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    "slug": "ennead-2",
    "name": "Ennead II — The Physical Cosmos"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 9,
    "slug": "9-against-those-that-affirm-the-creator-of-the-kosmos-and",
    "title": "II.9 — Against the Gnostics",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 10476,
    "text": "## NINTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### NINTH TRACTATE.\n\nAGAINST THOSE THAT AFFIRM THE CREATOR OF THE KOSMOS AND\n\nTHE KOSMOS ITSELF TO BE EVIL: [GENERALLY QUOTED\n\nAS \"AGAINST THE GNOSTICS\"].\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. We have seen elsewhere that the Good, the Principle, is\nsimplex, and, correspondingly, primal- for the secondary can never\nbe simplex- that it contains nothing: that it is an integral Unity.\n\nNow the same Nature belongs to the Principle we know as The One.\njust as the goodness of The Good is essential and not the\noutgrowth of\nsome prior substance so the Unity of The One is its essential.\n\nTherefore:\n\nWhen we speak of The One and when we speak of The Good we must\nrecognize an Identical Nature; we must affirm that they are the\nsame- not, it is true, as venturing any predication with regard to\nthat [unknowable] Hypostasis but simply as indicating it to ourselves\nin the best terms we find.\n\nEven in calling it \"The First\" we mean no more than to express\nthat it is the most absolutely simplex: it is the Self-Sufficing\nonly in the sense that it is not of that compound nature which would\nmake it dependent upon any constituent; it is \"the Self-Contained\"\nbecause everything contained in something alien must also exist by\nthat alien.\n\nDeriving, then, from nothing alien, entering into nothing alien,\nin no way a made-up thing, there can be nothing above it.\n\nWe need not, then, go seeking any other Principles; this- the\nOne and the Good- is our First; next to it follows the Intellectual\nPrinciple, the Primal Thinker; and upon this follows Soul.\nSuch is the\norder in nature. The Intellectual Realm allows no more than these\nand no fewer.\n\nThose who hold to fewer Principles must hold the identity of\neither Intellectual-Principle and Soul or of Intellectual-Principle\nand The First; but we have abundantly shown that these are distinct.\n\nIt remains for us to consider whether there are more than these\nThree.\n\nNow what other [Divine] Kinds could there be? No\nPrinciples of the\nuniverse could be found at once simpler and more transcendent than\nthis whose existence we have affirmed and described.\n\nThey will scarcely urge upon us the doubling of the Principle in\nAct by a Principle in Potentiality. It is absurd to seek such a\nplurality by distinguishing between potentiality and actuality in\nthe case of immaterial beings whose existence is in Act-\neven in lower\nforms no such division can be made and we cannot conceive a\nduality in\nthe Intellectual-Principle, one phase in some vague calm, another\nall astir. Under what form can we think of repose in the\nIntellectual Principle as contrasted with its movement or utterance?\nWhat would the quiescence of the one phase be as against the\nenergy of\nthe others?\n\nNo: the Intellectual-Principle is continuously itself,\nunchangeably constituted in stable Act. With movement- towards it or\nwithin it- we are in the realm of the Soul's operation: such act is\na Reason-Principle emanating from it and entering into Soul,\nthus made\nan Intellectual Soul, but in no sense creating an intermediate\nPrinciple to stand between the two.\n\nNor are we warranted in affirming a plurality of Intellectual\nPrinciples on the ground that there is one that knows and thinks and\nanother knowing that it knows and thinks. For whatever distinction\nbe possible in the Divine between its Intellectual Act and its\nConsciousness of that Act, still all must be one projection not\nunaware of its own operation: it would be absurd to imagine any such\nunconsciousness in the Authentic Intelligence; the knowing principle\nmust be one and the selfsame with that which knows of the knowing.\n\nThe contrary supposition would give us two beings, one\nthat merely\nknows, and another separate being that knows of the act of knowing.\n\nIf we are answered that the distinction is merely a\nprocess of our\nthought, then, at once, the theory of a plurality in the Divine\nHypostasis is abandoned: further, the question is opened whether our\nthought can entertain a knowing principle so narrowed to its knowing\nas not to know that it knows- a limitation which would be charged as\nimbecility even in ourselves, who if but of very ordinary moral\nforce are always master of our emotions and mental processes.\n\nNo: The Divine Mind in its mentation thinks itself; the object\nof the thought is nothing external: Thinker and Thought are one;\ntherefore in its thinking and knowing it possesses itself, observes\nitself and sees itself not as something unconscious but as\nknowing: in\nthis Primal Knowing it must include, as one and the same Act, the\nknowledge of the knowing; and even the logical distinction mentioned\nabove cannot be made in the case of the Divine; the very eternity of\nits self-thinking precludes any such separation between that\nintellective act and the consciousness of the act.