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    "slug": "ennead-2",
    "name": "Ennead II — The Physical Cosmos"
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    "num": 1,
    "slug": "1-on-the-kosmos-or-on-the-heavenly-system",
    "title": "II.1 — On the Kosmos (the Heavenly System)",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 4085,
    "text": "## FIRST TRACTATE\n\n\n#### FIRST TRACTATE.\n\nON THE KOSMOS OR ON THE HEAVENLY SYSTEM.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. We hold that the ordered universe, in its material mass, has\nexisted for ever and will for ever endure: but simply to refer this\nperdurance to the Will of God, however true an explanation,\nis utterly\ninadequate.\n\nThe elements of this sphere change; the living beings of earth\npass away; only the Ideal-form [the species] persists: possibly a\nsimilar process obtains in the All.\n\nThe Will of God is able to cope with the ceaseless flux\nand escape\nof body stuff by ceaselessly reintroducing the known forms in new\nsubstances, thus ensuring perpetuity not to the particular\nitem but to\nthe unity of idea: now, seeing that objects of this realm possess no\nmore than duration of form, why should celestial objects, and the\ncelestial system itself, be distinguished by duration of the\nparticular entity?\n\nLet us suppose this persistence to be the result of the\nall-inclusiveness of the celestial and universal- with its\nconsequence, the absence of any outlying matter into which change\ncould take place or which could break in and destroy.\n\nThis explanation would, no doubt, safeguard the integrity of the\nWhole, of the All; but our sun and the individual being of the other\nheavenly bodies would not on these terms be secured in perpetuity:\nthey are parts; no one of them is in itself the whole, the all; it\nwould still be probable that theirs is no more than that duration in\nform which belongs to fire and such entities.\n\nThis would apply even to the entire ordered universe itself. For\nit is very possible that this too, though not in process of\ndestruction from outside, might have only formal duration; its parts\nmay be so wearing each other down as to keep it in a continuous\ndecay while, amid the ceaseless flux of the Kind constituting its\nbase, an outside power ceaselessly restores the form: in this way\nthe living All may lie under the same conditions as man and horse\nand the rest man and horse persisting but not the individual of the\ntype.\n\nWith this, we would have no longer the distinction of one order,\nthe heavenly system, stable for ever, and another, the earthly, in\nprocess of decay: all would be alike except in the point of time;\nthe celestial would merely be longer lasting. If, then, we accepted\nthis duration of type alone as a true account of the All equally\nwith its partial members, our difficulties would be eased- or indeed\nwe should have no further problem- once the Will of God were shown\nto be capable, under these conditions and by such communication, of\nsustaining the Universe.\n\nBut if we are obliged to allow individual persistence to any\ndefinite entity within the Kosmos then, firstly, we must\nshow that the\nDivine Will is adequate to make it so; secondly, we have to face the\nquestion, What accounts for some things having individual\npersistence and others only the persistence of type? and, thirdly,\nwe ask how the partial entities of the celestial system hold a real\nduration which would thus appear possible to all partial things.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Supposing we accept this view and hold that, while\nthings below\nthe moon's orb have merely type-persistence, the celestial realm and\nall its several members possess individual eternity; it remains to\nshow how this strict permanence of the individual identity-\nthe actual\nitem eternally unchangeable- can belong to what is certainly\ncorporeal, seeing that bodily substance is characteristically a\nthing of flux.\n\nThe theory of bodily flux is held by Plato no less than by the\nother philosophers who have dealt with physical matters, and is\napplied not only to ordinary bodies but to those, also, of the\nheavenly sphere.\n\n\"How,\" he asks, \"can these corporeal and visible\nentities continue\neternally unchanged in identity?\"- evidently agreeing, in this\nmatter also, with Herakleitos who maintained that even the sun is\nperpetually coming anew into being. To Aristotle there would be no\nproblem; it is only accepting his theories of a fifth-substance.\n\nBut to those who reject Aristotle's Quintessence and hold the\nmaterial mass of the heavens to consist of the elements\nunderlying the\nliving things of this sphere, how is individual permanence possible?\nAnd the difficulty is still greater for the parts, for the\nsun and the\nheavenly bodies.