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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-2",
    "name": "Ennead II — The Physical Cosmos"
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  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
      "url": "/sources/plotinus-enneads/"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 3,
    "slug": "3-are-the-stars-causes",
    "title": "II.3 — Are the Stars Causes?",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 6857,
    "text": "## THIRD TRACTATE\n\n\n#### THIRD TRACTATE.\n\nARE THE STARS CAUSES?\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. That the circuit of the stars indicates definite\nevents to come\nbut without being the cause direct of all that happens, has been\nelsewhere affirmed, and proved by some modicum of argument: but the\nsubject demands more precise and detailed investigation for to take\nthe one view rather than the other is of no small moment.\n\nThe belief is that the planets in their courses actually produce\nnot merely such conditions as poverty, wealth, health and\nsickness but\neven ugliness and beauty and, gravest of all, vices and\nvirtue and the\nvery acts that spring from these qualities, the definite doings of\neach moment of virtue or vice. We are to suppose the stars to be\nannoyed with men- and upon matters in which men, moulded to what\nthey are by the stars themselves, can surely do them no wrong.\n\nThey will be distributing what pass for their good gifts, not\nout of kindness towards the recipients but as they themselves are\naffected pleasantly or disagreeably at the various points of their\ncourse; so that they must be supposed to change their plans as they\nstand at their zeniths or are declining.\n\nMore absurdly still, some of them are supposed to be\nmalicious and\nothers to be helpful, and yet the evil stars will bestow favours and\nthe benevolent act harshly: further, their action alters as they see\neach other or not, so that, after all, they possess no\ndefinite nature\nbut vary according to their angles of aspect; a star is\nkindly when it\nsees one of its fellows but changes at sight of another: and there\nis even a distinction to be made in the seeing as it occurs in this\nfigure or in that. Lastly, all acting together, the fused\ninfluence is\ndifferent again from that of each single star, just as the\nblending of\ndistinct fluids gives a mixture unlike any of them.\n\nSince these opinions and others of the same order are prevalent,\nit will be well to examine them carefully one by one, beginning with\nthe fundamental question:\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Are these planets to be thought of as soulless or unsouled?\n\nSuppose them, first, to be without Soul.\n\nIn that case they can purvey only heat or cold- if cold from the\nstars can be thought of- that is to say, any communication from them\nwill affect only our bodily nature, since all they have to\ncommunicate\nto us is merely corporeal. This implies that no considerable change\ncan be caused in the bodies affected since emanations merely\ncorporeal\ncannot differ greatly from star to star, and must, moreover, blend\nupon earth into one collective resultant: at most the differences\nwould be such as depend upon local position, upon nearness or\nfarness with regard to the centre of influence. This reasoning, of\ncourse, is as valid of any cold emanation there may be as of\nthe warm.\n\nNow, what is there in such corporeal action to account for the\nvarious classes and kinds of men, learned and illiterate, scholars\nas against orators, musicians as against people of other\nprofessions? Can a power merely physical make rich or poor? Can it\nbring about such conditions as in no sense depend upon the\ninteraction\nof corporeal elements? Could it, for example, bring a man such and\nsuch a brother, father, son, or wife, give him a stroke of good\nfortune at a particular moment, or make him generalissimo or king?\n\nNext, suppose the stars to have life and mind and to be\neffective by deliberate purpose.\n\nIn that case, what have they suffered from us that they\nshould, in\nfree will, do us hurt, they who are established in a divine place,\nthemselves divine? There is nothing in their nature of what makes\nmen base, nor can our weal or woe bring them the slightest good or\nill.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. Possibly, however, they act not by choice but under stress of\ntheir several positions and collective figures?\n\nBut if position and figure determined their action each several\none would necessarily cause identical effects with every other on\nentering any given place or pattern.\n\nAnd that raises the question what effect for good or bad can be\nproduced upon any one of them by its transit in the parallel of this\nor that section of the Zodiac circle- for they are not in\nthe Zodiacal\nfigure itself but considerably beneath it especially since, whatever\npoint they touch, they are always in the heavens.