence leaves
subsistence incomplete is a part of the particular substance, while all
that is accidental to the substance already existent takes independent
rank and is not submerged in the mixture which constitutes this
so-called substance?
I decline to allow that whatever combines in this way with anything
else is Substance if it helps to produce a single mass having quantity
and quality, whereas taken by itself and divorced from this
complementary function it is a quality: not everything which composes
the amalgam is Substance, but only the amalgam as a whole.
And let no one take exception on the ground that we produce Sensible
Substance from non-substances. The whole amalgam itself is not True
Substance; it is merely an imitation of that True Substance which has
Being apart from its concomitants, these indeed being derived from it
as the possessor of True Being. In the lower realm the case is
different: the underlying ground is sterile, and from its inability to
produce fails to attain to the status of Being; it remains a shadow,
and on this shadow is traced a sketch -- the world of Appearance.
9. So much for one of the genera -- the "Substance," so called, of the
Sensible realm.
But what are we to posit as its species? how divide this genus?
The genus as a whole must be identified with body. Bodies may be
divided into the characteristically material and the organic: the
material bodies comprise fire, earth, water, air; the organic the
bodies of plants and animals, these in turn admitting of formal
differentiation.
The next step is to find the species of earth and of the other
elements, and in the case of organic bodies to distinguish plants
according to their forms, and the bodies of animals either by their
habitations -- on the earth, in the earth, and similarly for the other
elements -- or else as light, heavy and intermediate. Some bodies, we
shall observe, stand in the middle of the universe, others circumscribe
it from above, others occupy the middle sphere: in each case we shall
find bodies different in shape, so that the bodies of the living beings
of the heavens may be differentiated from those of the other elements.
Once we have classified bodies into the four species, we are ready to
combine them on a different principle, at the same time intermingling
their differences of place, form and constitution; the resultant
combinations will be known as fiery or earthy on the basis of the
excess or predominance of some one element.
The distinction between First and Second Substances, between Fire and a
given example of fire, entails a difference of a peculiar kind -- the
difference between universal and particular. This however is not a
difference characteristic of Substance; there is also in Quality the
distinction between whiteness and the white object, between grammar and
some particular grammar.
The question may here be asked: "What deficiency has grammar compared
with a particular grammar, and science as a whole in comparison with a
science?" Grammar is certainly not posterior to the particular grammar:
on the contrary, the grammar as in you depends upon the prior existence
of grammar as such: the grammar as in you becomes a particular by the
fact of being in you; it is otherwise identical with grammar the
universal.
Turn to the case of Socrates: it is not Socrates who bestows manhood
upon what previously was not Man, but Man upon Socrates; the individual
man exists by participation in the universal.
Besides, Socrates is merely a particular instance of Man; this
particularity can have no effect whatever in adding to his essential
manhood.
We may be told that Man [the universal] is Form alone, Socrates Form in
Matter. But on this very ground Socrates will be less fully Man than
the universal; for the Reason-Principle will be less effectual in
Matter. If, on the contrary, Man is not determined by Form alone, but
presupposes Matter, what deficiency has Man in comparison with the
material manifestation of Man, or the Reason-Principle in isolation as
compared with its embodiment in a unit of Matter?
Besides, the more general is by nature prior; hence, the Form-Idea is
prior to the individual: but what is prior by nature is prior
unconditionally. How then can the Form take a lower rank? The
individual, it is true, is prior in the sense of being more readily
accessible to our cognisance; this fact, however, entails no objective
difference.
Moreover, such a difference, if established, would be incompatible with
a single Reason-Principle of Substance; First and Second Substance
could not have the same Principle, nor be brought under a single genus.
10. Another method of division is possible: substances may be classed
as hot-dry, dry-cold, cold-moist, or however we choose to make the
coupling. We may then proceed to the combination and blending of these
couples, either halting at that point and going no further than the
compound, or else subdividing by habitation -- on the earth, in the
earth -- or by form and by the differences exhibited by living beings,
not qua living, but in their bodies viewed as instruments of life.
Differentiation by form or shape is no more out of place than a
division based on qualities -- heat, cold and the like. If it be
objected that qualities go to make bodies what they are, then, we
reply, so do blendings, colours, shapes. Since our discussion is
concerned with Sensible Substance, it is not strange that it should
turn upon distinctions related to sense-perception: this Substance is
not Being pure and simple, but the Sensible Being which we call the
Universe.
We have remarked that its apparent subsistence is in fact an assemblage
of Sensibles, their existence guaranteed to us by sense-perception. But
since their combination is unlimited, our division must be guided by
the Form-Ideas of living beings, as for example the Form-Idea of Man
implanted in Body; the particular Form acts as a qualification of Body,
but there is nothing unreasonable in using qualities as a basis of
division.
We may be told that we have distinguished between simple and composite
bodies, even ranking them as opposites. But our distinction, we reply,
was between material and organic bodies and raised no question of the
composite. In fact, there exists no means of opposing the composite to
the simple; it is necessary to determine the simples in the first stage
of division, and then, combining them on the basis of a distinct
underlying principle, to differentiate the composites in virtue of
their places and shapes, distinguishing for example the heavenly from
the earthly.
These observations will suffice for the Being [Substance], or rather
the Becoming, which obtains in the Sensible realm.
11. Passing to Quantity and the quantum, we have to consider the view
which identifies them with number and magnitude on the ground that
everything quantitative is numbered among Sensible things or rated by
the extension of its substrate: we are here, of course, discussing not
Quantity in isolation, but that which causes a piece of wood to be
three yards long and gives the five in "five horses,"
Now we have often maintained that number and magnitude are to be
regarded as the only true quantities, and that Space and Time have no
right to be conceived as quantitative: Time as the measure of Motion
should be assigned to Relation, while Space, being that which
circumscribes Body, is also a relative and falls under the same
category; though continuous, it is, like Motion, not included in
Quantity.
On the other hand, why do we not find in the category of Quantity
"great" and "small"? It is some kind of Quantity which gives greatness
to the great; greatness is not a relative, though greater and smaller
are relatives, since these, like doubleness, imply an external
correlative.
What is it, then, which makes a mountain small and a grain of millet
large? Surely, in the first place, "small" is equivalent to "smaller."
It is admitted that the term is applied only to things of the same
kind, and from this admission we may infer that the mountain is
"smaller" rather than "small," and that the grain of millet is not
large in any absolute sense but large for a grain of millet. In other
words, since the comparison is between things of the same kind, the
natural predicate would be a comparative.
Again, why is not beauty classed as a relative? Beauty, unlike
greatness, we regard as absolute and as a quality; "more beautiful" is
the relative. Yet even the term "beautiful" may be attached to
something which in a given relation may appear ugly: the beauty of man,
for example, is ugliness when compared with that of the gods; "the most
beautiful of monkeys," we may quote, "is ugly in comparison with any
other type." Nonetheless, a thing is beautiful in itself; as related to
something else it is either more or less beautiful.
Similarly, an object is great in itself, and its greatness is due, not
to any external, but to its own participation in the Absolute Great.
Are we actually to eliminate the beautiful on the pretext that there is
a more beautiful? No more then must we eliminate the great because of
the greater: the greater can obviously have no existence whatever apart
from the great, just as the more beautiful can have no existence
without the beautiful.
12. It follows that we must allow contrariety to Quantity: whenever we
speak of great and small, our notions acknowledge this contrariety by
evolving opposite images, as also when we refer to many and few;
indeed, "few" and "many" call for similar treatment to "small" and
"great."
"Many," predicated of the inhabitants of a house, does duty for "more":
"few" people are said to be in the theatre instead of "less."
"Many," again, necessarily involves a large numerical plurality. This
plurality can scarcely be a relative; it is simply an expansion of
number, its contrary being a contraction.
The same applies to the continuous [magnitude], the notion of which
entails prolongation to a distant point.
Quantity, then, appears whenever there is a progression from the unit
or the point: if either progression comes to a rapid halt, we have
respectively "few" and "small"; if it goes forward and does not quickly
cease, "many" and "great."
What, we may be asked, is the limit of this progression? What, we
retort, is the limit of beauty, or of heat? Whatever limit you impose,
there is always a "hotter"; yet "hotter" is accounted a relative, "hot"
a pure quality.
In sum, just as there is a Reason-Principle of Beauty, so there must be
a Reason-Principle of greatness, participation in which makes a thing
great, as the Principle of beauty makes it beautiful.
To judge from these instances, there is contrariety in Quantity. Place
we may neglect as not strictly coming under the category of Quantity;
if it were admitted, "above" could only be a contrary if there were
something in the universe which was "below": as referring to the
partial, the terms "above" and "below" are used in a purely relative
sense, and must go with "right" and "left" into the category of
Relation.
Syllable and discourse are only indirectly quantities or substrates of
Quantity; it is voice that is quantitative: but voice is a kind of
Motion; it must accordingly in any case [quantity or no quantity] be
referred to Motion, as must activity also.
13. It has been remarked that the continuous is effectually
distinguished from the discrete by their possessing the one a common,
the other a separate, limit.
The same principle gives rise to the numerical distinction between odd
and even; and it holds good that if there are differentiae found in
both contraries, they are either to be abandoned to the objects
numbered, or else to be considered as differentiae of the abstract
numbers, and not of the numbers manifested in the sensible objects. If
the numbers are logically separable from the objects, that is no reason
why we should not think of them as sharing the same differentiae.
But how are we to differentiate the continuous, comprising as it does
line, surface and solid? The line may be rated as of one dimension, the
surface as of two dimensions, the solid as of three, if we are only
making a calculation and do not suppose that we are dividing the
continuous into its species; for it is an invariable rule that numbers,
thus grouped as prior and posterior, cannot be brought into a common
genus; there is no common basis in first, second and third dimensions.
Yet there is a sense in which they would appear to be equal -- namely,
as pure measures of Quantity: of higher and lower dimensions, they are
not however more or less quantitative.
Numbers have similarly a common property in their being numbers all;
and the truth may well be, not that One creates two, and two creates
three, but that all have a common source.
Suppose, however, that they are not derived from any source whatever,
but merely exist; we at any rate conceive them as being derived, and so
may be assumed to regard the smaller as taking priority over the
greater: yet, even so, by the mere fact of their being numbers they are
reducible to a single type.
What applies to numbers is equally true of magnitudes; though here we
have to distinguish between line, surface and solid -- the last also
referred to as "body" -- in the ground that, while all are magnitudes,
they differ specifically.
It remains to enquire whether these species are themselves to be
divided: the line into straight, circular, spiral; the surface into
rectilinear and circular figures; the solid into the various solid
figures -- sphere and polyhedra: whether these last should be
subdivided, as by the geometers, into those contained by triangular and
quadrilateral planes: and whether a further division of the latter
should be performed.
14. How are we to classify the straight line? Shall we deny that it is
a magnitude?
The suggestion may be made that it is a qualified magnitude. May we
not, then, consider straightness as a differentia of "line"? We at any
rate draw on Quality for differentiae of Substance.
The straight line is, thus, a quantity plus a differentia; but it is
not on that account a composite made up of straightness and line: if it
be a composite, the composite possesses a differentiae of its own.
But [if the line is a quantity] why is not the product of three lines
included in Quantity? The answer is that a triangle consists not merely
of three lines but of three lines in a particular disposition, a
quadrilateral of four lines in a particular disposition: even the
straight line involves disposition as well as quantity.
Holding that the straight line is not mere quantity, we should
naturally proceed to assert that the line as limited is not mere
quantity, but for the fact that the limit of a line is a point, which
is in the same category, Quantity. Similarly, the limited surface will
be a quantity, since lines, which have a far better right than itself
to this category, constitute its limits. With the introduction of the
limited surface -- rectangle, hexagon, polygon -- into the category of
Quantity, this category will be brought to include every figure
whatsoever.
If however by classing the triangle and the rectangle as qualia we
propose to bring figures under Quality, we are not thereby precluded
from assigning the same object to more categories than one: in so far
as it is a magnitude -- a magnitude of such and such a size -- it will
belong to Quantity; in so far as it presents a particular shape, to
Quality.
It may be urged that the triangle is essentially a particular shape.
Then what prevents our ranking the sphere also as a quality?
To proceed on these lines would lead us to the conclusion that geometry
is concerned not with magnitudes but with Quality. But this conclusion
is untenable; geometry is the study of magnitudes. The differences of
magnitudes do not eliminate the existence of magnitudes as such, any
more than the differences of substances annihilate the substances
themselves.
Moreover, every surface is limited; it is impossible for any surface to
be infinite in extent.
Again, when I find Quality bound up with Substance, I regard it as
substantial quality: I am not less, but far more, disposed to see in
figures or shapes [qualitative] varieties of Quantity. Besides, if we
are not to regard them as varieties of magnitude, to what genus are we
to assign them?
Suppose, then, that we allow differences of magnitude; we commit
ourselves to a specific classification of the magnitudes so
differentiated.
15. How far is it true that equality and inequality are characteristic
of Quantity?
Triangles, it is significant, are said to be similar rather than equal.
But we also refer to magnitudes as similar, and the accepted
connotation of similarity does not exclude similarity or dissimilarity
in Quantity. It may, of course, be the case that the term "similarity"
has a different sense here from that understood in reference to
Quality.
Furthermore, if we are told that equality and inequality are
characteristic of Quantity, that is not to deny that similarity also
may be predicated of certain quantities. If, on the contrary,
similarity and dissimilarity are to be confined to Quality, the terms
as applied to Quantity must, as we have said, bear a different meaning.
But suppose similarity to be identical in both genera; Quantity and
Quality must then be expected to reveal other properties held in
common.
May the truth be this: that similarity is predicable of Quantity only
in so far as Quantity possesses [qualitative] differences? But as a
general rule differences are grouped with that of which they are
differences, especially when the difference is a difference of that
thing alone. If in one case the difference completes the substance and
not in another, we inevitably class it with that which it completes,
and only consider it as independent when it is not complementary: when
we say "completes the substance," we refer not to Subtance as such but
to the differentiated substance; the particular object is to be thought
of as receiving an accession which is non-substantial.
We must not however fad to observe that we predicate equality of
triangles, rectangles, and figures generally, whether plane or solid:
this may be given as a ground for regarding equality and inequality as
characteristic of Quantity.
It remains to enquire whether similarity and dissimilarity are
characteristic of Quality.
We have spoken of Quality as combining with other entities, Matter and
Quantity, to form the complete Sensible Substance; this Substance, so
called, may be supposed to constitute the manifold world of Sense,
which is not so much an essence as a quale. Thus, for the essence of
fire we must look to the Reason-Principle; what produces the visible
aspect is, properly speaking, a quale.
Man's essence will lie in his Reason-Principle; that which is perfected
in the corporeal nature is a mere image of the Reason-Principle a quale
rather than an essence.
Consider: the visible Socrates is a man, yet we give the name of
Socrates to that likeness of him in a portrait, which consists of mere
colours, mere pigments: similarly, it is a Reason-Principle which
constitutes Socrates, but we apply the name Socrates to the Socrates we
see: in truth, however, the colours and shapes which make up the
visible Socrates are but reproductions of those in the
Reason-Principle, while this Reason-Principle itself bears a
corresponding relation to the truest Reason-Principle of Man. But we
need not elaborate this point.
16. When each of the entities bound up with the pseudo-substance is
taken apart from the rest, the name of Quality is given to that one
among them, by which without pointing to essence or quantity or motion
we signify the distinctive mark, the type or aspect of a thing -- for
example, the beauty or ugliness of a body. This beauty -- need we say?
-- is identical in name only with Intellectual Beauty: it follows that
the term "Quality" as applied to the Sensible and the Intellectual is
necessarily equivocal; even blackness and whiteness are different in
the two spheres.
But the beauty in the germ, in the particular Reason-Principle -- is
this the same as the manifested beauty, or do they coincide only in
name? Are we to assign this beauty -- and the same question applies to
deformity in the soul -- to the Intellectual order, or to the Sensible?
That beauty is different in the two spheres is by now clear. If it be
embraced in Sensible Quality, then virtue must also be classed among
the qualities of the lower. But merely some virtues will take rank as
Sensible, others as Intellectual qualities.
It may even be doubted whether the arts, as Reason-Principles, can
fairly be among Sensible qualities; Reason-Principles, it is true, may
reside in Matter, but "matter" for them means Soul. On the other hand,
their being found in company with Matter commits them in some degree to
the lower sphere. Take the case of lyrical music: it is performed upon
strings; melody, which may be termed a part of the art, is sensuous
sound -- though, perhaps, we should speak here not of parts but of
manifestations [Acts]: yet, called manifestations, they are nonetheless
sensuous. The beauty inherent in body is similarly bodiless; but we
have assigned it to the order of things bound up with body and
subordinate to it.
Geometry and arithmetic are, we shall maintain, of a twofold character;
in their earthly types they rank with Sensible Quality, but in so far
as they are functions of pure Soul, they necessarily belong to that
other world in close proximity to the Intellectual. This, too, is in
Plato's view the case with music and astronomy.
The arts concerned with material objects and making use of perceptible
instruments and sense-perception must be classed with Sensible Quality,
even though they are dispositions of the Soul, attendant upon its
apostasy.
There is also every reason for consigning to this category the
practical virtues whose function is directed to a social end: these do
not isolate Soul by inclining it towards the higher; their
manifestation makes for beauty in this world, a beauty regarded not as
necessary but as desirable.
On this principle, the beauty in the germ, and still more the blackness
and whiteness in it, will be included among Sensible Qualities.
Are we, then, to rank the individual soul, as containing these
Reason-Principles, with Sensible Substance? But we do not even identify
the Principles with body; we merely include them in Sensible Quality on
the ground that they are connected with body and are activities of
body. The constituents of Sensible Substance have already been
specified; we have no intention whatever of adding to them Substance
bodiless.
As for Qualities, we hold that they are invariably bodiless, being
affections arising within Soul; but, like the Reason-Principles of the
individual soul, they are associated with Soul in its apostasy, and are
accordingly counted among the things of the lower realm: such
affections, torn between two worlds by their objects and their abode,
we have assigned to Quality, which is indeed not bodily but manifested
in body.
But we refrain from assigning Soul to Sensible Substance, on the ground
that we have already referred to Quality [which is Sensible] those
affections of Soul which are related to body. On the contrary, Soul,
conceived apart from affection and Reason-Principle, we have restored
to its origin, leaving in the lower realm no substance which is in any
sense Intellectual.
17. This procedure, if approved, will entail a distinction between
psychic and bodily qualities, the latter belonging specifically to
body.
If we decide to refer all souls to the higher, we are still at liberty
to perform for Sensible qualities a division founded upon the senses
themselves -- the eyes, the ears, touch, taste, smell; and if we are to
look for further differences, colours may be subdivided according to
varieties of vision, sounds according to varieties of hearing, and so
with the other senses: sounds may also be classified qualitatively as
sweet, harsh, soft.
Here a difficulty may be raised: we divide the varieties of Substance
and their functions and activities, fair or foul or indeed of any kind
whatsoever, on the basis of Quality, Quantity rarely, if ever, entering
into the differences which produce species; Quantity, again, we divide
in accordance with qualities of its own: how then are we to divide
Quality itself into species? what differences are we to employ, and
from what genus shall we take them? To take them from Quality itself
would be no less absurd than setting up substances as differences of
substances.
How, then, are we to distinguish black from white? how differentiate
colours in general from tastes and tangible qualities? By the variety
of sense-organs? Then there will be no difference in the objects
themselves.
But, waiving this objection, how deal with qualities perceived by the
same sense-organ? We may be told that some colours integrate, others
disintegrate the vision, that some tastes integrate, others
disintegrate the tongue: we reply that, first, it is the actual
experiences [of colour and taste, and not the sense-organs] that we are
discussing and it is to these that the notions of integration and
disintegration must be applied; secondly, a means of differentiating
these experiences has not been offered.
It may be suggested that we divide them by their powers, and this
suggestion is so far reasonable that we may well agree to divide the
non-sensuous qualities, the sciences for example, on this basis; but we
see no reason for resorting to their effects for the division of
qualities sensuous. Even if we divide the sciences by their powers,
founding our division of their processes upon the faculties of the
mind, we can only grasp their differences in a rational manner if we
look not only to their subject-matter but also to their
Reason-Principles.
But, granted that we may divide the arts by their Reason-Principles and
theorems, this method will hardly apply to embodied qualities. Even in
the arts themselves an explanation would be required for the
differences between the Reason-Principles themselves. Besides, we have
no difficulty in seeing that white differs from black; to account for
this difference is the purpose of our enquiry.
18. These problems at any rate all serve to show that, while in general
it is necessary to look for differences by which to separate things
from each other, to hunt for differences of the differences themselves
is both futile and irrational. We cannot have substances of substances,
quantities of quantities, qualities of qualities, differences of
differences; differences must, where possible, be found outside the
genus, in creative powers and the like: but where no such criteria are
present, as in distinguishing dark-green from pale-green, both being
regarded as derived from white and black, what expedient may be
suggested?
Sense-perception and intelligence may be trusted to indicate diversity
but not to explain it: explanation is outside the province of
sense-perception, whose function is merely to produce a variety of
information; while, as for intelligence, it works exclusively with
intuitions and never resorts to explanations to justify them; there is
in the movements of intelligence a diversity which separates one object
from another, making further differentiation unnecessary.
Do all qualities constitute differentiae, or not? Granted that
whiteness and colours in general and the qualities dependent upon touch
and taste can, even while they remain species [of Quality], become
differentiae of other things, how can grammar and music serve as
differentiae? Perhaps in the sense that minds may be distinguished as
grammatical and musical, especially if the qualities are innate, in
which case they do become specific differentiae.
It remains to decide whether there can be any differentia derived from
the genus to which the differentiated thing belongs, or whether it must
of necessity belong to another genus? The former alternative would
produce differentiae of things derived from the same genus as the
differentiae themselves -- for example, qualities of qualities. Virtue
and vice are two states differing in quality: the states are qualities,
and their differentiae qualities -- unless indeed it be maintained that
the state undifferentiated is not a quality, that the differentia
creates the quality.
But consider the sweet as beneficial, the bitter as injurious: then
bitter and sweet are distinguished, not by Quality, but by Relation. We
might also be disposed to identify the sweet with the thick, and the
Pungent with the thin: "thick" however hardly reveals the essence but
merely the cause of sweetness -- an argument which applies equally to
pungency.
We must therefore reflect whether it may be taken as an invariable rule
that Quality is never a differentia of Quality, any more than Substance
is a differentia of Substance, or Quantity of Quantity.
Surely, it may be interposed, five differs from three by two. No: it
exceeds it by two; we do not say that it differs: how could it differ
by a "two" in the "three"? We may add that neither can Motion differ
from Motion by Motion. There is, in short, no parallel in any of the
other genera.
In the case of virtue and vice, whole must be compared with whole, and
the differentiation conducted on this basis. As for the differentia
being derived from the same genus as themselves, namely, Quality, and
from no other genus, if we proceed on the principle that virtue is
bound up with pleasure, vice with lust, virtue again with the
acquisition of food, vice with idle extravagance, and accept these
definitions as satisfactory, then clearly we have, here too,
differentiae which are not qualities.
19. With Quality we have undertaken to group the dependent qualia, in
so far as Quality is bound up with them; we shall not however introduce
into this category the qualified objects [qua objects], that we may not
be dealing with two categories at once; we shall pass over the objects
to that which gives them their [specific] name.
But how are we to classify such terms as "not white"? If "not white"
signifies some other colour, it is a quality. But if it is merely a
negation of an enumeration of things not white, it will be either a
meaningless sound, or else a name or definition of something actual: if
a sound, it is a kind of motion; if a name or definition, it is a
relative, inasmuch as names and definitions are significant. But if not
only the things enumerated are in some one genus, but also the
propositions and terms in question must be each of them significative
of some genus, then we shall assert that negative propositions and
terms posit certain things within a restricted field and deny others.
Perhaps, however, it would be better, in view of their composite
nature, not to include the negations in the same genus as the
affirmations.
What view, then, shall we take of privations? If they are privations of
qualities, they will themselves be qualities: "toothless" and "blind,"
for example, are qualities. "Naked" and "dothed," on the other hand,
are neither of them qualities but states: they therefore comport a
relation to something else.
[With regard to passive qualities:]
Passivity, while it lasts, is not a quality but a motion; when it is a
past experience remaining in one's possession, it is a quality; if one
ceases to possess the experience then regarded as a finished
occurrence, one is considered to have been moved -- in other words, to
have been in Motion. But in none of these cases is it necessary to
conceive of anything but Motion; the idea of time should be excluded;
even present time has no right to be introduced.
"Well" and similar adverbial expressions are to be referred to the
single generic notion [of Quality].
It remains to consider whether blushing should be referred to Quality,
even though the person blushing is not included in this category. The
fact of becoming flushed is rightly not referred to Quality; for it
involves passivity -- in short, Motion. But if one has ceased to become
flushed and is actually red, this is surely a case of Quality, which is
independent of time. How indeed are we to define Quality but by the
aspect which a substance presents? By predicating of a man redness, we
clearly ascribe to him a quality.
We shall accordingly maintain that states alone, and not dispositions,
constitute qualities: thus, "hot" is a quality but not "growing hot,"
"ill" but not "turning ill."
20. We have to ascertain whether there is not to every quality a
contrary. In the case of virtue and vice, even the mean appears to be
contrary to the extremes.
But when we turn to colours, we do not find the intermediates so
related. If we regard the intermediates as blendings of the extremes,
we must not posit any contrariety other than that between black and
white, but must show that all other colours are combinations of these
two. Contrariety however demands that there be some one distinct
quality in the intermediates, though this quality may be seen to arise
from a combination.
It may further be suggested that contraries not only differ from each
other, but also entail the greatest possible difference. But "the
greatest possible difference" would seem to presuppose that
intermediates have already been established: eliminate the series, and
how will you define "the greatest possible"? Sight, we may be told,
will reveal to us that grey is nearer than black to white; and taste
may be our judge when we have hot, cold and no intermediate.
That we are accustomed to act upon these assumptions is obvious enough;
but the following considerations may perhaps commend themselves:
White and yellow are entirely different from each other -- a statement
which applies to any colour whatsoever as compared with any other; they
are accordingly contrary qualities. Their contrariety is independent of
the presence of intermediates: between health and disease no
intermediate intrudes, and yet they are contraries.
It may be urged that the products of a contrariety exhibit the greatest
diversity. But "the greatest diversity" is clearly meaningless, unless
we can point to lower degrees of diversity in the means. Thus, we
cannot speak of "the greatest diversity" in reference to health and
disease. This definition of contrariety is therefore inadmissible.
Suppose that we say "great diversity" instead of "the greatest": if
"great" is equivalent to greater and implies a less, immediate
contraries will again escape us; if, on the other hand, we mean
strictly "great" and assume that every quality shows a great divergence
from every other, we must not suppose that the divergence can be
measured by a comparative.
Nonetheless, we must endeavour to find a meaning for the term
"contrary." Can we accept the principle that when things have a certain
similarity which is not generic nor in any sense due to admixture, but
a similarity residing in their forms -- if the term be permitted --
they differ in degree but are not contraries; contraries being rather
those things which have no specific identity? It would be necessary to
stipulate that they belong to the same genus, Quality, in order to
cover those immediate contraries which [apparently] have nothing
conducing to similarity, inasmuch as there are no intermediates looking
both ways, as it were, and having a mutual similarity to each other;
some contraries are precluded by their isolation from similarity.
If these observations be sound, colours which have a common ground will
not be contraries. But there will be nothing to prevent, not indeed
every colour from being contrary to every other, but any one colour
from being contrary to any other; and similarly with tastes. This will
serve as a statement of the problem.
As for Degree [subsisting in Quality], it was given as our opinion that
it exists in the objects participating in Quality, though whether it
enters into qualities as such -- into health and justice -- was left
open to question. If indeed these qualities possess an extension quite
apart from their participants, we must actually ascribe to them
degrees: but in truth they belong to a sphere where each entity is the
whole and does not admit of degree.
21. The claim of Motion to be established as a genus will depend upon
three conditions: first, that it cannot rightly be referred to any
other genus; second, that nothing higher than itself can be predicated
of it in respect of its essence; third, that by assuming differences it
will produce species. These conditions satisfied, we may consider the
nature of the genus to which we shall refer it.
Clearly it cannot be identified with either the Substance or the
Quality of the things which possess it. It cannot, further, be
consigned to Action, for Passivity also comprises a variety of motions;
nor again to Passivity itself, because many motions are actions: on the
contrary, actions and passions are to be referred to Motion.
Furthermore, it cannot lay claim to the category of Relation on the
mere ground that it has an attributive and not a self-centred
existence: on this ground, Quality too would find itself in that same
category; for Quality is an attribute and contained in an external: and
the same is true of Quantity.
If we are agreed that Quality and Quantity, though attributive, are
real entities, and on the basis of this reality distinguishable as
Quality and Quantity respectively: then, on the same principle, since
Motion, though an attribute has a reality prior to its attribution, it
is incumbent upon us to discover the intrinsic nature of this reality.
We must never be content to regard as a relative something which exists
prior to its attribution, but only that which is engendered by Relation
and has no existence apart from the relation to which it owes its name:
the double, strictly so called, takes birth and actuality in
juxtaposition with a yard's length, and by this very process of being
juxtaposed with a correlative acquires the name and exhibits the fact
of being double.
What, then, is that entity, called Motion, which, though attributive,
has an independent reality, which makes its attribution possible -- the
entity corresponding to Quality, Quantity and Substance?
But first, perhaps, we should make sure that there is nothing prior to
Motion and predicated of it as its genus.
Change may be suggested as a prior. But, in the first place, either it
is identical with Motion, or else, if change be claimed as a genus, it
will stand distinct from the genera so far considered: secondly, Motion
will evidently take rank as a species and have some other species
opposed to it -- becoming, say -- which will be regarded as a change
but not as a motion.
What, then, is the ground for denying that becoming is a motion? The
fact, perhaps, that what comes to be does not yet exist, whereas Motion
has no dealings with the non-existent. But, on that ground, becoming
will not be a change either. If however it be alleged that becoming is
merely a type of alteration or growth since it takes place when things
alter and grow, the antecedents of becoming are being confused with
becoming itself. Yet becoming, entailing as it does these antecedents,
must necessarily be a distinct species; for the event and process of
becoming cannot be identified with merely passive alteration, like
turning hot or white: it is possible for the antecedents to take place
without becoming as such being accomplished, except in so far as the
actual alteration [implied in the antecedents] has "come to be"; where,
however, an animal or a vegetal life is concerned, becoming [or birth]
takes place only upon its acquisition of a Form.
The contrary might be maintained: that change is more plausibly ranked
as a species than is Motion, because change signifies merely the
substitution of one thing for another, whereas Motion involves also the
removal of a thing from the place to which it belongs, as is shown by
locomotion. Even rejecting this distinction, we must accept as types of
Motion knowledge and musical performance -- in short, changes of
condition: thus, alteration will come to be regarded as a species of
Motion -- namely, motion displacing.
22. But suppose that we identify alteration with Motion on the ground
that Motion itself results in difference: how then do we proceed to
define Motion?
It may roughly be characterized as the passage from the potentiality to
its realization. That is potential which can either pass into a Form --
for example, the potential statue -- or else pass into actuality --
such as the ability to walk: whenever progress is made towards the
statue, this progress is Motion; and when the ability to walk is
actualized in walking, this walking is itself Motion: dancing is,
similarly, the motion produced by the potential dancer taking his
steps.
In the one type of Motion a new Form comes into existence created by
the motion; the other constitutes, as it were, the pure Form of the
potentiality, and leaves nothing behind it when once the motion has
ceased. Accordingly, the view would not be unreasonable which, taking
some Forms to be active, others inactive, regarded Motion as a dynamic
Form in opposition to the other Forms which are static, and further as
the cause of whatever new Form ensues upon it. To proceed to identify
this bodily motion with life would however be unwarrantable; it must be
considered as identical only in name with the motions of Intellect and
Soul.
That Motion is a genus we may be all the more confident in virtue of
the difficulty -- the impossibility even -- of confining it within a
definition.
But how can it be a Form in cases where the motion leads to
deterioration, or is purely passive? Motion, we may suggest, is like
the heat of the sun causing some things to grow and withering others.
In so far as Motion is a common property, it is identical in both
conditions; its apparent difference is due to the objects moved.
Is, then, becoming ill identical with becoming well? As motions they
are identical. In what respect, then, do they differ? In their
substrates? or is there some other criterion?
This question may however be postponed until we come to consider
alteration: at present we have to discover what is the constant element
in every motion, for only on this basis can we establish the claim of
Motion to be a genus.
Perhaps the one term covers many meanings; its claim to generic status
would then correspond to that of Being.
As a solution of the problem we may suggest that motions conducing to
the natural state or functioning in natural conditions should perhaps,
as we have already asserted, be regarded as being in a sense Forms,
while those whose direction is contrary to nature must be supposed to
be assimilated to the results towards which they lead.
But what is the constant element in alteration, in growth and birth and
their opposites, in local change? What is that which makes them all
motions? Surely it is the fact that in every case the object is never
in the same state before and after the motion, that it cannot remain
still and in complete inactivity but, so long as the motion is present,
is continually urged to take a new condition, never acquiescing in
Identity but always courting Difference; deprived of Difference, Motion
perishes.
Thus, Difference may be predicated of Motion, not merely in the sense
that it arises and persists in a difference of conditions, but in the
sense of being itself perpetual difference. It follows that Time, as
being created by Motion, also entails perpetual difference: Time is the
measure of unceasing Motion, accompanying its course and, as it were,
carried along its stream.
In short, the common basis of all Motion is the existence of a
progression and an urge from potentiality and the potential to
actuality and the actual: everything which has any kind of motion
whatsoever derives this motion from a pre-existent potentiality within
itself of activity or passivity.
23. The Motion which acts upon Sensible objects enters from without,
and so shakes, drives, rouses and thrusts its participants that they
may neither rest nor preserve their identity -- and all to the end that
they may be caught into that restlessness, that flustering excitability
which is but an image of Life.
We must avoid identifying Motion with the objects moved: by walking we
do not mean the feet but the activity springing from a potentiality in
the feet. Since the potentiality is invisible, we see of necessity only
the active feet -- that is to say, not feet simply, as would be the
case if they were at rest, but something besides feet, something
invisible but indirectly seen as an accompaniment by the fact that we
observe the feet to be in ever-changing positions and no longer at
rest. We infer alteration, on the other hand, from the qualitative
change in the thing altered.
Where, then, does Motion reside, when there is one thing that moves and
another that passes from an inherent potentiality to actuality? In the
mover? How then will the moved, the patient, participate in the motion?
In the moved? Then why does not Motion remain in it, once having come?
It would seem that Motion must neither be separated from the active
principle nor allowed to reside in it; it must proceed from agent to
patient without so inhering in the latter as to be severed from the
former, passing from one to the other like a breath of wind.