\n\nEvery living thing is a combination of soul and body-kind: the\ncelestial sphere, therefore, if it is to be everlasting as an\nindividual entity must be so in virtue either of both these\nconstituents or of one of them, by the combination of soul\nand body or\nby soul only or by body only.\n\nOf course anyone that holds body to be incorruptible secures the\ndesired permanence at once; no need, then, to call on a soul\nor on any\nperdurable conjunction to account for the continued maintenance of a\nliving being.\n\nBut the case is different when one holds that body is, of\nitself, perishable and that Soul is the principle of permanence:\nthis view obliges us to the proof that the character of body\nis not in\nitself fatal either to the coherence or to the lasting\nstability which\nare imperative: it must be shown that the two elements of the union\nenvisaged are not inevitably hostile, but that on the\ncontrary [in the\nheavens] even Matter must conduce to the scheme of the standing\nresult.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. We have to ask, that is, how Matter, this entity of ceaseless\nflux constituting the physical mass of the universe, could serve\ntowards the immortality of the Kosmos.\n\nAnd our answer is \"Because the flux is not outgoing\": where\nthere is motion within but not outwards and the total remains\nunchanged, there is neither growth nor decline, and thus the Kosmos\nnever ages.\n\nWe have a parallel in our earth, constant from eternity\nto pattern\nand to mass; the air, too, never fails; and there is always\nwater: all\nthe changes of these elements leave unchanged the Principle of the\ntotal living thing, our world. In our own constitution, again, there\nis a ceaseless shifting of particles- and that with outgoing\nloss- and\nyet the individual persists for a long time: where there is no\nquestion of an outside region, the body-principle cannot clash with\nsoul as against the identity and endless duration of the\nliving thing.\n\nOf these material elements- for example- fire, the keen\nand swift,\ncooperates by its upward tendency as earth by its lingering\nbelow; for\nwe must not imagine that the fire, once it finds itself at the point\nwhere its ascent must stop, settles down as in its appropriate\nplace, no longer seeking, like all the rest, to expand in both\ndirections. No: but higher is not possible; lower is repugnant to\nits Kind; all that remains for it is to be tractable and,\nanswering to\na need of its nature, to be drawn by the Soul to the\nactivity of life,\nand so to move to in a glorious place, in the Soul. Anyone\nthat dreads\nits falling may take heart; the circuit of the Soul provides against\nany declination, embracing, sustaining; and since fire has of itself\nno downward tendency it accepts that guiding without resistance. The\npartial elements constituting our persons do not suffice for\ntheir own\ncohesion; once they are brought to human shape, they must borrow\nelsewhere if the organism is to be maintained: but in the upper\nspheres since there can be no loss by flux no such replenishment is\nneeded.\n\nSuppose such loss, suppose fire extinguished there, then a new\nfire must be kindled; so also if such loss by flux could\noccur in some\nof the superiors from which the celestial fire depends, that too\nmust be replaced: but with such transmutations, while there might be\nsomething continuously similar, there would be, no longer, a Living\nAll abidingly self-identical.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. But matters are involved here which demand specific\ninvestigation and cannot be treated as incidental merely to our\npresent problem. We are faced with several questions: Is the\nheavenly system exposed to any such flux as would occasion\nthe need of\nsome restoration corresponding to nourishment; or do its\nmembers, once\nset in their due places, suffer no loss of substance, permanent by\nKind? Does it consist of fire only, or is it mainly of fire with the\nother elements, as well, taken up and carried in the circuit by the\ndominant Principle?\n\nOur doctrine of the immortality of the heavenly system rests on\nthe firmest foundation once we have cited the sovereign agent, the\nsoul, and considered, besides, the peculiar excellence of the bodily\nsubstance constituting the stars, a material so pure, so entirely\nthe noblest, and chosen by the soul as, in all living beings, the\ndetermining principle appropriates to itself the choicest among\ntheir characteristic parts. No doubt Aristotle is right in\nspeaking of\nflame as a turmoil, fire insolently rioting; but the\ncelestial fire is\nequable, placid, docile to the purposes of the stars.\n\nStill, the great argument remains, the Soul, moving in its\nmarvellous might second only to the very loftiest Existents:\nhow could\nanything once placed within this Soul break away from it into\nnon-being? No one that understands this principle, the support of\nall things, can fail to see that, sprung from God, it is a stronger\nstay than any bonds.