\n\nIt is absurd to think that the particular grouping under which a\nstar passes can modify either its character or its earthward\ninfluences. And can we imagine it altered by its own\nprogression as it\nrises, stands at centre, declines? Exultant when at centre; dejected\nor enfeebled in declension; some raging as they rise and growing\nbenignant as they set, while declension brings out the best in one\namong them; surely this cannot be?\n\nWe must not forget that invariably every star, considered in\nitself, is at centre with regard to some one given group and in\ndecline with regard to another and vice versa; and, very\ncertainly, it\nis not at once happy and sad, angry and kindly. There is no\nreasonable\nescape in representing some of them as glad in their setting, others\nin their rising: they would still be grieving and glad at one and\nthe same time.\n\nFurther, why should any distress of theirs work harm to us?\n\nNo: we cannot think of them as grieving at all or as being\ncheerful upon occasions: they must be continuously serene, happy in\nthe good they enjoy and the Vision before them. Each lives its own\nfree life; each finds its Good in its own Act; and this Act is not\ndirected towards us.\n\nLike the birds of augury, the living beings of the\nheavens, having\nno lot or part with us, may serve incidentally to foreshow\nthe future,\nbut they have absolutely no main function in our regard.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. It is again not in reason that a particular star should be\ngladdened by seeing this or that other while, in a second\ncouple, such\nan aspect is distressing: what enmities can affect such beings? what\ncauses of enmity can there be among them?\n\nAnd why should there be any difference as a given star sees\ncertain others from the corner of a triangle or in opposition or at\nthe angle of a square?\n\nWhy, again, should it see its fellow from some one given\nposition and yet, in the next Zodiacal figure, not see it, though\nthe two are actually nearer?\n\nAnd, the cardinal question; by what conceivable process\ncould they\naffect what is attributed to them? How explain either the action of\nany single star independently or, still more perplexing, the\neffect of\ntheir combined intentions?\n\nWe cannot think of them entering into compromises, each\nrenouncing\nsomething of its efficiency and their final action in our regard\namounting to a concerted plan.\n\nNo one star would suppress the contribution of another, nor\nwould star yield to star and shape its conduct under suasion.\n\nAs for the fancy that while one is glad when it enters another's\nregion, the second is vexed when in its turn it occupies the place\nof the first, surely this is like starting with the\nsupposition of two\nfriends and then going on to talk of one being attracted to the\nother who, however, abhors the first.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. When they tell us that a certain cold star is more benevolent\nto us in proportion as it is further away, they clearly make its\nharmful influence depend upon the coldness of its nature; and yet it\nought to be beneficent to us when it is in the opposed Zodiacal\nfigures.\n\nWhen the cold planet, we are told, is in opposition to the cold,\nboth become meanacing: but the natural effect would be a compromise.\n\nAnd we are asked to believe that one of them is happy by day and\ngrows kindly under the warmth, while another, of a fiery nature, is\nmost cheerful by night- as if it were not always day to\nthem, light to\nthem, and as if the first one could be darkened by night at\nthat great\ndistance above the earth's shadow.\n\nThen there is the notion that the moon, in conjunction with a\ncertain star, is softened at her full but is malignant in the same\nconjunction when her light has waned; yet, if anything of this order\ncould be admitted, the very opposite would be the case. For when she\nis full to us she must be dark on the further hemisphere, that is to\nthat star which stands above her; and when dark to us she is full to\nthat other star, upon which only then, on the contrary, does she\nlook with her light. To the moon itself, in fact, it can make no\ndifference in what aspect she stands, for she is always lit on the\nupper or on the under half: to the other star, the warmth from the\nmoon, of which they speak, might make a difference; but that warmth\nwould reach it precisely when the moon is without light to us; at\nits darkest to us it is full to that other, and therefore\nbeneficent. The darkness of the moon to us is of moment to the\nearth, but brings no trouble to the planet above. That planet, it is\nalleged, can give no help on account of its remoteness and therefore\nseems less well disposed; but the moon at its full suffices to the\nlower realm so that the distance of the other is of no importance.\nWhen the moon, though dark to us, is in aspect with the\nFiery Star she\nis held to be favourable: the reason alleged is that the\nforce of Mars\nis all-sufficient since it contains more fire than it needs.