Now, when the potentiality of Motion consists in an ability to walk, it
may be imagined as thrusting a man forward and causing him to be
continually adopting a different position; when it lies in the capacity
to heat, it heats; when the potentiality takes hold of Matter and
builds up the organism, we have growth; and when another potentiality
demolishes the structure, the result is decay, that which has the
potentiality of demolition experiencing the decay. Where the
birth-giving principle is active, we find birth; where it is impotent
and the power to destroy prevails, destruction takes place -- not the
destruction of what already exists, but that which intervenes upon the
road to existence.
Health comes about in the same way -- when the power which produces
health is active and predominant; sickness is the result of the
opposite power working in the opposite direction.
Thus, Motion is conditioned, not only by the objects in which it
occurs, but also by its origins and its course, and it is a distinctive
mark of Motion to be always qualified and to take its quality from the
moved.
24. With regard to locomotion: if ascending is to be held contrary to
descending, and circular motion different [in kind] from motion in a
straight line, we may ask how this difference is to be defined -- the
difference, for example, between throwing over the head and under the
feet.
The driving power is one -- though indeed it might be maintained that
the upward drive is different from the downward, and the downward
passage of a different character from the upward, especially if it be a
natural motion, in which case the up-motion constitutes lightness, the
down-motion heaviness.
But in all these motions alike there is the common tendency to seek an
appointed place, and in this tendency we seem to have the differentia
which separates locomotion from the other species.
As for motion in a circle and motion in a straight line, if the former
is in practice indistinguishable from the latter, how can we regard
them as different? The only difference lies in the shape of the course,
unless the view be taken that circular motion is "impure," as not being
entirely a motion, not involving a complete surrender of identity.
However, it appears in general that locomotion is a definite unity,
taking its differences from externals.
25. The nature of integration and disintegrations calls for scrutiny.
Are they different from the motions above mentioned, from coming-to-be
and passing-away, from growth and decay, from change of place and from
alteration? or must they be referred to these? or, again, must some of
these be regarded as types of integration and disintegration?
If integration implies that one element proceeds towards another,
implies in short an approach, and disintegration, on the other hand, a
retreat into the background, such motions may be termed local; we have
clearly a case of two things moving in the direction of unity, or else
making away from each other.
If however the things achieve a sort of fusion, mixture, blending, and
if a unity comes into being, not when the process of combination is
already complete, but in the very act of combining, to which of our
specified motions shall we refer this type? There will certainly be
locomotion at first, but it will be succeeded by something different;
just as in growth locomotion is found at the outset, though later it is
supplanted by quantitative motion. The present case is similar:
locomotion leads the way, but integration or disintegration does not
inevitably follow; integration takes place only when the impinging
elements become intertwined, disintegration only when they are rent
asunder by the contact.
On the other hand, it often happens that locomotion follows
disintegration, or else occurs simultaneously, though the experience of
the disintegrated is not conceived in terms of locomotion: so too in
integration a distinct experience, a distinct unification, accompanies
the locomotion and remains separate from it.
Are we then to posit a new species for these two motions, adding to
them, perhaps, alteration? A thing is altered by becoming dense -- in
other words, by integration; it is altered again by being rarefied --
that is, by disintegration. When wine and water are mixed, something is
produced different from either of the pre-existing elements: thus,
integration takes place, resulting in alteration.
But perhaps we should recall a previous distinction, and while holding
that integrations and disintegrations precede alterations, should
maintain that alterations are nonetheless distinct from either; that,
further, not every alteration is of this type [presupposing, that is to
say, integration or disintegration], and, in particular, rarefication
and condensation are not identical with disintegration and integration,
nor in any sense derived from them: to suppose that they were would
involve the admission of a vacuum.
Again, can we use integration and disintegration to explain blackness
and whiteness? But to doubt the independent existence of these
qualities means that, beginning with colours, we may end by
annihilating almost all qualities, or rather all without exception; for
if we identify every alteration, or qualitative change, with
integration and disintegration, we allow nothing whatever to come into
existence; the same elements persist, nearer or farther apart.
Finally, how is it possible to class learning and being taught as
integrations?
26. We may now take the various specific types of Motion, such as
locomotion, and once again enquire for each one whether it is not to be
divided on the basis of direction, up, down, straight, circular -- a
question already raised; whether the organic motion should be
distinguished from the inorganic -- they are clearly not alike;
whether, again, organic motions should be subdivided into walking,
swimming and flight.
Perhaps we should also distinguish, in each species, natural from
unnatural motions: this distinction would however imply that motions
have differences which are not external. It may indeed be the case that
motions create these differences and cannot exist without them; but
Nature may be supposed to be the ultimate source of motions and
differences alike.
Motions may also be classed as natural, artificial and purposive:
"natural" embracing growth and decay; "artificial" architecture and
shipbuilding; "purposive" enquiry, learning, government, and, in
general, all speech and action.
Again, with regard to growth, alteration and birth, the division may
proceed from the natural and unnatural, or, speaking generally, from
the characters of the moved objects.
27. What view are we to take of that which is opposed to Motion,
whether it be Stability or Rest? Are we to consider it as a distinct
genus, or to refer it to one of the genera already established? We
should, no doubt, be well advised to assign Stability to the
Intellectual, and to look in the lower sphere for Rest alone.
First, then, we have to discover the precise nature of this Rest. If it
presents itself as identical with Stability, we have no right to expect
to find it in the sphere where nothing is stable and the apparently
stable has merely a less strenuous motion.
Suppose the contrary: we decide that Rest is different from Stability
inasmuch as Stability belongs to the utterly immobile, Rest to the
stationary which, though of a nature to move, does not move. Now, if
Rest means coming to rest, it must be regarded as a motion which has
not yet ceased but still continues; but if we suppose it to be
incompatible with Motion, we have first to ask whether there is in the
Sensible world anything without motion.
Yet nothing can experience every type of motion; certain motions must
be ruled out in order that we may speak of the moving object as
existing: may we not, then, say of that which has no locomotion and is
at rest as far as pertains to that specific type of motion, simply that
it does not move?
Rest, accordingly, is the negation of Motion: in other words, it has no
generic status. It is in fact related only to one type of motion,
namely, locomotion; it is therefore the negation of this motion that is
meant.
But, it may be asked, why not regard Motion as the negation of
Stability? We reply that Motion does not appear alone; it is
accompanied by a force which actualizes its object, forcing it on, as
it were, giving it a thousand forms and destroying them all: Rest, on
the contrary, comports nothing but the object itself, and signifies
merely that the object has no motion.
Why, then, did we not in discussing the Intellectual realm assert that
Stability was the negation of Motion? Because it is not indeed possible
to consider Stability as an annulling of Motion, for when Motion ceases
Stability does not exist, but requires for its own existence the
simultaneous existence of Motion; and what is of a nature to move is
not stationary because Stability of that realm is motionless, but
because Stability has taken hold of it; in so far as it has Motion, it
will never cease to move: thus, it is stationary under the influence of
Stability, and moves under the influence of Motion. In the lower realm,
too, a thing moves in virtue of Motion, but its Rest is caused by a
deficiency; it has been deprived of its due motion.
What we have to observe is the essential character of this Sensible
counterpart of Stability.
Consider sickness and health. The convalescent moves in the sense that
he passes from sickness to health. What species of rest are we to
oppose to this convalescence? If we oppose the condition from which he
departs, that condition is sickness, not Stability; if that into which
he passes, it is health, again not the same as Stability.
It may be declared that health or sickness is indeed some form of
Stability: we are to suppose, then, that Stability is the genus of
which health and sickness are species; which is absurd.
Stability may, again, be regarded as an attribute of health: according
to this view, health will not be health before possessing Stability.
These questions may however be left to the judgement of the individual.
28. We have already indicated that Activity and Passivity are to be
regarded as motions, and that it is possible to distinguish absolute
motions, actions, passions.
As for the remaining so-called genera, we have shown that they are
reducible to those which we have posited.
With regard to the relative, we have maintained that Relation belongs
to one object as compared with another, that the two objects coexist
simultaneously, and that Relation is found wherever a substance is in
such a condition as to produce it; not that the substance is a
relative, except in so far as it constitutes part of a whole -- a hand,
for example, or head or cause or principle or element.
We may also adopt the ancient division of relatives into creative
principles, measures, excesses and deficiencies, and those which in
general separate objects on the basis of similarities and differences.
Our investigation into the kinds of Being is now complete.
__________________________________________________________________
FOURTH TRACTATE.
ON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE
AUTHENTIC EXISTENT (1).
1. How are we to explain the omnipresence of the soul? Does it depend
upon the definite magnitude of the material universe coupled with some
native tendency in soul to distribute itself over material mass, or is
it a characteristic of soul apart from body?
In the latter case, soul will not appear just where body may bring it;
body will meet soul awaiting it everywhere; wheresoever body finds
place, there soul lay before ever body was; the entire material mass of
the universe has been set into an existent soul.
But if soul spread thus wide before material extension existed, then as
covering all space it would seem to be of itself a thing of magnitude,
and in what mode could it exist in the All before the All was in being,
before there was any All? And who can accept a soul described as
partless and massless and yet, for all that absence of extension,
extending over a universe? We may perhaps be told that, though extended
over the corporeal, it does not itself become so: but thus to give it
magnitude as an accidental attribute leaves the problem still unsolved:
precisely the same question must in all reason arise: How can the soul
take magnitude even in the move of accident?
We cannot think of soul being diffused as a quality is, say sweetness
or colour, for while these are actual states of the masses affected so
that they show that quality at every point, none of them has an
independent existence; they are attributes of body and known only as in
body; such quality is necessarily of a definite extension. Further, the
colour at any point is independent of that at any other; no doubt the
Form, White, is the same all over, but there is not arithmetical
identity; in soul there is; it is one soul in foot and in hand, as the
facts of perception show. And yet in the case of qualities the one is
observably distributed part for part; in the soul the identity is
undistributed; what we sometimes call distribution is simply
omnipresence.
Obviously, we must take hold of the question from the very beginning in
the hope of finding some clear and convincing theory as to how soul,
immaterial and without magnitude, can be thus broad-spread, whether
before material masses exist or as enveloping them. Of course, should
it appear that this omnipresence may occur apart from material things,
there is no difficulty in accepting its occurrence within the material.
2. Side by side exist the Authentic All and its counterpart, the
visible universe. The Authentic is contained in nothing, since nothing
existed before it; of necessity anything coming after it must, as a
first condition of existence, be contained by this All, especially
since it depends upon the Authentic and without that could have neither
stability nor movement.
We may be reminded that the universe cannot be contained in the
Authentic as in a place, where place would mean the boundaries of some
surrounding extension considered as an envelope, or some space formerly
a part of the Void and still remaining unoccupied even after the
emergence of the universe, that it can only support itself, as it were,
upon the Authentic and rest in the embrace of its omnipresence; but
this objection is merely verbal and will disappear if our meaning is
grasped; we mention it for another purpose; it goes to enforce our real
assertion that the Authentic All, at once primal and veritable, needs
no place and is in no way contained. The All, as being an integral,
cannot fall short of itself; it must ever have fulfilled its own
totality, ever reached to its own equivalence; as far as the sum of
entities extends, there this is; for this is the All.
Inevitably, also, anything other than this All that may be stationed
therein must have part in the All, merge into it, and hold by its
strength; it is not that the thing detaches a portion of the All but
that within itself it finds the All which has entered into it while
still unbrokenly self-abiding, since Being cannot lodge in non-Being,
but, if anything, non-Being within Being.
Being, then, is present to all Being; an identity cannot tear itself
asunder; the omnipresence asserted of it must be presence within the
realm of Being; that is, it must be a self-presence. And it is in no
way strange that the omnipresence should be at once self-abiding and
universal; this is merely saying omnipresence within a unity.
It is our way to limit Being to the sense-known and therefore to think
of omnipresence in terms of the concrete; in our overestimate of the
sensible, we question how that other Nature can reach over such
vastness; but our great is small, and this, small to us, is great; it
reaches integrally to every point of our universe -- or, better, our
universe, moving from every side and in all its members towards this,
meets it everywhere as the omnipresent All ever stretching beyond.
The universe in all its reach can attain nothing further -- that would
mean overpassing the total of Being -- and therefore is content to
circle about it; not able to encompass or even to fill the All, it is
content to accept place and subordination, for thus it preserves itself
in neighbouring the higher present to it -- present and yet absent;
self-holding, whatever may seek its presence.
Wherever the body of the universe may touch, there it finds this All;
it strives for no further advance, willing to revolve in that one
circle, since to it that is the All and in that movement its every part
embraces the All.
If that higher were itself in place there would be the need of seeking
that precise place by a certain right path; part of seeker must touch
part of sought, and there would be far and near. But since there is no
far and near there must be, if presence at all, presence entire. And
presence there indubitably is; this highest is present to every being
of those that, free of far and near, are of power to receive.
3. But are we to think of this Authentic Being as, itself, present, or
does it remain detached, omnipresent in the sense only that powers from
it enter everywhere?
Under the theory of presence by powers, souls are described as rays;
the source remains self-locked and these are flung forth to impinge
upon particular living things.
Now, in beings whose unity does not reproduce the entire nature of that
principle, any presence is presence of an emanant power: even this,
however, does not mean that the principle is less than integrally
present; it is not sundered from the power which it has uttered; all is
offered, but the recipient is able to take only so much. But in Beings
in which the plenitude of these powers is manifested, there clearly the
Authentic itself is present, though still as remaining distinct; it is
distinct in that, becoming the informing principle of some definite
thing, it would abdicate from its standing as the total and from its
uttermost self-abiding and would belong, in some mode of accident, to
another thing as well. Still it is not the property of what may seek to
join with it; it chooses where it will and enters as the participant's
power may allow, but it does not become a chattel; it remains the
quested and so in another sense never passes over. There is nothing
disquieting in omnipresence after this mode where there is no
appropriation: in the same accidental way, we may reasonably put it,
soul concurs with body, but it is soul self-holding, not inbound with
Matter, free even of the body which it has illuminated through and
through.
Nor does the placelessness of Being make it surprising that it be
present universally to things of place; on the contrary, the wonder
would be -- the more than wonder, the impossibility -- if from a place
of its own it were present to other things in their place, or if having
place it were present at all -- and, especially present, as we assert,
integrally.
But set it outside of place, and reason tells us that it will be
present entire where it is present at all and that, present to the
total, it must be present in the same completeness to every several
unity; otherwise something of it is here and something there, and at
once it is fragmentary, it is body.
How can we so dispart Being? We cannot break Life into parts; if the
total was Life, the fragment is not. But we do not thus sunder
Intelligence, one intelligence in this man, another in that? No; such a
fragment would not be Intelligence. But the Being of the individual?
Once more, if the total thing is Being, then a fragment could not be.
Are we told that in a body, a total of parts, every member is also a
body? But here we are dividing not body but a particular quantity of
body, each of those divisions being described as body in virtue of
possessing the Form or Idea that constitutes body; and this Idea has no
magnitude, is incapable of magnitude.
4. But how explain beings by the side of Being, and the variety of
intelligences and of souls, when Being has the unity of omnipresent
identity and not merely that of a species, and when intellect and soul
are likewise numerically one? We certainly distinguish between the soul
of the All and the particular souls.
This seems to conflict with our view which, moreover, for all its
logical necessity, scarcely carries conviction against our mental
reluctance to the notion of unity identically omnipresent. It would
appear more plausible to suppose a partition of the All-the original
remaining undiminished -- or, in a more legitimate phrase, an
engendering from the All.
Thus the Authentic would be left self-gathered, while what we think of
as the parts -- the separate souls -- would come into being to produce
the multiple total of the universe.
But if the Authentic Being is to be kept unattached in order to remove
the difficulty of integral omnipresence, the same considerations must
apply equally to the souls; we would have to admit that they cannot be
integrally omnipresent in the bodies they are described as occupying;
either, soul must be distributed, part to body's part, or it is lodged
entire at some one point in the body giving forth some of its powers to
the other points; and these very powers, again, present the same
difficulty.
A further objection is that some one spot in the body will hold the
soul, the others no more than a power from it.
Still, how account for the many souls, many intelligences, the beings
by the side of the Being?
No doubt the beings proceed from the Priors in the mode only of
numerical distinction and not as concrete masses, but the difficulty
remains as to how they come to constitute the plenitude of the material
universe.
This explanation by progression does not clear the problem.
We are agreed that diversity within the Authentic depends not upon
spatial separation but sheerly upon differentiation; all Being, despite
this plurality, is a unity still; "Being neighbours Being"; all holds
together; and thus the Intellectual-Principle [which is Being and the
Beings] remains an integral, multiple by differentiation, not by
spatial distinction.
Soul too? Souls too. That principle distributed over material masses we
hold to be in its own nature incapable of distribution; the magnitude
belongs to the masses; when this soul-principle enters into them -- or
rather they into it -- it is thought of as distributable only because,
within the discrimination of the corporeal, the animating force is to
be recognised at any and every point. For soul is not articulated,
section of soul to section of body; there is integral omnipresence
manifesting the unity of that principle, its veritable partlessness.
Now as in soul unity does not debar variety, so with Being and the
Beings; in that order multiplicity does not conflict with unity.
Multiplicity. This is not due to the need of flooding the universe with
life; nor is the extension of the corporeal the cause of the
multiplicity of souls; before body existed, soul was one and many; the
many souls fore-existed in the All not potentially but each
effectively; that one collective soul is no bar to the variety; the
variety does not abrogate the unity; the souls are apart without
partition, present each to all as never having been set in opposition;
they are no more hedged off by boundaries than are the multiple items
of knowledge in one mind; the one soul so exists as to include all
souls; the nature of such a principle must be utterly free of boundary.
5. Herein lies its greatness, not in mass; mass is limited and may be
whittled down to nothingness; in that order no such paring off is
possible -- nor, if it were, could there be any falling short. Where
limitation is unthinkable, what fear can there be of absence at any
point? Nowhere can that principle fail which is the unfailing, the
everlasting, the undwindling; suppose it in flux and it must at some
time flow to its end; since it is not in flux -- and, besides [as the
All], it has nowhere to flow to -- it lies spread over the universe; in
fact it is the universe, too great to be held by body, giving,
therefore, to the material universe but little of itself, the little
which that participant can take.
We may not make this principle the lesser, or if in the sense of mass
we do, we must not begin to mistrust the power of that less to stretch
to the greater. Of course, we have in fact no right to affirm it less
or to measure the thing of magnitude against that which has none; as
well talk of a doctor's skill being smaller than his body. This
greatness is not to be thought of in terms of quantity; the greater and
less of body have nothing to do with soul.
The nature of the greatness of soul is indicated by the fact that as
the body grows, the larger mass is held by the same soul that sufficed
to the smaller; it would be in many ways absurd to suppose a
corresponding enlargement in the soul.
6. But why does not one same soul enter more than one body?
Because any second body must approach, if it might; but the first has
approached and received and keeps.
Are we to think that this second body, in keeping its soul with a like
care, is keeping the same soul as the first?
Why not: what difference is there? Merely some additions [from the
experiences of life, none in the soul itself].
We ask further why one soul in foot and hand and not one soul in the
distinct members of the universe.
Sensations no doubt differ from soul to soul but only as do the
conditions and experiences; this is difference not in the judging
principle but in the matters coming to judgement; the judge is one and
the same soul pronouncing upon various events, and these not its own
but belonging to a particular body; it is only as a man pronounces
simultaneously upon a pleasant sensation in his finger and a pain in
his head.
But why is not the soul in one man aware, then, of the judgement passed
by another?
Because it is a judgement made, not a state set up; besides, the soul
that has passed the judgement does not pronounce but simply judges:
similarly a man's sight does not report to his hearing, though both
have passed judgement; it is the reason above both that reports, and
this is a principle distinct from either. Often, as it happens, reason
does become aware of a verdict formed in another reason and takes to
itself an alien experience: but this has been dealt with elsewhere.
7. Let us consider once more how it is possible for an identity to
extend over a universe. This comes to the question how each variously
placed entity in the multiplicity of the sense order can have its share
in one identical Principle.
The solution is in the reasons given for refusing to distribute that
principle; we are not to parcel it out among the entities of the
multiple; on the contrary, we bring the distributed multiples to the
unity. The unity has not gone forth to them: from their dispersion we
are led to think of it as broken up to meet them, but this is to
distribute the controller and container equally over the material
handled.
A hand may very well control an entire mass, a long plank, or anything
of that sort; the control is effective throughout and yet is not
distributed, unit for unit, over the object of control: the power is
felt to reach over the whole area, though the hand is only hand-long,
not taking the extension of the mass it wields; lengthen the object
and, provided that the total is within the strength, the power handles
the new load with no need of distributing itself over the increased
area. Now let us eliminate the corporeal mass of the hand, retaining
the power it exerted: is not that power, the impartible, present
integrally over the entire area of control?
Or imagine a small luminous mass serving as centre to a transparent
sphere, so that the light from within shows upon the entire outer
surface, otherwise unlit: we surely agree that the inner core of light,
intact and immobile, reaches over the entire outer extension; the
single light of that small centre illuminates the whole field. The
diffused light is not due to any bodily magnitude of that central point
which illuminates not as body but as body lit, that is by another kind
of power than corporeal quality: let us then abstract the corporeal
mass, retaining the light as power: we can no longer speak of the light
in any particular spot; it is equally diffused within and throughout
the entire sphere. We can no longer even name the spot it occupied so
as to say whence it came or how it is present; we can but seek and
wonder as the search shows us the light simultaneously present at each
and every point in the sphere. So with the sunlight: looking to the
corporeal mass you are able to name the source of the light shining
through all the air, but what you see is one identical light in
integral omnipresence. Consider too the refraction of light by which it
is thrown away from the line of incidence; yet, direct or refracted, it
is one and the same light. And supposing, as before, that the sun were
simply an unembodied illuminant, the light would no longer be fixed to
any one definite spot: having no starting point, no centre of origin,
it would be an integral unity omnipresent.
8. The light of our world can be allocated because it springs from a
corporeal mass of known position, but conceive an immaterial entity,
independent of body as being of earlier nature than all body, a nature
firmly self-based or, better, without need of base: such a principle,
incorporeal, autonomous, having no source for its rising, coming from
no place, attached to no material mass, this cannot be allotted part
here and part there: that would be to give it both a previous position
and a present attachment. Finally, anything participating in such a
principle can participate only as entirety with entirety; there can be
no allotment and no partition.
A principle attached to body might be exposed, at least by way of
accident, to such partition and so be definable as passive and partible
in view of its close relationship with the body of which it is so to
speak a state or a Form; but that which is not inbound with body, which
on the contrary body must seek, will of necessity go utterly free of
every bodily modification and especially of the very possibility of
partition which is entirely a phenomenon of body, belonging to its very
essence. As partibility goes with body, so impartibility with the
bodiless: what partition is possible where there is no magnitude? If a
thing of magnitude participates to any degree in what has no magnitude,
it must be by a participation without division; divisibility implies
magnitude.
When we affirm unity in multiplicity, we do not mean that the unity has
become the multiples; we link the variety in the multiples with the
unity which we discern, undivided, in them; and the unity must be
understood as for ever distinct from them, from separate item and from
total; that unity remains true to itself, remains itself, and so long
as it remains itself cannot fail within its own scope [and therefore
does reach over the multiple], yet it is not to be thought of as
coextensive with the material universe or with any member of the All;
utterly outside of the quantitative, it cannot be coextensive with
anything.
Extension is of body; what is not of body, but of the opposed order,
must be kept free of extension; but where there is no extension there
is no spatial distinction, nothing of the here and there which would
end its freedom of presence. Since, then, partition goes with place --
each part occupying a place of its own -- how can the placeless be
parted? The unity must remain self-concentrated, immune from part,
however much the multiple aspire or attain to contact with it. This
means that any movement towards it is movement towards its entirety,
and any participation attained is participation in its entirety. Its
participants, then, link with it as with something unparticipated,
something never appropriated: thus only can it remain intact within
itself and within the multiples in which it is manifested. And if it
did not remain thus intact, it would cease to be itself; any
participation, then, would not be in the object of quest but in
something never quested.
9. If in such a partition of the unity, that which entered into each
participant were an entire -- always identical with the first -- then,
in the progressive severance, the firsts would become numerous, each
particular becoming a first: and then what prevents these many firsts
from reconstituting the collective unity? Certainly not the bodies they
have entered, for those firsts cannot be present in the material masses
as their Forms if they are to remain identical with the First from
which they come. On the other hand, taking the part conceived as
present in the multiple to be simply a power [emanating from the
First], at once such a part ceases to be the unity; we have then to ask
how these powers come to be cut off, to have abandoned their origin;
they certainly have not moved away with no purpose in their movement.
Again, are those powers, entering the universe of sense, still within
the First or not?
If they are not, we have the absurdity that the First has been
lessened, disempowered, stripped of power originally possessed.
Besides, how could powers thus cut off subsist apart from the
foundations of their being? Suppose these powers to be at once within
the First and elsewhere; then the universe of sense contains either the
entire powers or parts of them; if parts of powers, the other parts are
There; if entires, then either the powers There are present here also
undivided -- and this brings us back to an identity omnipresent in
integral identity -- or they are each an entire which has taken
division into a multiplicity of similars so that attached to every
essence there is one power only -- that particularly appropriated to it
-- the other powers remaining powers unattached: yet power apart from
Being is as impossible as Being apart from power; for There power is
Being or something greater than Being.
Or, again, suppose the powers coming Thence are other than their source
-- lesser, fainter, as a bright light dwindles to a dim -- but each
attached to its essence as a power must always be: such secondary
powers would be perfectly uniform and at once we are forced to admit
the omnipresence of the one same power or at the least the presence --
as in one and the same body -- of some undivided identity integral at
every point.
And if this is the case with a particular body, why not with the entire
universe?
If we think of the single power as being endlessly divided, it is no
longer a power entire; partition means lessening of power; and, with
part of power for part of body, the conditions of consciousness cease.
Further, a vestigial cut off from its source disappears -- for example,
a reflected light -- and in general an emanant loses its quality once
it is severed from the original which it reproduces: just so the powers
derived from that source must vanish if they do not remain attached to
it.
This being so, where these powers appear, their source must be present
with them; thus, once more, that source must itself be omnipresent as
an undivided whole.
10. We may be told that an image need not be thus closely attached to
its archetype, that we know images holding in the absence of their
archetype and that a warmed object may retain its heat when the fire is
withdrawn.
To begin with the image and archetype: If we are reminded of an
artist's picture we observe that here the image was produced by the
artist, not by his subject; even in the case of a self-portrait, the
picture is no "image of archetype," since it is not produced by the
painter's body, the original represented: the reproduction is due to
the effective laying on of the colours.
Nor is there strictly any such making of image as we see in water or in
mirrors or in a shadow; in these cases the original is the cause of the
image which, at once, springs from it and cannot exist apart from it.
Now, it is in this sense that we are to understand the weaker powers to
be images of the Priors. As for the illustration from the fire and the
warmed object, the warmth cannot be called an image of the fire unless
we think of warmth as containing fire so that the two are separate
things. Besides, the fire removed, the warmth does sooner or later
disappear, leaving the object cold.
If we are told that these powers fade out similarly, we are left with
only one imperishable: the souls, the Intellectual-Principle, become
perishable; then since Being [identical with the
Intellectual-Principle] becomes transitory, so also must the Beings,
its productions. Yet the sun, so long as it holds its station in the
universe, will pour the same light upon the same places; to think its
light may be lessened is to hold its mass perishable. But it has been
abundantly stated that the emanants of the First are not perishable,
that the souls, and the Intellectual-Principle with all its content,
cannot perish.
11. Still, this integral omnipresence admitted, why do not all things
participate in the Intellectual Order in its entirety? Why has it a
first participant, a second, and so on?
We can but see that presence is determined by the fitness of the
participant so that, while Being is omnipresent to the realm of Being,
never falling short of itself, yet only the competent possess
themselves of that presence which depends not upon situation but upon
adequacy; the transparent object and the opaque answer very differently
to the light. These firsts, seconds, thirds, of participance are
determined by rank, by power, not by place but by differentiation; and
difference is no bar to coexistence, witness soul and
Intellectual-Principle: similarly our own knowledge, the trivial next
the gravest; one and the same object yields colour to our sight,
fragrance to smell, to every sense a particular experience, all
presented simultaneously.
But would not this indicate that the Authentic is diverse, multiple?
That diversity is simplex still; that multiple is one; for it is a
Reason-Principle, which is to say a unity in variety: all Being is one;
the differing being is still included in Being; the differentiation is
within Being, obviously not within non-Being. Being is bound up with
the unity which is never apart from it; wheresoever Being appears,
there appears its unity; and the unity of Being is self-standing, for
presence in the sensible does not abrogate independence: things of
sense are present to the Intellectual -- where this occurs -- otherwise
than as the Intellectual is present within itself; so, too, body's
presence to soul differs from that of knowledge to soul; one item of
knowledge is present in a different way than another; a body's presence
to body is, again, another form of relation.
12. Think of a sound passing through the air and carrying a word; an
ear within range catches and comprehends; and the sound and word will
strike upon any other ear you may imagine within the intervening void,
upon any that attends; from a great distance many eyes look to the one
object and all take it fully; all this, because eye and ear exist. In
the same way, what is apt for soul will possess itself of soul, while
from the one identical presence another will derive something else.
Now the sound was diffused throughout the air not in sections but as
one sound, entire at every point of that space. So with sight: if the
air carries a shape impressed upon it this is one undivided whole; for,
wherever there be an eye, there the shape will be grasped; even to such
as reject this particular theory of sight, the facts of vision still
stand as an example of participation determined by an identical unity.
The sound is the clearer illustration: the form conveyed is an entirety
over all the air space, for unless the spoken word were entire at every
point, for every ear to catch the whole alike, the same effect could
not be made upon every listener; the sound, evidently, is not strung
along the air, section to section. Why, then, need we hesitate to think
of soul as a thing not extended in broken contact, part for part, but
omnipresent within the range of its presence, indwelling in totality at
every point throughout the All?
Entered into such bodies as are apt to it, the soul is like the spoken
sound present in the air, before that entry, like the speaker about to
speak -- though even embodied it remains at once the speaker and the
silent.
No doubt these illustrations are imperfect, but they carry a
serviceable similitude: the soul belongs to that other Kind, and we
must not conceive a part of it embodied and a part intact; it is at
once a self-enclosed unity and a principle manifested in diversity.
Further, any newcoming entity achieving soul receives mysteriously that
same principle which was equally in the previously ensouled; for it is
not in the dispensation that a given part of soul situate at some given
point should enter here and there; what is thought of as entering was
always a self-enclosed entire and, for all the seeming entry, so
remains; no real entry is conceivable. If, then, the soul never entered
and yet is now seen to be present -- present without waiting upon the
participant -- clearly it is present, here too, without breach of its
self-inclusion. This can mean only that the participant came to soul;
it lay outside the veritable reality but advanced towards it and so
established itself in the kosmos of life. But this kosmos of life is a
self-gathered entire, not divisible into constituent masses but prior
to mass; in other words, the participation is of entire in entire. Any
newcomer into that kosmos of life will participate in it entire.
Admitting, then, that this kosmos of life is present entire in the
universe, it must be similarly entire in each several entity; an
identity numerically one, it must be an undivided entire, omnipresent.
13. But how account, at this, for its extension over all the heavens
and all living beings?
There is no such extension. Sense-perception, by insistence upon which
we doubt, tells of Here and There; but reason certifies that the Here
and There do not attach to that principle; the extended has
participated in that kosmos of life which itself has no extension.
Clearly no participant can participate in itself; self-participation
would be merely identity. Body, then, as participant does not
participate in body; body it has; its participation must be in what is
not body. So too magnitude does not participate in magnitude; it has
it: not even in addition of quantity does the initial magnitude
participate in magnitude: the two cubits do not themselves become three
cubits; what occurs is that an object totalling to a certain quantity
now totals to another: for magnitude to participate in magnitude the
actual two cubits must themselves become the new three [which cannot
occur].
If, then, the divided and quantitatively extended is to participate in
another Kind, is to have any sort of participation, it can participate
only in something undivided, unextended, wholly outside of quantity.
Therefore, that which is to be introduced by the participation must
enter as itself an omnipresent indivisible.
This indivisibility must, of course, not be taken in any sense of
littleness: littleness would be still divisible, could not cover the
extension of the participant and could not maintain integral presence
against that expansion. Nor is it the indivisibility of a geometric
point: the participant mass is no single point but includes an infinity
of points; so that on the theory this principle must be an infinity of
points, not a simultaneous entire, and so, again, will fail to cover
the participant.
If, then, the participant mass in its entirety is to contain that
principle entire, the universe must hold that one soul present at its
every point.
14. But, admitting this one soul at every point, how is there a
particular soul of the individual and how the good soul and the bad?
The one soul reaches to the individual but nonetheless contains all
souls and all intelligences; this, because it is at once a unity and an
infinity; it holds all its content as one yet with each item distinct,
though not to the point of separation. Except by thus holding all its
content as one-life entire, soul entire, all intelligence -- it could
not be infinite; since the individualities are not fenced off from each
other, it remains still one thing. It was to hold life not single but
infinite and yet one life, one in the sense not of an aggregate built
up but of the retention of the unity in which all rose. Strictly, of
course, it is a matter not of the rising of the individuals but of
their being eternally what they are; in that order, as there is no
beginning, so there is no apportioning except as an interpretation by
the recipient. What is of that realm is the ancient and primal; the
relation to it of the thing of process must be that of approach and
apparent merging with always dependence.
But we ourselves, what are We?
Are we that higher or the participant newcomer, the thing of beginnings
in time?
Before we had our becoming Here we existed There, men other than now,
some of us gods: we were pure souls, Intelligence inbound with the
entire of reality, members of the Intellectual, not fenced off, not cut
away, integral to that All. Even now, it is true, we are not put apart;
but upon that primal Man there has intruded another, a man seeking to
come into being and finding us there, for we were not outside of the
universe. This other has wound himself about us, foisting himself upon
the Man that each of us was at first. Then it was as if one voice
sounded, one word was uttered, and from every side an ear attended and
received and there was an effective hearing, possessed through and
through of what was present and active upon it: now we have lost that
first simplicity; we are become the dual thing, sometimes indeed no
more than that later foisting, with the primal nature dormant and in a
sense no longer present.
15. But how did this intruder find entrance?
It had a certain aptitude and it grasped at that to which it was apt.
In its nature it was capable of soul: but what is unfitted to receive
soul entire -- present entire but not for it -- takes what share it
may; such are the members of the animal and vegetal order. Similarly,
of a significant sound, some forms of being take sound and significance
together, others only the sound, the blank impact.
A living thing comes into existence containing soul, present to it from
the Authentic, and by soul is inbound with Reality entire; it possesses
also a body; but this body is not a husk having no part in soul, not a
thing that earlier lay away in the soulless; the body had its aptitude
and by this draws near: now it is not body merely, but living body. By
this neighboring it is enhanced with some impress of soul -- not in the
sense of a portion of soul entering into it, but that it is warmed and
lit by soul entire: at once there is the ground of desire, pleasure,
pain; the body of the living form that has come to be was certainly no
unrelated thing.