\n\nAnd is it conceivable that the Soul, valid to sustain for a\ncertain space of time, could not so sustain for ever? This\nwould be to\nassume that it holds things together by violence; that there is a\n\"natural course\" at variance with what actually exists in the nature\nof the universe and in these exquisitely ordered beings; and that\nthere is some power able to storm the established system and destroy\nits ordered coherence, some kingdom or dominion that may shatter the\norder founded by the Soul.\n\nFurther: The Kosmos has had no beginning- the impossibility has\nbeen shown elsewhere- and this is warrant for its continued\nexistence.\nWhy should there be in the future a change that has not yet\noccurred? The elements there are not worn away like beams\nand rafters:\nthey hold sound for ever, and so the All holds sound. And even\nsupposing these elements to be in ceaseless transmutation,\nyet the All\npersists: the ground of all the change must itself be changeless.\n\nAs to any alteration of purpose in the Soul we have already\nshown the emptiness of that fancy: the administration of the\nuniverse entails neither labour nor loss; and, even supposing the\npossibility of annihilating all that is material, the Soul\nwould be no\nwhit the better or the worse.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. But how explain the permanence There, while the\ncontent of this\nsphere- its elements and its living things alike- are passing?\n\nThe reason is given by Plato: the celestial order is\nfrom God, the\nliving things of earth from the gods sprung from God; and it is law\nthat the offspring of God endures.\n\nIn other words, the celestial soul- and our souls with\nit- springs\ndirectly next from the Creator, while the animal life of\nthis earth is\nproduced by an image which goes forth from that celestial\nsoul and may\nbe said to flow downwards from it.\n\nA soul, then, of the minor degree- reproducing, indeed, that of\nthe Divine sphere but lacking in power inasmuch as it must exercise\nits creative act upon inferior stuff in an inferior region- the\nsubstances taken up into the fabric being of themselves repugnant to\nduration; with such an origin the living things of this realm cannot\nbe of strength to last for ever; the material constituents are not\nas firmly held and controlled as if they were ruled immediately by a\nPrinciple of higher potency.\n\nThe heavens, on the contrary, must have persistence as a whole,\nand this entails the persistence of the parts, of the stars they\ncontain: we could not imagine that whole to endure with the parts in\nflux- though, of course, we must distinguish things\nsub-celestial from\nthe heavens themselves whose region does not in fact extend so low\nas to the moon.\n\nOur own case is different: physically we are formed by that\n[inferior] soul, given forth [not directly from God but] from the\ndivine beings in the heavens and from the heavens\nthemselves; it is by\nway of that inferior soul that we are associated with the body\n[which therefore will not be persistent]; for the higher soul which\nconstitutes the We is the principle not of our existence but of our\nexcellence or, if also of our existence, then only in the sense\nthat, when the body is already constituted, it enters, bringing with\nit some effluence from the Divine Reason in support of the existence.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. We may now consider the question whether fire is the sole\nelement existing in that celestial realm and whether there is any\noutgoing thence with the consequent need of renewal.\n\nTimaeus pronounced the material frame of the All to consist\nprimarily of earth and fire for visibility, earth for solidity- and\ndeduced that the stars must be mainly composed of fire, but\nnot solely\nsince there is no doubt they are solid.\n\nAnd this is probably a true account. Plato accepts it as\nindicated\nby all the appearances. And, in fact, to all our perception-\nas we see\nthem and derive from them the impression of illumination- the stars\nappear to be mostly, if not exclusively, fire: but on reasoning into\nthe matter we judge that since solidity cannot exist apart from\nearth-matter, they must contain earth as well.\n\nBut what place could there be for the other elements? It is\nimpossible to imagine water amid so vast a conflagration; and if air\nwere present it would be continually changing into fire.\n\nAdmitting [with Timaeus; as a logical truth] that two\nself-contained entities, standing as extremes to each other need for\ntheir coherence two intermediaries; we may still question\nwhether this\nholds good with regard to physical bodies. Certainly water and earth\ncan be mixed without any such intermediate. It might seem valid to\nobject that the intermediates are already present in the\nearth and the\nwater; but a possible answer would be, \"Yes, but not as agents whose\nmeeting is necessary to the coherence of those extremes.