\n\nThe truth is that while the material emanations from the living\nbeings of the heavenly system are of various degrees of\nwarmth- planet\ndiffering from planet in this respect- no cold comes from them: the\nnature of the space in which they have their being is voucher for\nthat.\n\nThe star known as Jupiter includes a due measure of fire [and\nwarmth], in this resembling the Morning-star and therefore seeming\nto be in alliance with it. In aspect with what is known as the Fiery\nStar, Jupiter is beneficent by virtue of the mixing of influences:\nin aspect with Saturn unfriendly by dint of distance. Mercury, it\nwould seem, is indifferent whatever stars it be in aspect\nwith; for it\nadopts any and every character.\n\nBut all the stars are serviceable to the Universe, and therefore\ncan stand to each other only as the service of the Universe demands,\nin a harmony like that observed in the members of any one\nanimal form.\nThey exist essentially for the purpose of the Universe, just as the\ngall exists for the purposes of the body as a whole not less than\nfor its own immediate function: it is to be the inciter of the\nanimal spirits but without allowing the entire organism and its own\nespecial region to run riot. Some such balance of function was\nindispensable in the All- bitter with sweet. There must be\ndifferentiation- eyes and so forth- but all the members will be in\nsympathy with the entire animal frame to which they belong. Only so\ncan there be a unity and a total harmony.\n\nAnd in such a total, analogy will make every part a Sign.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. But that this same Mars, or Aphrodite, in certain aspects\nshould cause adulteries- as if they could thus, through the agency\nof human incontinence, satisfy their own mutual desires- is\nnot such a\nnotion the height of unreason? And who could accept the fancy that\ntheir happiness comes from their seeing each other in this or that\nrelative position and not from their own settled nature?\n\nAgain: countless myriads of living beings are born and\ncontinue to\nbe: to minister continuously to every separate one of these; to make\nthem famous, rich, poor, lascivious; to shape the active\ntendencies of\nevery single one- what kind of life is this for the stars, how could\nthey possibly handle a task so huge?\n\nThey are to watch, we must suppose, the rising of each several\nconstellation and upon that signal to act; such a one, they see, has\nrisen by so many degrees, representing so many of the periods of its\nupward path; they reckon on their fingers at what moment they must\ntake the action which, executed prematurely, would be out of order:\nand in the sum, there is no One Being controlling the entire scheme;\nall is made over to the stars singly, as if there were no Sovereign\nUnity, standing as source of all the forms of Being in subordinate\nassociation with it, and delegating to the separate members, in\ntheir appropriate Kinds, the task of accomplishing its purposes and\nbringing its latent potentiality into act.\n\nThis is a separatist theory, tenable only by minds\nignorant of the\nnature of a Universe which has a ruling principle and a first cause\noperative downwards through every member.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. But, if the stars announce the future- as we hold of\nmany other\nthings also- what explanation of the cause have we to offer? What\nexplains the purposeful arrangement thus implied? Obviously, unless\nthe particular is included under some general principle of order,\nthere can be no signification.\n\nWe may think of the stars as letters perpetually being inscribed\non the heavens or inscribed once for all and yet moving as\nthey pursue\nthe other tasks allotted to them: upon these main tasks will follow\nthe quality of signifying, just as the one principle underlying any\nliving unit enables us to reason from member to member, so that for\nexample we may judge of character and even of perils and\nsafeguards by\nindications in the eyes or in some other part of the body. If these\nparts of us are members of a whole, so are we: in different ways the\none law applies.\n\nAll teems with symbol; the wise man is the man who in any one\nthing can read another, a process familiar to all of us in not a few\nexamples of everyday experience.\n\nBut what is the comprehensive principle of co-ordination?\nEstablish this and we have a reasonable basis for the divination,\nnot only by stars but also by birds and other animals, from which we\nderive guidance in our varied concerns.\n\nAll things must be enchained; and the sympathy and\ncorrespondence obtaining in any one closely knit organism must\nexist, first, and most intensely, in the All. There must be one\nprinciple constituting this unit of many forms of life and enclosing\nthe several members within the unity, while at the same time,\nprecisely as in each thing of detail the parts too have each a\ndefinite function, so in the All each several member must\nhave its own\ntask- but more markedly so since in this case the parts are\nnot merely\nmembers but themselves Alls, members of the loftier Kind.