The soul, sprung from the divine, lay self-enclosed at peace, true to
its own quality; but its neighbour, in uproar through weakness,
instable of its own nature and beaten upon from without, cries, at
first to itself and afterwards upon the living total, spreading the
disorder at large. Thus, at an assembly the Elders may sit in tranquil
meditation, but an unruly populace, crying for food and casting up a
host of grievances, will bring the whole gathering into ugly turmoil;
when this sort of people hold their peace so that a word from a man of
sense may reach them, some passable order is restored and the baser
part ceases to prevail; otherwise the silence of the better allows the
rabble to rule, the distracted assembly unable to take the word from
above.
This is the evil of state and of council: and this is the evil of man;
man includes an inner rabble -- pleasures, desires, fears -- and these
become masters when the man, the manifold, gives them play.
But one that has reduced his rabble and gone back to the Man he was,
lives to that and is that Man again, so that what he allows to the body
is allowed as to something separate.
There is the man, too, that lives partly in the one allegiance and
partly in the other; he is a blend of the good that is himself with the
evil that is alien.
16. But if that Principle can never fall to evil and we have given a
true account of the soul's entry or presence to body, what are we to
say of the periodic Descents and Returns, the punishments, the
banishment into animal forms? That teaching we have inherited from
those ancient philosophers who have best probed into soul and we must
try to show that our own doctrine is accordant with it, or at least not
conflicting.
We have seen that the participation of things here in that higher means
not that the soul has gone outside of itself to enter the corporeal,
but that the corporeal has approached soul and is now participant in
it; the coming affirmed by the ancients can be only that approach of
the body to the higher by which it partakes of life and of soul; this
has nothing to do with local entry but is some form of communion; by
the descent and embodiment of current phrasing must be understood not
that soul becomes an appanage of body but that it gives out to it
something of itself; similarly, the soul's departure is the complete
cessation of that communion.
The various rankings of the universe will determine various degrees of
the communion; soul, ultimate of the Intellectual, will give forth
freely to body as being more nearly of the one power and standing
closer, as distance holds in that order.
The soul's evil will be this association, its good the release. Why?
Because, even unmerged, a soul in any way to be described as attached
to this universe is in some degree fallen from the All into a state of
partition; essentially belonging to the All, it no longer directs its
act Thither: thus, a man's knowledge is one whole, but he may guide
himself by no more than some single item of it, where his good would
lie in living not by some such fragment but by the total of his
knowing.
That One Soul -- member of the Intellectual kosmos and there merging
what it has of partial into the total -- has broken away, so to speak,
from the All to the part and to that devotes itself becoming partial
with it: thus fire that might consume everything may be set to ply its
all-power upon some trifle. So long as the soul remains utterly
unattached it is soul not singled out; when it has accepted separation
-- not that of place but that of act determining individualities -- it
is a part, no longer the soul entire, or at least not entire in the
first sense; when, on the contrary, it exercises no such outward
control it is perfectly the All-Soul, the partial in it latent.
As for the entry into the World of the Shades, if this means into the
unseen, that is its release; if into some lower place, there is nothing
strange in that, since even here the soul is taken to be where the body
is, in place with the body.
But on the dissolution of the body?
So long as the image-soul has not been discarded, clearly the higher
will be where that is; if, on the contrary, the higher has been
completely emancipated by philosophic discipline, the image-soul may
very well go alone to that lower place, the authentic passing
uncontaminated into the Intellectual, separated from that image but
nonetheless the soul entire.
Let the image-offspring of the individuality -- fare as it may, the
true soul when it turns its light upon itself, chooses the higher and
by that choice blends into the All, neither acting now nor extinct.
But it is time to return to our main theme:
__________________________________________________________________
FIFTH TRACTATE
ON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE
AUTHENTIC EXISTENT (2).
1. The integral omnipresence of a unity numerically identical is in
fact universally received; for all men instinctively affirm the god in
each of us to be one, the same in all. It would be taken as certain if
no one asked How or sought to bring the conviction to the test of
reasoning; with this effective in their thought, men would be at rest,
finding their stay in that oneness and identity, so that nothing would
wrench them from this unity. This principle, indeed, is the most
solidly established of all, proclaimed by our very souls; we do not
piece it up item by item, but find it within beforehand; it precedes
even the principle by which we affirm unquestionably that all things
seek their good; for this universal quest of good depends on the fact
that all aim at unity and possess unity and that universally effort is
towards unity.
Now this unity in going forth, so far as it may, towards the Other
Order must become manifest as multiplicity and in some sense become
multiple; but the primal nature and the appetition of the good, which
is appetition of unity, lead back to what is authentically one; to this
every form of Being is urged in a movement towards its own reality. For
the good to every nature possessing unity is to be self-belonging, to
be itself, and that means to be a unity.
In virtue of that unity the Good may be regarded as truly inherent.
Hence the Good is not to be sought outside; it could not have fallen
outside of what is; it cannot possibly be found in non-Being; within
Being the Good must lie, since it is never a non-Being.
If that Good has Being and is within the realm of Being, then it is
present, self-contained, in everything: we, therefore, need not look
outside of Being; we are in it; yet that Good is not exclusively ours:
therefore all beings are one.
2. Now the reasoning faculty which undertakes this problem is not a
unity but a thing of parts; it brings the bodily nature into the
enquiry, borrowing its principles from the corporeal: thus it thinks of
the Essential Existence as corporeal and as a thing of parts; it baulks
at the unity because it does not start from the appropriate principles.
We, however, must be careful to bring the appropriately convincing
principles to the discussion of the Unity, of perfect Being: we must
hold to the Intellectual principles which alone apply to the
Intellectual Order and to Real Being.
On the one hand there is the unstable, exposed to all sorts of change,
distributed in place, not so much Being as Becoming: on the other,
there is that which exists eternally, not divided, subject to no change
of state, neither coming into being nor falling from it, set in no
region or place or support, emerging from nowhere, entering into
nothing, fast within itself.
In dealing with that lower order we would reason from its own nature
and the characteristics it exhibits; thus, on a plausible foundation,
we achieve plausible results by a plausible system of deduction:
similarly, in dealing with the Intellectual, the only way is to grasp
the nature of the essence concerned and so lay the sure foundations of
the argument, not forgetfully straying over into that other order but
basing our treatment on what is essential to the Nature with which we
deal.
In every entity the essential nature is the governing principle and, as
we are told, a sound definition brings to light many even of the
concomitants: where the essential nature is the entire being, we must
be all the more careful to keep to that, to look to that, to refer all
to that.
3. If this principle is the Authentic Existent and holds unchanging
identity, does not go forth from itself, is untouched by any process of
becoming or, as we have said, by any situation in place, then it must
be always self-gathered, never in separation, not partly here and
partly there, not giving forth from itself: any such instability would
set it in thing after thing or at least in something other than itself:
then it would no longer be self-gathered; nor would it be immune, for
anything within which it were lodged would affect it; immune, it is not
in anything. If, then, not standing away from itself, not distributed
by part, not taking the slightest change, it is to be in many things
while remaining a self-concentrated entire, there is some way in which
it has multipresence; it is at once self-enclosed and not so: the only
way is to recognise that while this principle itself is not lodged in
anything, all other things participate in it -- all that are apt and in
the measure of their aptitude.
Thus, we either cancel all that we have affirmed and the principles
laid down, and deny the existence of any such Nature, or, that being
impossible, we return to our first position:
The One, numerically identical, undistributed, an unbroken entire, yet
stands remote from nothing that exists by its side; but it does not,
for that, need to pour itself forth: there is no necessity either that
certain portions of it enter into things or again that, while it
remains self-abiding, something produced and projected from it enter at
various points into that other order. Either would imply something of
it remaining there while the emanant is elsewhere: thus separated from
what has gone forth, it would experience local division. And would
those emanants be, each in itself, whole or part? If part, the One has
lost its nature, that of an entire, as we have already indicated; if
whole, then either the whole is broken up to coincide point for point
with that in which it is become present or we are admitting that an
unbroken identity can be omnipresent.
This is a reasoning, surely, founded on the thing itself and its
essential nature, not introducing anything foreign, anything belonging
to the Other Order.
4. Then consider this god [in man] whom we cannot think to be absent at
some point and present at another. All that have insight into the
nature of the divine beings hold the omnipresence of this god and of
all the gods, and reason assures us that so it must be.
Now all-pervasion is inconsistent with partition; that would mean no
longer the god throughout but part of the god at one point and part at
another; the god ceases to be one god, just as a mass cut up ceases to
be a mass, the parts no longer giving the first total. Further, the god
becomes corporeal.
If all this is impossible, the disputed doctrine presents itself again;
holding the god to pervade the Being of man, we hold the omnipresence
of an integral identity.
Again, if we think of the divine nature as infinite -- and certainly it
is confined by no bounds -- this must mean that it nowhere fails; its
presence must reach to everything; at the point to which it does not
reach, there it has failed; something exists in which it is not.
Now, admitting any sequent to the absolute unity, that sequent must be
bound up with the absolute; any third will be about that second and
move towards it, linked to it as its offspring. In this way all
participants in the Later will have share in the First. The Beings of
the Intellectual are thus a plurality of firsts and seconds and thirds
attached like one sphere to one centre, not separated by interval but
mutually present; where, therefore, the Intellectual tertiaries are
present, the secondaries and firsts are present too.
5. Often for the purpose of exposition -- as a help towards stating the
nature of the produced multiplicity -- we use the example of many lines
radiating from one centre; but, while we provide for individualization,
we must carefully preserve mutual presence. Even in the case of our
circle we need not think of separated radii; all may be taken as
forming one surface: where there is no distinction even upon the one
surface but all is power and reality undifferentiated, all the beings
may be thought of as centres uniting at one central centre: we ignore
the radial lines and think of their terminals at that centre, where
they are at one. Restore the radii; once more we have lines, each
touching a generating centre of its own, but that centre remains
coincident with the one first centre; the centres all unite in that
first centre and yet remain what they were, so that they are as many as
are the lines to which they serve as terminals; the centres themselves
appear as numerous as the lines starting from gem and yet all those
centres constitute a unity.
Thus we may liken the Intellectual Beings in their diversity to many
centres coinciding with the one centre and themselves at one in it but
appearing multiple on account of the radial lines -- lines which do not
generate the centres but merely lead to them. The radii, thus, afford a
serviceable illustration for the mode of contact by which the
Intellectual Unity manifests itself as multiple and multipresent.
6. The Intellectual Beings, thus, are multiple and one; in virtue of
their infinite nature their unity is a multiplicity, many in one and
one over many, a unit-plurality. They act as entire upon entire; even
upon the partial thing they act as entire; but there is the difference
that at first the partial accepts this working only partially though
the entire enters later. Thus, when Man enters into human form there
exists a particular man who, however, is still Man. From the one thing
Man -- man in the Idea -- material man has come to constitute many
individual men: the one identical thing is present in multiplicity, in
multi-impression, so to speak, from the one seal.
This does not mean that Man Absolute, or any Absolute, or the Universe
in the sense of a Whole, is absorbed by multiplicity; on the contrary,
the multiplicity is absorbed by the Absolute, or rather is bound up
with it. There is a difference between the mode in which a colour may
be absorbed by a substance entire and that in which the soul of the
individual is identically present in every part of the body: it is in
this latter mode that Being is omnipresent.
7. To Real Being we go back, all that we have and are; to that we
return as from that we came. Of what is There we have direct knowledge,
not images or even impressions; and to know without image is to be; by
our part in true knowledge we are those Beings; we do not need to bring
them down into ourselves, for we are There among them. Since not only
ourselves but all other things also are those Beings, we all are they;
we are they while we are also one with all: therefore we and all things
are one.
When we look outside of that on which we depend we ignore our unity;
looking outward we see many faces; look inward and all is the one head.
If man could but be turned about by his own motion or by the happy pull
of Athene -- he would see at once God and himself and the All. At first
no doubt all will not be seen as one whole, but when we find no stop at
which to declare a limit to our being we cease to rule ourselves out
from the total of reality; we reach to the All as a unity -- and this
not by any stepping forward, but by the fact of being and abiding there
where the All has its being.
8. For my part I am satisfied that anyone considering the mode in which
Matter participates in the Ideas will be ready enough to accept this
tenet of omnipresence in identity, no longer rejecting it as incredible
or even difficult. This because it seems reasonable and imperative to
dismiss any notion of the Ideas lying apart with Matter illumined from
them as from somewhere above -- a meaningless conception, for what have
distance and separation to do here?
This participation cannot be thought of as elusive or very perplexing;
on the contrary, it is obvious, accessible in many examples.
Note, however, that when we sometimes speak of the Ideas illuminating
Matter this is not to suggest the mode in which material light pours
down on a material object; we use the phrase in the sense only that,
the material being image while the Ideas are archetypes, the two orders
are distinguished somewhat in the manner of illuminant and illuminated.
But it is time to be more exact.
We do not mean that the Idea, locally separate, shows itself in Matter
like a reflection in water; the Matter touches the Idea at every point,
though not in a physical contact, and, by dint of neighbourhood --
nothing to keep them apart -- is able to absorb thence all that lies
within its capacity, the Idea itself not penetrating, not approaching,
the Matter, but remaining self-locked.
We take it, then, that the Idea, say of Fire -- for we had best deal
with Matter as underlying the elements -- is not in the Matter. The
Ideal Fire, then, remaining apart, produces the form of fire throughout
the entire enfired mass. Now let us suppose -- and the same method will
apply to all the so-called elements -- that this Fire in its first
material manifestation is a multiple mass. That single Fire is seen
producing an image of itself in all the sensible fires; yet it is not
spatially separate; it does not, then, produce that image in the manner
of our visible light; for in that case all this sensible fire,
supposing that it were a whole of parts [as the analogy would
necessitate], must have generated spatial positions out of itself,
since the Idea or Form remains in a non-spatial world; for a principle
thus pluralized must first have departed from its own character in
order to be present in that many and participate many times in the one
same Form.
The Idea, impartible, gives nothing of itself to the Matter; its
unbreaking unity, however, does not prevent it shaping that multiple by
its own unity and being present to the entirety of the multiple,
bringing it to pattern not by acting part upon part but by presence
entire to the object entire. It would be absurd to introduce a
multitude of Ideas of Fire, each several fire being shaped by a
particular idea; the Ideas of fire would be infinite. Besides, how
would these resultant fires be distinct, when fire is a continuous
unity? and if we apply yet another fire to certain matter and produce a
greater fire, then the same Idea must be allowed to have functioned in
the same way in the new matter as in the old; obviously there is no
other Idea.
9. The elements in their totality, as they stand produced, may be
thought of as one spheric figure; this cannot be the piecemeal product
of many makers each working from some one point on some one portion.
There must be one cause; and this must operate as an entire, not by
part executing part; otherwise we are brought back to a plurality of
makers. The making must be referred to a partless unity, or, more
precisely, the making principle must be a partless unity not permeating
the sphere but holding it as one dependent thing. In this way the
sphere is enveloped by one identical life in which it is inset; its
entire content looks to the one life: thus all the souls are one, a
one, however, which yet is infinite.
It is in this understanding that the soul has been taken to be a
numerical principle, while others think of it as in its nature a
self-increasing number; this latter notion is probably designed to meet
the consideration that the soul at no point fails but, retaining its
distinctive character, is ample for all, so much so that were the
kosmos vaster yet the virtue of soul would still compass it -- or
rather the kosmos still be sunk in soul entire.
Of course, we must understand this adding of extension not as a literal
increase but in the sense that the soul, essentially a unity, becomes
adequate to omnipresence; its unity sets it outside of quantitative
measurement, the characteristic of that other order which has but a
counterfeit unity, an appearance by participation.
The essential unity is no aggregate to be annulled upon the loss of
some one of the constituents; nor is it held within any allotted
limits, for so it would be the less for a set of things, more extensive
than itself, outside its scope; or it must wrench itself asunder in the
effort to reach to all; besides, its presence to things would be no
longer as whole to all but by part to part; in vulgar phrase, it does
not know where it stands; dismembered, it no longer performs any one
single function.
Now if this principle is to be a true unity -- where the unity is of
the essence -- it must in some way be able to manifest itself as
including the contrary nature, that of potential multiplicity, while by
the fact that this multiplicity belongs to it not as from without but
as from and by itself, it remains authentically one, possessing
boundlessness and multiplicity within that unity; its nature must be
such that it can appear as a whole at every point; this, as encircled
by a single self-embracing Reason-Principle, which holds fast about
that unity, never breaking with itself but over all the universe
remaining what it must be.
The unity is in this way saved from the local division of the things in
which it appears; and, of course, existing before all that is in place,
it could never be founded upon anything belonging to that order of
which, on the contrary, it is the foundation; yet, for all that they
are based upon it, it does not cease to be wholly self-gathered; if its
fixed seat were shaken, all the rest would fall with the fall of their
foundation and stay; nor could it be so unintelligent as to tear itself
apart by such a movement and, secure within its own being, trust itself
to the insecurity of place which, precisely, looks to it for safety.
10. It remains, then, poised in wisdom within itself; it could not
enter into any other; those others look to it and in their longing find
it where it is. This is that "Love Waiting at the Door," ever coming up
from without, striving towards the beautiful, happy when to the utmost
of its power it attains. Even here the lover does not so much possess
himself of the beauty he has loved as wait before it; that Beauty is
abidingly self-enfolded but its lovers, the Many, loving it as an
entire, possess it as an entire when they attain, for it was an entire
that they loved. This seclusion does not prevent its sufficing to all,
but is the very reason for its adequacy; because it is thus entire for
all it can be The Good to all.
Similarly wisdom is entire to all; it is one thing; it is not
distributed parcelwise; it cannot be fixed to place; it is not spread
about like a colouring, for it is not corporeal; in any true
participation in wisdom there must be one thing acting as unit upon
unit. So must it be in our participation in the One; we shall not take
our several portions of it, nor you some separate entire and I another.
Think of what happens in Assemblies and all kinds of meetings; the road
to sense is the road to unity; singly the members are far from wise; as
they begin to grow together, each, in that true growth, generates
wisdom while he recognizes it. There is nothing to prevent our
intelligences meeting at one centre from their several positions; all
one, they seem apart to us as when without looking we touch one object
or sound one string with different fingers and think we feel several.
Or take our souls in their possession of good; it is not one good for
me and another for you; it is the same for both and not in the sense
merely of distinct products of an identical source, the good somewhere
above with something streaming from it into us; in any real receiving
of good, giver is in contact with taker and gives not as to a recipient
outside but to one in intimate contact.
The Intellectual giving is not an act of transmission; even in the case
of corporeal objects, with their local separation, the mutual giving
[and taking] is of things of one order and their communication, every
effect they produce, is upon their like; what is corporeal in the All
acts and is acted upon within itself, nothing external impinging upon
it. Now if in body, whose very nature is partition, there is no
incursion of the alien, how can there be any in the order in which no
partition exists?
It is therefore by identification that we see the good and touch it,
brought to it by becoming identical with what is of the Intellectual
within ourselves. In that realm exists what is far more truly a kosmos
of unity; otherwise there will be two sensible universes, divided into
correspondent parts; the Intellectual sphere, if a unity only as this
sphere is, will be undistinguishable from it -- except, indeed, that it
will be less worthy of respect since in the nature of things extension
is appropriate in the lower while the Intellectual will have wrought
out its own extension with no motive, in a departure from its very
character.
And what is there to hinder this unification? There is no question of
one member pushing another out as occupying too much space, any more
than happens in our own minds where we take in the entire fruit of our
study and observation, all uncrowded.
We may be told that this unification is not possible in Real Beings; it
certainly would not be possible, if the Reals had extension.
11. But how can the unextended reach over the defined extension of the
corporeal? How can it, so, maintain itself as a unity, an identity?
This is a problem often raised and reason calls vehemently for a
solution of the difficulties involved. The fact stands abundantly
evident, but there is still the need of intellectual satisfaction.
We have, of course, no slight aid to conviction, indeed the very
strongest, in the exposition of the character of that principle. It is
not like a stone, some vast block lying where it lies, covering the
space of its own extension, held within its own limits, having a fixed
quantity of mass and of assigned stone-power. It is a First Principle,
measureless, not bounded within determined size -- such measurement
belongs to another order -- and therefore it is all-power, nowhere
under limit. Being so, it is outside of Time.
Time in its ceaseless onward sliding produces parted interval; Eternity
stands in identity, pre-eminent, vaster by unending power than Time
with all the vastness of its seeming progress; Time is like a radial
line running out apparently to infinity but dependent upon that, its
centre, which is the pivot of all its movement; as it goes it tells of
that centre, but the centre itself is the unmoving principle of all the
movement.
Time stands, thus, in analogy with the principle which holds fast in
unchanging identity of essence: but that principle is infinite not only
in duration but also in power: this infinity of power must also have
its counterpart, a principle springing from that infinite power and
dependent upon it; this counterpart will, after its own mode, run a
course -- corresponding to the course of Time -- in keeping with that
stationary power which is its greater as being its source: and in this
too the source is present throughout the full extension of its lower
correspondent.
This secondary of Power, participating as far as it may in that higher,
must be identified.
Now the higher power is present integrally but, in the weakness of the
recipient material, is not discerned as every point; it is present as
an identity everywhere not in the mode of the material triangle --
identical though, in many representations, numerically multiple, but in
the mode of the immaterial, ideal triangle which is the source of the
material figures. If we are asked why the omnipresence of the
immaterial triangle does not entail that of the material figure, we
answer that not all Matter enters into the participation necessary;
Matter accepts various forms and not all Matter is apt for all form;
the First Matter, for example, does not lend itself to all but is for
the First Kinds first and for the others in due order, though these,
too, are omnipresent.
12. To return: How is that Power present to the universe?
As a One Life.
Consider the life in any living thing; it does not reach only to some
fixed point, unable to permeate the entire being; it is omnipresent. If
on this again we are asked How, we appeal to the character of this
power, not subject to quantity but such that though you divide it
mentally for ever you still have the same power, infinite to the core;
in it there is no Matter to make it grow less and less according to the
measured mass.
Conceive it as a power of an ever-fresh infinity, a principle
unfailing, inexhaustible, at no point giving out, brimming over with
its own vitality. If you look to some definite spot and seek to fasten
on some definite thing, you will not find it. The contrary is your only
way; you cannot pass on to where it is not; you will never halt at a
dwindling point where it fails at last and can no longer give; you will
always be able to move with it -- better, to be in its entirety -- and
so seek no further; denying it, you have strayed away to something of
another order and you fall; looking elsewhere you do not see what
stands there before you.
But supposing you do thus "seek no further," how do you experience it?
In that you have entered into the All, no longer content with the part;
you cease to think of yourself as under limit but, laying all such
determination aside, you become an All. No doubt you were always that,
but there has been an addition and by that addition you are diminished;
for the addition was not from the realm of Being -- you can add nothing
to Being -- but from non-Being. It is not by some admixture of
non-Being that one becomes an entire, but by putting non-Being away. By
the lessening of the alien in you, you increase. Cast it aside and
there is the All within you; engaged in the alien, you will not find
the All. Not that it has to come and so be present to you; it is you
that have turned from it. And turn though you may, you have not severed
yourself; it is there; you are not in some far region: still there
before it, you have faced to its contrary.
It is so with the lesser gods; of many standing in their presence it is
often one alone that sees them; that one alone was alone in the power
to see. These are the gods who "in many guises seek our cities"; but
there is That Other whom the cities seek, and all the earth and heaven,
everywhere with God and in Him, possessing through Him their Being and
the Real Beings about them, down to soul and life, all bound to Him and
so moving to that unity which by its very lack of extension is
infinite.
__________________________________________________________________
SIXTH TRACTATE.
ON NUMBERS.
1. It is suggested that multiplicity is a falling away from The Unity,
infinity being the complete departure, an innumerable multiplicity, and
that this is why unlimit is an evil and we evil at the stage of
multiplicity.
A thing, in fact, becomes a manifold when, unable to remain
self-centred, it flows outward and by that dissipation takes extension:
utterly losing unity it becomes a manifold since there is nothing to
bind part to part; when, with all this outflowing, it becomes something
definite, there is a magnitude.
But what is there so grievous in magnitude?
Given consciousness, there will be, since the thing must feel its
exile, its sundrance from its essence. Everything seeks not the alien
but itself; in that outward moving there is frustration or compulsion;
a thing most exists not when it takes multiplicity or extension but
when it holds to its own being, that is when its movement is inward.
Desire towards extension is ignorance of the authentically great, a
movement not on the appropriate path but towards the strange; to the
possession of the self the way is inward.
Consider the thing that has taken extension; broken into so many
independent items, it is now those several parts and not the thing it
was; if that original is to persist, the members must stand collected
to their total; in other words, a thing is itself not by being extended
but by remaining, in its degree, a unity: through expansion and in the
measure of the expansion, it is less itself; retaining unity, it
retains its essential being.
Yet the universe has at once extension and beauty?
Yes; because it has not been allowed to slip away into the limitless
but is held fast by unity; and it has beauty in virtue of Beauty not of
Magnitude; it needed Beauty to parry that magnitude; in the degree of
its extension it was void of beauty and to that degree ugly. Thus
extension serves as Matter to Beauty since what calls for its ordering
is a multiplicity. The greater the expansion, the greater the disorder
and ugliness.
2. What, then, of the "Number of the Infinite"?
To begin with, how is Number consistent with infinity?
Objects of sense are not unlimited and therefore the Number applying to
them cannot be so. Nor is an enumerator able to number to infinity;
though we double, multiply over and over again, we still end with a
finite number; though we range over past and future, and consider them,
even, as a totality, we still end with the finite.
Are we then to dismiss absolute limitlessness and think merely that
there is always something beyond?
No; that more is not in the reckoner's power to produce; the total
stands already defined.
In the Intellectual the Beings are determined and with them Number, the
number corresponding to their total; in this sphere of our own -- as we
make a man a multiple by counting up his various characteristics, his
beauty and the rest -- we take each image of Being and form a
corresponding image of number; we multiply a non-existent in and so
produce multiple numbers; if we number years we draw on the numbers in
our own minds and apply them to the years; these numbers are still our
possession.
3. And there is the question How can the infinite have existence and
remain unlimited: whatever is in actual existence is by that very fact
determined numerically.
But, first, if multiplicity holds a true place among Beings, how can it
be an evil?
As existent it possesses unity; it is a unit-multiple, saved from stark
multiplicity; but it is of a lessened unity and, by that inwoven
multiplicity, it is evil in comparison with unity pure. No longer
steadfast in that nature, but fallen, it is the less, while in virtue
of the unity thence retained it keeps some value; multiplicity has
value in so far as it tends to return to, unity.
But how explain the unlimited? It would seem that either it is among
beings and so is limited or, if unlimited, is not among beings but, at
best, among things of process such as Time. To be brought to limit it
must be unlimited; not the limited but the unlimited is the subject of
limitation, since between the limited and the unlimited there is no
intermediate to accept the principle of limitation. The unlimited
recoils by very nature from the Idea of limit, though it may be caught
and held by it from without: -- the recoil, of course, is not from one
place to another; the limitless can have nothing to do with place which
arises only with the limiting of the unlimited. Hence what is known as
the flux of the unlimited is not to be understood as local change; nor
does any other sort of recognisable motion belong to it in itself;
therefore the limitless cannot move: neither can it be at rest: in
what, since all place is later? Its movement means little more than
that it is not fixed in rest.
Is it, then, suspended at some one point, or rocking to and fro?
No; any such poising, with or without side motion, could be known only
by place [which Matter precedes].
How, then, are we to form any conception of its being?
We must fasten on the bare notion and take what that gives us --
opposites that still are not opposed: we think of large and small and
the unlimited becomes either, of stationary and moving, and it will be
either of these. But primarily it can be neither in any defined degree,
or at once it is under limit. Limitless in this unlimited and undefined
way, it is able to appear as either of a pair of opposites: draw near,
taking care to throw no net of limit over it, and you have something
that slips away; you come upon no unity for so it would be defined;
approach the thing as a unit, and you find it manifold; call it a
manifold, and again you falsify, for when the single thing is not a
unity neither is the total a manifold. In one manifestation it takes
the appearance of movement, in another of rest, as the mind envisages
it.
And there is movement in its lack of consciousness; it has passed out
of Intellectual-Principle, slid away. That it cannot break free but is
under compulsion from without to keep to its circling with no
possibility of advance, in this would be its rest. Thus it is not true
to speak of Matter as being solely in flux.
4. We have to enquire into the existence of the Numbers in the
Intellectual. Are they Ideas added to the other Ideas? Or are they no
more than necessary concomitants to the Ideas?
In the latter case, Being, as the first [in the Intellectual] would
give us the conception of the Monad; then since Being produces motion
and rest, Three exists; and so on for all the other members of the
realm of Being. Or perhaps there is one monad for each member, or a
monad for the first, with a dyad for its next, since there exists a
series, and a corresponding number for every successive total, decad
for ten, and so on.
If, on the contrary, Number is a direct production of the
Intellectual-Principle [an Idea in itself], there is the question
whether it preceded or followed the other Ideas.
Plato, where he says that men arrived at the conception of Number by
way of the changes of day and night -- thus making the concept depend
upon variation among things -- seems to hold that the things numerable
precede and by their differences produce number: Number then would
consist in a process within the human mind passing onwards from thing
to thing; it results by the fact that the mind takes count, that is
when the mind traverses things and reports their differences; observing
pure identity unbroken by difference, it says One. But there is the
passage where he tells us that the veritable Number has Being, is a
Being; this is the opposed view that Number is no product of the
reckoning mind but a reality in itself, the concept of which is
reawakened in the mind by changes in things of sense.
5. What then is the veritable nature of Number?
Is it an accompaniment upon each substance, something seen in the
things as in a man we see one man, in a being one being and in the
total of presentations the total of number?
But how explain the dyad and triad? How comes the total to be unitary
and any particular number to be brought under unity? The theory offers
a multiplicity of units, and no number is reducible to unity but the
simple "one." It might be suggested that a dyad is that thing -- or
rather what is observed upon that thing -- which has two powers
combined, a compound thing related to a unity: or numbers might be what
the Pythagoreans seem to hold them in their symbolic system in which
Justice, for example, is a Tetrad: but this is rather to add the
number, a number of manifold unity like the decad, to the multiplicity
of the thing which yet is one thing. Now it is not so that we treat the
ten things; we bring them together and apply the figure ten to the
several items. Or rather in that case we say ten, but when the several
items form a unity we say decad. This would apply in the Intellectual
as in the sensible.
But how then can number, observed upon things, rank among Real Beings?
One answer might be that whiteness is similarly observed upon things
and yet is real, just as movement is observed upon things and there is
still a real existence of movement. But movement is not on a par with
number: it is because movement is an entity that unity can be observed
upon it. Besides, the kind of real existence thus implied annuls the
reality of number, making it no more than an attribute; but that cannot
be since an attribute must exist before it can be attributed; it may be
inseparable from the subject but still must in itself be something,
some entity as whiteness is; to be a predicate it must be that which is
to be predicated. Thus if unity is observed in every subject, and "one
man" says more than "man's oneness being different from the manness and
common to all things -- then this oneness must be something prior to
man and to all the rest: only so can the unity come to apply to each
and to all: it must therefore be prior also to even movement, prior to
Being, since without unity these could not be each one thing: of course
what is here meant is not the unity postulated as transcending Being
but the unity predicable of the Ideas which constitute each several
thing. So too there is a decad prior to the subject in which we affirm
it; this prior would be the decad absolute, for certainly the thing in
which the decad is observed is not that absolute.
Is this unity, then, connate and coexistent to the Beings? Suppose it
coexistent merely as an accidental, like health in man, it still must
exist of itself; suppose it present as an element in a compound, there
must first exist unity and the unity absolute that can thus enter into
composition; moreover if it were compounded with an object brought into
being by its agency it would make that object only spuriously a unity;
its entry would produce a duality.
But what of the decad? Where lies the need of decad to a thing which,
by totalling to that power, is decad already?
The need may be like that of Form to Matter; ten and decad may exist by
its virtue; and, once more, the decad must previously exist of its own
existence, decad unattached.
6. Granted, then, that there exist, apart from things, a unity absolute
and a decad absolute in other words, that the Intellectual beings,
together with their characteristic essence have also their order,
Henads, Dyads, Triads, what is the nature of these numerical entities
and how does it come into being? We cannot but think that some reason
accounts for their origin.
As a beginning, what is the origin of the Ideas in general? It is not
that the thinking principle thought of each Idea and by that act of
thought procured their several existences; not because Justice and
Movement were thus thought did they come to be; that would imply that
while the thought is later than the thing -- the concept of Justice
must be later than Justice itself -- yet the thought precedes what, as
founded on the thinking, owes its existence to it. Besides, if justice
is only a certain definite thought we have the absurdity that Justice
is nothing more than a definition of Justice. Thinking of Justice or
Movement is but grasping their nature; this would mean grasping the
non-existent, an impossibility.
We may be reminded that in immaterial objects the knowledge is
identical with the thing; but we must not misapply that statement; it
does not say that the knowledge is the thing known, or that the reason
surveying the thing is the thing, but that the immaterial thing, being
an Intellectual object is also a thought; this does not imply a
definition or conception of the object; the thing itself, as belonging
to the Intellectual, can be nothing else than Intellect or knowledge.
This is not a case of knowledge self-directed; it is that the thing in
the Intellectual transmutes the knowledge, which is not fixed like the
knowledge of material things; in other words it makes it true
knowledge, that is to say no image of the thing but the thing directly.
Thus it is not the conception of movement that brings movement to be;
movement absolute produces that conception; it produces itself as at
once movement and the concept of movement, for movement as it exists
There, bound up with Being, is a concept. It is movement absolute
because it is the first movement -- there can be none till this exist
-- and it is the authentic Movement since it is not accidental to
something else but is the activity of actual Being in motion. Thus it
is a real existent, though the notion of Being is different.
Justice therefore is not the thought of Justice but, as we may put it,
a state of the Intellectual-Principle, or rather an activity of it --
an appearance so lovely that neither evening nor dawn is so fair, nor
anything else in all the realm of sense, an Intellectual manifestation
self-rising, self-seen, or, rather, self-being.
7. It is inevitably necessary to think of all as contained within one
nature; one nature must hold and encompass all; there cannot be as in
the realm of sense thing apart from thing, here a sun and elsewhere
something else; all must be mutually present within a unity. This is
the very nature of the Intellectual-Principle as we may know from soul
which reproduces it and from what we call Nature under which and by
which the things of process are brought into their disjointed being
while that Nature itself remains indissolubly one.
But within the unity There, the several entities have each its own
distinct existence; the all-embracing Intellect sees what is in it,
what is within Being; it need not look out upon them since it contains
them, need not separate them since they stand for ever distinct within
it.
Against doubters we cite the fact of participation; the greatness and
beauty of the Intellectual-Principle we know by the soul's longing
towards it; the longing of the rest towards soul is set up by its
likeness to its higher and to the possibility open to them of attaining
resemblance through it.