\"\n\nNone the less we will take it that the coherence of extremes is\nproduced by virtue of each possessing all the intermediates. It is\nstill not proven that fire is necessary to the visibility of\nearth and\nearth to the solidarity of fire.\n\nOn this principle, nothing possesses an essential-nature of its\nvery own; every several thing is a blend, and its name is merely an\nindication of the dominant constituent.\n\nThus we are told that earth cannot have concrete\nexistence without\nthe help of some moist element- the moisture in water being the\nnecessary adhesive- but admitting that we so find it, there\nis still a\ncontradiction in pretending that any one element has a being of its\nown and in the same breath denying its self-coherence, making its\nsubsistence depend upon others, and so, in reality, reducing the\nspecific element to nothing. How can we talk of the existence of the\ndefinite Kind, earth- earth essential- if there exists no single\nparticle of earth which actually is earth without any need\nof water to\nsecure its self-cohesion? What has such an adhesive to act upon if\nthere is absolutely no given magnitude of real earth to which it may\nbind particle after particle in its business of producing the\ncontinuous mass? If there is any such given magnitude, large\nor small,\nof pure earth, then earth can exist in its own nature, independently\nof water: if there is no such primary particle of pure earth, then\nthere is nothing whatever for the water to bind. As for air- air\nunchanged, retaining its distinctive quality- how could it conduce\nto the subsistence of a dense material like earth?\n\nSimilarly with fire. No doubt Timaeus speaks of it as necessary\nnot to the existence but to the visibility of earth and the other\nelements; and certainly light is essential to all visibility- we\ncannot say that we see darkness, which implies, precisely, that\nnothing is seen, as silence means nothing being heard.\n\nBut all this does not assure us that the earth to be visible\nmust contain fire: light is sufficient: snow, for example, and other\nextremely cold substances gleam without the presence of fire- though\nof course it might be said that fire was once there and communicated\ncolour before disappearing.\n\nAs to the composition of water, we must leave it an open\nquestion whether there can be such a thing as water without a\ncertain proportion of earth.\n\nBut how can air, the yielding element, contain earth?\n\nFire, again: is earth perhaps necessary there since fire\nis by its\nown nature devoid of continuity and not a thing of three dimensions?\n\nSupposing it does not possess the solidity of the three\ndimensions, it has that of its thrust; now, cannot this belong to it\nby the mere right and fact of its being one of the corporeal\nentities in nature? Hardness is another matter, a property\nconfined to\nearth-stuff. Remember that gold- which is water- becomes dense by\nthe accession not of earth but of denseness or consolidation: in the\nsame way fire, with Soul present within it, may consolidate itself\nupon the power of the Soul; and there are living beings of fire\namong the Celestials.\n\nBut, in sum, do we abandon the teaching that all the elements\nenter into the composition of every living thing?\n\nFor this sphere, no; but to lift clay into the heavens is\nagainst nature, contrary to the laws of her ordaining: it is\ndifficult, too, to think of that swiftest of circuits bearing along\nearthly bodies in its course nor could such material conduce to the\nsplendour and white glint of the celestial fire.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. We can scarcely do better, in fine, than follow Plato.\n\nThus:\n\nIn the universe as a whole there must necessarily be\nsuch a degree\nof solidity, that is to say, of resistance, as will ensure that the\nearth, set in the centre, be a sure footing and support to the\nliving beings moving over it, and inevitably communicate something\nof its own density to them: the earth will possess coherence by its\nown unaided quality, but visibility by the presence of fire: it will\ncontain water against the dryness which would prevent the cohesion\nof its particles; it will hold air to lighten its bulky matters; it\nwill be in contact with the celestial fire- not as being a member of\nthe sidereal system but by the simple fact that the fire\nthere and our\nearth both belong to the ordered universe so that something of the\nearth is taken up by the fire as something of the fire by the earth\nand something of everything by everything else.