\n\nThus each entity takes its origin from one Principle and,\ntherefore, while executing its own function, works in with\nevery other\nmember of that All from which its distinct task has by no\nmeans cut it\noff: each performs its act, each receives something from the others,\nevery one at its own moment bringing its touch of sweet or\nbitter. And\nthere is nothing undesigned, nothing of chance, in all the process:\nall is one scheme of differentiation, starting from the Firsts and\nworking itself out in a continuous progression of Kinds.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. Soul, then, in the same way, is intent upon a task of its\nown; alike in its direct course and in its divagation it is the\ncause of all by its possession of the Thought of the First\nPrinciple: thus a Law of Justice goes with all that exists in the\nUniverse which, otherwise, would be dissolved, and is perdurable\nbecause the entire fabric is guided as much by the orderliness as by\nthe power of the controlling force. And in this order the stars, as\nbeing no minor members of the heavenly system, are co-operators\ncontributing at once to its stately beauty and to its symbolic\nquality. Their symbolic power extends to the entire realm of sense,\ntheir efficacy only to what they patently do.\n\nFor our part, nature keeps us upon the work of the Soul\nas long as\nwe are not wrecked in the multiplicity of the Universe: once\nthus sunk\nand held we pay the penalty, which consists both in the fall itself\nand in the lower rank thus entailed upon us: riches and poverty are\ncaused by the combinations of external fact.\n\nAnd what of virtue and vice?\n\nThat question has been amply discussed elsewhere: in a word,\nvirtue is ours by the ancient staple of the Soul; vice is due to the\ncommerce of a Soul with the outer world.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. This brings us to the Spindle-destiny, spun according to the\nancients by the Fates. To Plato the Spindle represents the\nco-operation of the moving and the stable elements of the kosmic\ncircuit: the Fates with Necessity, Mother of the Fates, manipulate\nit and spin at the birth of every being, so that all comes into\nexistence through Necessity.\n\nIn the Timaeus, the creating God bestows the essential of the\nSoul, but it is the divinities moving in the kosmos [the stars] that\ninfuse the powerful affections holding from Necessity our impulse\nand our desire, our sense of pleasure and of pain- and that lower\nphase of the Soul in which such experiences originate. By this\nstatement our personality is bound up with the stars, whence our\nSoul [as total of Principle and affections] takes shape; and we are\nset under necessity at our very entrance into the world: our\ntemperament will be of the stars' ordering, and so, therefore, the\nactions which derive from temperament, and all the experiences of a\nnature shaped to impressions.\n\nWhat, after all this, remains to stand for the \"We\"?\n\nThe \"We\" is the actual resultant of a Being whose nature\nincludes,\nwith certain sensibilities, the power of governing them. Cut\noff as we\nare by the nature of the body, God has yet given us, in the midst of\nall this evil, virtue the unconquerable, meaningless in a state of\ntranquil safety but everything where its absence would be peril of\nfall.\n\nOur task, then, is to work for our liberation from this sphere,\nsevering ourselves from all that has gathered about us; the total\nman is to be something better than a body ensouled- the\nbodily element\ndominant with a trace of Soul running through it and a resultant\nlife-course mainly of the body- for in such a combination all is, in\nfact, bodily. There is another life, emancipated, whose quality is\nprogression towards the higher realm, towards the good and divine,\ntowards that Principle which no one possesses except by deliberate\nusage but so may appropriate, becoming, each personally, the higher,\nthe beautiful, the Godlike, and living, remote, in and by It- unless\none choose to go bereaved of that higher Soul and therefore, to live\nfate-bound, no longer profiting, merely, by the significance of the\nsidereal system but becoming as it were a part sunken in it and\ndragged along with the whole thus adopted.\n\nFor every human Being is of twofold character; there is that\ncompromise-total and there is the Authentic Man: and it is\nso with the\nKosmos as a whole; it is in the one phase a conjunction of\nbody with a\ncertain form of the Soul bound up in body; in the other phase it is\nthe Universal Soul, that which is not itself embodied but\nflashes down\nits rays into the embodied Soul: and the same twofold quality\nbelongs to the Sun and the other members of the heavenly system.\n\nTo the remoter Soul, the pure, sun and stars communicate no\nbaseness. In their efficacy upon the [material] All, they\nact as parts\nof it, as ensouled bodies within it; and they act only upon what is\npartial; body is the agent while, at the same time, it becomes the\nvehicle through which is transmitted something of the star's will\nand of that authentic Soul in it which is steadfastly in\ncontemplation\nof the Highest.