It is surely inconceivable that any living thing be beautiful failing a
Life-Absolute of a wonderful, an ineffable, beauty: this must be the
Collective Life, made up of all living things, or embracing all,
forming a unity coextensive with all, as our universe is a unity
embracing all the visible.
8. As then there is a Life-Form primal -- which therefore is the
Life-Form Absolute -- and there is Intellectual-Principle or Being,
Authentic Being, these, we affirm, contain all living things and all
Number, and Absolute Justice and Beauty and all of that order; for we
ascribe an existence of their own to Absolute Man, Absolute Number,
Absolute Justice. It remains to discover, in so far as such knowledge
is possible, how these distinct entities come to be and what is the
manner of their being.
At the outset we must lay aside all sense-perception; by
Intellectual-Principle we know Intellectual-Principle. We reflect
within ourselves there is life, there is intellect, not in extension
but as power without magnitude, issue of Authentic Being which is power
self-existing, no vacuity but a thing most living and intellective --
nothing more living, more intelligent, more real -- and producing its
effect by contact and in the ratio of the contact, closely to the
close, more remotely to the remote. If Being is to be sought, then most
be sought is Being at its intensest; so too the intensest of Intellect
if the Intellectual act has worth; and so, too, of Life.
First, then, we take Being as first in order; then
Intellectual-Principle; then the Living-Form considered as containing
all things: Intellectual-Principle, as the Act of Real Being, is a
second.
Thus it is clear that Number cannot be dependent upon the Living-Form
since unity and duality existed before that; nor does it rise in the
Intellectual-Principle since before that there existed Real Being which
is both one and numerous.
9. It remains then to consider whether Being by its distinction
produced Number or Number produced that distinction. It is certain that
either Number was the cause of Being, movement, rest, identity and
difference, or these the cause of Number.
The first question is whether Number can exist in and of itself or is
dependent upon things -- Two being something observed in two things,
Three in three; and so of the arithmetical One, for if this could exist
apart from numbered objects it could exist also before the divisions of
Being.
But could it precede Being itself?
For the present we must take it that Being precedes Number, is its
source. But if One means one being and the duality two beings, then
unity precedes Being, and Number precedes the Beings.
Mentally, to our approach? Yes: and in reality of existence as well.
Let us consider: When we think of the existence and the fine appearance
of a man as forming one thing, that unity is certainly thought of as
subsequent to a precedent duality; when we group a horse with a dog,
the duality is obviously the subsequent. But think of that which brings
man or horse or dog into being or produces them, with full intention,
from where they lie latent within itself: the producer must say "I
begin with a first, I pass on to a second; that makes two; counting
myself there are three." Of course there was no such numbering even of
Beings for their production, since the due number was known from the
very beginning; but this consideration serves to show that all Number
precedes the very Beings themselves.
But if Number thus preceded the Beings, then it is not included among
them?
The truth is that it existed within the Authentic Being but not as
applying to it, for Being was still unparted; the potentiality of
Number existed and so produced the division within Being, put in
travail with multiplicity; Number must be either the substance of Being
or its Activity; the Life-Form as such and the Intellectual-Principle
must be Number. Clearly Being is to be, thought of as Number
Collective, while the Beings are Number unfolded: the
Intellectual-Principle is Number moving within itself, while the
Living-Form is Number container of the universe. Even Being is the
outcome of the Unity, and, since the prior is unity, the secondary must
be Number.
Hence it is that the Forms have been described as Henads and Numbers.
This is the authentic Number; the other, the "monadic" is its image.
The Authentic is that made manifest in the Forms and helping to bring
them to be; primally it is the Number in the Authentic Being, inherent
to it and preceding the Beings, serving to them as root, fount, first
principle.
For the Unity is source to Being; Being's Being is stayed upon the
Unity as its safeguard from dissolution; the Unity cannot rest upon
Being which at that would be a unity before possessing unity; and so
with the decad before possessing decadhood.
10. When it takes lot with multiplicity, Being becomes Number by the
fact of awakening to manifoldness; -- before, it was a preparation, so
to speak, of the Beings, their fore-promise, a total of henads offering
a stay for what was to be based upon them.
Here with us a man will say "I wish I had such and such a quantity of
gold" -- or "such and such a number of houses." Gold is one thing: the
wish is not to bring the numerical quantity into gold but to bring the
gold to quantity; the quantity, already present in the mind, is to be
passed on to the gold so that it acquire that numerical value.
If the Beings preceded the number and this were discerned upon them at
the stirring, to such and such a total, of the numbering principle,
then the actual number of the Beings would be a chance not a choice;
since that total is not a matter of chance, Number is a causing
principle preceding that determined total.
Number then pre-exists and is the cause by which produced things
participate in quantity.
The single thing derives its unity by participation in Unity-Absolute;
its being it derives from Being-Absolute, which holds its Being from
itself alone; a unity is a unity in virtue of Being; the particular
unity -- where the unity is a multiple unity -- is one thing only as
the Triad is; the collective Being is a unity of this kind, the unity
not of the monad but of the myriad or any such collective number.
Take a man affirming the presence of ten thousand things; it is he that
produces the number; he does not tell us that the ten thousand have
uttered it; they merely exhibit their several forms; the enumerator's
mind supplies the total which would never be known if the mind kept
still.
How does the mind pronounce?
By being able to enumerate; that is by knowing Number: but in order to
this, Number must be in existence, and that that Principle should not
know its own total content is absurd, impossible.
It is with Number as with Good. When we pronounce things to be good
either we mean that they are in their own nature so or we affirm
goodness as an accidental in them. Dealing with the primals, the
goodness we have in mind is that First Hypostasis; where the goodness
is an accidental we imply the existence of a Principle of Good as a
necessary condition of the accidental presence; there must be some
source of that good which is observed elsewhere, whether this source be
an Absolute Good or something that of its own nature produces the good.
Similarly with number; in attributing the decad to things we affirm
either the truly existent decad or, where the decadhood is accidental,
we necessarily posit the self-subsistent decad, decad not associated;
if things are to be described as forming a decad, then either they must
be of themselves the decad or be preceded by that which has no other
being than that of decadhood.
It must be urged as a general truth that anything affirmed of a subject
not itself either found its way in from outside or is the
characteristic Act of that subject; and supposing the predicated
attribute to show no variation of presence and absence but to be always
present, then, if the subject is a Real Being so also is the accidental
in an equal degree; or, failing Real Being, it at least belongs to the
existents, it exists. In the case when the subject can be thought of as
remaining without its Act, yet that Act is inbound with it even though
to our minds it appears as a later; when on the contrary the subject
cannot be conceived without the attribute-man, for example, without
unity -- then the attribute is either not later but concomitant or,
being essential to the existence, is precedent. In our view, Unity and
Number are precedent.
11. It may be suggested that the decad is nothing more than so many
henads; admitting the one henad why should we reject the ten? As the
one is a real existence why not the rest? We are certainly not
compelled to attach that one henad to some one thing and so deprive all
the rest of the means to unity: since every existent must be one thing,
the unity is obviously common to all. This means one principle applying
to many, the principle whose existence within itself we affirmed to be
presupposed by its manifestation outside.
But if a henad exists in some given object and further is observed in
something else, then that first henad being real, there cannot be only
one henad in existence; there must be a multiplicity of henads.
Supposing that first henad alone to exist, it must obviously be lodged
either in the thing of completest Being or at all events in the thing
most completely a unity. If in the thing of completest Being, then the
other henads are but nominal and cannot be ranked with the first henad,
or else Number becomes a collection of unlike monads and there are
differences among monads [an impossibility]. If that first henad is to
be taken as lodged in the thing of completest unity, there is the
question why that most perfect unity should require the first henad to
give it unity.
Since all this is impossible, then, before any particular can be
thought of as a unit, there must exist a unity bare, unrelated by very
essence. If in that realm also there must be a unity apart from
anything that can be called one thing, why should there not exist
another unity as well?
Each particular, considered in itself, would be a manifold of monads,
totalling to a collective unity. If however Nature produces
continuously -- or rather has produced once for all -- not halting at
the first production but bringing a sort of continuous unity into
being, then it produces the minor numbers by the sheer fact of setting
an early limit to its advance: outgoing to a greater extent -- not in
the sense of moving from point to point but in its inner changes -- it
would produce the larger numbers; to each number so emerging it would
attach the due quantities and the appropriate thing, knowing that
without this adaptation to Number the thing could not exist or would be
a stray, something outside, at once, of both Number and Reason.
12. We may be told that unity and monad have no real existence, that
the only unity is some definite object that is one thing, so that all
comes to an attitude of the mind towards things considered singly.
But, to begin with, why at this should not the affirmation of Being
pass equally as an attitude of mind so that Being too must disappear?
No doubt Being strikes and stings and gives the impression of reality;
but we find ourselves just as vividly struck and impressed in the
presence of unity. Besides, is this attitude, this concept itself, a
unity or a manifold? When we deny the unity of an object, clearly the
unity mentioned is not supplied by the object, since we are saying it
has none; the unity therefore is within ourselves, something latent in
our minds independently of any concrete one thing.
[An objector speaks-] "But the unity we thus possess comes by our
acceptance of a certain idea or impression from things external; it is
a notion derived from an object. Those that take the notion of numbers
and of unity to be but one species of the notions held to be inherent
in the mind must allow to numbers and to unity the reality they ascribe
to any of the others, and upon occasion they must be met; but no such
real existence can be posited when the concept is taken to be an
attitude or notion rising in us as a by-product of the objects; this
happens when we say "This," "What," and still more obviously in the
affirmations "Crowd," "Festival," "Army," "Multiplicity." As
multiplicity is nothing apart from certain constituent items and the
festival nothing apart from the people gathered happily at the rites,
so when we affirm unity we are not thinking of some Oneness
self-standing, unrelated. And there are many other such cases; for
instance "on the right," "Above" and their opposites; what is there of
reality about this "On-the-right-ness" but the fact that two different
positions are occupied? So with "Above": "Above" and "Below" are a mere
matter of position and have no significance outside of this sphere.
Now in answer to this series of objections our first remark is that
there does exist an actuality implicit in each one of the relations
cited; though this is not the same for all or the same for correlatives
or the same for every reference to unity.
But these objections must be taken singly.
13. It cannot reasonably be thought that the notion of unity is derived
from the object since this is physical -- man, animal, even stone, a
presentation of that order is something very different from unity
[which must be a thing of the Intellectual]; if that presentation were
unity, the mind could never affirm unity unless of that given thing,
man, for example.
Then again, just as in the case of "On the right" or other such
affirmation of relation, the mind does not affirm in some caprice but
from observation of contrasted position, so here it affirms unity in
virtue of perceiving something real; assuredly the assertion of unity
is not a bare attitude towards something non-existent. It is not enough
that a thing be alone and be itself and not something else: and that
very "something else" tells of another unity. Besides Otherness and
Difference are later; unless the mind has first rested upon unity it
cannot affirm Otherness or Difference; when it affirms Aloneness it
affirms unity-with-aloneness; thus unity is presupposed in Aloneness.
Besides, that in us which asserts unity of some object is first a
unity, itself; and the object is a unity before any outside affirmation
or conception.
A thing must be either one thing or more than one, manifold: and if
there is to be a manifold there must be a precedent unity. To talk of a
manifold is to talk of what has something added to unity; to think of
an army is to think of a multitude under arms and brought to unity. In
refusing to allow the manifold to remain manifold, the mind makes the
truth clear; it draws a separate many into one, either supplying a
unity not present or keen to perceive the unity brought about by the
ordering of the parts; in an army, even, the unity is not a fiction but
as real as that of a building erected from many stones, though of
course the unity of the house is more compact.
If, then, unity is more pronounced in the continuous, and more again
where there is no separation by part, this is clearly because there
exists, in real existence, something which is a Nature or Principle of
Unity. There cannot be a greater and less in the non-existent: as we
predicate Substance of everything in sense, but predicate it also of
the Intellectual order and more strictly there -- since we hold that
the greater and more sovereign substantiality belongs to the Real
Beings and that Being is more marked in Substance, even sensible
Substance, than in the other Kinds -- so, finding unity to exhibit
degree of more and less, differing in sense-things as well as in the
Intellectual, we must similarly admit that Unity exists under all forms
though still by reference, only, to that primal Unity.
As Substance and Real Being, despite the participation of the sensible,
are still of the Intellectual and not the sensible order, so too the
unity observed present in things of sense by participation remains
still an Intellectual and to be grasped by an Intellectual Act. The
mind, from a thing present to it, comes to knowledge of something else,
a thing not presented; that is, it has a prior knowledge. By this prior
knowledge it recognises Being in a particular being; similarly when a
thing is one it can affirm unity as it can affirm also duality and
multiplicity.
It is impossible to name or conceive anything not making one or two or
some number; equally impossible that the thing should not exist without
which nothing can possibly be named or conceived; impossible to deny
the reality of that whose existence is a necessary condition of naming
or affirming anything; what is a first need, universally, to the
formation of every concept and every proposition must exist before
reasoning and thinking; only as an existent can it be cited to account
for the stirring of thought. If Unity is necessary to the substantial
existence of all that really is -- and nothing exists which is not one
-- Unity must precede Reality and be its author. It is therefore, an
existent Unity, not an existent that develops Unity; considered as
Being-with-Unity it would be a manifold, whereas in the pure Unity
there is no Being save in so far as Unity attends to producing it. As
regards the word "This," it is nat a bare word; it affirms an indicated
existence without using the name, it tells of a certain presence,
whether a substance or some other existent; any This must be
significant; it is no attitude of the mind applying itself to a
non-existent; the This shows a thing present, as much as if we used the
strict name of the object.
14. To the argument touching relation we have an answer surely
legitimate:
The Unity is not of a nature to lose its own manner of being only
because something else stands in a state which it does not itself
share; to stray from its unity it must itself suffer division into
duality or the still wider plurality.
If by division the one identical mass can become a duality without loss
of quantity, clearly the unity it possessed and by this destructive
division lost was something distinct. What may be alternatively present
and absent to the same subject must be classed among Real-Beings,
regardless of position; an accidental elsewhere, it must have reality
in itself whether it be manifested in things of sense or in the
Intellectual -- an accidental in the Laters but self-existent in the
higher, especially in the First in its aspect of Unity developing into
Being. We may be told that Unity may lose that character without change
in itself, becoming duality by association with something else; but
this is not true; unity does not become two things; neither the added
nor what takes the addition becomes two; each remains the one thing it
was; the duality is predicable of the group only, the unity remaining
unchanged in each of those unchanged constituents.
Two and the Dyad are not essentially relative: if the only condition to
the construction of duality were meeting and association such a
relation might perhaps constitute Twoness and Duality; but in fact we
see Duality produced by the very opposite process, by the splitting
apart of a unity. This shows that duality -- or any other such
numerical form -- is no relation produced either by scission or
association. If one configuration produces a certain thing it is
impossible that the opposite should produce the same so that the thing
may be identified with the relation.
What then is the actual cause?
Unity is due to the presence of Unity; duality to that of Duality; it
is precisely as things are white by Whiteness, just by Justice,
beautiful by Beauty. Otherwise we must reject these universals and call
in relation here also: justice would arise from a certain attitude in a
given situation, Beauty from a certain pattern of the person with
nothing present able to produce the beauty, nothing coming from without
to effect that agreeable appearance.
You see something which you pronounce to be a unity; that thing
possesses also size, form, and a host of other characteristics you
might name; size, bulk, sweetness, bitterness and other Ideas are
actually present in the thing; it surely cannot be thought that, while
every conceivable quality has Real-Being, quantity [Number] has not and
that while continuous quantity exists, discrete quantity does not and
this though continuous quantity is measured by the discrete. No: as
size by the presence of Magnitude, and Oneness by the presence of
Unity, so with Duality and all the other numerical modes.
As to the How of participation, the enquiry is that of all
participation in Ideal Forms; we must note, however, that the presence
of the Decad in the looser totals is different from its presence in the
continuous; there is difference again in its presence within many
powers where multiplicity is concentred in unity; arrived at the
Intellectuals, there too we discover Number, the Authentic Number, no
longer entering the alien, Decad-Absolute not Decad of some particular
Intellectual group.
15. We must repeat: The Collective Being, the Authentic, There, is at
once Being and Intellectual-Principle and the Complete Living Form;
thus it includes the total of living things; the Unity There is
reproduced by the unity of this living universe in the degree possible
to it -- for the sense-nature as such cannot compass that
transcendental unity -- thus that Living-All is inevitably
Number-Entire: if the Number were not complete, the All would be
deficient to the extent of some number, and if every number applicable
to living things were not contained in it, it would not be the
all-comprehending Life-Form. Therefore, Number exists before every
living thing, before the collective Life-Form.
Again: Man exists in the Intellectual and with him all other living
things, both by possession of Real-Being and because that is the
Life-Form Complete. Even the man of this sphere is a member of the
Intellectual since that is the Life-Form Complete; every living thing
by virtue of having life, is There, There in the Life-form, and man is
There also, in the Intellectual, in so far as he is intellect, for all
intelligences are severally members of That. Now all this means Number
There. Yet even in Intellect Number is not present primally; its
presence There is the reckoning of the Acts of Intellectual-Principle;
it tallies with the justice in Intellectual-Principle, its moral
wisdom, its virtues, its knowledge, all whose possession makes That
Principle what it is.
But knowledge -- must not this imply presence to the alien? No;
knowledge, known and knower are an identity; so with all the rest;
every member of Intellectual-Principle is therefore present to it
primally; justice, for example, is not accidental to it as to soul in
its character as soul, where these virtues are mainly potential
becoming actual by the intention towards Intellectual-Principle and
association with it.
Next we come to Being, fully realized, and this is the seat of Number;
by Number, Being brings forth the Beings; its movement is planned to
Number; it establishes the numbers of its offspring before bringing
them to be, in the same way as it establishes its own unity by linking
pure Being to the First: the numbers do not link the lower to the
First; it suffices that Being is so linked; for Being, in taking form
as Number, binds its members to itself. As a unity, it suffers no
division, remaining self-constant; as a thing of division, containing
its chosen total of members, it knows that total and so brings forth
Number, a phase therefore of its content: its development of part is
ruled by the powers of Number, and the Beings it produces sum to that
Number. Thus Number, the primal and true, is Principle and source of
actuality to the Beings.
Hence it is that in our sphere, also, Number accompanies the coming to
be of particular things and to suppose another number than the actual
is to suppose the production of something else or of nothing.
These then are the primal numbers; they are numerable; the numbers of
the other order are of a double character; as derived from the first
numbers they are themselves numerable but as acting for those first
they are measures of the rest of things, numbering numbers and
numerables. For how could they declare a Decad save in the light of
numbers within themselves?
16. But here we may be questioned about these numbers which we describe
as the primal and authentic:
"Where do you place these numbers, in what genus among Beings? To
everyone they seem to come under Quantity and you have certainly
brought Quantity in, where you say that discrete Quantity equally with
the continuous holds place among Beings; but you go on to say that
there are the numbers belonging to the Firsts and then talk of other
numbers quite distinct, those of reckoning; tell us how you arrange all
this, for there is difficulty here. And then, the unity in sense-things
-- is that a quantity or is quantity here just so many units brought
together, the unity being the starting-point of quantity but not
quantity itself? And, if the starting-point, is it a kindred thing or
of another genus? All this you owe it to us to make clear."
Be it so; we begin by pointing out a distinction:
You take one thing with another -- for we must first deal with objects
of sense -- a dog and a man, or two men; or you take a group and affirm
ten, a decad of men: in this case the number affirmed is not a Reality,
even as Reality goes in the sphere of sense, but is purely Quantity:
similarly when you resolve into units, breaking up the decad, those
units are your principle of Quantity since the single individual is not
a unity absolute.
But the case is different when you consider one man in himself and
affirm a certain number, duality, for example, in that he is at once
living and reasoning.
By this analysis and totalling, you get quantity; but there are two
objects under consideration and each of these is one; each of the
unities contributes to the complete being and the oneness is inherent
in each; this is another kind of number; number essential; even the
duality so formed is no posterior; it does not signify a quantity apart
from the thing but the quantity in the essence which holds the thing
together. The number here is no mere result of your detailing; the
things exist of themselves and are not brought together by your
reckoning, but what has it to do with essential reality that you count
one man in with another? There is here no resultant unity such as that
of a choir -- the decad is real only to you who count the ten; in the
ten of your reckoning there cannot be a decad without a unitary basis;
it is you that make the ten by your counting, by fixing that tenness
down to quantity; in choir and army there is something more than that,
something not of your placing.
But how do you come to have a number to place?
The Number inherent apart from any enumeration has its own manner of
being, but the other, that resulting upon the appearance of an external
to be appraised by the Number within yourself, is either an Act of
these inherent numbers or an Act in accordance with them; in counting
we produce number and so bring quantity into being just as in walking
we bring a certain movement into being.
But what of that "Number within us having its own manner of being"?
It is the Number of our essence. "Our essence" we read "partakes of
Number and harmony and, also, is Number and harmony." "Neither body nor
magnitude," someone says: soul, then, is Number since it is essence.
The number belonging to body is an essence of the order of body; the
number belonging to soul constitutes the essences of souls.
In the Intellectuals, all, if the Absolute Living-Form, there is a
multiple -- a triad, let us say -- that Triad of the Living-Form is of
the nature of essence: and the Triad prior to any living thing, Triad
in the realm of Being, is a principle of essence.
When you enumerate two things -- say, animal and beauty -- each of
these remains one thing; the number is your production; it lay within
yourself; it is you that elaborate quantity, here the dyad. But when
you declare virtue to be a Tetrad, you are affirming a Tetrad which
does actually exist; the parts, so to speak, make one thing; you are
taking as the object of your act a Unity -- Tetrad to which you
accommodate the Tetrad within yourself.
17. But what of the Infinite Number we hear of; does not all this
reasoning set it under limit?
And rightly so if the thing is to be a number; limitlessness and number
are in contradiction.
How, then, do we come to use the term? Is it that we think of Number as
we think of an infinite line, not with the idea that any such lire
exists but that even the very greatest -- that of the [path of the]
universe, for example -- may be thought of as still greater? So it
might be with number; let it be fixed, yet we still are free to think
of its double, though not of course to produce the doubled quantity
since it is impossible to join to the actual what is no more than a
conception, a phantasm, private to ourselves.
It is our view that there does exist an infinite line, among the
Intellectual Beings: for There a line would not be quantitative and
being without quantity could be numerically infinite. This however
would be in another mode than that of limitless extension. In what mode
then? In that the conception of the Absolute Line does not include the
conception of limit.
But what sort of thing is the Line in the Intellectual and what place
does it hold?
It is later than Number since unity is observed in it; it rises at one
point and traverses one course and simply lacks the quantity that would
be the measure of the distance.
But where does this thing lie? Is it existent only in the defining
thought, so to speak?
No; it is also a thing, though a thing of the Intellectual. All that
belongs to that order is at once an Intellectual and in some degree the
concrete thing. There is a position, as well as a manner of being, for
all configurations, for surface, for solid. And certainly the
configurations are not of our devising; for example, the configurations
of the universe are obviously antecedent to ourselves; so it must be
with all the configurations of the things of nature; before the bodily
reproductions all must exist There, without configuration, primal
configurations. For these primals are not shapes in something;
self-belonging, they are perfect without extension; only the extended
needs the external. In the sphere of Real-Being the configuration is
always a unity; it becomes discrete either in the Living-Form or
immediately before: I say "becomes discrete" not in the sense that it
takes magnitude There but that it is broken apart for the purpose of
the Living-Form and is allotted to the bodies within that Form -- for
instance, to Fire There, the Intellectual Pyramid. And because the
Ideal-Form is There, the fire of this sphere seeks to produce that
configuration against the check of Matter: and so of all the rest as we
read in the account of the realm of sense.
But does the Life-Form contain the configurations by the mere fact of
its life?
They are in the Intellectual-Principle previously but they also exist
in the Living-Form; if this be considered as including the
Intellectual-Principle, then they are primally in the Life-Form, but if
that Principle comes first then they are previously in that. And if the
Life-Form entire contains also souls, it must certainly be subsequent
to the Intellectual-Principle.
No doubt there is the passage "Whatever Intellect sees in the entire
Life-Form"; thus seeing, must not the Intellectual-Principle be the
later?
No; the seeing may imply merely that the reality comes into being by
the fact of that seeing; the Intellectual-Principle is not external to
the Life-Form; all is one; the Act of the Intellectual-Principle
possesses itself of bare sphere, while the Life-Form holds the sphere
as sphere of a living total.
18. It appears then that Number in that realm is definite; it is we
that can conceive the "More than is present"; the infinity lies in our
counting: in the Real is no conceiving more than has been conceived;
all stands entire; no number has been or could be omitted to make
addition possible. It might be described as infinite in the sense that
it has not been measured -- who is there to measure it? -- but it is
solely its own, a concentrated unit, entire, not ringed round by any
boundary; its manner of being is settled for it by itself alone. None
of the Real-Beings is under limit; what is limited, measured, is what
needs measure to prevent it running away into the unbounded. There
every being is Measure; and therefore it is that all is beautiful.
Because that is a living thing it is beautiful, holding the highest
life, the complete, a life not tainted towards death, nothing mortal
there, nothing dying. Nor is the life of that Absolute Living-Form some
feeble flickering; it is primal, the brightest, holding all that life
has of radiance; it is that first light which the souls There draw upon
for their life and bring with them when they come here. It knows for
what purpose it lives, towards What it lives, from Whence it lives; for
the Whence of its life is the Whither... and close above it stands the
wisdom of all, the collective Intellectual-Principle, knit into it, one
with it, colouring it to a higher goodness, by kneading wisdom into it,
making its beauty still more august. Even here the august and veritably
beautiful life is the life in wisdom, here dimly seen, There purely.
For There wisdom gives sight to the seer and power for the fuller
living and in that tenser life both to see and to become what is seen.
Here attention is set for the most part upon the unliving and, in the
living, upon what is lifeless in them; the inner life is taken only
with alloy: There, all are Living Beings, living wholly, unalloyed;
however you may choose to study one of them apart from its life, in a
moment that life is flashed out upon you: once you have known the
Essence that pervades them, conferring that unchangeable life upon
them, once you perceive the judgement and wisdom and knowledge that are
theirs, you can but smile at all the lower nature with its pretention
to Reality.
In virtue of this Essence it is that life endures, that the
Intellectual-Principle endures, that the Beings stand in their
eternity; nothing alters it, turns it, moves it; nothing, indeed, is in
being besides it to touch it; anything that is must be its product;
anything opposed to it could not affect it. Being itself could not make
such an opposite into Being; that would require a prior to both and
that prior would then be Being; so that Parmenides was right when he
taught the identity of Being and Unity. Being is thus beyond contact
not because it stands alone but because it is Being. For Being alone
has Being in its own right.
How then can we deny to it either Being or anything at all that may
exist effectively, anything that may derive from it?
As long as it exists it produces: but it exists for ever; so,
therefore, do its products. And so great is it in power and beauty that
it remains the allurer, all things of the universe depending from it
and rejoicing to hold their trace of it and through that to seek their
good. To us, existence is before the good; all this world desires life
and wisdom in order to Being; every soul and every intellect seeks to
be its Being, but Being is sufficient to itself.
__________________________________________________________________
SEVENTH TRACTATE.
HOW THE MULTIPLICITY OF THE IDEAL-FORMS CAME INTO BEING:
AND UPON THE GOOD.
1. God, or some one of the gods, in sending the souls to their birth,
placed eyes in the face to catch the light and allotted to each sense
the appropriate organ, providing thus for the safety which comes by
seeing and hearing in time and, seeking or avoiding under guidance of
touch.
But what led to this provision?
It cannot be that other forms of being were produced first and that,
these perishing in the absence of the senses, the maker at last
supplied the means by which men and other living beings might avert
disaster.
We may be told that it lay within the divine knowledge that animal life
would be exposed to heat and cold and other such experiences incident
to body and that in this knowledge he provided the senses and the
organs apt to their activity in order that the living total might not
fall an easy prey.
Now, either he gave these organs to souls already possessing the
sensitive powers or he gave senses and organs alike.
But if the souls were given the powers as well as the organs, then,
souls though they were, they had no sensation before that giving. If
they possessed these powers from the moment of being souls and became
souls in order to their entry into process, then it is of their very
nature to belong to process, unnatural to them to be outside of process
and within the Intellectual: they were made in the intent that they
should belong to the alien and have their being amid evil; the divine
provision would consist in holding them to their disaster; this is
God's reasoned purpose, this the plan entire.
Now what is the foundation of reasoned plan?
Precedent planning, it may be; but still we are forced back to some
thing or things determining it. What would these be here?
Either sense-perception or intellect. But sense-perception it cannot in
this case be: intellect is left; yet, starting from intellect, the
conclusion will be knowledge, not therefore the handling of the
sensible; what begins with the intellectual and proceeds to the
intellectual can certainly not end in dealings with the sensible.
Providence, then, whether over living beings or over any part of the
universe was never the outcome of plan.
There is in fact no planning There; we speak of reasoned purpose in the
world of things only to convey that the universe is of the character
which in the later order would point to a wise purposing; Providence
implies that things are as, in the later order, a competent
foreplanning would produce them. Reasoning serves, in beings not of the
order above that need, to supply for the higher power; foresight is
necessary in the lack of power which could dispense with it; it labours
towards some one occurrence in preference to another and it goes in a
sort of dread of the unfitting; where only the fitting can occur, there
is no foreseeing. So with planning; where one only of two things can
be, what place is there for plan? The alone and one and utterly simplex
cannot involve a "this to avert that": if the "this" could not be, the
"that" must; the serviceable thing appeared and at once approved itself
so.
But surely this is foreseeing, deliberating: are we not back at what
was said at the beginning, that God did to this end give both the
senses and the powers, however perplexing that giving be?
No: all turns on the necessary completeness of Act; we cannot think
anything belonging to God to be other than a whole and all and
therefore in anything of God's that all must be contained; God
therefore must take in the future, present beforehand. Certainly there
is no later in the divine; what is There as present is future for
elsewhere. If then the future is present, it must be present as having
been foreconceived for later coming to be; at that divine stage
therefore it lacks nothing and therefore can never lack; all existed,
eternally and in such a way that at the later stage any particular
thing may be said to exist for this or that purpose; the All, in its
extension and so to speak unfolding, is able to present succession
while yet it is simultaneous; this is because it contains the cause of
all as inherent to itself.
2. Thus we have even here the means of knowing the nature of the
Intellectual-Principle, though, seeing it more closely than anything
else, we still see it at less than its worth. We know that it exists
but its cause we do not see, or, if we do, we see that cause as
something apart. We see a man -- or an eye, if you like -- but this is
an image or part of an image; what is in that Principle is at once Man
and the reason of his being; for There man -- or eye -- must be,
itself, an intellective thing and a cause of its being; it could not
exist at all unless it were that cause, whereas here, everything
partial is separate and so is the cause of each. In the Intellectual,
all is at one so that the thing is identical with the cause.
Even here the thing and its cause are often identical -- an eclipse
furnishes an example -- what then is there to prevent other things too
being identical with their cause and this cause being the essence of
the thing? It must be so; and by this search after the cause the
thing's essence is reached, for the essence of a thing is its cause. I
am not here saying that the informing Idea is the cause of the thing --
though this is true -- but that the Idea itself, unfolded, reveals the
cause inherent in it.
A thing of inactivity, even though alive, cannot include its own cause;
but where could a Forming-Idea, a member of the Intellectual-Principle,
turn in quest of its cause? We may be answered "In the
Intellectual-Principle"; but the two are not distinct; the Idea is the
Intellectual-Principle; and if that Principle must contain the Ideas
complete, their cause must be contained in them. The
Intellectual-Principle itself contains every cause of the things of its
content; but these of its content are identically
Intellectual-Principle, each of them Intellectual-Principle; none of
them, thus, can lack its own cause; each springs into being carrying
with it the reason of its being. No result of chance, each must rise
complete with its cause; it is an integral and so includes the
excellence bound up with the cause. This is how all participants in the
Idea are put into possession of their cause.
In our universe, a coherent total of multiplicity, the several items
are linked each to the other, and by the fact that it is an all every
cause is included in it: even in the particular thing the part is
discernibly related to the whole, for the parts do not come into being
separately and successively but are mutually cause and caused at one
and the same moment. Much more in the higher realm must all the singles
exist for the whole and each for itself: if then that world is the
conjoint reality of all, of an all not chance-ruled and not sectional,
the cause There must include the causes: every item must hold, in its
very nature, the uncaused possession of its cause; uncaused,
independent and standing apart from cause, they must be self-contained,
cause and all.
Further, since nothing There is chance-sprung, and the multiplicity in
each comprehends the entire content, then the cause of every member can
be named; the cause was present from the beginning, inherent, not a
cause but a fact of the being; or, rather, cause and manner of being
were one. What could an Idea have, as cause, over and above the
Intellectual-Principle? It is a thought of that Principle and cannot,
at that, be considered as anything but a perfect product. If it is thus
perfect we cannot speak of anything in which it is lacking nor cite any
reason for such lack. That thing must be present, and we can say why.
The why is inherent, therefore, in the entity, that is to say in every
thought and activity of the Intellectual-Principle. Take for example
the Idea of Man; Man entire is found to contribute to it; he is in that
Idea in all his fulness including everything that from the beginning
belonged to Man. If Man were not complete There, so that there were
something to be added to the Idea, that additional must belong to a
derivative; but Man exists from eternity and must therefore be
complete; the man born is the derivative.
3. What then is there to prevent man having been the object of planning
There?
No: all stands in that likeness, nothing to be added or taken away;
this planning and reasoning is based only on an assumption; things are
taken to be in process and this suggests planning and reasoning; insist
on the eternity of the process and planning falls to the ground. There
can be no planning over the eternal; that would imply forgetfulness of
a first state; further, if the second state were better, things stood
ill at first; if they stood well, so they must remain.
Only in conjunction with their causes are things good; even in this
sphere a thing is good in virtue of being complete; form means that the
thing is complete, the Matter duly controlled; this control means that
nothing has been left crude; but something is so left if anything
belonging to the shape be missing-eye, or other part. Thus to state
cause is to state the thing complete. Why eyes or eyebrows? For
completion: if you say "For preservation," you affirm an indwelling
safeguard of the essence, something contributory to the being: the
essence, then, preceded the safeguard and the cause was inbound with
the essence; distinct, this cause is in its nature a part of the
essence.
All parts, thus, exist in regard to each other: the essence is
all-embracing, complete, entire; the excellency is inbound with the
cause and embraced by it; the being, the essence, the cause, all are
one.
But, at this, sense-perception -- even in its particular modes -- is
involved in the Idea by eternal necessity, in virtue of the
completeness of the Idea; Intellectual-Principle, as all-inclusive,
contains in itself all by which we are brought, later, to recognise
this perfection in its nature; the cause, There, was one total,
all-inclusive; thus Man in the Intellectual was not purely intellect,
sense-perception being an addition made upon his entry into birth: all
this would seem to imply a tendance in that great Principle towards the
lower, towards this sphere.