\n\nThis borrowing, however, does not mean that the one thing\ntaking-up from the other enters into a composition, becoming an\nelement in a total of both: it is simply a consequence of the kosmic\nfellowship; the participant retains its own being and takes over not\nthe thing itself but some property of the thing, not air but air's\nyielding softness, not fire but fire's incandescence: mixing is\nanother process, a complete surrender with a resultant compound not,\nas in this case, earth- remaining earth, the solidity and density we\nknow- with something of fire's qualities superadded.\n\nWe have authority for this where we read:\n\n\"At the second circuit from the earth, God kindled a\nlight\": he is\nspeaking of the sun which, elsewhere, he calls the all-glowing and,\nagain, the all-gleaming: thus he prevents us imagining it to be\nanything else but fire, though of a peculiar kind; in other words it\nis light, which he distinguishes from flame as being only modestly\nwarm: this light is a corporeal substance but from it there shines\nforth that other \"light\" which, though it carries the same name, we\npronounce incorporeal, given forth from the first as its flower and\nradiance, the veritable \"incandescent body.\" Plato's word earthy is\ncommonly taken in too depreciatory a sense: he is thinking\nof earth as\nthe principle of solidity; we are apt to ignore his distinctions and\nthink of the concrete clay.\n\nFire of this order, giving forth this purest light,\nbelongs to the\nupper realm, and there its seat is fixed by nature; but we must not,\non that account, suppose the flame of earth to be associated with\nthe beings of that higher sphere.\n\nNo: the flame of this world, once it has attained a certain\nheight, is extinguished by the currents of air opposed to it.\nMoreover, as it carries an earthy element on its upward path, it is\nweighed downwards and cannot reach those loftier regions. It comes\nto a stand somewhere below the moon- making the air at that point\nsubtler- and its flame, if any flame can persist, is subdued and\nsoftened, and no longer retains its first intensity, but gives out\nonly what radiance it reflects from the light above.\n\nAnd it is that loftier light- falling variously upon the\nstars; to\neach in a certain proportion- that gives them their characteristic\ndifferences, as well in magnitude as in colour; just such light\nconstitutes also the still higher heavenly bodies which,\nhowever, like\nclear air, are invisible because of the subtle texture and\nunresisting\ntransparency of their material substance and also by their very\ndistance.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. Now: given a light of this degree, remaining in the upper\nsphere at its appointed station, pure light in purest place,\nwhat mode\nof outflow from it can be conceived possible?\n\nSuch a Kind is not so constituted as to flow downwards of its\nown accord; and there exists in those regions no power to force it\ndown. Again, body in contact with soul must always be very different\nfrom body left to itself; the bodily substance of the\nheavens has that\ncontact and will show that difference.\n\nBesides, the corporeal substance nearest to the heavens would be\nair or fire: air has no destructive quality; fire would be powerless\nthere since it could not enter into effective contact: in its very\nrush it would change before its attack could be felt; and, apart\nfrom that, it is of the lesser order, no match for what it would be\nopposing in those higher regions.\n\nAgain, fire acts by imparting heat: now it cannot be the\nsource of\nheat to what is already hot by nature; and anything it is to destroy\nmust as a first condition be heated by it, must be brought to a\npitch of heat fatal to the nature concerned.\n\nIn sum, then, no outside body is necessary to the heavens to\nensure their permanence- or to produce their circular movement, for\nit has never been shown that their natural path would be the straight\nline; on the contrary the heavens, by their nature, will either be\nmotionless or move by circle; all other movement indicates outside\ncompulsion. We cannot think, therefore, that the heavenly bodies\nstand in need of replenishment; we must not argue from earthly\nframes to those of the celestial system whose sustaining soul is not\nthe same, whose space is not the same, whose conditions are not\nthose which make restoration necessary in this realm of composite\nbodies always in flux: we must recognise that the changes that take\nplace in bodies here represent a slipping-away from the being\n[a phenomenon not incident to the celestial sphere] and take place\nat the dictate of a Principle not dwelling in the higher regions, one\nnot powerful enough to ensure the permanence of the existences in\nwhich it is exhibited, one which in its coming into being and in\nits generative act is but an imitation of an antecedent Kind, and,\nas we have shown, cannot at every point possess the unchangeable\nidentity of the Intellectual Realm.",
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