\n\nBut [with every allowance to the lower forces] all follows\neither upon that Highest or rather upon the Beings about It- we may\nthink of the Divine as a fire whose outgoing warmth pervades the\nUniverse- or upon whatsoever is transmitted by the one Soul [the\ndivine first Soul] to the other, its Kin [the Soul of any particular\nbeing]. All that is graceless is admixture. For the Universe is in\ntruth a thing of blend, and if we separate from it that separable\nSoul, the residue is little. The All is a God when the divine Soul\nis counted in with it; \"the rest,\" we read, \"is a mighty spirit and\nits ways are subdivine.\"\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. If all this be true, we must at once admit signification,\nthough, neither singly nor collectively, can we ascribe to the stars\nany efficacy except in what concerns the [material] All and\nin what is\nof their own function.\n\nWe must admit that the Soul before entering into birth presents\nitself bearing with it something of its own, for it could never\ntouch body except under stress of a powerful inner impulse; we must\nadmit some element of chance around it from its very entry, since\nthe moment and conditions are determined by the kosmic\ncircuit: and we\nmust admit some effective power in that circuit itself; it is\nco-operative, and completes of its own act the task that belongs to\nthe All of which everything in the circuit takes the rank\nand function\nof a part.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. And we must remember that what comes from the supernals does\nnot enter into the recipients as it left the source; fire, for\ninstance, will be duller; the loving instinct will degenerate and\nissue in ugly forms of the passion; the vital energy in a subject\nnot so balanced as to display the mean of manly courage,\nwill come out\nas either ferocity or faint-heartedness; and ambition... in love...;\nand the instinct towards good sets up the pursuit of semblant\nbeauty; intellectual power at its lowest produces the extreme of\nwickedness, for wickedness is a miscalculating effort towards\nIntelligence.\n\nAny such quality, modified at best from its supreme form,\ndeteriorates again within itself: things of any kind that approach\nfrom above, altered by merely leaving their source change further\nstill by their blending with bodies, with Matter, with each other.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. All that thus proceeds from the supernal combines\ninto a unity\nand every existing entity takes something from this blended infusion\nso that the result is the thing itself plus some quality. The\neffluence does not make the horse but adds something to it; for\nhorse comes by horse, and man by man: the sun plays its part no\ndoubt in the shaping, but the man has his origin in the\nHuman-Principle. Outer things have their effect, sometimes\nto hurt and\nsometimes to help; like a father, they often contribute to good but\nsometimes also to harm; but they do not wrench the human being from\nthe foundations of its nature; though sometimes Matter is the\ndominant, and the human principle takes the second place so\nthat there\nis a failure to achieve perfection; the Ideal has been attenuated.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. Of phenomena of this sphere some derive from the Kosmic\nCircuit and some not: we must take them singly and mark them off,\nassigning to each its origin.\n\nThe gist of the whole matter lies in the consideration that Soul\ngoverns this All by the plan contained in the Reason-Principle and\nplays in the All exactly the part of the particular\nprinciple which in\nevery living-thing forms the members of the organism and adjusts\nthem to the unity of which they are portions; the entire force of\nthe Soul is represented in the All, but, in the parts, Soul\nis present\nonly in proportion to the degree of essential reality held by each\nof such partial objects. Surrounding every separate entity there are\nother entities, whose approach will sometimes be hostile and\nsometimes\nhelpful to the purpose of its nature; but to the All taken in its\nlength and breadth each and every separate existent is an adjusted\npart, holding its own characteristic and yet contributing by its own\nnative tendency to the entire life-history of the Universe.\n\nThe soulless parts of the All are merely instruments; all their\naction is effected, so to speak, under a compulsion from outside\nthemselves.\n\nThe ensouled fall into two classes. The one kind has a motion of\nits own, but haphazard like that of horses between the shafts but\nbefore their driver sets the course; they are set right by the whip.\nIn the Living-Being possessed of Reason, the\nnature-principle includes\nthe driver; where the driver is intelligent, it takes in the main a\nstraight path to a set end. But both classes are members of the All\nand co-operate towards the general purpose.