But how could that Principle have such perception, be aware of things
of sense? Surely it is untenable on the one hand that sense-perception
should exist There, from eternity, and on the other that only upon the
debasement of the soul should there be sense-perception here and the
accomplishment in this realm of the Act of what was always a power in
that?
4. To meet the difficulty we must make a close examination of the
nature of Man in the Intellectual; perhaps, though, it is better to
begin with the man of this plane lest we be reasoning to Man There from
a misconception of Man here. There may even be some who deny the
difference.
We ask first whether man as here is a Reason-Principle different to
that soul which produces him as here and gives him life and thought; or
is he that very soul or, again, the [yet lower] soul using the human
body?
Now if man is a reasonable living being and by "living being" is meant
a conjoint of soul and body, the Reason-Principle of man is not
identical with soul. But if the conjoint of soul and body is the
reason-principle of man, how can man be an eternal reality, seeing that
it is only when soul and body have come together that the
Reason-Principle so constituted appears?
The Reason-Principle will be the foreteller of the man to be, not the
Man Absolute with which we are dealing but more like his definition,
and not at that indicating his nature since what is indicated is not
the Idea that is to enter Matter but only that of the known thing, the
conjoint. We have not yet found the Man we are seeking, the equivalent
of the Reason-Principle.
But -- it may be said -- the Reason-Principle of such beings must be
some conjoint, one element in another.
This does not define the principle of either. If we are to state with
entire accuracy the Reason-Principles of the Forms in Matter and
associated with Matter, we cannot pass over the generative
Reason-Principle, in this case that of Man, especially since we hold
that a complete definition must cover the essential manner of being.
What, then, is this essential of Man? What is the indwelling,
inseparable something which constitutes Man as here? Is the
Reason-Principle itself a reasoning living being or merely a maker of
that reasoning life-form? and what is it apart from that act of making?
The living being corresponds to a reasoning life in the
Reason-Principle; man therefore is a reasoning life: but there is no
life without soul; either, then, the soul supplies the reasoning life
-- and man therefore is not an essence but simply an activity of the
soul -- or the soul is the man.
But if reasoning soul is the man, why does it not constitute man upon
its entry into some other animal form?
5. Man, thus, must be some Reason-Principle other than soul. But why
should he not be some conjoint -- a soul in a certain Reason-Principle
-- the Reason-Principle being, as it were, a definite activity which
however could not exist without that which acts?
This is the case with the Reason-Principles in seed which are neither
soulless nor entirely soul. For these productive principles cannot be
devoid of soul and there is nothing surprising in such essences being
Reason-Principles.
But these principles producing other forms than man, of what phase of
soul are they activities? Of the vegetal soul? Rather of that which
produces animal life, a brighter soul and therefore one more intensely
living.
The soul of that order, the soul that has entered into Matter of that
order, is man by having, apart from body, a certain disposition; within
body it shapes all to its own fashion, producing another form of Man,
man reduced to what body admits, just as an artist may make a reduced
image of that again.
It is soul, then, that holds the pattern and Reason-Principles of Man,
the natural tendencies, the dispositions and powers -- all feeble since
this is not the Primal Man -- and it contains also the Ideal-Forms of
other senses, Forms which themselves are senses, bright to all seeming
but images, and dim in comparison with those of the earlier order.
The higher Man, above this sphere, rises from the more godlike soul, a
soul possessed of a nobler humanity and brighter perceptions. This must
be the Man of Plato's definition ["Man is Soul"], where the addition
"Soul as using body" marks the distinction between the soul which uses
body directly and the soul, poised above, which touches body only
through that intermediary.
The Man of the realm of birth has sense-perception: the higher soul
enters to bestow a brighter life, or rather does not so much enter as
simply impart itself; for soul does not leave the Intellectual but,
maintaining that contact, holds the lower life as pendant from it,
blending with it by the natural link of Reason-Principle to
Reason-Principle: and man, the dimmer, brightens under that
illumination.
6. But how can that higher soul have sense-perception?
It is the perception of what falls under perception There, sensation in
the mode of that realm: it is the source of the soul's perception of
the sense-realm in its correspondence with the Intellectual. Man as
sense-percipient becomes aware of that correspondence and accommodates
the sense-realm to the lowest extremity of its counterpart There,
proceeding from the fire Intellectual to the fire here which becomes
perceptible by its analogy with that of the higher sphere. If material
things existed There, the soul would perceive them; Man in the
Intellectual, Man as Intellectual soul, would be aware of the
terrestrial. This is how the secondary Man, copy of Man in the
Intellectual, contains the Reason-Principles in copy; and Man in the
Intellectual-Principle contained the Man that existed before any man.
The diviner shines out upon the secondary and the secondary upon the
tertiary; and even the latest possesses them all -- not in the sense of
actually living by them all but as standing in under-parallel to them.
Some of us act by this lowest; in another rank there is a double
activity, a trace of the higher being included; in yet another there is
a blending of the third grade with the others: each is that Man by
which he acts while each too contains all the grades, though in some
sense not so. On the separation of the third life and third Man from
the body, then if the second also departs -- of course not losing hold
on the Above -- the two, as we are told, will occupy the same place. No
doubt it seems strange that a soul which has been the Reason-Principle
of a man should come to occupy the body of an animal: but the soul has
always been all, and will at different times be this and that.
Pure, not yet fallen to evil, the soul chooses man and is man, for this
is the higher, and it produces the higher. It produces also the still
loftier beings, the Celestials [Daimons], who are of one Form with the
soul that makes Man: higher still stands that Man more entirely of the
Celestial rank, almost a god, reproducing God, a Celestial closely
bound to God as a man is to Man. For that Being into which man develops
is not to be called a god; there remains the difference which
distinguishes souls, all of the same race though they be. This is
taking "Celestial" ["Daimon"] in the sense of Plato.
When a soul which in the human state has been thus attached chooses
animal nature and descends to that, it is giving forth the
Reason-Principle -- necessarily in it -- of that particular animal:
this lower it contained and the activity has been to the lower.
7. But if it is by becoming evil and inferior that the soul produces
the animal nature, the making of ox or horse was not at the outset in
its character; the reason-principle of the animal, and the animal
itself, must lie outside of the natural plan?
Inferior, yes; but outside of nature, no. The thing There [Soul in the
Intellectual] was in some sense horse and dog from the beginning; given
the condition, it produces the higher kind; let the condition fail,
then, since produce it must, it produces what it may: it is like a
skillful craftsman competent to create all kinds of works of art but
reduced to making what is ordered and what the aptitude of his material
indicates.
The power of the All-Soul, as Reason-Principle of the universe, may be
considered as laying down a pattern before the effective separate
powers go forth from it: this plan would be something like a tentative
illumining of Matter; the elaborating soul would give minute
articulation to these representations of itself; every separate
effective soul would become that towards which it tended, assuming that
particular form as the choral dancer adapts himself to the action set
down for him.
But this is to anticipate: our enquiry was How there can be
sense-perception in man without the implication that the Divine
addresses itself to the realm of process. We maintained, and proved,
that the Divine does not look to this realm but that things here are
dependent upon those and represent them and that man here, holding his
powers from Thence, is directed Thither, so that, while sense makes the
environment of what is of sense in him, the Intellectual in him is
linked to the Intellectual.
What we have called the perceptibles of that realm enter into
cognisance in a way of their own, since they are not material, while
the sensible sense here -- so distinguished as dealing with corporeal
objects -- is fainter than the perception belonging to that higher
world; the man of this sphere has sense-perception because existing in
a less true degree and taking only enfeebled images of things There --
perceptions here are Intellections of the dimmer order, and the
Intellections There are vivid perceptions.
8. So much for the thing of sense; but it would appear that the
prototype There of the living form, the universal horse, must look
deliberately towards this sphere; and, that being so, the idea of horse
must have been worked out in order there be a horse here?
Yet what was that there to present the idea of the horse it was desired
to produce? Obviously the idea of horse must exist before there was any
planning to make a horse; it could not be thought of in order to be
made; there must have been horse unproduced before that which was later
to come into being. If, then, the thing existed before it was produced
-- if it cannot have been thought of in order to its production -- the
Being that held the horse as There held it in presence without any
looking to this sphere; it was not with intent to set horse and the
rest in being here that they were contained There; it is that, the
universal existing, the reproduction followed of necessity since the
total of things was not to halt at the Intellectual. Who was there to
call a halt to a power capable at once of self-concentration and of
outflow?
But how come these animals of earth to be There? What have they to do
within God? Reasoning beings, all very well; but this host of the
unreasoning, what is there august in them? Surely the very contrary?
The answer is that obviously the unity of our universe must be that of
a manifold since it is subsequent to that unity-absolute; otherwise it
would be not next to that but the very same thing. As a next it could
not hold the higher rank of being more perfectly a unity; it must fall
short: since the best is a unity, inevitably there must be something
more than unity, for deficiency involves plurality.
But why should it not be simply a dyad?
Because neither of the constituents could ever be a pure unity, but at
the very least a duality and so progressively [in an endless
dualization]. Besides, in that first duality of the hypothesis there
would be also movement and rest, Intellect and the life included in
Intellect, all-embracing Intellect and life complete. That means that
it could not be one Intellect; it must be Intellect agglomerate
including all the particular intellects, a thing therefore as multiple
as all the Intellects and more so; and the life in it would nat be that
of one soul but of all the souls with the further power of producing
the single souls: it would be the entire living universe containing
much besides man; for if it contained only man, man would be alone
here.
9. Admitted, then -- it will be said -- for the nobler forms of life;
but how can the divine contain the mean, the unreasoning? The mean is
the unreasoning, since value depends upon reason and the worth of the
intellective implies worthlessness where intellection is lacking. Yet
how can there be question of the unreasoning or unintellective when all
particulars exist in the divine and come forth from it?
In taking up the refutation of these objections, we must insist upon
the consideration that neither man nor animals here can be thought of
as identical with the counterparts in the higher realm; those ideal
forms must be taken in a larger way. And again the reasoning thing is
not of that realm: here the reasoning, There the pre-reasoning.
Why then does man alone reason here, the others remaining reasonless?
Degrees of reasoning here correspond to degrees of Intellection in that
other sphere, as between man and the other living beings There; and
those others do in some measure act by understanding.
But why are they not at man's level of reason: why also the difference
from man to man?
We must reflect that, since the many forms of lives are movements --
and so with the Intellections -- they cannot be identical: there must
be different lives, distinct intellections, degrees of lightsomeness
and clarity: there must be firsts, seconds, thirds, determined by
nearness to the Firsts. This is how some of the Intellections are gods,
others of a secondary order having what is here known as reason, while
others again belong to the so-called unreasoning: but what we know here
as unreasoning was There a Reason-Principle; the unintelligent was an
Intellect; the Thinker of Horse was Intellect and the Thought, Horse,
was an Intellect.
But [it will be objected] if this were a matter of mere thinking we
might well admit that the intellectual concept, remaining concept,
should take in the unintellectual, but where concept is identical with
thing how can the one be an Intellection and the other without
intelligence? Would not this be Intellect making itself unintelligent?
No: the thing is not unintelligent; it is Intelligence in a particular
mode, corresponding to a particular aspect of Life; and just as life in
whatever form it may appear remains always life, so Intellect is not
annulled by appearing in a certain mode. Intellectual-Principle adapted
to some particular living being does not cease to be the
Intellectual-Principle of all, including man: take it where you will,
every manifestation is the whole, though in some special mode; the
particular is produced but the possibility is of all. In the particular
we see the Intellectual-Principle in realization; the realized is its
latest phase; in one case the last aspect is "horse"; at "horse" ended
the progressive outgoing towards the lesser forms of life, as in
another case it will end at something lower still. The unfolding of the
powers of this Principle is always attended by some abandonment in
regard to the highest; the outgoing is by loss, and by this loss the
powers become one thing or another according to the deficiency of the
life-form produced by the failing principle; it is then that they find
the means of adding various requisites; the safeguards of the life
becoming inadequate there appear nail, talon, fang, horn. Thus the
Intellectual-Principle by its very descent is directed towards the
perfect sufficiency of the natural constitution, finding there within
itself the remedy of the failure.
10. But failure There? What can defensive horns serve to There? To
sufficiency as living form, to completeness. That principle must be
complete as living form, complete as Intellect, complete as life, so
that if it is not to be one thing it may be another. Its characteristic
difference is in this power of being now this, now that, so that,
summing all, it may be the completest life-form, Intelligence complete,
life in greatest fulness with each of the particulars complete in its
degree while yet, over all that multiplicity, unity reigns.
If all were one identity, the total could not contain this variety of
forms; there would be nothing but a self-sufficing unity. Like every
compound it must consist of things progressively differing in form and
safeguarded in that form. This is in the very nature of shape and
Reason-Principle; a shape, that of man let us suppose, must include a
certain number of differences of part but all dominated by a unity;
there will be the noble and the inferior, eye and finger, but all
within a unity; the part will be inferior in comparison with the total
but best in its place. The Reason-Principle, too, is at once the living
form and something else, something distinct from the being of that
form. It is so with virtue also; it contains at once the universal and
the particular; and the total is good because the universal is not
differentiated.
11. The very heavens, patently multiple, cannot be thought to disdain
any form of life since this universe holds everything. Now how do these
things come to be here? Does the higher realm contain all of the lower?
All that has been shaped by Reason-Principle and conforms to Idea.
But, having fire [warmth] and water, it will certainly have vegetation;
how does vegetation exist There? Earth, too? either these are alive or
they are There as dead things and then not everything There has life.
How in sum can the things of this realm be also There?
Vegetal life we can well admit, for the plant is a Reason-Principle
established in life. If in the plant the Reason-Principle, entering
Matter and constituting the plant, is a certain form of life, a
definite soul, then, since every Reason-Principle is a unity, then
either this of plant-life is the primal or before it there is a primal
plant, source of its being: that first plant would be a unity; those
here, being multiple, must derive from a unity. This being so, that
primal must have much the truer life and be the veritable plant, the
plants here deriving from it in the secondary and tertiary degree and
living by a vestige of its life.
But earth; how is there earth There: what is the being of earth and how
are we to represent to ourselves the living earth of that realm?
First, what is it, what the mode of its being?
Earth, here and There alike, must possess shape and a Reason-Principle.
Now in the case of the vegetal, the Reason-Principle of the plant here
was found to be living in that higher realm: is there such a
Reason-Principle in our earth?
Take the most earthy of things found shaped in earth and they exhibit,
even they, the indwelling earth-principle. The growing and shaping of
stones, the internal moulding of mountains as they rise, reveal the
working of an ensouled Reason-Principle fashioning them from within and
bringing them to that shape: this, we must take it, is the creative
earth-principle corresponding to what we call the specific principle of
a tree; what we know as earth is like the wood of the tree; to cut out
a stone is like lopping a twig from a tree, except of course that there
is no hurt done, the stone remaining a member of the earth as the twig,
uncut, of the tree.
Realizing thus that the creative force inherent in our earth is life
within a Reason-Principle, we are easily convinced that the earth There
is much more primally alive, that it is a reasoned Earth-Livingness,
the earth of Real-Being, earth primally, the source of ours.
Fire, similarly, with other such things, must be a Reason-Principle
established in Matter: fire certainly does not originate in the
friction to which it may be traced; the friction merely brings out a
fire already existent in the scheme and contained in the materials
rubbed together. Matter does not in its own character possess this
fire-power: the true cause is something informing the Matter, that is
to say, a Reason-Principle, obviously therefore a soul having the power
of bringing fire into being; that is, a life and a Reason-Principle in
one.
It is with this in mind that Plato says there is soul in everything of
this sphere. That soul is the cause of the fire of the sense-world; the
cause of fire here is a certain Life of fiery character, the more
authentic fire. That transcendent fire being more truly fire will be
more veritably alive; the fire absolute possesses life. And the same
principles apply to the other elements, water and air.
Why, then, are water and air not ensouled as earth is?
Now, it is quite certain that these are equally within the living
total, parts of the living all; life does not appear visibly in them;
but neither does it in the case of the earth where its presence is
inferred by what earth produces: but there are living things in fire
and still more manifestly in water and there are systems of life in the
air. The particular fire, rising only to be quenched, eludes the soul
animating the universe; it slips away from the magnitude which would
manifest the soul within it; so with air and water. If these Kinds
could somehow be fastened down to magnitude they would exhibit the soul
within them, now concealed by the fact that their function requires
them to be loose or flowing. It is much as in the case of the fluids
within ourselves; the flesh and all that is formed out of the blood
into flesh show the soul within, but the blood itself, not bringing us
any sensation, seems not to have soul; yet it must; the blood is not
subject to blind force; its nature obliges it to abstain from the soul
which nonetheless is indwelling in it. This must be the case with the
three elements; it is the fact that the living beings formed from the
close conglomeration of air [the stars] are not susceptible to
suffering. But just as air, so long as it remains itself, eludes the
light which is and remains unyielding, so too, by the effect of its
circular movement, it eludes soul -- and, in another sense, does not.
And so with fire and water.
12. Or take it another way: Since in our view this universe stands to
that as copy to original, the living total must exist There beforehand;
that is the realm of complete Being and everything must exist There.
The sky There must be living and therefore not bare of stars, here
known as the heavens -- for stars are included in the very meaning of
the word. Earth too will be There, and not void but even more intensely
living and containing all that lives and moves upon our earth and the
plants obviously rooted in life; sea will be There and all waters with
the movement of their unending life and all the living things of the
water; air too must be a member of that universe with the living things
of air as here.
The content of that living thing must surely be alive -- as in this
sphere -- and all that lives must of necessity be There. The nature of
the major parts determines that of the living forms they comprise; by
the being and content of the heaven There are determined all the
heavenly forms of life; if those lesser forms were not There, that
heaven itself would not be.
To ask how those forms of life come to be There is simply asking how
that heaven came to be; it is asking whence comes life, whence the
All-Life, whence the All-Soul, whence collective Intellect: and the
answer is that There no indigence or impotence can exist but all must
be teeming, seething, with life. All flows, so to speak, from one fount
not to be thought of as one breath or warmth but rather as one quality
englobing and safeguarding all qualities -- sweetness with fragrance,
wine -- quality and the savours of everything that may be tasted, all
colours seen, everything known to touch, all that ear may hear, all
melodies, every rhythm.
13. For Intellectual-Principle is not a simplex, nor is the soul that
proceeds from it: on the contrary things include variety in the degree
of their simplicity, that is to say in so far as they are not compounds
but Principles and Activities; -- the activity of the lowest is simple
in the sense of being a fading-out, that of the First as the total of
all activity. Intellectual-Principle is moved in a movement unfailingly
true to one course, but its unity and identity are not those of the
partial; they are those of its universality; and indeed the partial
itself is not a unity but divides to infinity.
We know that Intellectual-Principle has a source and advances to some
term as its ultimate; now, is the intermediate between source and term
to thought of as a line or as some distinct kind of body uniform and
unvaried?
Where at that would be its worth? it had no change, if no
differentiation woke it into life, it would not be a Force; that
condition would in no way differ from mere absence of power and, even
calling it movement, it would still be the movement of a life not
all-varied but indiscriminate; now it is of necessity that life be
all-embracing, covering all the realms, and that nothing fail of life.
Intellectual-Principle, therefore, must move in every direction upon
all, or more precisely must ever have so moved.
A simplex moving retains its character; either there is no change,
movement has been null, or if there has been advance it still remains a
simplex and at once there is a permanent duality: if the one member of
this duality is identical with the other, then it is still as it was,
there has been no advance; if one member differs from the other, it has
advanced with differentiation, and, out of a certain identity and
difference, it has produced a third unity. This production, based on
Identity and Difference, must be in its nature identical and different;
it will be not some particular different thing but Collective
Difference, as its Identity is Collective Identity.
Being, thus, at once Collective Identity and Collective Difference,
Intellectual-Principle must reach over all different things; its very
nature then is to modify into a universe. If the realm of different
things existed before it, these different things must have modified it
from the beginning; if they did not, this Intellectual-Principle
produced all, or, rather, was all.
Beings could not exist save by the activity of Intellectual-Principle;
wandering down every way it produces thing after thing, but wandering
always within itself in such self-bound wandering as authentic
Intellect may know; this wandering permitted to its nature is among
real beings which keep pace with its movement; but it is always itself;
this is a stationary wandering, a wandering within the Meadow of Truth
from which it does not stray.
It holds and covers the universe which it has made the space, so to
speak, of its movement, itself being also that universe which is space
to it. And this Meadow of Truth is varied so that movement through it
may be possible; suppose it not always and everywhere varied, the
failing of diversity is a failure of movement; failure in movement
would mean a failing of the Intellectual Act; halting, it has ceased to
exercise its Intellectual Act; this ceasing, it ceases to be.
The Intellectual-Principle is the Intellectual Act; its movement is
complete, filling Being complete; And the entire of Being is the
Intellectual Act entire, comprehending all life and the unfailing
succession of things. Because this Principle contains Identity and
Difference its division is ceaselessly bringing the different things to
light. Its entire movement is through life and among living things. To
a traveller over land, all is earth but earth abounding in difference:
so in this journey the life through which Intellectual-Principle passes
is one life but, in its ceaseless changing, a varied life.
Throughout this endless variation it maintains the one course because
it is not, itself, subject to change but on the contrary is present as
identical and unvarying Being to the rest of things. For if there be no
such principle of unchanging identity to things, all is dead, activity
and actuality exist nowhere. These "other things" through which it
passes are also Intellectual-Principle itself; otherwise it is not the
all-comprehending principle: if it is to be itself, it must be
all-embracing; failing that, it is not itself. If it is complete in
itself, complete because all-embracing, and there is nothing which does
not find place in this total, then there can be nothing belonging to it
which is not different; only by difference can there be such
co-operation towards a total. If it knew no otherness but was pure
identity its essential Being would be the less for that failure to
fulfil the specific nature which its completion requires.
14. On the nature of the Intellectual-Principle we get light from its
manifestations; they show that it demands such diversity as is
compatible with its being a monad. Take what principle you will, that
of plant or animal: if this principle were a pure unity and not a
specifically varied thing, it could not so serve as principle; its
product would be Matter, the principle not having taken all those forms
necessary if Matter is to be permeated and utterly transformed. A face
is not one mass; there are nose and eyes; and the nose is not a unity
but has the differences which make it a nose; as bare unity it would be
mere mass.
There is infinity in Intellectual-Principle since, of its very nature,
it is a multiple unity, not with the unity of a house but with that of
a Reason-Principle, multiple in itself: in the one Intellectual design
it includes within itself, as it were in outline, all the outlines, all
the patterns. All is within it, all the powers and intellections; the
division is not determined by a boundary but goes ever inward; this
content is held as the living universe holds the natural forms of the
living creatures in it from the greatest to the least, down even to the
minutest powers where there is a halt at the individual form. The
discrimination is not of items huddled within a sort of unity; this is
what is known as the Universal Sympathy, not of course the sympathy
known here which is a copy and prevails amongst things in separation;
that authentic Sympathy consists in all being a unity and never
discriminate.
15. That Life, the various, the all-including, the primal and one, who
can consider it without longing to be of it, disdaining all the other?
All other life is darkness, petty and dim and poor; it is unclean and
polluting the clean for if you do but look upon it you no longer see
nor live this life which includes all living, in which there is nothing
that does not live and live in a life of purity void of all that is
ill. For evil is here where life is in copy and Intellect in copy;
There is the archetype, that which is good in the very Idea -- we read
-- as holding The Good in the pure Idea. That Archetype is good;
Intellectual-Principle is good as holding its life by contemplation of
the archetype; and it sees also as good the objects of its
contemplation because it holds them in its act of contemplating the
Principle of Good. But these objects come to it not as they are There
but in accord with its own condition, for it is their source; they
spring thence to be here, and Intellectual-Principle it is that has
produced them by its vision There. In the very law, never, looking to
That, could it fail of Intellectual Act; never, on the other hand,
could it produce what is There; of itself it could not produce; Thence
it must draw its power to bring forth, to teem with offspring of
itself; from the Good it takes what itself did not possess. From that
Unity came multiplicity to Intellectual-Principle; it could not sustain
the power poured upon it and therefore broke it up; it turned that one
power into variety so as to carry it piecemeal.
All its production, effected in the power of The Good, contains
goodness; it is good, itself, since it is constituted by these things
of good; it is Good made diverse. It might be likened to a living
sphere teeming with variety, to a globe of faces radiant with faces all
living, to a unity of souls, all the pure souls, not faulty but the
perfect, with Intellect enthroned over all so that the place entire
glows with Intellectual splendour.
But this would be to see it from without, one thing seeing another; the
true way is to become Intellectual-Principle and be, our very selves,
what we are to see.
16. But even there we are not to remain always, in that beauty of the
multiple; we must make haste yet higher, above this heaven of ours and
even that; leaving all else aside we ask in awe "Who produced that
realm and how?" Everything There is a single Idea in an individual
impression and, informed by The Good, possesses the universal good
transcendent over all. Each possessing that Being above, possesses also
the total Living-Form in virtue of that transcendent life, possesses,
no doubt, much else as well.
But what is the Nature of this Transcendent in view of which and by way
of which the Ideas are good?
The best way of putting the question is to ask whether, when
Intellectual-Principle looked towards The Good, it had Intellection of
that unity as a multiplicity and, itself a unity, plied its Act by
breaking into parts what it was too feeble to know as a whole.
No: that would not be Intellection looking upon the Good; it would be a
looking void of Intellection. We must think of it not as looking but as
living; dependent upon That, it kept itself turned Thither; all the
tendance taking place There and upon That must be a movement teeming
with life and must so fill the looking Principle; there is no longer
bare Act, there is a filling to saturation. Forthwith
Intellectual-Principle becomes all things, knows that fact in virtue of
its self-knowing and at once becomes Intellectual-Principle, filled so
as to hold within itself that object of its vision, seeing all by the
light from the Giver and bearing that Giver with it.
In this way the Supreme may be understood to be the cause at once of
essential reality and of the knowing of reality. The sun, cause of the
existence of sense-things and of their being seen, is indirectly the
cause of sight, without being either the faculty or the object:
similarly this Principle, The Good, cause of Being and
Intellectual-Principle, is a light appropriate to what is to be seen
There and to their seer; neither the Beings nor the
Intellectual-Principle, it is their source and by the light it sheds
upon both makes them objects of Intellection. This filling procures the
existence; after the filling, the being; the existence achieved, the
seeing followed: the beginning is that state of not yet having been
filled, though there is, also, the beginning which means that the
Filling Principle was outside and by that act of filling gave shape to
the filled.
17. But in what mode are these secondaries, and Intellectual-Principle
itself, within the First? They are not in the Filling Principle; they
are not in the filled since before that moment it did not contain them.
Giving need not comport possessing; in this order we are to think of a
giver as a greater and of a gift as a lower; this is the meaning of
origin among real Beings. First there must be an actualized thing; its
laters must be potentially their own priors; a first must transcend its
derivatives; the giver transcends the given, as a superior. If
therefore there is a prior to actuality, that prior transcends Activity
and so transcends Life. Our sphere containing life, there is a Giver of
Life, a principle of greater good, of greater worth than Life; this
possessed Life and had no need to look for it to any giver in
possession of Life's variety.
But the Life was a vestige of that Primal not a life lived by it; Life,
then, as it looked towards That was undetermined; having looked it had
determination though That had none. Life looks to unity and is
determined by it, taking bound, limit, form. But this form is in the
shaped, the shaper had none; the limit was not external as something
drawn about a magnitude; the limit was that of the multiplicity of the
Life There, limitless itself as radiated from its great Prior; the Life
itself was not that of some determined being, or it would be no more
than the life of an individual. Yet it is defined; it must then have
been defined as the Life of a unity including multiplicity; certainly
too each item of the multiplicity is determined, determined as multiple
by the multiplicity of Life but as a unity by the fact of limit.
As what, then, is its unity determined?
As Intellectual-Principle: determined Life is Intellectual-Principle.
And the multiplicity?
As the multiplicity of Intellectual-Principles: all its multiplicity
resolves itself into Intellectual-Principles -- on the one hand the
collective Principle, on the other the particular Principles.
But does this collective Intellectual-Principle include each of the
particular Principles as identical with itself?
No: it would be thus the container of only the one thing; since there
are many Intellectual-Principles within the collective, there must be
differentiation.
Once more, how does the particular Intellect come to this
differentiation?
It takes its characteristic difference by becoming entirely a unity
within the collective whose totality could not be identical with any
particular.
Thus the Life in the Supreme was the collectivity of power; the vision
taking place There was the potentiality of all; Intellectual-Principle,
thus arising, is manifested as this universe of Being. It stands over
the Beings not as itself requiring base but that it may serve as base
to the Form of the Firsts, the Formless Form. And it takes position
towards the soul, becoming a light to the soul as itself finds its
light in the First; whenever Intellectual-Principle becomes the
determinant of soul it shapes it into Reasoning Soul, by communicating
a trace of what itself has come to possess.
Thus Intellectual-Principle is a vestige of the Supreme; but since the
vestige is a Form going out into extension, into plurality, that Prior,
as the source of Form, must be itself without shape and Form: if the
Prior were a Form, the Intellectual-Principle itself could be only a
Reason-Principle. It was necessary that The First be utterly without
multiplicity, for otherwise it must be again referred to a prior.
18. But in what way is the content of Intellectual-Principle
participant in good? Is it because each member of it is an Idea or
because of their beauty or how?
Anything coming from The Good carries the image and type belonging to
that original or deriving from it, as anything going back to warmth or
sweetness carries the memory of those originals: Life entered into
Intellectual-Principle from The Supreme, for its origin is in the
Activity streaming Thence; Intellectual-Principle springs from the
Supreme, and with it the beauty of the Ideas; at once all these, Life,
Intellectual-Principle, Idea, must inevitably have goodness.
But what is the common element in them? Derivation from the First is
not enough to procure identical quality; there must be some element
held in common by the things derived: one source may produce many
differing things as also one outgoing thing may take difference in
various recipients: what enters into the First Act is different from
what that Act transmits and there is difference, again, in the effect
here. Nonetheless every item may be good in a degree of its own. To
what, then, is the highest degree due?
But first we must ask whether Life is a good, bare Life, or only the
Life streaming Thence, very different from the Life known here? Once
more, then, what constitutes the goodness of Life?
The Life of The Good, or rather not its Life but that given forth from
it.
But if in that higher Life there must be something from That, something
which is the Authentic Life, we must admit that since nothing worthless
can come Thence Life in itself is good; so too we must admit, in the
case of Authentic Intellectual-Principle, that its Life because good
derives from that First; thus it becomes clear that every Idea is good
and informed by the Good. The Ideas must have something of good,
whether as a common property or as a distinct attribution or as held in
some distinct measure.
Thus it is established that the particular Idea contains in its essence
something of good and thereby becomes a good thing; for Life we found
to be good not in the bare being but in its derivation from the
Authentic, the Supreme whence it sprung: and the same is true of
Intellectual-Principle: we are forced therefore admit a certain
identity.
When, with all their differences, things may be affirmed to have a
measure of identity, the matter of the identity may very well be
established in their very essence and yet be mentally abstracted; thus
life in man or horse yields the notion of animal; from water or fire we
may get that of warmth; the first case is a definition of Kind, the
other two cite qualities, primary and secondary respectively. Both or
one part of Intellect, then, would be called by the one term good.
Is The Good, then, inherent in the Ideas essentially? Each of them is
good but the goodness is not that of the Unity-Good. How, then, is it
present?
By the mode of parts.
But The Good is without parts?
No doubt The Good is a unity; but here it has become particularized.
The First Activity is good and anything determined in accord with it is
good as also is any resultant. There is the good that is good by origin
in The First, the good that is in an ordered system derived from that
earlier, and the good that is in the actualization [in the thing
participant]. Derived, then, not identical -- like the speech and walk
and other characteristics of one man, each playing its due part.
Here, it is obvious, goodness depends upon order, rhythm, but what
equivalent exists There?
We might answer that in the case of the sense-order, too, the good is
imposed since the ordering is of things different from the Orderer but
that There the very things are good.
But why are they thus good in themselves? We cannot be content with the
conviction of their goodness on the ground of their origin in that
realm: we do not deny that things deriving Thence are good, but our
subject demands that we discover the mode by which they come to possess
that goodness.
19. Are we to rest all on pursuit and on the soul? Is it enough to put
faith in the soul's choice and call that good which the soul pursues,
never asking ourselves the motive of its choice? We marshal
demonstration as to the nature of everything else; is the good to be
dismissed as choice?
Several absurdities would be entailed. The good becomes a mere
attribute of things; objects of pursuit are many and different so that
mere choice gives no assurance that the thing chosen is the best; in
fact, we cannot know the best until we know the good.
Are we to determine the good by the respective values of things?
This is to make Idea and Reason-Principle the test: all very well; but
arrived at these, what explanation have we to give as to why Idea and
Reason-Principle themselves are good? In the lower, we recognise
goodness -- in its less perfect form -- by comparison with what is
poorer still; we are without a standard There where no evil exists, the
Bests holding the field alone. Reason demands to know what constitutes
goodness; those principles are good in their own nature and we are left
in perplexity because cause and fact are identical: and even though we
should state a cause, the doubt still remains until our reason claims
its rights There. But we need not abandon the search; another path may
lead to the light.
20. Since we are not entitled to make desire the test by which to
decide on the nature and quality of the good, we may perhaps have
recourse to judgement.
We would apply the opposition of things -- order, disorder; symmetry,
irregularity; health, illness; form, shapelessness; real-being, decay:
in a word continuity against dissolution. The first in each pair, no
one could doubt, belong to the concept of good and therefore whatever
tends to produce them must be ranged on the good side.
Thus virtue and Intellectual-Principle and life and soul -- reasoning
soul, at least -- belong to the idea of good and so therefore does all
that a reasoned life aims at.
Why not halt, then -- it will be asked -- at Intellectual-Principle and
make that The Good? Soul and life are traces of Intellectual-Principle;
that principle is the Term of Soul which on judgement sets itself
towards Intellectual-Principle, pronouncing right preferable to wrong
and virtue in every form to vice, and thus ranking by its choosing.
The soul aiming only at that Principle would need a further lessoning;
it must be taught that Intellectual-Principle is not the ultimate, that
not all things look to that while all do look to the good. Not all that
is outside of Intellectual-Principle seeks to attain it; what has
attained it does not halt there but looks still towards good. Besides,
Intellectual-Principle is sought upon motives of reasoning, the good
before all reason. And in any striving towards life and continuity of
existence and activity, the object is aimed at not as
Intellectual-Principle but as good, as rising from good and leading to
it: life itself is desirable only in view of good.
21. Now what in all these objects of desire is the fundamental making
them good?
We must be bold:
Intellectual-Principle and that life are of the order of good and hold
their desirability, even they, in virtue of belonging to that order;
they have their goodness, I mean, because Life is an Activity in The
Good, -- Or rather, streaming from The Good -- while
Intellectual-Principle is an Activity already defined Therein; both are
of radiant beauty and, because they come Thence and lead Thither, they
are sought after by the soul-sought, that is, as things congenial
though not veritably good while yet, as belonging to that order not to
be rejected; the related, if not good, is shunned in spite of that
relationship, and even remote and ignobler things may at times prove
attractive.
The intense love called forth by Life and Intellectual-Principle is due
not to what they are but to the consideration of their nature as
something apart, received from above themselves.
Material forms, containing light incorporated in them, need still a
light apart from them that their own light may be manifest; just so the
Beings of that sphere, all lightsome, need another and a lordlier light
or even they would not be visible to themselves and beyond.
22. That light known, then indeed we are stirred towards those Beings
in longing and rejoicing over the radiance about them, just as earthly
love is not for the material form but for the Beauty manifested upon
it. Every one of those Beings exists for itself but becomes an object
of desire by the colour cast upon it from The Good, source of those
graces and of the love they evoke. The soul taking that outflow from
the divine is stirred; seized with a Bacchic passion, goaded by these
goads, it becomes Love. Before that, even Intellectual-Principle with
all its loveliness did not stir the soul; for that beauty is dead until
it take the light of The Good, and the soul lies supine, cold to all,
unquickened even to Intellectual-Principle there before it. But when
there enters into it a glow from the divine, it gathers strength,
awakens, spreads true wings, and however urged by its nearer
environing, speeds its buoyant way elsewhere, to something greater to
its memory: so long as there exists anything loftier than the near, its
very nature bears it upwards, lifted by the giver of that love. Beyond
Intellectual-Principle it passes but beyond The Good it cannot, for
nothing stands above That. Let it remain in Intellectual-Principle and
it sees the lovely and august, but it is not there possessed of all it
sought; the face it sees is beautiful no doubt but not of power to hold
its gaze because lacking in the radiant grace which is the bloom upon
beauty.
Even here we have to recognise that beauty is that which irradiates
symmetry rather than symmetry itself and is that which truly calls out
our love.
Why else is there more of the glory of beauty upon the living and only
some faint trace of it upon the dead, though the face yet retains all
its fulness and symmetry? Why are the most living portraits the most
beautiful, even though the others happen to be more symmetric? Why is
the living ugly more attractive than the sculptured handsome? It is
that the one is more nearly what we are looking for, and this because
there is soul there, because there is more of the Idea of The Good,
because there is some glow of the light of The Good and this
illumination awakens and lifts the soul and all that goes with it so
that the whole man is won over to goodness, and in the fullest measure
stirred to life.
23. That which soul must quest, that which sheds its light upon
Intellectual-Principle, leaving its mark wherever it falls, surely we
need not wonder that it be of power to draw to itself, calling back
from every wandering to rest before it. From it came all, and so there
is nothing mightier; all is feeble before it. Of all things the best,
must it not be The Good? If by The Good we mean the principle most
wholly self-sufficing, utterly without need of any other, what can it
be but this? Before all the rest, it was what it was, when evil had yet
no place in things.
If evil is a Later, there found where there is no trace of This --
among the very ultimates, so that on the downward side evil has no
beyond -- then to This evil stands full contrary with no linking
intermediate: This therefore is The Good: either good there is none, or
if there must be, This and no other is it.
And to deny the good would be to deny evil also; there can then be no
difference in objects coming up for choice: but that is untenable.
To This looks all else that passes for good; This, to nothing.
What then does it effect out of its greatness?
It has produced Intellectual-Principle, it has produced Life, the souls
which Intellectual-Principle sends forth and everything else that
partakes of Reason, of Intellectual-Principle or of Life. Source and
spring of so much, how describe its goodness and greatness?
But what does it effect now?
Even now it is preserver of what it produced; by it the Intellectual
Beings have their Intellection and the living their life; it breathes
Intellect in breathes Life in and, where life is impossible, existence.
24. But ourselves -- how does it touch us?
We may recall what we have said of the nature of the light shining from
it into Intellectual-Principle and so by participation into the soul.
But for the moment let us leave that aside and put another question:
Does The Good hold that nature and name because some outside thing
finds it desirable? May we put it that a thing desirable to one is good
to that one and that what is desirable to all is to be recognised as
The Good?
No doubt this universal questing would make the goodness evident but
still there must be in the nature something to earn that name.
Further, is the questing determined by the hope of some acquisition or
by sheer delight? If there is acquisition, what is it? If it is a
matter of delight, why here rather than in something else?
The question comes to this: Is goodness in the appropriate or in
something apart, and is The Good good as regards itself also or good
only as possessed?
Any good is such, necessarily, not for itself but for something
outside.
But to what nature is This good? There is a nature to which nothing is
good.
And we must not overlook what some surly critic will surely bring up
against us:
What's all this: you scatter praises here, there and everywhere: Life
is good, Intellectual-Principle is good: and yet The Good is above
them; how then can Intellectual-Principle itself be good? Or what do we
gain by seeing the Ideas themselves if we see only a particular Idea
and nothing else [nothing "substantial"]? If we are happy here we may
be deceived into thinking life a good when it is merely pleasant; but
suppose our lot unhappy, why should we speak of good? Is mere personal
existence good? What profit is there in it? What is the advantage in
existence over utter non-existence -- unless goodness is to be founded
upon our love of self? It is the deception rooted in the nature of
things and our dread of dissolution that lead to all the "goods" of
your positing.
25. It is in view, probably, of this difficulty that Plato, in the
Philebus, makes pleasure an element in the Term; the good is not
defined as a simplex or set in Intellectual-Principle alone; while he
rightly refrains from identifying the good with the pleasant, yet he
does not allow Intellectual-Principle, foreign to pleasure, to be The
Good, since he sees no attractive power in it. He may also have had in
mind that the good, to answer to its name, must be a thing of delight
and that an object of pursuit must at least hold some pleasure for
those that acquire and possess it, so that where there is no joy the
good too is absent, further that pleasure, implying pursuit, cannot
pertain to the First and that therefore good cannot.
All this was very well; there the enquiry was not as to the Primal Good
but as to ours; the good dealt with in that passage pertains to very
different beings and therefore is a different good; it is a good
falling short of that higher; it is a mingled thing; we are to
understand that good does not hold place in the One and Alone whose
being is too great and different for that.
The good must, no doubt, be a thing pursued, not, however, good because
it is pursued but pursued because it is good.
The solution, it would seem, lies in priority:
To the lowest of things the good is its immediate higher; each step
represents the good to what stands lower so long as the movement does
not tend awry but advances continuously towards the superior: thus
there is a halt at the Ultimate, beyond which no ascent is possible:
that is the First Good, the authentic, the supremely sovereign, the
source of good to the rest of things.
Matter would have Forming-Idea for its good, since, were it conscious,
it would welcome that; body would look to soul, without which it could
not be or endure; soul must look to virtue; still higher stands
Intellectual-Principle; above that again is the principle we call the
Primal. Each of these progressive priors must have act upon those
minors to which they are, respectively, the good: some will confer
order and place, others life, others wisdom and the good life:
Intellectual-Principle will draw upon the Authentic Good which we hold
to be coterminous with it, both as being an Activity put forth from it
and as even now taking light from it. This good we will define later.
26. Any conscious being, if the good come to him, will know the good
and affirm his possession of it.
But what if one be deceived?
In that case there must be some resemblance to account for the error:
the good will be the original which the delusion counterfeited and
whenever the true presents itself we turn from the spurious.
All the striving, all the pain, show that to everything something is a
good: the lifeless finds its share in something outside itself; where
there is life the longing for good sets up pursuit; the very dead are
cared for and mourned for by the living; the living plan for their own
good. The witness of attainment is betterment, cleaving to state,
satisfaction, settlement, suspension of pursuit. Here pleasure shows
itself inadequate; its choice does not hold; repeated, it is no longer
the same; it demands endless novelty. The good, worthy of the name, can
be no such tasting of the casual; anyone that takes this kind of thing
for the good goes empty, carrying away nothing but an emotion which the
good might have produced. No one could be content to take his pleasure
thus in an emotion over a thing not possessed any more than over a
child not there; I cannot think that those setting their good in bodily
satisfactions find table-pleasure without the meal, or love-pleasure
without intercourse with their chosen, or any pleasure where nothing is
done.
27. But what is that whose entry supplies every such need?
Some Idea, we maintain. There is a Form to which Matter aspires: to
soul, moral excellence is this Form.
But is this Form a good to the thing as being apt to it, does the
striving aim at the apt?
No: the aptest would be the most resemblant to the thing itself, but
that, however sought and welcomed, does not suffice for the good: the
good must be something more: to be a good to another a thing must have
something beyond aptness; that only can be adopted as the good which
represents the apt in its better form and is best to what is best in
the quester's self, to that which the quester tends potentially to be.
A thing is potentially that to which its nature looks; this, obviously,
it lacks; what it lacks, of its better, is its good. Matter is of all
that most in need; its next is the lowest Form; Form at lowest is just
one grade higher than Matter. If a thing is a good to itself, much more
must its perfection, its Form, its better, be a good to it; this
better, good in its own nature, must be good also to the quester whose
good it procures.
But why should the Form which makes a thing good be a good to that
thing? As being most appropriate?
No: but because it is, itself, a portion of the Good. This is why the
least alloyed and nearest to the good are most at peace within
themselves.
It is surely out of place to ask why a thing good in its own nature
should be a good; we can hardly suppose it dissatisfied with its own
goodness so that it must strain outside its essential quality to the
good which it effectually is.
There remains the question with regard to the Simplex: where there is
utter absence of distinction does this self-aptness constitute the good
to that Simplex?
If thus far we have been right, the striving of the lower possesses
itself of the good as of a thing resident in a certain Kind, and it is
not the striving that constitutes the good but the good that calls out
the striving: where the good is attained something is acquired and on
this acquisition there follows pleasure. But the thing must be chosen
even though no pleasure ensued; it must be desirable for its own sake.
28. Now to see what all this reasoning has established:
Universally, what approaches as a good is a Form; Matter itself
contains this good which is Form: are we to conclude that, if Matter
had will, it would desire to be Form unalloyed?
No: that would be desiring its own destruction, for the good seeks to
subject everything to itself. But perhaps Matter would not wish to
remain at its own level but would prefer to attain Being and, this
acquired, to lay aside its evil.
If we are asked how the evil thing can have tendency towards the good,
we answer that we have not attributed tendency to Matter; our argument
needed the hypothesis of sensation in Matter -- in so far as possible
consistently with retention of its character -- and we asserted that
the entry of Form, that dream of the Good, must raise it to a nobler
order. If then Matter is Evil, there is no more to be said; if it is
something else -- a wrong thing, let us say -- then in the hypothesis
that its essence acquire sensation would not the appropriate upon the
next or higher plane be its good, as in the other cases? But not what
is evil in Matter would be the quester of good but that element in it
[lowest Form] which in it is associated with evil.
But if Matter by very essence is evil how could it choose the good?
This question implies that if Evil were self-conscious it would admire
itself: but how can the unadmirable be admired; and did we not discover
that the good must be apt to the nature?
There that question may rest. But if universally the good is Form and
the higher the ascent the more there is of Form-Soul more truly Form
than body is and phases of soul progressively of higher Form and
Intellectual-Principle standing as Form to soul collectively -- then
the Good advances by the opposite of Matter and, therefore, by a
cleansing and casting away to the utmost possible at each stage: and
the greatest good must be there where all that is of Matter has
disappeared. The Principle of Good rejecting Matter entirely -- or
rather never having come near it at any point or in any way -- must
hold itself aloft with that Formless in which Primal Form takes its
origin. But we will return to this.
29. Suppose, however, that pleasure did not result from the good but
there were something preceding pleasure and accounting for it, would
not this be a thing to be embraced?
But when we say "to be embraced" we say "pleasure."
But what if accepting its existence, we think of that existence as
leaving still the possibility that it were not a thing to be embraced?
This would mean the good being present and the sentient possessor
failing, nonetheless, to perceive it.
It would seem possible, however, to perceive and yet be unmoved by the
possession; this is quite likely in the case of the wiser and least
dependent -- and indeed it is so with the First, immune not merely
because simplex, but because pleasure by acquisition implies lack.
But all this will become clear on the solution of our remaining
difficulties and the rebuttal of the argument brought up against us.
This takes the form of the question: "What gain is there in the Good to
one who, fully conscious, feels nothing when he hears of these things,
whether because he has no grasp of them but takes merely the words or
because he holds to false values, perhaps being all in search of sense,
finding his good in money or such things?"
The answer is that even in his disregard of the good proposed he is
with us in setting a good before him but fails to see how the good we
define fits into his own conception. It is impossible to say "Not that"
if one is utterly without experience or conception of the "That"; there
will generally have been, even, some inkling of the good beyond
Intellection. Besides, one attaining or approaching the good, but not
recognising it, may assure himself in the light of its contraries;
otherwise he will not even hold ignorance an evil though everyone
prefers to know and is proud of knowing so that our very sensations
seek to ripen into knowledge.
If the knowing principle -- and specially primal Intellectual-Principle
-- is valuable and beautiful, what must be present to those of power to
see the Author and Father of Intellect? Anyone thinking slightingly of
this principle of Life and Being brings evidence against himself and
all his state: of course, distaste for the life that is mingled with
death does not touch that Life Authentic.
30. Whether pleasure must enter into the good, so that life in the
contemplation of the divine things and especially of their source
remains still imperfect, is a question not to be ignored in any enquiry
into the nature of the good.
Now to found the good upon the Intellect and upon that state of soul or
mind which springs from wisdom does not imply that the end or the
absolute good is the conjunction [of Intellect and state]: it would
follow merely that Intellect is the good and that we feel happy in
possession of that good. That is one theory; another associates
pleasure with Intellect in the sense that the Good is taken to be some
one thing founded upon both but depending upon our attaining or at
least contemplating an Intellect so modified; this theory would
maintain that the isolated and unrelated could be the good, could be an
object of desire.
But how could Intellect and pleasure combine into one mutually
complementary nature?
Bodily pleasure no one, certainly, would think capable of blending in
with Intellect; the unreasoning satisfactions of soul [or lower mind]
are equally incompatible with it.
Every activity, state, and life, will be followed and as it were
escorted by the over-dwelling consciousness; sometimes as these take
their natural course they will be met by hindrance and by intrusion of
the conflicting so that the life is the less self-guided; sometimes the
natural activity is unmixed, wholly free, and then the life goes
brilliantly; this last state is judged the pleasantest, the most to be
chosen; so, for lack of an accurate expression, we hear of "Intellect
in conjunction with pleasure." But this is no more than metaphor, like
a hundred others drawn by the poets from our natural likings -- "Drunk
with nectar," "To banquet and feast," "The Father smiled." No: the
veritably pleasant lies away in that other realm, the most to be loved
and sought for, not something brought about and changing but the very
principle of all the colour and radiance and brightness found here.
This is why we read of "Truth introduced into the Mixture" and of the
"measuring standard as a prior condition" and are told that the
symmetry and beauty necessary to the Mixture come Thence into whatever
has beauty; it is in this way that we have our share in Beauty; but in
another way, also, we achieve the truly desirable, that is by leading
our selves up to what is best within us; this best is what is symmetry,
beauty, collective Idea, life clear, Intellective and good.
31. But since Thence come the beauty and light in all, it is Thence
that Intellectual-Principle took the brilliance of the Intellectual
Energy which flashed Nature into being; Thence soul took power towards
life, in virtue of that fuller life streaming into it.
Intellectual-Principle was raised thus to that Supreme and remains with
it, happy in that presence. Soul too, that soul which as possessing
knowledge and vision was capable, clung to what it saw; and as its
vision so its rapture; it saw and was stricken; but having in itself
something of that principle it felt its kinship and was moved to
longing like those stirred by the image of the beloved to desire of the
veritable presence. Lovers here mould themselves to the beloved; they
seek to increase their attraction of person and their likeness of mind;
they are unwilling to fall short in moral quality or in other graces
lest they be distasteful to those possessing such merit -- and only
among such can true love be. In the same way the soul loves the Supreme
Good, from its very beginnings stirred by it to love. The soul which
has never strayed from this love waits for no reminding from the beauty
of our world: holding that love -- perhaps unawares -- it is ever in
quest, and, in its longing to be borne Thither, passes over what is
lovely here and with one glance at the beauty of the universe dismisses
all; for it sees that all is put together of flesh and Matter, befouled
by its housing, made fragmentary by corporal extension, not the
Authentic Beauty which could never venture into the mud of body to be
soiled, annulled.
By only noting the flux of things it knows at once that from elsewhere
comes the beauty that floats upon them and so it is urged Thither,
passionate in pursuit of what it loves: never -- unless someone robs it
of that love -- never giving up till it attain.
There indeed all it saw was beautiful and veritable; it grew in
strength by being thus filled with the life of the True; itself
becoming veritable Being and attaining veritable knowledge, it enters
by that neighbouring into conscious possession of what it has long been
seeking.
32. Where, then? where exists the author of this beauty and life, the
begetter of the veritable?
You see the splendour over the things of the universe with all the
variety begotten of the Ideas; well might we linger here: but amid all
these things of beauty we cannot but ask whence they come and whence
the beauty. This source can be none of the beautiful objects; were it
so, it too would be a thing of parts. It can be no shape, no power, nor
the total of powers and shapes that have had the becoming that has set
them here; it must stand above all the powers, all the patterns. The
origin of all this must be the formless -- formless not as lacking
shape but as the very source of even shape Intellectual.
In the realm of process anything coming to be must come to be
something; to every thing its distinctive shape: but what shape can
that have which no one has shaped? It can be none of existing things;
yet it is all: none, in that beings are later; all, as the wellspring
from which they flow. That which can make all can have, itself, no
extension; it must be limitless and so without magnitude; magnitude
itself is of the Later and cannot be an element in that which is to
bring it into being. The greatness of the Authentic cannot be a
greatness of quantity; all extension must belong to the subsequent: the
Supreme is great in the sense only that there can be nothing mightier,
nothing to equal it, nothing with anything in common with it: how then
could anything be equal to any part of its content? Its eternity and
universal reach entail neither measure nor measurelessness; given
either, how could it be the measure of things? So with shape: granted
beauty, the absence of shape or form to be grasped is but enhancement
of desire and love; the love will be limitless as the object is, an
infinite love.
Its beauty, too, will be unique, a beauty above beauty: it cannot be
beauty since it is not a thing among things. It is lovable and the
author of beauty; as the power to all beautiful shape, it will be the
ultimate of beauty, that which brings all loveliness to be; it begets
beauty and makes it yet more beautiful by the excess of beauty
streaming from itself, the source and height of beauty. As the source
of beauty it makes beautiful whatsoever springs from it. And this
conferred beauty is not itself in shape; the thing that comes to be is
without shape, though in another sense shaped; what is denoted by shape
is, in itself, an attribute of something else, shapeless at first. Not
the beauty but its participant takes the shape.
33. When therefore we name beauty, all such shape must be dismissed;
nothing visible is to be conceived, or at once we descend from beauty
to what but bears the name in virtue of some faint participation. This
formless Form is beautiful as Form, beautiful in proportion as we strip
away all shape even that given in thought to mark difference, as for
instance the difference between Justice and Sophrosyne, beautiful in
their difference.
The Intellectual-Principle is the less for seeing things as distinct
even in its act of grasping in unity the multiple content of its
Intellectual realm; in its knowing of the particular it possesses
itself of one Intellectual shape; but, even thus, in this dealing with
variety as unity, it leaves us still with the question how we are to
envisage that which stands beyond this all-lovely, beyond this
principle at once multiple and above multiplicity, the Supreme for
which the soul hungers though unable to tell why such a being should
stir its longing-reason, however, urging that This at last is the
Authentic Term because the Nature best and most to be loved may be
found there only where there is no least touch of Form. Bring something
under Form and present it so before the mind; immediately we ask what
Beyond imposed that shape; reason answers that while there exists the
giver having shape to give -- a giver that is shape, idea, an entirely
measured thing -- yet this is not alone, is not adequate in itself, is
not beautiful in its own right but is a mingled thing. Shape and idea
and measure will always be beautiful, but the Authentic Beauty and the
Beyond-Beauty cannot be under measure and therefore cannot have
admitted shape or be Idea: the primal existent, The First, must be
without Form; the beauty in it must be, simply, the Nature of the
Intellectual Good.
Take an example from love: so long as the attention is upon the visible
form, love has not entered: when from that outward form the lover
elaborates within himself, in his own partless soul, an immaterial
image, then it is that love is born, then the lover longs for the sight
of the beloved to make that fading image live again. If he could but
learn to look elsewhere, to the more nearly formless, his longing would
be for that: his first experience was loving a great luminary by way of
some thin gleam from it.
Shape is an impress from the unshaped; it is the unshaped that produces
shape, not shape the unshaped; and Matter is needed for the producing;
Matter, in the nature of things, is the furthest away, since of itself
it has not even the lowest degree of shape. Thus lovableness does not
belong to Matter but to that which draws upon Form: the Form upon
Matter comes by way of soul; soul is more nearly Form and therefore
more lovable; Intellectual-Principle, nearer still, is even more to be
loved: by these steps we are led to know that the First Principle,
principle of Beauty, must be formless.
34. No longer can we wonder that the principle evoking such longing
should be utterly free from shape. The very soul, once it has conceived
the straining love towards this, lays aside all the shape it has taken,
even to the Intellectual shape that has informed it. There is no
vision, no union, for those handling or acting by any thing other; the
soul must see before it neither evil nor good nor anything else, that
alone it may receive the Alone.
Suppose the soul to have attained: the highest has come to her, or
rather has revealed its presence; she has turned away from all about
her and made herself apt, beautiful to the utmost, brought into
likeness with the divine by those preparings and adornings which come
unbidden to those growing ready for the vision -- she has seen that
presence suddenly manifesting within her, for there is nothing between:
here is no longer a duality but a two in one; for, so long as the
presence holds, all distinction fades: it is as lover and beloved here,
in a copy of that union, long to blend; the soul has now no further
awareness of being in body and will give herself no foreign name, not
"man," not "living being," not "being," not "all"; any observation of
such things falls away; the soul has neither time nor taste for them;
This she sought and This she has found and on This she looks and not
upon herself; and who she is that looks she has not leisure to know.
Once There she will barter for This nothing the universe holds; not
though one would make over the heavens entire to her; than This there
is nothing higher, nothing of more good; above This there is no
passing; all the rest, however lofty, lies on the downgoing path: she
is of perfect judgement and knows that This was her quest, that nothing
higher is. Here can be no deceit; where could she come upon truer than
the truth? and the truth she affirms, that she is, herself; but all the
affirmation is later and is silent. In this happiness she knows beyond
delusion that she is happy; for this is no affirmation of an excited
body but of a soul become again what she was in the time of her early
joy. All that she had welcomed of old-office, power, wealth, beauty,
knowledge of all she tells her scorn as she never could had she not
found their better; linked to This she can fear no disaster nor even
know it; let all about her fall to pieces, so she would have it that
she may be wholly with This, so huge the happiness she has won to.
35. Such in this union is the soul's temper that even the act of
Intellect, once so intimately loved, she now dismisses; Intellection is
movement and she has no wish to move; she has nothing to say of this
very Intellectual-Principle by means of which she has attained the
vision, herself made over into Intellectual-Principle and becoming that
principle so as to be able to take stand in that Intellectual space.
Entered there and making herself over to that, she at first
contemplates that realm, but once she sees that higher still she leaves
all else aside. Thus when a man enters a house rich in beauty he might
gaze about and admire the varied splendour before the master appears;
but, face to face with that great person -- no thing of ornament but
calling for the truest attention -- he would ignore everything else and
look only to the master. In this state of absorbed contemplation there
is no longer question of holding an object: the vision is continuous so
that seeing and seen are one thing; object and act of vision have
become identical; of all that until then filled the eye no memory
remains. And our comparison would be closer if instead of a man
appearing to the visitor who had been admiring the house it were a god,
and not a god manifesting to the eyes but one filling the soul.
Intellectual-Principle, thus, has two powers, first that of grasping
intellectively its own content, the second that of an advancing and
receiving whereby to know its transcendent; at first it sees, later by
that seeing it takes possession of Intellectual-Principle, becoming one
only thing with that: the first seeing is that of Intellect knowing,
the second that of Intellect loving; stripped of its wisdom in the
intoxication of the nectar, it comes to love; by this excess it is made
simplex and is happy; and to be drunken is better for it than to be too
staid for these revels.
But is its vision parcelwise, thing here and thing there?
No: reason unravelling gives process; Intellectual-Principle has
unbroken knowledge and has, moreover, an Act unattended by knowing, a
vision by another approach. In this seeing of the Supreme it becomes
pregnant and at once knows what has come to be within it; its knowledge
of its content is what is designated by its Intellection; its knowing
of the Supreme is the virtue of that power within it by which, in a
later [lower] stage it is to become "Intellective."
As for soul, it attains that vision by -- so to speak -- confounding
and annulling the Intellectual-Principle within it; or rather that
Principle immanent in soul sees first and thence the vision penetrates
to soul and the two visions become one.
The Good spreading out above them and adapting itself to that union
which it hastens to confirm is present to them as giver of a blessed
sense and sight; so high it lifts them that they are no longer in space
or in that realm of difference where everything is rooted in some other
thing; for The Good is not in place but is the container of the
Intellectual place; The Good is in nothing but itself.
The soul now knows no movement since the Supreme knows none; it is now
not even soul since the Supreme is not in life but above life; it is no
longer Intellectual-Principle, for the Supreme has not Intellection and
the likeness must be perfect; this grasping is not even by
Intellection, for the Supreme is not known Intellectively.
36. We need not carry this matter further; we turn to a question
already touched but demanding still some brief consideration.
Knowledge of The Good or contact with it, is the all-important: this --
we read -- is the grand learning, the learning we are to understand,
not of looking towards it but attaining, first, some knowledge of it.
We come to this learning by analogies, by abstractions, by our
understanding of its subsequents, of all that is derived from The Good,
by the upward steps towards it. Purification has The Good for goal; so
the virtues, all right ordering, ascent within the Intellectual,
settlement therein, banqueting upon the divine -- by these methods one
becomes, to self and to all else, at once seen and seer; identical with
Being and Intellectual-Principle and the entire living all, we no
longer see the Supreme as an external; we are near now, the next is
That and it is close at hand, radiant above the Intellectual.
Here, we put aside all the learning; disciplined to this pitch,
established in beauty, the quester holds knowledge still of the ground
he rests on but, suddenly, swept beyond it all by the very crest of the
wave of Intellect surging beneath, he is lifted and sees, never knowing
how; the vision floods the eyes with light, but it is not a light
showing some other object, the light is itself the vision. No longer is
there thing seen and light to show it, no longer Intellect and object
of Intellection; this is the very radiance that brought both Intellect
and Intellectual object into being for the later use and allowed them
to occupy the quester's mind. With This he himself becomes identical,
with that radiance whose Act is to engender Intellectual-Principle, not
losing in that engendering but for ever unchanged, the engendered
coming to be simply because that Supreme exists. If there were no such
principle above change, no derivative could rise.
37. Those ascribing Intellection to the First have not supposed him to
know the lesser, the emanant -- though, indeed, some have thought it
impossible that he should not know everything. But those denying his
knowing of the lesser have still attributed self-knowing to him,
because they find nothing nobler; we are to suppose that so he is the
more august, as if Intellection were something nobler than his own
manner of being not something whose value derives from him.
But we ask in what must his grandeur lie, in his Intellection or in
himself. If in the Intellection, he has no worth or the less worth; if
in himself, he is perfect before the Intellection, not perfected by it.
We may be told that he must have Intellection because he is an Act, not
a potentiality. Now if this means that he is an essence eternally
intellective, he is represented as a duality -- essence and
Intellective Act -- he ceases to be a simplex; an external has been
added: it is just as the eyes are not the same as their sight, though
the two are inseparable. If on the other hand by this actualization it
is meant that he is Act and Intellection, then as being Intellection he
does not exercise it, just as movement is not itself in motion.
But do not we ourselves assert that the Beings There are essence and
Act?
The Beings, yes, but they are to us manifold and differentiated: the
First we make a simplex; to us Intellection begins with the emanant in
its seeking of its essence, of itself, of its author; bent inward for
this vision and having a present thing to know, there is every reason
why it should be a principle of Intellection; but that which, never
coming into being, has no prior but is ever what it is, how could that
have motive to Intellection? As Plato rightly says, it is above
Intellect.
An Intelligence not exercising Intellection would be unintelligent;
where the nature demands knowing, not to know is to fail of
intelligence; but where there is no function, why import one and
declare a defect because it is not performed? We might as well complain
because the Supreme does not act as a physician. He has no task, we
hold, because nothing can present itself to him to be done; he is
sufficient; he need seek nothing beyond himself, he who is over all; to
himself and to all he suffices by simply being what he is.
38. And yet this "He Is" does not truly apply: the Supreme has no need
of Being: even "He is good" does not apply since it indicates Being:
the "is" should not suggest something predicated of another thing; it
is to state identity. The word "good" used of him is not a predicate
asserting his possession of goodness; it conveys an identification. It
is not that we think it exact to call him either good or The Good: it
is that sheer negation does not indicate; we use the term The Good to
assert identity without the affirmation of Being.
But how admit a Principle void of self-knowledge, self-awareness;
surely the First must be able to say "I possess Being?"
But he does not possess Being.
Then, at least he must say "I am good?"
No: once more, that would be an affirmation of Being.
But surely he may affirm merely the goodness, adding nothing: the
goodness would be taken without the being and all duality avoided?
No: such self-awareness as good must inevitably carry the affirmation
"I am the Good"; otherwise there would be merely the unattached
conception of goodness with no recognition of identity; any such
intellection would inevitably include the affirmation "I am."
If that intellection were the Good, then the intellection would not be
self-intellection but intellection of the Good; not the Supreme but
that intellection would be the Good: if on the contrary that
intellection of the Good is distinct from the Good, at once the Good
exists before its knowing; all-sufficiently good in itself, it needs
none of that knowing of its own nature.
Thus the Supreme does not know itself as Good.
As what then?
No such foreign matter is present to it: it can have only an immediate
intuition self-directed.
39. Since the Supreme has no interval, no self-differentiation what can
have this intuitional approach to it but itself? Therefore it quite
naturally assumes difference at the point where Intellectual-Principle
and Being are differentiated.
Intellect, to act at all, must inevitably comport difference with
identity; otherwise it could not distinguish itself from its object by
standing apart from it, nor could it ever be aware of the realm of
things whose existence demands otherness, nor could there be so much as
a duality.
Again, if the Supreme is to have intellection it cannot know only
itself; that would not be intellection, for, if it did know itself,
nothing could prevent it knowing all things; but this is impossible.
With self-intellection it would no longer be simplex; any intellection,
even in the Supreme, must be aware of something distinct; as we have
been saying, the inability to see the self as external is the negation
of intellection. That act requires a manifold-agent, object, movement
and all the other conditions of a thinking principle. Further we must
remember what has been indicated elsewhere that, since every
intellectual act in order to be what it must be requires variety, every
movement simple and the same throughout, though it may comport some
form of contact, is devoid of the intellective.
It follows that the Supreme will know neither itself nor anything else
but will hold an august repose. All the rest is later; before them all,
This was what This was; any awareness of that other would be acquired,
the shifting knowledge of the instable. Even in knowing the stable he
would be manifold, for it is not possible that, while in the act of
knowing the laters possess themselves of their object, the Supreme
should know only in some unpossessing observation.
As regards Providence, that is sufficiently saved by the fact that This
is the source from which all proceeds; the dependent he cannot know
when he has no knowledge of himself but keeps that august repose. Plato
dealing with essential Being allows it intellection but not this august
repose: intellection then belongs to Essential Being; this august
repose to the Principle in which there is no intellection. Repose, of
course, is used here for want of a fitter word; we are to understand
that the most august, the truly so, is That which transcends [the
movement of] Intellection.
40. That there can be no intellection in the First will be patent to
those that have had such contact; but some further confirmation is
desirable, if indeed words can carry the matter; we need overwhelming
persuasion.
It must be borne in mind that all intellection rises in some principle
and takes cognisance of an object. But a distinction is to be made:
There is the intellection that remains within its place of origin; it
has that source as substratum but becomes a sort of addition to it in
that it is an activity of that source perfecting the potentiality
there, not by producing anything but as being a completing power to the
principle in which it inheres. There is also the intellection inbound
with Being -- Being's very author -- and this could not remain confined
to the source since there it could produce nothing; it is a power to
production; it produces therefore of its own motion and its act is
Real-Being and there it has its dwelling. In this mode the intellection
is identical with Being; even in its self-intellection no distinction
is made save the logical distinction of thinker and thought with, as we
have often observed, the implication of plurality.
This is a first activity and the substance it produces is Essential
Being; it is an image, but of an original so great that the very copy
stands a reality. If instead of moving outward it remained with the
First, it would be no more than some appurtenance of that First, not a
self-standing existent.
At the earliest activity and earliest intellection, it can be preceded
by no act or intellection: if we pass beyond this being and this
intellection we come not to more being and more intellection but to
what overpasses both, to the wonderful which has neither, asking
nothing of these products and standing its unaccompanied self.
That all-transcending cannot have had an activity by which to produce
this activity -- acting before act existed -- or have had thought in
order to produce thinking -- applying thought before thought exists --
all intellection, even of the Good, is beneath it.
In sum, this intellection of the Good is impossible: I do not mean that
it is impossible to have intellection of the Good -- we may admit the
possibility but there can be no intellection by The Good itself, for
this would be to include the inferior with the Good.
If intellection is the lower, then it will be bound up with Being; if
intellection is the higher, its object is lower. Intellection, then,
does not exist in the Good; as a lesser, taking its worth through that
Good, it must stand apart from it, leaving the Good unsoiled by it as
by all else. Immune from intellection the Good remains incontaminably
what it is, not impeded by the presence of the intellectual act which
would annul its purity and unity.
Anyone making the Good at once Thinker and Thought identifies it with
Being and with the Intellection vested in Being so that it must perform
that act of intellection: at once it becomes necessary to find another
principle, one superior to that Good: for either this act, this
intellection, is a completing power of some such principle, serving as
its ground, or it points, by that duality, to a prior principle having
intellection as a characteristic. It is because there is something
before it that it has an object of intellection; even in its
self-intellection, it may be said to know its content by its vision of
that prior.
What has no prior and no external accompaniment could have no
intellection, either of itself or of anything else. What could it aim
at, what desire? To essay its power of knowing? But this would make the
power something outside itself; there would be, I mean, the power it
grasped and the power by which it grasped: if there is but the one
power, what is there to grasp at?
41. Intellection seems to have been given as an aid to the diviner but
weaker beings, an eye to the blind. But the eye itself need not see
Being since it is itself the light; what must take the light through
the eye needs the light because of its darkness. If, then, intellection
is the light and light does not need the light, surely that brilliance
(The First) which does not need light can have no need of intellection,
will not add this to its nature.
What could it do with intellection? What could even intellection need
and add to itself for the purpose of its act? It has no self-awareness;
there is no need. It is no duality but, rather, a manifold, consisting
of itself, its intellective act, distinct from itself, and the
inevitable third, the object of intellection. No doubt since knower,
knowing, and known, are identical, all merges into a unity: but the
distinction has existed and, once more, such a unity cannot be the
First; we must put away all otherness from the Supreme which can need
no such support; anything we add is so much lessening of what lacks
nothing.