\n\nThe greater and most valuable among them have an important\noperation over a wide range: their contribution towards the life of\nthe whole consists in acting, not in being acted upon; others, but\nfeebly equipped for action, are almost wholly passive; there is an\nintermediate order whose members contain within themselves a\nprinciple\nof productivity and activity and make themselves very effective in\nmany spheres or ways and yet serve also by their passivity.\n\nThus the All stands as one all-complete Life, whose members, to\nthe measure in which each contains within itself the Highest, effect\nall that is high and noble: and the entire scheme must be\nsubordinate to its Dirigeant as an army to its general, \"following\nupon Zeus\"- it has been said- \"as he proceeds towards the\nIntelligible\nKind.\"\n\nSecondary in the All are those of its parts which possess a less\nexalted nature just as in us the members rank lower than the\nSoul; and\nso all through, there is a general analogy between the things of the\nAll and our own members- none of quite equal rank.\n\nAll living things, then- all in the heavens and all elsewhere-\nfall under the general Reason-Principle of the All- they have been\nmade parts with a view to the whole: not one of these parts, however\nexalted, has power to effect any alteration of these\nReason-Principles\nor of things shaped by them and to them; some modification one part\nmay work upon another, whether for better or for worse; but there is\nno power that can wrest anything outside of its distinct nature.\n\nThe part effecting such a modification for the worse may act in\nseveral ways.\n\nIt may set up some weakness restricted to the material frame. Or\nit may carry the weakness through to the sympathetic Soul\nwhich by the\nmedium of the material frame, become a power to debasement, has been\ndelivered over, though never in its essence, to the inferior order\nof being. Or, in the case of a material frame ill-organized, it may\ncheck all such action [of the Soul] upon the material frame\nas demands\na certain collaboration in the part acted upon: thus a lyre may be\nso ill-strung as to be incapable of the melodic exactitude necessary\nto musical effect.\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. What of poverty and riches, glory and power?\n\nIn the case of inherited fortune, the stars merely\nannounce a rich\nman, exactly as they announce the high social standing of the child\nborn to a distinguished house.\n\nWealth may be due to personal activity: in this case if the body\nhas contributed, part of the effect is due to whatever has\ncontributed\ntowards the physical powers, first the parents and then, if place\nhas had its influence, sky and earth; if the body has borne\nno part of\nthe burden, then the success, and all the splendid accompaniments\nadded by the Recompensers, must be attributed to virtue exclusively.\nIf fortune has come by gift from the good, then the source of the\nwealth is, again, virtue: if by gift from the evil, but to a\nmeritorious recipient, then the credit must be given to the action\nof the best in them: if the recipient is himself unprincipled, the\nwealth must be attributed primarily to the very wickedness and to\nwhatsoever is responsible for the wickedness, while the\ngivers bear an\nequal share in the wrong.\n\nWhen the success is due to labour, tillage for example,\nit must be\nput down to the tiller, with all his environment as contributory. In\nthe case of treasure-trove, something from the All has entered into\naction; and if this be so, it will be foreshown- since all\nthings make\na chain, so that we can speak of things universally. Money\nis lost: if\nby robbery, the blame lies with the robber and the native principle\nguiding him: if by shipwreck, the cause is the chain of\nevents. As for\ngood fame, it is either deserved and then is due to the services\ndone and to the merit of those appraising them, or it is undeserved,\nand then must be attributed to the injustice of those making the\naward. And the same principle holds is regards power- for this also\nmay be rightly or unrightly placed- it depends either upon the merit\nof the dispensers of place or upon the man himself who has effected\nhis purpose by the organization of supporters or in many other\npossible ways. Marriages, similarly, are brought about either by\nchoice or by chance interplay of circumstance. And births are\ndetermined by marriages: the child is moulded true to type when all\ngoes well; otherwise it is marred by some inner detriment, something\ndue to the mother personally or to an environment\nunfavourable to that\nparticular conception.\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. According to Plato, lots and choice play a part [in the\ndetermination of human conditions] before the Spindle of Necessity\nis turned; that once done, only the Spindle-destiny is\nvalid; it fixes\nthe chosen conditions irretrievably since the elected\nguardian-spirit becomes accessory to their accomplishment.