To us intellection is a boon since the soul needs it; to the
Intellectual-Principle it is appropriate as being one thing with the
very essence of the principle constituted by the intellectual Act so
that principle and act coincide in a continuous self-consciousness
carrying the assurance of identity, of the unity of the two. But pure
unity must be independent, in need of no such assurance.
"Know yourself" is a precept for those who, being manifold, have the
task of appraising themselves so as to become aware of the number and
nature of their constituents, some or all of which they ignore as they
ignore their very principle and their manner of being. The First on the
contrary if it have content must exist in a way too great to have any
knowledge, intellection, perception of it. To itself it is nothing;
accepting nothing, self-sufficing, it is not even a good to itself: to
others it is good for they have need of it; but it could not lack
itself: it would be absurd to suppose The Good standing in need of
goodness.
It does not see itself: seeing aims at acquisition: all this it
abandons to the subsequent: in fact nothing found elsewhere can be
There; even Being cannot be There. Nor therefore has it intellection
which is a thing of the lower sphere where the first intellection, the
only true, is identical with Being. Reason, perception, intelligence,
none of these can have place in that Principle in which no presence can
be affirmed.
42. Faced by the difficulty of placing these powers, you must in reason
allocate to the secondaries what you count august: secondaries must not
be foisted upon the First, or tertiaries upon the secondaries.
Secondaries are to be ranged under the First, tertiaries under the
secondaries: this is giving everything its place, the later dependent
on their priors, those priors free.
This is included in that true saying "About the King of All, all has
being and in view of Him all is": we are to understand from the
attribution of all things to Him, and from, the words "in view of Him"
that He is their cause and they reach to Him as to something differing
from them all and containing nothing that they contain: for certainly
His very nature requires that nothing of the later be in Him.
Thus, Intellectual-Principle, finding place in the universe, cannot
have place in Him. Where we read that He is the cause of all beauty we
are clearly to understand that beauty depends upon the Forms, He being
set above all that is beautiful here. The Forms are in that passage
secondaries, their sequels being attached to them as dependent thirds:
it is clear thus that by "the products of the thirds" is meant this
world, dependent upon soul.
Soul dependent upon Intellectual-Principle and Intellectual-Principle
upon the Good, all is linked to the Supreme by intermediaries, some
close, some nearing those of the closer attachment, while the order of
sense stands remotest, dependent upon soul.
__________________________________________________________________
EIGHTH TRACTATE.
ON FREE-WILL AND THE WILL OF THE ONE.
1. Can there be question as to whether the gods have voluntary action?
Or are we to take it that, while we may well enquire in the case of men
with their combination of powerlessness and hesitating power, the gods
must be declared omnipotent, not merely some things but all lying at
their nod? Or is power entire, freedom of action in all things, to be
reserved to one alone, of the rest some being powerful, others
powerless, others again a blend of power and impotence?
All this must come to the test: we must dare it even of the Firsts and
of the All-Transcendent and, if we find omnipotence possible, work out
how far freedom extends. The very notion of power must be scrutinized
lest in this ascription we be really making power identical with
Essential Act, and even with Act not yet achieved.
But for the moment we may pass over these questions to deal with the
traditional problem of freedom of action in ourselves.
To begin with, what must be intended when we assert that something is
in our power; what is the conception here?
To establish this will help to show whether we are to ascribe freedom
to the gods and still more to God, or to refuse it, or again, while
asserting it, to question still, in regard both to the higher and lower
-- the mode of its presence.
What then do we mean when we speak of freedom in ourselves and why do
we question it?
My own reading is that, moving as we do amid adverse fortunes,
compulsions, violent assaults of passion crushing the soul, feeling
ourselves mastered by these experiences, playing slave to them, going
where they lead, we have been brought by all this to doubt whether we
are anything at all and dispose of ourselves in any particular.
This would indicate that we think of our free act as one which we
execute of our own choice, in no servitude to chance or necessity or
overmastering passion, nothing thwarting our will; the voluntary is
conceived as an event amenable to will and occurring or not as our will
dictates. Everything will be voluntary that is produced under no
compulsion and with knowledge; our free act is what we are masters to
perform.
Differing conceptually, the two conditions will often coincide but
sometimes will clash. Thus a man would be master to kill, but the act
will not be voluntary if in the victim he had failed to recognise his
own father. Perhaps however that ignorance is not compatible with real
freedom: for the knowledge necessary to a voluntary act cannot be
limited to certain particulars but must cover the entire field. Why,
for example, should killing be involuntary in the failure to recognise
a father and not so in the failure to recognise the wickedness of
murder? If because the killer ought to have learned, still ignorance of
the duty of learning and the cause of that ignorance remain alike
involuntary.
2. A cardinal question is where we are to place the freedom of action
ascribed to us.
It must be founded in impulse or in some appetite, as when we act or
omit in lust or rage or upon some calculation of advantage accompanied
by desire.
But if rage or desire implied freedom we must allow freedom to animals,
infants, maniacs, the distraught, the victims of malpractice producing
incontrollable delusions. And if freedom turns on calculation with
desire, does this include faulty calculation? Sound calculation, no
doubt, and sound desire; but then comes the question whether the
appetite stirs the calculation or the calculation the appetite.
Where the appetites are dictated by the very nature they are the
desires of the conjoint of soul and body and then soul lies under
physical compulsions: if they spring in the soul as an independent,
then much that we take to be voluntary is in reality outside of our
free act. Further, every emotion is preceded by some meagre reasoning;
how then can a compelling imagination, an appetite drawing us where it
will, be supposed to leave us masters in the ensuing act? Need,
inexorably craving satisfaction, is not free in face of that to which
it is forced: and how at all can a thing have efficiency of its own
when it rises from an extern, has an extern for very principle, thence
taking its Being as it stands? It lives by that extern, lives as it has
been moulded: if this be freedom, there is freedom in even the
soulless; fire acts in accordance with its characteristic being.
We may be reminded that the Living Form and the soul know what they do.
But, if this is knowledge by perception, it does not help towards the
freedom of the act; perception gives awareness, not mastery: if true
knowing is meant, either this is the knowing of something happening --
once more awareness -- with the motive -- force still to seek, or the
reasoning and knowledge have acted to quell the appetite; then we have
to ask to what this repression is to be referred and where it has taken
place. If it is that the mental process sets up an opposing desire we
must assure ourselves how; if it merely stills the appetite with no
further efficiency and this is our freedom, then freedom does not
depend upon act but is a thing of the mind -- and in truth all that has
to do with act, the very most reasonable, is still of mixed value and
cannot carry freedom.
3. All this calls for examination; the enquiry must bring us close to
the solution as regards the gods.
We have traced self-disposal to will, will to reasoning and, next step,
to right reasoning; perhaps to right reasoning we must add knowledge,
for however sound opinion and act may be they do not yield true freedom
when the adoption of the right course is the result of hazard or of
some presentment from the fancy with no knowledge of the foundations of
that rightness.
Taking it that the presentment of fancy is not a matter of our will and
choice, how can we think those acting at its dictation to be free
agents? Fancy strictly, in our use, takes it rise from conditions of
the body; lack of food and drink sets up presentments, and so does the
meeting of these needs; similarly with seminal abundance and other
humours of the body. We refuse to range under the principle of freedom
those whose conduct is directed by such fancy: the baser sort,
therefore, mainly so guided, cannot be credited with self-disposal or
voluntary act. Self-disposal, to us, belongs to those who, through the
activities of the Intellectual-Principle, live above the states of the
body. The spring of freedom is the activity of Intellectual-Principle,
the highest in our being; the proposals emanating thence are freedom;
such desires as are formed in the exercise of the Intellectual act
cannot be classed as involuntary; the gods, therefore, that live in
this state, living by Intellectual-Principle and by desire conformed to
it, possess freedom.
4. It will be asked how act rising from desire can be voluntary, since
desire pulls outward and implies need; to desire is still to be drawn,
even though towards the good.
Intellectual-Principle itself comes under the doubt; having a certain
nature and acting by that nature can it be said to have freedom and
self-disposal -- in an act which it cannot leave unenacted? It may be
asked, also, whether freedom may strictly be affirmed of such beings as
are not engaged in action.
However that may be, where there is such act there is compulsion from
without, since, failing motive, act will not be performed. These higher
beings, too, obey their own nature; where then is their freedom?
But, on the other hand, can there be talk of constraint where there is
no compulsion to obey an extern; and how can any movement towards a
good be counted compulsion? Effort is free once it is towards a fully
recognised good; the involuntary is, precisely, motion away from a good
and towards the enforced, towards something not recognised as a good;
servitude lies in being powerless to move towards one's good, being
debarred from the preferred path in a menial obedience. Hence the shame
of slavedom is incurred not when one is held from the hurtful but when
the personal good must be yielded in favour of another's.
Further, this objected obedience to the characteristic nature would
imply a duality, master and mastered; but an undivided Principle, a
simplex Activity, where there can be no difference of potentiality and
act, must be free; there can be no thought of "action according to the
nature," in the sense of any distinction between the being and its
efficiency, there where being and act are identical. Where act is
performed neither because of another nor at another's will, there
surely is freedom. Freedom may of course be an inappropriate term:
there is something greater here: it is self-disposal in the sense,
only, that there is no disposal by the extern, no outside master over
the act.
In a principle, act and essence must be free. No doubt
Intellectual-Principle itself is to be referred to a yet higher; but
this higher is not extern to it; Intellectual-Principle is within the
Good; possessing its own good in virtue of that indwelling, much more
will it possess freedom and self-disposal which are sought only for the
sake of the good. Acting towards the good, it must all the more possess
self-disposal for by that Act it is directed towards the Principle from
which it proceeds, and this its act is self-centred and must entail its
very greatest good.
5. Are we, however, to make freedom and self-disposal exclusive to
Intellectual-Principle as engaged in its characteristic Act,
Intellectual-Principle unassociated, or do they belong also to soul
acting under that guidance and performing act of virtue?
If freedom is to be allowed to soul in its Act, it certainly cannot be
allowed in regard to issue, for we are not master of events: if in
regard to fine conduct and all inspired by Intellectual-Principle, that
may very well be freedom; but is the freedom ours?
Because there is war, we perform some brave feat; how is that our free
act since had there been no war it could not have been performed? So in
all cases of fine conduct; there is always some impinging event leading
out our quality to show itself in this or that act. And suppose virtue
itself given the choice whether to find occasion for its exercise --
war evoking courage; wrong, so that it may establish justice and good
order; poverty that it may show independence -- or to remain inactive,
everything going well, it would choose the peace of inaction, nothing
calling for its intervention, just as a physician like Hippocrates
would prefer no one to stand in need of his skill.
If thus virtue whose manifestation requires action becomes inevitably a
collaborator under compulsion, how can it have untrammelled
self-disposal?
Should we, perhaps, distinguish between compulsion in the act and
freedom in the preceding will and reasoning?
But in setting freedom in those preceding functions, we imply that
virtue has a freedom and self-disposal apart from all act; then we must
state what is the reality of the self-disposal attributed to virtue as
state or disposition. Are we to put it that virtue comes in to restore
the disordered soul, taming passions and appetites? In what sense, at
that, can we hold our goodness to be our own free act, our fine conduct
to be uncompelled? In that we will and adopt, in that this entry of
virtue prepares freedom and self-disposal, ending our slavery to the
masters we have been obeying. If then virtue is, as it were, a second
Intellectual-Principle, and heightens the soul to Intellectual quality,
then, once more, our freedom is found to lie not in act but in
Intellectual-Principle immune from act.
6. How then did we come to place freedom in the will when we made out
free action to be that produced -- or as we also indicated, suppressed
-- at the dictate of will?
If what we have been saying is true and our former statement is
consistent with it, the case must stand thus:
Virtue and Intellectual-Principle are sovereign and must be held the
sole foundation of our self-disposal and freedom; both then are free;
Intellectual-Principle is self-confined: Virtue, in its government of
the soul which it seeks to lift into goodness, would wish to be free;
in so far as it does so it is free and confers freedom; but inevitably
experiences and actions are forced upon it by its governance: these it
has not planned for, yet when they do arise it will watch still for its
sovereignty calling these also to judgement. Virtue does not follow
upon occurrences as a saver of the emperilled; at its discretion it
sacrifices a man; it may decree the jettison of life, means, children,
country even; it looks to its own high aim and not to the safeguarding
of anything lower. Thus our freedom of act, our self-disposal, must be
referred not to the doing, not to the external thing done but to the
inner activity, to the Intellection, to virtue's own vision.
So understood, virtue is a mode of Intellectual-Principle, a mode not
involving any of the emotions or passions controlled by its reasonings,
since such experiences, amenable to morality and discipline, touch
closely -- we read -- on body.
This makes it all the more evident that the unembodied is the free; to
this our self-disposal is to be referred; herein lies our will which
remains free and self-disposing in spite of any orders which it may
necessarily utter to meet the external. All then that issues from will
and is the effect of will is our free action; and in the highest degree
all that lies outside of the corporeal is purely within the scope of
will, all that will adopts and brings, unimpeded, into existence.
The contemplating Intellect, the first or highest, has self-disposal to
the point that its operation is utterly independent; it turns wholly
upon itself; its very action is itself; at rest in its good it is
without need, complete, and may be said to live to its will; there the
will is intellection: it is called will because it expresses the
Intellectual-Principle in the willing-phase and, besides, what we know
as will imitates this operation taking place within the
Intellectual-Principle. Will strives towards the good which the act of
Intellectual-Principle realizes. Thus that principle holds what will
seeks, that good whose attainment makes will identical with
Intellection.
But if self-disposal is founded thus on the will aiming at the good,
how can it possibly be denied to that principle permanently possessing
the good, sole object of the aim?
Any one scrupulous about setting self-disposal so high may find some
loftier word.
7. Soul becomes free when it moves, through Intellectual-Principle,
towards The Good; what it does in that spirit is its free act;
Intellectual-Principle is free in its own right. That principle of Good
is the sole object of desire and the source of self-disposal to the
rest, to soul when it fully attains, to Intellectual-Principle by
connate possession.
How then can the sovereign of all that august sequence -- the first in
place, that to which all else strives to mount, all dependent upon it
and taking from it their powers even to this power of self-disposal --
how can This be brought under the freedom belonging to you and me, a
conception applicable only by violence to Intellectual-Principle
itself?
It is rash thinking drawn from another order that would imagine a First
Principle to be chance -- made what it is, controlled by a manner of
being imposed from without, void therefore of freedom or self-disposal,
acting or refraining under compulsion. Such a statement is untrue to
its subject and introduces much difficulty; it utterly annuls the
principle of freewill with the very conception of our own voluntary
action, so that there is no longer any sense in discussion upon these
terms, empty names for the non-existent. Anyone upholding this opinion
would be obliged to say not merely that free act exists nowhere but
that the very word conveys nothing to him. To admit understanding the
word is to be easily brought to confess that the conception of freedom
does apply where it is denied. No doubt a concept leaves the reality
untouched and unappropriated, for nothing can produce itself, bring
itself into being; but thought insists upon distinguishing between what
is subject to others and what is independent, bound under no
allegiance, lord of its own act.
This state of freedom belongs in the absolute degree to the Eternals in
right of that eternity and to other beings in so far as without
hindrance they possess or pursue The Good which, standing above them
all, must manifestly be the only good they can reasonably seek.
To say that The Good exists by chance must be false; chance belongs to
the later, to the multiple; since the First has never come to be, we
cannot speak of it either as coming by chance into being or as not
master of its being. Absurd also the objection that it acts in
accordance with its being if this is to suggest that freedom demands
act or other expression against the nature. Neither does its nature as
the unique annul its freedom when this is the result of no compulsion
but means only that The Good is no other than itself, is self-complete
and has no higher.
The objection would imply that where there is most good there is least
freedom. If this is absurd, still more absurd to deny freedom to The
Good on the ground that it is good and self-concentred, not needing to
lean upon anything else but actually being the Term to which all tends,
itself moving to none.
Where -- since we must use such words -- the essential act is identical
with the being -- and this identity must obtain in The Good since it
holds even in Intellectual-Principle -- there the act is no more
determined by the Being than the Being by the Act. Thus "acting
according to its nature" does not apply; the Act, the Life, so to
speak, cannot be held to issue from the Being; the Being accompanies
the Act in an eternal association: from the two [Being and Act] it
forms itself into The Good, self-springing and unspringing.
8. But it is not, in our view, as an attribute that this freedom is
present in the First. In the light of free acts, from which we
eliminate the contraries, we recognise There self-determination,
self-directed and, failing more suitable terms, we apply to it the
lesser terms brought over from lesser things and so tell it as best we
may: no words could ever be adequate or even applicable to that from
which all else -- the noble, the august -- is derived. For This is
principle of all, or, more strictly, unrelated to all and, in this
consideration, cannot be made to possess such laters as even freedom
and self-disposal, which in fact indicate manifestation upon the extern
-- unhindered but implying the existence of other beings whose
opposition proves ineffective.
We cannot think of the First as moving towards any other; He holds his
own manner of being before any other was; even Being we withhold and
therefore all relation to beings.
Nor may we speak of any "conforming to the nature"; this again is of
the later; if the term be applicable at all in that realm it applies
only to the secondaries -- primally to Essential Existence as next to
this First. And if a "nature" belongs only to things of time, this
conformity to nature does not apply even to Essential Existence. On the
other hand, we are not to deny that it is derived from Essential
Existence for that would be to take away its existence and would imply
derivation from something else.
Does this mean that the First is to be described as happening to be?
No; that would be just as false; nothing "happens" to the First; it
stands in no such relationship; happening belongs only to the multiple
where, first, existence is given and then something is added. And how
could the Source "happen to be"? There has been no coming so that you
can put it to the question "How does this come to be? What chance
brought it here, gave it being?" Chance did not yet exist; there was no
"automatic action": these imply something before themselves and occur
in the realm of process.
9. If we cannot but speak of Happening we must not halt at the word but
look to the intention. And what is that? That the Supreme by possession
of a certain nature and power is the Principle. Obviously if its nature
were other it would be that other and if the difference were for the
worse it would manifest itself as that lesser being. But we must add in
correction that, as Principle of All, it could not be some chance
product; it is not enough to say that it could not be inferior; it
could not even be in some way good, for instance in some less perfect
degree; the Principle of All must be of higher quality than anything
that follows it. It is therefore in a sense determined -- determined, I
mean, by its uniqueness and not in any sense of being under compulsion;
compulsion did not co-exist with the Supreme but has place only among
secondaries and even there can exercise no tyranny; this uniqueness is
not from outside.
This, then, it is; This and no other; simply what it must be; it has
not "happened" but is what by a necessity prior to all necessities it
must be. We cannot think of it as a chance existence; it is not what it
chanced to be but what it must be -- and yet without a "Must."
All the rest waits for the appearing of the king to hail him for
himself, not a being of accident and happening but authentically king,
authentically Principle, The Good authentically, not a being that acts
in conformity with goodness -- and so, recognisably, a secondary -- but
the total unity that he is, no moulding upon goodness but the very Good
itself.
Even Being is exempt from happening: of course, anything happening
happens to Being, but Being itself has not happened nor is the manner
of its Being a thing of happening, of derivation; it is the very nature
of Being to be; how then can we think that this happening can attach to
the Transcendent of Being, That in whose power lay the very engendering
of Being?
Certainly this Transcendent never happened to be what it is; it is so,
just as Being exists in complete identity with its own essential nature
and that of Intellectual-Principle. Certainly that which has never
passed outside of its own orbit, unbendingly what it is, its own
unchangeably, is that which may most strictly be said to possess its
own being: what then are we to say when we mount and contemplate that
which stands yet higher; can we conceivably say "Thus, as we see it,
thus has it happened to be"? Neither thus nor in any mode did it happen
to be; there is no happening; there is only a "Thus and No Otherwise
than Thus." And even "Thus" is false; it would imply limit, a defined
form: to know This is to be able to reject both the "Thus" and the
"Not-Thus," either of which classes among Beings to which alone Manner
of Being can attach.
A "Thus" is something that attaches to everything in the world of
things: standing before the indefinable you may name any of these
sequents but you must say This is none of them: at most it is to be
conceived as the total power towards things, supremely self-concentred,
being what it wills to be or rather projecting into existence what it
wills, itself higher than all will, will a thing beneath it. In a word
it neither willed its own "Thus" -- as something to conform to -- nor
did any other make it "Thus."
10. The upholder of Happening must be asked how this false happening
can be supposed to have come about, taking it that it did, and haw the
happening, then, is not universally prevalent. If there is to be a
natural scheme at all, it must be admitted that this happening does not
and cannot exist: for if we attribute to chance the Principle which is
to eliminate chance from all the rest, how can there ever be anything
independent of chance? And this Nature does take away the chanced from
the rest, bringing in form and limit and shape. In the case of things
thus conformed to reason the cause cannot be identified with chance but
must lie in that very reason; chance must be kept for what occurs apart
from choice and sequence and is purely concurrent. When we come to the
source of all reason, order and limit, how can we attribute the reality
there to chance? Chance is no doubt master of many things but is not
master of Intellectual-Principle, of reason, of order, so as to bring
them into being. How could chance, recognised as the very opposite of
reason, be its Author? And if it does not produce
Intellectual-Principle, then certainly not that which precedes and
surpasses that Principle. Chance, besides, has no means of producing,
has no being at all, and, assuredly, none in the Eternal.
Since there is nothing before Him who is the First, we must call a
halt; there is nothing to say; we may enquire into the origin of his
sequents but not of Himself who has no origin.
But perhaps, never having come to be but being as He is, He is still
not master of his own essence: not master of his essence but being as
He is, not self-originating but acting out of his nature as He finds
it, must He not be of necessity what He is, inhibited from being
otherwise?
No: What He is, He is not because He could not be otherwise but because
so is best. Not everything has power to move towards the better though
nothing is prevented by any external from moving towards the worse. But
that the Supreme has not so moved is its own doing: there has been no
inhibition; it has not moved simply because it is That which does not
move; in this stability the inability to degenerate is not
powerlessness; here permanence is very Act, a self-determination. This
absence of declination comports the fulness of power; it is not the
yielding of a being held and controlled but the Act of one who is
necessity, law, to all.
Does this indicate a Necessity which has brought itself into existence?
No: there has been no coming into being in any degree; This is that by
which being is brought to all the rest, its sequents. Above all
origins, This can owe being neither to an extern nor to itself.
11. But this Unoriginating, what is it?
We can but withdraw, silent, hopeless, and search no further. What can
we look for when we have reached the furthest? Every enquiry aims at a
first and, that attained, rests.
Besides, we must remember that all questioning deals with the nature of
a thing, its quality, its cause or its essential being. In this case
the being -- in so far as we can use the word -- is knowable only by
its sequents: the question as to cause asks for a principle beyond, but
the principle of all has no principle; the question as to quality would
be looking for an attribute in that which has none: the question as to
nature shows only that we must ask nothing about it but merely take it
into the mind if we may, with the knowledge gained that nothing can be
permissibly connected with it.
The difficulty this Principle presents to our mind in so far as we can
approach to conception of it may be exhibited thus:
We begin by posing space, a place, a Chaos; into this existing
container, real or fancied, we introduce God and proceed to enquire: we
ask, for example, whence and how He comes to be there: we investigate
the presence and quality of this new-comer projected into the midst of
things here from some height or depth. But the difficulty disappears if
we eliminate all space before we attempt to conceive God: He must not
be set in anything either as enthroned in eternal immanence or as
having made some entry into things: He is to be conceived as existing
alone, in that existence which the necessity of discussion forces us to
attribute to Him, with space and all the rest as later than Him --
space latest of all. Thus we conceive as far as we may, the spaceless;
we abolish the notion of any environment: we circumscribe Him within no
limit; we attribute no extension to Him; He has no quality since no
shape, even shape Intellectual; He holds no relationship but exists in
and for Himself before anything is.
How can we think any longer of that "Thus He happened to be"? How make
this one assertion of Him of whom all other assertion can be no more
than negation? It is on the contrary nearer the truth to say "Thus He
has happened not to be": that contains at least the utter denial of his
happening.
12. Yet, is not God what He is? Can He, then, be master of being what
He is or master to stand above Being? The mind utterly reluctant
returns to its doubt: some further considerations, therefore, must be
offered:
In us the individual, viewed as body, is far from reality; by soul
which especially constitutes the being we participate in reality, are
in some degree real. This is a compound state, a mingling of Reality
and Difference, not, therefore reality in the strictest sense, not
reality pure. Thus far we are not masters of our being; in some sense
the reality in us is one thing and we another. We are not masters of
our being; the real in us is the master, since that is the principle
establishing our characteristic difference; yet we are again in some
sense that which is sovereign in us and so even on this level might in
spite of all be described as self-disposing.
But in That which is wholly what it is -- self-existing reality,
without distinction between the total thing and its essence -- the
being is a unit and is sovereign over itself; neither the being nor the
essence is to be referred to any extern. Besides, the very question as
to self. disposal falls in the case of what is First in reality; if it
can be raised at all, we must declare that there can be no subjection
whatever in That to which reality owes its freedom, That in whose
nature the conferring of freedom must clearly be vested, preeminently
to be known as the liberator.
Still, is not this Principle subject to its essential Being? On the
contrary, it is the source of freedom to Being.
Even if there be Act in the Supreme -- an Act with which it is to be
identified -- this is not enough to set up a duality within it and
prevent it being entirely master of that self from which the Act
springs; for the Act is not distinct from that self. If we utterly deny
Act in it -- holding that Act begins with others moving about it -- we
are all the less able to allow either self-mastery or subjection in it:
even self-mastery is absent here, not that anything else is master over
it but that self-mastery begins with Being while the Supreme is to be
set in a higher order.
But what can there be higher than that which is its own master?
Where we speak of self-mastery there is a certain duality, Act against
essence; from the exercise of the Act arises the conception of the
mastering principle -- though one identical with the essence -- hence
arises the separate idea of mastery, and the being concerned is said to
possess self-mastery. Where there is no such duality joining to unity
but solely a unity pure -- either because the Act is the whole being or
because there is no Act at all -- then we cannot strictly say that the
being has this mastery of self.
13. Our enquiry obliges us to use terms not strictly applicable: we
insist, once more, that not even for the purpose of forming the concept
of the Supreme may we make it a duality; if now we do, it is merely for
the sake of conveying conviction, at the cost of verbal accuracy.
If, then, we are to allow Activities in the Supreme and make them
depend upon will -- and certainly Act cannot There be will-less and
these Activities are to be the very essence, then will and essence in
the Supreme must be identical. This admitted, as He willed to be so He
is; it is no more true to say that He wills and acts as His nature
determines than that His essence is as He wills and acts. Thus He is
wholly master of Himself and holds His very being at His will.
Consider also that every being in its pursuit of its good seeks to be
that good rather than what it is it judges itself most truly to be when
it partakes of its good: in so far as it thus draws on its good its
being is its choice: much more, then, must the very Principle, The
Good, be desirable in itself when any fragment of it is very desirable
to the extern and becomes the chosen essence promoting that extern's
will and identical with the will that gave the existence?
As long as a thing is apart from its good it seeks outside itself; when
it holds its good it itself as it is: and this is no matter of chance;
the essence now is not outside of the will; by the good it is
determined, by the good it is in self-possession.
If then this Principle is the means of determination to everything
else, we see at once that self-possession must belong primally to it,
so that, through it, others in their turn may be self-belonging: what
we must call its essence comports its will to possess such a manner of
being; we can form no idea of it without including in it the will
towards itself as it is. It must be a consistent self willing its being
and being what it wills; its will and itself must be one thing, all the
more one from the absence of distinction between a given nature and one
which would be preferred. What could The Good have wished to be other
than what it is? Suppose it had the choice of being what it preferred,
power to alter the nature, it could not prefer to be something else; it
could have no fault to find with anything in its nature, as if that
nature were imposed by force; The Good is what from always it wished
and wishes to be. For the really existent Good is a willing towards
itself, towards a good not gained by any wiles or even attracted to it
by force of its nature; The Good is what it chose to be and, in fact,
there was never anything outside it to which it could be drawn.
It may be added that nothing else contains in its essence the principle
of its own satisfaction; there will be inner discord: but this
hypostasis of the Good must necessarily have self-option, the will
towards the self; if it had not, it could not bring satisfaction to the
beings whose contentment demands participation in it or imagination of
it.
Once more, we must be patient with language; we are forced to apply to
the Supreme terms which strictly are ruled out; everywhere we must read
"So to speak." The Good, then, exists; it holds its existence through
choice and will, conditions of its very being: yet it cannot be a
manifold; therefore the will and the essential being must be taken as
one identity; the act of the will must be self-determined and the being
self-caused; thus reason shows the Supreme to be its own Author. For if
the act of will springs from God Himself and is as it were His
operation and the same will is identical with His essence, He must be
self-established. He is not, therefore, "what He has happened to be"
but what He has willed to be.
14. Another approach: Everything to which existence may be attributed
is either one with its essence or distinct from it. Thus any given man
is distinct from essential man though belonging to the order Man: a
soul and a soul's essence are the same -- that is, in case of soul pure
and unmingled -- Man as type is the same as man's essence; where the
thing, man, and the essence are different, the particular man may be
considered as accidental; but man, the essence, cannot be so; the type,
Man, has Real Being. Now if the essence of man is real, not chanced or
accidental, how can we think That to be accidental which transcends the
order man, author of the type, source of all being, a principle more
nearly simplex than man's being or being of any kind? As we approach
the simplex, accident recedes; what is utterly simplex accident never
touches at all.
Further we must remember what has been already said, that where there
is true being, where things have been brought to reality by that
Principle -- and this is true of whatsoever has determined condition
within the order of sense -- all that reality is brought about in
virtue of something emanating from the divine. By things of determined
condition I mean such as contain, inbound with their essence, the
reason of their being as they are, so that, later, an observer can
state the use for each of the constituent parts -- why the eye, why
feet of such and such a kind to such and such a being -- and can
recognise that the reason for the production of each organ is inherent
in that particular being and that the parts exist for each other. Why
feet of a certain length? Because another member is as it is: because
the face is as it is, therefore the feet are what they are: in a word
the mutual determinant is mutual adaptation and the reason of each of
the several forms is that such is the plan of man.
Thus the essence and its reason are one and the same. The constituent
parts arise from the one source not because that source has so
conceived each separately but because it has produced simultaneously
the plan of the thing and its existence. This therefore is author at
once of the existence of things and of their reasons, both produced at
the one stroke. It is in correspondence with the things of process but
far more nearly archetypal and authentic and in a closer relation with
the Better, their source, than they can be.
Of things carrying their causes within, none arises at hazard or
without purpose; this "So it happened to be" is applicable to none. All
that they have comes from The Good; the Supreme itself, then, as author
of reason, of causation, and of causing essence -- all certainly lying
far outside of chance -- must be the Principle and as it were the
examplar of things, thus independent of hazard: it is, the First, the
Authentic, immune from chance, from blind effect and happening: God is
cause of Himself; for Himself and of Himself He is what He is, the
first self, transcendently The Self.
15. Lovable, very love, the Supreme is also self-love in that He is
lovely no otherwise than from Himself and in Himself. Self-presence can
hold only in the identity of associated with associating; since, in the
Supreme, associated and associating are one, seeker and sought one the
sought serving as Hypostasis and substrate of the seeker -- once more
God's being and his seeking are identical: once more, then, the Supreme
is the self-producing, sovereign of Himself, not happening to be as
some extern willed but existing as He wills it.
And when we say that neither does He absorb anything nor anything
absorb Him, thus again we are setting Him outside of all happening --
not only because we declare Him unique and untouched by all but in
another way also. Suppose we found such a nature in ourselves; we are
untouched by all that has gathered round us subjecting us to happening
and chance; all that accruement was of the servile and lay exposed to
chance: by this new state alone we acquire self-disposal and free act,
the freedom of that light which belongs to the order of the good and is
good in actuality, greater than anything Intellectual-Principle has to
give, an actuality whose advantage over Intellection is no adventitious
superiority. When we attain to this state and become This alone, what
can we say but that we are more than free, more than self-disposing?
And who then could link us to chance, hazard, happening, when thus we
are become veritable Life, entered into That which contains no alloy
but is purely itself?
Isolate anything else and the being is inadequate; the Supreme in
isolation is still what it was. The First cannot be in the soulless or
in an unreasoning life; such a life is too feeble in being; it is
reason dissipated, it is indetermination; only in the measure of
approach towards reason is there liberation from happening; the
rational is above chance. Ascending we come upon the Supreme, not as
reason but as reason's better: thus God is far removed from all
happening: the root of reason is self-springing.
The Supreme is the Term of all; it is like the principle and ground of
some vast tree of rational life; itself unchanging, it gives reasoned
being to the growth into which it enters.
16. We maintain, and it is evident truth, that the Supreme is
everywhere and yet nowhere; keeping this constantly in mind let us see
how it bears on our present enquiry.
If God is nowhere, then not anywhere has He "happened to be"; as also
everywhere, He is everywhere in entirety: at once, He is that
everywhere and everywise: He is not in the everywhere but is the
everywhere as well as the giver to the rest of things of their being in
that everywhere. Holding the supreme place -- or rather no holder but
Himself the Supreme -- all lies subject to Him; they have not brought
Him to be but happen, all, to Him -- or rather they stand there before
Him looking upon Him, not He upon them. He is borne, so to speak, to
the inmost of Himself in love of that pure radiance which He is, He
Himself being that which He. loves. That is to say, as self-dwelling
Act and Intellectual-Principle, the most to be loved, He has given
Himself existence. Intellectual-Principle is the issue of Act: God
therefore is issue of Act, but, since no other has generated Him, He is
what He made Himself: He is not, therefore, "as He happened to be" but
as He acted Himself into being.
Again; if He preeminently is because He holds firmly, so to speak,
towards Himself, looking towards Himself, so that what we must call his
being is this self-looking, He must again, since the word is
inevitable, make Himself: thus, not "as He happens to be" is He but as
He Himself wills to be. Nor is this will a hazard, a something
happening; the will adopting the Best is not a thing of chance.
That his being is constituted by this self-originating self-tendence --
at once Act and repose -- becomes clear if we imagine the contrary;
inclining towards something outside of Himself, He would destroy the
identity of his being. This self-directed Act is, therefore, his
peculiar being, one with Himself. If, then, his act never came to be
but is eternal -- a waking without an awakener, an eternal wakening and
a supra-Intellection -- He is as He waked Himself to be. This awakening
is before being, before Intellectual-Principle, before rational life,
though He is these; He is thus an Act before Intellectual-Principle and
consciousness and life; these come from Him and no other; his being,
then, is a self-presence, issuing from Himself. Thus not "as He
happened to be" is He but as He willed to be.