\n\nBut what is the significance of the Lots?\n\nBy the Lots we are to understand birth into the conditions\nactually existent in the All at the particular moment of each entry\ninto body, birth into such and such a physical frame, from such and\nsuch parents, in this or that place, and generally all that in our\nphraseology is the External.\n\nFor Particulars and Universals alike it is established\nthat to the\nfirst of those known as the Fates, to Clotho the Spinner, must be\ndue the unity and as it were interweaving of all that\nexists: Lachesis\npresides over the Lots: to Atropos must necessarily belong\nthe conduct\nof mundane events.\n\nOf men, some enter into life as fragments of the All, bound to\nthat which is external to themselves: they are victims of a sort of\nfascination, and are hardly, or not at all, themselves: but others\nmastering all this- straining, so to speak, by the head towards the\nHigher, to what is outside even the Soul- preserve still the\nnobility and the ancient privilege of the Soul's essential being.\n\nFor certainly we cannot think of the Soul as a thing whose\nnature is just a sum of impressions from outside- as if it, alone,\nof all that exists, had no native character.\n\nNo: much more than all else, the Soul, possessing the Idea which\nbelongs to a Principle, must have as its native wealth many powers\nserving to the activities of its Kind. It is an\nEssential-Existent and\nwith this Existence must go desire and act and the tendency towards\nsome good.\n\nWhile body and soul stand one combined thing, there is a joint\nnature, a definite entity having definite functions and employments;\nbut as soon as any Soul is detached, its employments are kept apart,\nits very own: it ceases to take the body's concerns to itself: it\nhas vision now: body and soul stand widely apart.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. The question arises what phase of the Soul enters into the\nunion for the period of embodiment and what phase remains distinct,\nwhat is separable and what necessarily interlinked, and in general\nwhat the Living-Being is.\n\nOn all this there has been a conflict of teaching: the\nmatter must\nbe examined later on from quite other considerations than occupy us\nhere. For the present let us explain in what sense we have described\nthe All as the expressed idea of the Governing Soul.\n\nOne theory might be that the Soul creates the particular\nentities in succession- man followed by horse and other animals\ndomestic or wild: fire and earth, though, first of all- that it\nwatches these creations acting upon each other whether to help or to\nharm, observes, and no more, the tangled web formed of all these\nstrands, and their unfailing sequences; and that it makes no concern\nof the result beyond securing the reproduction of the primal\nliving-beings, leaving them for the rest to act upon each other\naccording to their definite natures.\n\nAnother view makes the soul answerable for all that thus comes\nabout, since its first creations have set up the entire enchainment.\n\nNo doubt the Reason-Principle [conveyed by the Soul] covers all\nthe action and experience of this realm: nothing happens, even here,\nby any form of haphazard; all follows a necessary order.\n\nIs everything, then, to be attributed to the act of the\nReason-Principles?\n\nTo their existence, no doubt, but not to their effective action;\nthey exist and they know; or better, the Soul, which contains the\nengendering Reason-Principle, knows the results of all it has\nbrought to pass. For whensoever similar factors meet and act in\nrelation to each other, similar consequences must inevitably ensue:\nthe Soul adopting or foreplanning the given conditions accomplishes\nthe due outcome and links all into a total.\n\nAll, then, is antecedent and resultant, each sequent becoming in\nturn an antecedent once it has taken its place among things. And\nperhaps this is a cause of progressive deterioration: men, for\ninstance, are not as they were of old; by dint of interval and of\nthe inevitable law, the Reason-Principles have ceded something to\nthe characteristics of the Matter.\n\nBut:\n\nThe Soul watches the ceaselessly changing universe and\nfollows all\nthe fate of all its works: this is its life, and it knows no respite\nfrom this care, but is ever labouring to bring about perfection,\nplanning to lead all to an unending state of excellence- like a\nfarmer, first sowing and planting and then constantly setting to\nrights where rainstorms and long frosts and high gales have played\nhavoc.\n\nIf such a conception of Soul be rejected as untenable, we are\nobliged to think that the Reason-Principles themselves foreknew or\neven contained the ruin and all the consequences of flaw.\n\nBut then we would be imputing the creation of evil to the\nReason-Principles, though the arts and their guiding principle do\nnot include blundering, do not cover the inartistic, the destruction\nof the work of art.\n\nAnd here it will be objected that in All there is\nnothing contrary\nto nature, nothing evil.