17. Or consider it another way: We hold the universe, with its content
entire, to be as all would be if the design of the maker had so willed
it, elaborating it with purpose and prevision by reasonings amounting
to a Providence. All is always so and all is always so reproduced:
therefore the reason-principles of things must lie always within the
producing powers in a still more perfect form; these beings of the
divine realm must therefore be previous to Providence and to
preference; all that exists in the order of being must lie for ever
There in their Intellectual mode. If this regime is to be called
Providence it must be in the sense that before our universe there
exists, not expressed in the outer, the Intellectual-Principle of all
the All, its source and archetype.
Now if there is thus an Intellectual-Principle before all things, their
founding principle, this cannot be a thing lying subject to chance --
multiple, no doubt, but a concordance, ordered so to speak into
oneness. Such a multiple -- the co-ordination of all particulars and
consisting of all the Reason-Principles of the universe gathered into
the closest union -- this cannot be a thing of chance, a thing
"happening so to be." It must be of a very different nature, of the
very contrary nature, separated from the other by all the difference
between reason and reasonless chance. And if the Source is precedent
even to this, it must be continuous with this reasoned secondary so
that the two be correspondent; the secondary must participate in the
prior, be an expression of its will, be a power of it: that higher
therefore [as above the ordering of reason] is without part or interval
[implied by reasoned arrangement], is a one -- all Reason-Principle,
one number, a One greater than its product, more powerful, having no
higher or better. Thus the Supreme can derive neither its being nor the
quality of its being. God Himself, therefore, is what He is,
self-related, self-tending; otherwise He becomes outward-tending,
other-seeking -- who cannot but be wholly self-poised.
18. Seeking Him, seek nothing of Him outside; within is to be sought
what follows upon Him; Himself do not attempt. He is, Himself, that
outer, He the encompassment and measure of all things; or rather He is
within, at the innermost depth; the outer, circling round Him, so to
speak, and wholly dependent upon Him, is Reason-Principle and
Intellectual-Principle-or becomes Intellectual-Principle by contact
with Him and in the degree of that contact and dependence; for from Him
it takes the being which makes it Intellectual-Principle.
A circle related in its path to a centre must be admitted to owe its
scope to that centre: it has something of the nature of that centre in
that the radial lines converging on that one central point assimilate
their impinging ends to that point of convergence and of departure, the
dominant of radii and terminals: the terminals are of one nature with
the centre, separate reproductions of it, since the centre is, in a
certain sense, the total of terminals and radii impinging at every
point upon it; these lines reveal the centre; they are the development
of that undeveloped.
In the same way we are to take Intellectual-Principle and Being. This
combined power springs from the Supreme, an outflow and as it were
development from That and remaining dependent upon that Intellective
nature, showing forth That which, in the purity of its oneness, is not
Intellectual-Principle since it is no duality. No more than in the
circle are the lines or circumference to be identified with that Centre
which is the source of both: radii and circle are images given forth by
indwelling power and, as products of a certain vigour in it, not cut
off from it.
Thus the Intellective power circles in its multiple unity around the
Supreme which stands to it as archetype to image; the image in its
movement round about its prior has produced the multiplicity by which
it is constituted Intellectual-Principle: that prior has no movement;
it generates Intellectual-Principle by its sheer wealth.
Such a power, author of Intellectual-Principle, author of being -- how
does it lend itself to chance, to hazard, to any "So it happened"?
What is present in Intellectual-Principle is present, though in a far
transcendent mode, in the One: so in a light diffused afar from one
light shining within itself, the diffused is vestige, the source is the
true light; but Intellectual-Principle, the diffused and image light,
is not different in kind from its prior; and it is not a thing of
chance but at every point is reason and cause.
The Supreme is cause of the cause: it is cause preeminently, cause as
containing cause in the deepest and truest mode; for in it lie the
Intellective causes which are to be unfolded from it, author as it is
not of the chance -- made but of what the divine willed: and this
willing was not apart from reason, was not in the realm of hazard and
of what happened to present itself.
Thus Plato, seeking the best account of the necessary and appropriate,
says they are far removed from hazard and that what exists is what must
exist: if thus the existence is as it must be it does not exist without
reason: if its manner of being is the fitting, it is the utterly
self-disposing in comparison with its sequents and, before that, in
regard to itself: thus it is not "as it happened to be" but as it
willed to be: all this, on the assumption that God wills what should be
and that it is impossible to separate right from realization and that
this Necessary is not to God an outside thing but is, itself, His first
Activity manifesting outwardly in the exactly representative form. Thus
we must speak of God since we cannot tell Him as we would.
19. Stirred to the Supreme by what has been told, a man must strive to
possess it directly; then he too will see, though still unable to tell
it as he would wish.
One seeing That as it really is will lay aside all reasoning upon it
and simply state it as the self-existent; such that if it had essence
that essence would be subject to it and, so to speak, derived from it;
none that has seen would dare to talk of its "happening to be," or
indeed be able to utter word. With all his courage he would stand
astounded, unable at any venture to speak of This, with the vision
everywhere before the eyes of the soul so that, look where one may,
there it is seen unless one deliberately look away, ignoring God,
thinking no more upon Him. So we are to understand the Beyond-Essence
darkly indicated by the ancients: is not merely that He generated
Essence but that He is subject neither to Essence nor to Himself; His
essence is not His Principle; He is Principle to Essence and not for
Himself did He make it; producing it He left it outside of Himself: He
had no need of being who brought it to be. Thus His making of being is
no "action in accordance with His being."
20. The difficulty will be raised that God would seem to have existed
before thus coming into existence; if He makes Himself, then in regard
to the self which He makes He is not yet in being and as maker He
exists before this Himself thus made.
The answer is that we utterly must not speak of Him as made but sheerly
as maker; the making must be taken as absolved from all else; no new
existence is established; the Act here is not directed to an
achievement but is God Himself unalloyed: here is no duality but pure
unity. Let no one suspect us of asserting that the first Activity is
without Essence; on the contrary the Activity is the very reality. To
suppose a reality without activity would be to make the Principle of
all principles deficient; the supremely complete becomes incomplete. To
make the Activity something superadded to the essence is to shatter the
unity. If then Activity is a more perfect thing than essence and the
First is all perfect, then the Activity is the First.
By having acted, He is what He is and there is no question of "existing
before bringing Himself into existence"; when He acted He was not in
some state that could be described as "before existing." He was already
existent entirely.
Now assuredly an Activity not subjected essence is utterly free; God's
selfhood, then, is of his own Act. If his being has to be ensured by
something else, He is no longer the self-existent First: if it be true
to say that He is his own container, then He inducts Himself; for all
that He contains is his own production from the beginning since from
the beginning He caused the being of all that by nature He contains.
If there had been a moment from which He began to be, it would be
possible assert his self-making in the literal sense; but, since what
He is He is from before all time, his self-making is to be understood
as simultaneous with Himself; the being is one and the same with the
making and eternal "coming into existence."
This is the source also of his self-disposal -- strictly applicable if
there were a duality, but conveying, in the case of a unity, a
disposing without a disposed, an abstract disposing. But how a disposer
with nothing to dispose? In that there is here a disposer looking to a
prior when there is none: since there is no prior, This is the First --
but a First not in order but in sovereignty, in power purely
self-controlled. Purely; then nothing can be There that is under any
external disposition; all in God is self-willing. What then is there of
his content that is not Himself, what that is not in Act, what not his
work? Imagine in Him anything not of his Act and at once His existence
ceases to be pure; He is not self-disposing, not all-powerful: in that
at least of whose doing He is not master He would be impotent.
21. Could He then have made Himself otherwise than as He did?
If He could we must deny Him the power to produce goodness for He
certainly cannot produce evil. Power, There, is no producer of the
inapt; it is that steadfast constant which is most decidedly power by
inability to depart from unity: ability to produce the inapt inability
to hold by the fitting; that self-making must be definite once for all
since it is the right; besides, who could upset what is made by the
will of God and is itself that will?
But whence does He draw that will seeing that essence, source of will,
is inactive in Him?
The will was included in the essence; they were identical: or was there
something, this will for instance, not existing in Him? All was will,
nothing unwilled in Him. There is then nothing before that will: God
and will were primally identical.
God, therefore, is what He willed, is such as He willed; and all that
ensued upon that willing was what that definite willing engendered: but
it engendered nothing new; all existed from the first.
As for his "self-containing," this rightly understood can mean only
that all the rest is maintained in virtue of Him by means of a certain
participation; all traces back to the Supreme; God Himself,
self-existing always, needs no containing, no participating; all in Him
belongs to Him or rather He needs nothing from them in order to being
Himself.
When therefore you seek to state or to conceive Him, put all else
aside; abstracting all, keep solely to Him; see that you add nothing;
be sure that your theory of God does not lessen Him. Even you are able
to take contact with Something in which there is no more than That
Thing itself to affirm and know, Something which lies away above all
and is -- it alone -- veritably free, subject not even to its own law,
solely and essentially That One Thing, while all else is thing and
something added.
__________________________________________________________________
NINTH TRACTATE.
ON THE GOOD, OR THE ONE.
1. It is in virtue of unity that beings are beings.
This is equally true of things whose existence is primal and of all
that are in any degree to be numbered among beings. What could exist at
all except as one thing? Deprived of unity, a thing ceases to be what
it is called: no army unless as a unity: a chorus, a flock, must be one
thing. Even house and ship demand unity, one house, one ship; unity
gone, neither remains thus even continuous magnitudes could not exist
without an inherent unity; break them apart and their very being is
altered in the measure of the breach of unity.
Take plant and animal; the material form stands a unity; fallen from
that into a litter of fragments, the things have lost their being; what
was is no longer there; it is replaced by quite other things -- as many
others, precisely, as possess unity.
Health, similarly, is the condition of a body acting as a co-ordinate
unity. Beauty appears when limbs and features are controlled by this
principle, unity. Moral excellence is of a soul acting as a concordant
total, brought to unity.
Come thus to soul -- which brings all to unity, making, moulding,
shaping, ranging to order -- there is a temptation to say "Soul is the
bestower of unity; soul therefore is the unity." But soul bestows other
characteristics upon material things and yet remains distinct from its
gift: shape, Ideal-Form and the rest are all distinct from the giving
soul; so, clearly, with this gift of unity; soul to make things unities
looks out upon the unity just as it makes man by looking upon Man,
realizing in the man the unity belonging to Man.
Anything that can be described as a unity is so in the precise degree
in which it holds a characteristic being; the less or more the degree
of the being, the less or more the unity. Soul, while distinct from
unity's very self, is a thing of the greater unity in proportion as it
is of the greater, the authentic, being. Absolute unity it is not: it
is soul and one soul, the unity in some sense a concomitant; there are
two things, soul and soul's unity as there is body with body's unity.
The looser aggregates, such as a choir, are furthest from unity, the
more compact are the nearer; soul is nearer yet but still a
participant.
Is soul to be identified with unity on the ground that unless it were
one thing it could not be soul? No; unity is equally necessary to every
other thing, yet unity stands distinct from them; body and unity are
not identical; body, too; is still a participant.
Besides, the soul, even the collective soul for all its absence of
part, is a manifold: it has diverse powers -- reasoning, desiring,
perceiving -- all held together by this chain of unity. Itself a unity,
soul confers unity, but also accepts it.
2. It may be suggested that, while in the unities of the partial order
the essence and the unity are distinct, yet in collective existence, in
Real Being, they are identical, so that when we have grasped Being we
hold unity; Real Being would coincide with Unity. Thus, taking the
Intellectual-Principle as Essential Being, that principle and the Unity
Absolute would be at once Primal Being and Pure Unity, purveying,
accordingly, to the rest of things something of Being and something, in
proportion, of the unity which is itself.
There is nothing with which the unity would be more plausibly
identified than with Being; either it is Being as a given man is man or
it will correspond to the Number which rules in the realm of the
particular; it will be a number applying to a certain unique thing as
the number two applies to others.
Now if Number is a thing among things, then clearly so this unity must
be; we would have to discover what thing of things it is. If Number is
not a thing but an operation of the mind moving out to reckon, then the
unity will not be a thing.
We found that anything losing unity loses its being; we are therefore
obliged to enquire whether the unity in particulars is identical with
the being, and unity absolute identical with collective being.
Now the being of the particular is a manifold; unity cannot be a
manifold; there must therefore be a distinction between Being and
Unity. Thus a man is at once a reasoning living being and a total of
parts; his variety is held together by his unity; man therefore and
unity are different -- man a thing of parts against unity partless.
Much more must Collective Being, as container of all existence, be a
manifold and therefore distinct from the unity in which it is but
participant.
Again, Collective Being contains life and intelligence -- it is no dead
thing -- and so, once more, is a manifold.
If Being is identical with Intellectual-Principle, even at that it is a
manifold; all the more so when count is taken of the Ideal Forms in it;
for the Idea, particular or collective, is, after all, a numerable
agglomeration whose unity is that of a kosmos.
Above all, unity is The First: but Intellectual-Principle, Ideas and
Being, cannot be so; for any member of the realm of Forms is an
aggregation, a compound, and therefore -- since components must precede
their compound -- is a later.
Other considerations also go to show that the Intellectual-Principle
cannot be the First. Intellect must be above the Intellectual Act: at
least in its higher phase, that not concerned with the outer universe,
it must be intent upon its Prior; its introversion is a conversion upon
the Principle.
Considered as at once Thinker and Object of its Thought, it is dual,
not simplex, not The Unity: considered as looking beyond itself, it
must look to a better, to a prior: looking simultaneously upon itself
and upon its Transcendent, it is, once more, not a First.
There is no other way of stating Intellectual-Principle than as that
which, holding itself in the presence of The Good and First and looking
towards That, is self-present also, self-knowing and Knowing itself as
All-Being: thus manifold, it is far from being The Unity.
In sum: The Unity cannot be the total of beings, for so its oneness is
annulled; it cannot be the Intellectual-Principle, for so it would be
that total which the Intellectual-Principle is; nor is it Being, for
Being is the manifold of things.
3. What then must The Unity be, what nature is left for it?
No wonder that to state it is not easy; even Being and Form are not
easy, though we have a way, an approach through the Ideas.
The soul or mind reaching towards the formless finds itself incompetent
to grasp where nothing bounds it or to take impression where the
impinging reality is diffuse; in sheer dread of holding to nothingness,
it slips away. The state is painful; often it seeks relief by
retreating from all this vagueness to the region of sense, there to
rest as on solid ground, just as the sight distressed by the minute
rests with pleasure on the bold.
Soul must see in its own way; this is by coalescence, unification; but
in seeking thus to know the Unity it is prevented by that very
unification from recognising that it has found; it cannot distinguish
itself from the object of this intuition. Nonetheless, this is our one
resource if our philosophy is to give us knowledge of The Unity.
We are in search of unity; we are to come to know the principle of all,
the Good and First; therefore we may not stand away from the realm of
Firsts and lie prostrate among the lasts: we must strike for those
Firsts, rising from things of sense which are the lasts. Cleared of all
evil in our intention towards The Good, we must ascend to the Principle
within ourselves; from many, we must become one; only so do we attain
to knowledge of that which is Principle and Unity. We shape ourselves
into Intellectual-Principle; we make over our soul in trust to
Intellectual-Principle and set it firmly in That; thus what That sees
the soul will waken to see; it is through the Intellectual-Principle
that we have this vision of The Unity; it must be our care to bring
over nothing whatever from sense, to allow nothing even of soul to
enter into Intellectual-Principle: with Intellect pure, and with the
summit of Intellect, we are to see the All-Pure.
If quester has the impression of extension or shape or mass attaching
to That Nature he has not been led by Intellectual-Principle which is
not of the order to see such things; the activity has been of sense and
of the judgement following upon sense: only Intellectual-Principle can
inform us of the things of its scope; its competence is upon its
priors, its content and its issue: but even its content is outside of
sense; and still purer, still less touched by multiplicity, are its
priors, or rather its Prior.
The Unity, then, is not Intellectual-Principle but something higher
still: Intellectual-Principle is still a being but that First is no
being but precedent to all Being; it cannot be a being, for a being has
what we may call the shape of its reality but The Unity is without
shape, even shape Intellectual.
Generative of all, The Unity is none of all; neither thing nor quantity
nor quality nor intellect nor soul; not in motion, not at rest, not in
place, not in time: it is the self-defined, unique in form or, better,
formless, existing before Form was, or Movement or Rest, all of which
are attachments of Being and make Being the manifold it is.
But how, if not in movement, can it be otherwise than at rest?
The answer is that movement and rest are states pertaining to Being,
which necessarily has one or the other or both. Besides, anything at
rest must be so in virtue of Rest as something distinct: Unity at rest
becomes the ground of an attribute and at once ceases to be a simplex.
Note, similarly, that, when we speak of this First as Cause, we are
affirming something happening not to it but to us, the fact that we
take from this Self-Enclosed: strictly we should put neither a This nor
a That to it; we hover, as it were, about it, seeking the statement of
an experience of our own, sometimes nearing this Reality, sometimes
baffled by the enigma in which it dwells.
4. The main part of the difficulty is that awareness of this Principle
comes neither by knowing nor by the Intellection that discovers the
Intellectual Beings but by a presence overpassing all knowledge. In
knowing, soul or mind abandons its unity; it cannot remain a simplex:
knowing is taking account of things; that accounting is multiple; the
mind, thus plunging into number and multiplicity, departs from unity.
Our way then takes us beyond knowing; there may be no wandering from
unity; knowing and knowable must all be left aside; every object of
thought, even the highest, we must pass by, for all that is good is
later than This and derives from This as from the sun all the light of
the day.
"Not to be told; not to be written": in our writing and telling we are
but urging towards it: out of discussion we call to vision: to those
desiring to see, we point the path; our teaching is of the road and the
travelling; the seeing must be the very act of one that has made this
choice.
There are those that have not attained to see. The soul has not come to
know the splendour There; it has not felt and clutched to itself that
love-passion of vision known to lover come to rest where he loves. Or
struck perhaps by that authentic light, all the soul lit by the
nearness gained, we have gone weighted from beneath; the vision is
frustrate; we should go without burden and we go carrying that which
can but keep us back; we are not yet made over into unity.
From none is that Principle absent and yet from all: present, it
remains absent save to those fit to receive, disciplined into some
accordance, able to touch it closely by their likeness and by that
kindred power within themselves through which, remaining as it was when
it came to them from the Supreme, they are enabled to see in so far as
God may at all be seen.
Failure to attain may be due to such impediment or to lack of the
guiding thought that establishes trust; impediment we must charge
against ourselves and strive by entire renunciation to become
emancipate; where there is distrust for lack of convincing reason,
further considerations may be applied:
5. Those to whom existence comes about by chance and automatic action
and is held together by material forces have drifted far from God and
from the concept of unity; we are not here addressing them but only
such as accept another nature than body and have some conception of
soul.
Soul must be sounded to the depths, understood as an emanation from
Intellectual-Principle and as holding its value by a Reason-Principle
thence infused. Next this Intellect must be apprehended, an Intellect
other than the reasoning faculty known as the rational principle; with
reasoning we are already in the region of separation and movement: our
sciences are Reason-Principles lodged in soul or mind, having
manifestly acquired their character by the presence in the soul of
Intellectual-Principle, source of all knowing.
Thus we come to see Intellectual-Principle almost as an object of
sense: the Intellectual Kosmos is perceptible as standing above soul,
father to soul: we know Intellectual-Principle as the motionless, not
subject to change, containing, we must think, all things; a multiple
but at once indivisible and comporting difference. It is not
discriminate as are the Reason-Principles, which can in fact be known
one by one: yet its content is not a confusion; every item stands forth
distinctly, just as in a science the entire content holds as an
indivisible and yet each item is a self-standing verity.
Now a plurality thus concentrated like the Intellectual Kosmos is close
upon The First -- and reason certifies its existence as surely as that
of soul -- yet, though of higher sovereignty than soul, it is not The
First since it is not a unity, not simplex as unity, principle over all
multiplicity, must be.
Before it there is That which must transcend the noblest of the things
of Being: there must be a prior to this Principle which aiming towards
unity is yet not unity but a thing in unity's likeness. From this
highest it is not sundered; it too is self-present: so close to the
unity, it cannot be articulated: and yet it is a principle which in
some measure has dared secession.
That awesome Prior, The Unity, is not a being, for so its unity would
be vested in something else: strictly no name is apt to it, but since
name it we must there is a certain rough fitness in designating it as
unity with the understanding that it is not the unity of some other
thing.
Thus it eludes our knowledge, so that the nearer approach to it is
through its offspring, Being: we know it as cause of existence to
Intellectual-Principle, as fount of all that is best, as the efficacy
which, self-perduring and undiminishing, generates all beings and is
not to be counted among these its derivatives, to all of which it must
be prior.
This we can but name The Unity, indicating it to each other by a
designation that points to the concept of its partlessness while we are
in reality striving to bring our own minds to unity. We are not to
think of such unity and partlessness as belong to point or monad; the
veritable unity is the source of all such quantity which could not
exist unless first there existed Being and Being's Prior: we are not,
then, to think in the order of point and monad but to use these -- in
their rejection of magnitude and partition -- as symbols for the higher
concept.
6. In what sense, then, do we assert this Unity, and how is it to be
adjusted to our mental processes?
Its oneness must not be entitled to that of monad and point: for these
the mind abstracts extension and numerical quantity and rests upon the
very minutest possible, ending no doubt in the partless but still in
something that began as a partible and is always lodged in something
other than itself. The Unity was never in any other and never belonged
to the partible: nor is its impartibility that of extreme minuteness;
on the contrary it is great beyond anything, great not in extension but
in power, sizeless by its very greatness as even its immediate sequents
are impartible not in mass but in might. We must therefore take the
Unity as infinite not in measureless extension or numerable quantity
but in fathomless depths of power.
Think of The One as Mind or as God, you think too meanly; use all the
resources of understanding to conceive this Unity and, again, it is
more authentically one than God, even though you reach for God's unity
beyond the unity the most perfect you can conceive. For This is utterly
a self-existent, with no concomitant whatever. This self-sufficing is
the essence of its unity. Something there must be supremely adequate,
autonomous, all-transcending, most utterly without need.
Any manifold, anything beneath The Unity, is dependent; combined from
various constituents, its essential nature goes in need of unity; but
unity cannot need itself; it stands unity accomplished. Again, a
manifold depends upon all its factors; and furthermore each of those
factors in turn -- as necessarily inbound with the rest and not
self-standing -- sets up a similar need both to its associates and to
the total so constituted.
The sovranly self-sufficing principle will be Unity-Absolute, for only
in this Unity is there a nature above all need, whether within itself
or in regard to the rest of things. Unity seeks nothing towards its
being or its well-being or its safehold upon existence; cause to all,
how can it acquire its character outside of itself or know any good
outside? The good of its being can be no borrowing: This is The Good.
Nor has it station; it needs no standing ground as if inadequate to its
own sustaining; what calls for such underpropping is the soulless, some
material mass that must be based or fall. This is base to all, cause of
universal existence and of ordered station. All that demands place is
in need; a First cannot go in need of its sequents: all need is effort
towards a first principle; the First, principle to all, must be utterly
without need. If the Unity be seeking, it must inevitably be seeking to
be something other than itself; it is seeking its own destroyer.
Whatever may be said to be in need of a good is needing a preserver;
nothing can be a good to The Unity, therefore.
Neither can it have will to anything; it is a Beyond-Good, not even to
itself a good but to such beings only as may be of quality to have part
with it. Nor has it Intellection; that would comport diversity: nor
Movement; it is prior to Movement as to Intellection.
To what could its Intellection be directed? To itself? But that would
imply a previous ignorance; it would be dependent upon that
Intellection in order to knowledge of itself; but it is the
self-sufficing. Yet this absence of self-knowing does not comport
ignorance; ignorance is of something outside -- a knower ignorant of a
knowable -- but in the Solitary there is neither knowing nor anything
unknown. Unity, self-present, it has no need of self-intellection:
indeed this "self-presence" were better left out, the more surely to
preserve the unity; we must eliminate all knowing and all association,
all intellection whether internal or external. It is not to be though
of as having but as being Intellection; Intellection does not itself
perform the intellective act but is the cause of the act in something
else, and cause is not to be identified with caused: most assuredly the
cause of all is not a thing within that all.
This Principle is not, therefore, to be identified with the good of
which it is the source; it is good in the unique mode of being The Good
above all that is good.
7. If the mind reels before something thus alien to all we know, we
must take our stand on the things of this realm and strive thence to
see. But, in the looking, beware of throwing outward; this Principle
does not lie away somewhere leaving the rest void; to those of power to
reach, it is present; to the inapt, absent. In our daily affairs we
cannot hold an object in mind if we have given ourselves elsewhere,
occupied upon some other matter; that very thing must be before us to
be truly the object of observation. So here also; preoccupied by the
impress of something else, we are withheld under that pressure from
becoming aware of The Unity; a mind gripped and fastened by some
definite thing cannot take the print of the very contrary. As Matter,
it is agreed, must be void of quality in order to accept the types of
the universe, so and much more must the soul be kept formless if there
is to be no infixed impediment to prevent it being brimmed and lit by
the Primal Principle.
In sum, we must withdraw from all the extern, pointed wholly inwards;
no leaning to the outer; the total of things ignored, first in their
relation to us and later in the very idea; the self put out of mind in
the contemplation of the Supreme; all the commerce so closely There
that, if report were possible, one might become to others reporter of
that communion.
Such converse, we may suppose, was that of Minos, thence known as the
Familiar of Zeus; and in that memory he established the laws which
report it, enlarged to that task by his vision There. Some, on the
other hand, there will be to disdain such citizen service, choosing to
remain in the higher: these will be those that have seen much.
God -- we read -- is outside of none, present unperceived to all; we
break away from Him, or rather from ourselves; what we turn from we
cannot reach; astray ourselves, we cannot go in search of another; a
child distraught will not recognise its father; to find ourselves is to
know our source.
8. Every soul that knows its history is aware, also, that its movement,
unthwarted, is not that of an outgoing line; its natural course may be
likened to that in which a circle turns not upon some external but on
its own centre, the point to which it owes its rise. The soul's
movement will be about its source; to this it will hold, poised intent
towards that unity to which all souls should move and the divine souls
always move, divine in virtue of that movement; for to be a god is to
be integral with the Supreme; what stands away is man still multiple,
or beast.
Is then this "centre" of our souls the Principle for which we are
seeking?
We must look yet further: we must admit a Principle in which all these
centres coincide: it will be a centre by analogy with the centre of the
circle we know. The soul is not a circle in the sense of the geometric
figure but in that it at once contains the Primal Nature [as centre]
and is contained by it [as circumference], that it owes its origin to
such a centre and still more that the soul, uncontaminated, is a
self-contained entity.
In our present state -- part of our being weighed down by the body, as
one might have the feet under water with all the rest untouched -- we
bear -- ourselves aloft by that -- intact part and, in that, hold
through our own centre to the centre of all the centres, just as the
centres of the great circles of a sphere coincide with that of the
sphere to which all belong. Thus we are secure.
If these circles were material and not spiritual, the link with the
centres would be local; they would lie round it where it lay at some
distant point: since the souls are of the Intellectual, and the Supreme
still loftier, we understand that contact is otherwise procured, that
is by those powers which connect Intellectual agent with Intellectual
Object; this all the more, since the Intellect grasps the Intellectual
object by the way of similarity, identity, in the sure link of kindred.
Material mass cannot blend into other material mass: unbodied beings
are not under this bodily limitation; their separation is solely that
of otherness, of differentiation; in the absence of otherness, it is
similars mutually present.
Thus the Supreme as containing no otherness is ever present with us; we
with it when we put otherness away. It is not that the Supreme reaches
out to us seeking our communion: we reach towards the Supreme; it is we
that become present. We are always before it: but we do not always
look: thus a choir, singing set in due order about the conductor, may
turn away from that centre to which all should attend: let it but face
aright and it sings with beauty, present effectively. We are ever
before the Supreme -- cut off is utter dissolution; we can no longer be
-- but we do not always attend: when we look, our Term is attained;
this is rest; this is the end of singing ill; effectively before Him,
we lift a choral song full of God.
9. In this choiring, the soul looks upon the wellspring of Life,
wellspring also of Intellect, beginning of Being, fount of Good, root
of Soul. It is not that these are poured out from the Supreme lessening
it as if it were a thing of mass. At that the emanants would be
perishable; but they are eternal; they spring from an eternal
principle, which produces them not by its fragmentation but in virtue
of its intact identity: therefore they too hold firm; so long as the
sun shines, so long there will be light.
We have not been cut away; we are not separate, what though the
body-nature has closed about us to press us to itself; we breathe and
hold our ground because the Supreme does not give and pass but gives on
for ever, so long as it remains what it is.
Our being is the fuller for our turning Thither; this is our
prosperity; to hold aloof is loneliness and lessening. Here is the
soul's peace, outside of evil, refuge taken in the place clean of
wrong; here it has its Act, its true knowing; here it is immune. Here
is living, the true; that of to-day, all living apart from Him, is but
a shadow, a mimicry. Life in the Supreme is the native activity of
Intellect; in virtue of that converse it brings forth gods, brings
forth beauty, brings forth righteousness, brings forth all moral good;
for of all these the soul is pregnant when it has been filled with God.
This state is its first and its final, because from God it comes, its
good lies There, and, once turned to God again, it is what it was. Life
here, with the things of earth, is a sinking, a defeat, a failing of
the wing.
That our good is There is shown by the very love inborn with the soul;
hence the constant linking of the Love-God with the Psyches in story
and picture; the soul, other than God but sprung of Him, must needs
love. So long as it is There, it holds the heavenly love; here its love
is the baser; There the soul is Aphrodite of the heavens; here, turned
harlot, Aphrodite of the public ways: yet the soul is always an
Aphrodite. This is the intention of the myth which tells of Aphrodite's
birth and Eros born with her.
The soul in its nature loves God and longs to be at one with Him in the
noble love of a daughter for a noble father; but coming to human birth
and lured by the courtships of this sphere, she takes up with another
love, a mortal, leaves her father and falls.
But one day coming to hate her shame, she puts away the evil of earth,
once more seeks the father, and finds her peace.
Those to whom all this experience is strange may understand by way of
our earthly longings and the joy we have in winning to what we most
desire -- remembering always that here what we love is perishable,
hurtful, that our loving is of mimicries and turns awry because all was
a mistake, our good was not here, this was not what we sought; There
only is our veritable love and There we may hold it and be with it,
possess it in its verity no longer submerged in alien flesh. Any that
have seen know what I have in mind: the soul takes another life as it
approaches God; thus restored it feels that the dispenser of true life
is There to see, that now we have nothing to look for but, far
otherwise, that we must put aside all else and rest in This alone, This
become, This alone, all the earthly environment done away, in haste to
be free, impatient of any bond holding us to the baser, so that with
our being entire we may cling about This, no part in us remaining but
through it we have touch with God.
Thus we have all the vision that may be of Him and of ourselves; but it
is of a self-wrought to splendour, brimmed with the Intellectual light,
become that very light, pure, buoyant, unburdened, raised to Godhood
or, better, knowing its Godhood, all aflame then -- but crushed out
once more if it should take up the discarded burden.
10. But how comes the soul not to keep that ground?
Because it has not yet escaped wholly: but there will be the time of
vision unbroken, the self hindered no longer by any hindrance of body.
Not that those hindrances beset that in us which has veritably seen; it
is the other phase of the soul that suffers and that only when we
withdraw from vision and take to knowing by proof, by evidence, by the
reasoning processes of the mental habit. Such logic is not to be
confounded with that act of ours in the vision; it is not our reason
that has seen; it is something greater than reason, reason's Prior, as
far above reason as the very object of that thought must be.
In our self-seeing There, the self is seen as belonging to that order,
or rather we are merged into that self in us which has the quality of
that order. It is a knowing of the self restored to its purity. No
doubt we should not speak of seeing; but we cannot help talking in
dualities, seen and seer, instead of, boldly, the achievement of unity.
In this seeing, we neither hold an object nor trace distinction; there
is no two. The man is changed, no longer himself nor self-belonging; he
is merged with the Supreme, sunken into it, one with it: centre
coincides with centre, for on this higher plane things that touch at
all are one; only in separation is there duality; by our holding away,
the Supreme is set outside. This is why the vision baffles telling; we
cannot detach the Supreme to state it; if we have seen something thus
detached we have failed of the Supreme which is to be known only as one
with ourselves.
11. This is the purport of that rule of our Mysteries: Nothing Divulged
to the Uninitiate: the Supreme is not to be made a common story, the
holy things may not be uncovered to the stranger, to any that has not
himself attained to see. There were not two; beholder was one with
beheld; it was not a vision compassed but a unity apprehended. The man
formed by this mingling with the Supreme must -- if he only remember --
carry its image impressed upon him: he is become the Unity, nothing
within him or without inducing any diversity; no movement now, no
passion, no outlooking desire, once this ascent is achieved; reasoning
is in abeyance and all Intellection and even, to dare the word, the
very self; caught away, filled with God, he has in perfect stillness
attained isolation; all the being calmed, he turns neither to this side
nor to that, not even inwards to himself; utterly resting he has become
very rest. He belongs no longer to the order of the beautiful; he has
risen beyond beauty; he has overpassed even the choir of the virtues;
he is like one who, having penetrated the inner sanctuary, leaves the
temple images behind him -- though these become once more first objects
of regard when he leaves the holies; for There his converse was not
with image, not with trace, but with the very Truth in the view of
which all the rest is but of secondary concern.
There, indeed, it was scarcely vision, unless of a mode unknown; it was
a going forth from the self, a simplifying, a renunciation, a reach
towards contact and at the same time a repose, a meditation towards
adjustment. This is the only seeing of what lies within the holies: to
look otherwise is to fail.
Things here are signs; they show therefore to the wiser teachers how
the supreme God is known; the instructed priest reading the sign may
enter the holy place and make real the vision of the inaccessible.
Even those that have never found entry must admit the existence of that
invisible; they will know their source and Principle since by principle
they see principle and are linked with it, by like they have contact
with like and so they grasp all of the divine that lies within the
scope of mind. Until the seeing comes they are still craving something,
that which only the vision can give; this Term, attained only by those
that have overpassed all, is the All-Transcending.
It is not in the soul's nature to touch utter nothingness; the lowest
descent is into evil and, so far, into non-being: but to utter nothing,
never. When the soul begins again to mount, it comes not to something
alien but to its very self; thus detached, it is not in nothingness but
in itself; self-gathered it is no longer in the order of being; it is
in the Supreme.
There is thus a converse in virtue of which the essential man outgrows
Being, becomes identical with the Transcendent of Being. The self thus
lifted, we are in the likeness of the Supreme: if from that heightened
self we pass still higher -- image to archetype -- we have won the Term
of all our journeying. Fallen back again, we awaken the virtue within
until we know ourselves all order once more; once more we are lightened
of the burden and move by virtue towards Intellectual-Principle and
through the Wisdom in That to the Supreme.
This is the life of gods and of the godlike and blessed among men,
liberation from the alien that besets us here, a life taking no
pleasure in the things of earth, the passing of solitary to solitary.
THE END.
__________________________________________________________________
The Death of Marcus Aurelius
TEXT: Plotinus, The Enneads 5-6 (tr MacKenna/Page)
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