\n\nStill, by the side of the better there exists also what is less\ngood.\n\nWell, perhaps even the less good has its contributory\nvalue in the\nAll. Perhaps there is no need that everything be good. Contraries\nmay co-operate; and without opposites there could be no ordered\nUniverse: all living beings of the partial realm include contraries.\nThe better elements are compelled into existence and moulded to\ntheir function by the Reason-Principle directly; the less good are\npotentially present in the Reason-Principles, actually present in\nthe phenomena themselves; the Soul's power had reached its limit,\nand failed to bring the Reason-Principles into complete actuality\nsince, amid the clash of these antecedent Principles, Matter had\nalready from its own stock produced the less good.\n\nYet, with all this, Matter is continuously overruled towards the\nbetter; so that out of the total of things- modified by Soul on the\none hand and by Matter on the other hand, and on neither\nhand as sound\nas in the Reason-Principles- there is, in the end, a Unity.\n\n\n## Section 17\n\n\n##### Section 17\n\n17. But these Reason-Principles, contained in the Soul, are they\nThoughts?\n\nAnd if so, by what process does the Soul create in\naccordance with\nthese Thoughts?\n\nIt is upon Matter that this act of the Reason is exercised; and\nwhat acts physically is not an intellectual operation or a\nvision, but\na power modifying matter, not conscious of it but merely acting upon\nit: the Reason-Principle, in other words, acts much like a force\nproducing a figure or pattern upon water- that of a circle, suppose,\nwhere the formation of the ring is conditioned by something distinct\nfrom that force itself.\n\nIf this is so, the prior puissance of the Soul [that\nwhich conveys\nthe Reason-Principles] must act by manipulating the other Soul, that\nwhich is united with Matter and has the generative function.\n\nBut is this handling the result of calculation?\n\nCalculation implies reference. Reference, then, to something\noutside or to something contained within itself? If to its own\ncontent, there is no need of reasoning, which could not\nitself perform\nthe act of creation; creation is the operation of that phase of the\nSoul which contains Ideal-Principles; for that is its stronger\npuissance, its creative part.\n\nIt creates, then, on the model of the Ideas; for, what it has\nreceived from the Intellectual-Principle it must pass on in turn.\n\nIn sum, then, the Intellectual-Principle gives from itself to\nthe Soul of the All which follows immediately upon it: this again\ngives forth from itself to its next, illuminated and imprinted by\nit; and that secondary Soul at once begins to create, as under\norder, unhindered in some of its creations, striving in\nothers against\nthe repugnance of Matter.\n\nIt has a creative power, derived; it is stored with\nReason-Principles not the very originals: therefore it creates, but\nnot in full accordance with the Principles from which it has been\nendowed: something enters from itself; and, plainly, this is\ninferior.\nThe issue then is something living, yes; but imperfect, hindering\nits own life, something very poor and reluctant and crude,\nformed in a\nMatter that is the fallen sediment of the Higher Order, bitter and\nembittering. This is the Soul's contribution to the All.\n\n\n## Section 18\n\n\n##### Section 18\n\n18. Are the evils in the Universe necessary because it\nis of later\norigin than the Higher Sphere?\n\nPerhaps rather because without evil the All would be incomplete.\nFor most or even all forms of evil serve the Universe- much as the\npoisonous snake has its use- though in most cases their function is\nunknown. Vice itself has many useful sides: it brings about much\nthat is beautiful, in artistic creations for example, and it stirs\nus to thoughtful living, not allowing us to drowse in security.\n\nIf all this is so, then [the secret of creation is that] the\nSoul of the All abides in contemplation of the Highest and Best,\nceaselessly striving towards the Intelligible Kind and towards God:\nbut, thus absorbing and filled full, it overflows- so to speak- and\nthe image it gives forth, its last utterance towards the lower, will\nbe the creative puissance.\n\nThis ultimate phase, then, is the Maker, secondary to that\naspect of the Soul which is primarily saturated from the Divine\nIntelligence. But the Creator above all is the\nIntellectual-Principle,\nas giver, to the Soul that follows it, of those gifts whose traces\nexist in the Third Kind.\n\nRightly, therefore, is this Kosmos described as an image\ncontinuously being imaged, the First and the Second Principles\nimmobile, the Third, too, immobile essentially, but, accidentally\nand in Matter, having motion.\n\nFor as long as divine Mind and Soul exist, the divine\nThought-Forms will pour forth into that phase of the Soul: as long as\nthere is a sun, all that streams from it will be some form of Light.",
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