\n\nThe absurdity becomes still more blatant if we introduce yet a\nfurther distinction- after that which affirms the knowledge of the\nknowing, a third distinction affirming the knowing of the\nknowledge of\nthe knowing: yet there is no reason against carrying on the division\nfor ever and ever.\n\nTo increase the Primals by making the Supreme Mind engender the\nReason-Principle, and this again engender in the Soul a\ndistinct power\nto act as mediator between Soul and the Supreme Mind, this is to\ndeny intellection to the Soul, which would no longer derive\nits Reason\nfrom the Intellectual-Principle but from an intermediate: the Soul\nthen would possess not the Reason-Principle but an image of it: the\nSoul could not know the Intellectual-Principle; it could have no\nintellection.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Therefore we must affirm no more than these three Primals: we\nare not to introduce superfluous distinctions which their nature\nrejects. We are to proclaim one Intellectual-Principle unchangeably\nthe same, in no way subject to decline, acting in imitation, as true\nas its nature allows, of the Father.\n\nAnd as to our own Soul we are to hold that it stands, in part,\nalways in the presence of The Divine Beings, while in part it is\nconcerned with the things of this sphere and in part\noccupies a middle\nground. It is one nature in graded powers; and sometimes the Soul in\nits entirety is borne along by the loftiest in itself and in the\nAuthentic Existent; sometimes, the less noble part is\ndragged down and\ndrags the mid-soul with it, though the law is that the Soul may\nnever succumb entire.\n\nThe Soul's disaster falls upon it when it ceases to dwell in the\nperfect Beauty- the appropriate dwelling-place of that Soul which is\nno part and of which we too are no part- thence to pour\nforth into the\nframe of the All whatsoever the All can hold of good and\nbeauty. There\nthat Soul rests, free from all solicitude, not ruling by plan or\npolicy, not redressing, but establishing order by the marvellous\nefficacy of its contemplation of the things above it.\n\nFor the measure of its absorption in that vision is the\nmeasure of\nits grace and power, and what it draws from this contemplation it\ncommunicates to the lower sphere, illuminated and\nilluminating always.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. Ever illuminated, receiving light unfailing, the All-Soul\nimparts it to the entire series of later Being which by this light\nis sustained and fostered and endowed with the fullest\nmeasure of life\nthat each can absorb. It may be compared with a central fire warming\nevery receptive body within range.\n\nOur fire, however, is a thing of limited scope: given powers\nthat have no limitation and are never cut off from the Authentic\nExistences, how imagine anything existing and yet failing to receive\nfrom them?\n\nIt is of the essence of things that each gives of its being to\nanother: without this communication, The Good would not be Good, nor\nthe Intellectual-Principle an Intellective Principle, nor would Soul\nitself be what it is: the law is, \"some life after the Primal Life,\na second where there is a first; all linked in one unbroken\nchain; all\neternal; divergent types being engendered only in the sense of being\nsecondary.\"\n\nIn other words, things commonly described as generated have\nnever known a beginning: all has been and will be. Nor can anything\ndisappear unless where a later form is possible: without\nsuch a future\nthere can be no dissolution.\n\nIf we are told that there is always Matter as a possible term,\nwe ask why then should not Matter itself come to nothingness. If we\nare told it may, then we ask why it should ever have been generated.\nIf the answer comes that it had its necessary place as the\nultimate of\nthe series, we return that the necessity still holds.\n\nWith Matter left aside as wholly isolated, the Divine Beings are\nnot everywhere but in some bounded place, walled off, so to speak;\nif that is not possible, Matter itself must receive the Divine light\n[and so cannot be annihilated].\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. To those who assert that creation is the work of the\nSoul after\nthe failing of its wings, we answer that no such disgrace could\novertake the Soul of the All. If they tell us of its falling, they\nmust tell us also what caused the fall. And when did it take\nplace? If\nfrom eternity, then the Soul must be essentially a fallen\nthing: if at\nsome one moment, why not before that?\n\nWe assert its creative act to be a proof not of decline\nbut rather\nof its steadfast hold. Its decline could consist only in its\nforgetting the Divine: but if it forgot, how could it create? Whence\ndoes it create but from the things it knew in the Divine? If it\ncreates from the memory of that vision, it never fell. Even\nsupposing it to be in some dim intermediate state, it need not be\nsupposed more likely to decline: any inclination would be towards\nits Prior, in an effort to the clearer vision. If any memory at all\nremained, what other desire could it have than to retrace the way?\n\nWhat could it have been planning to gain by\nworld-creating? Glory?\nThat would be absurd- a motive borrowed from the sculptors of our\nearth.\n\nFinally, if the Soul created by policy and not by sheer need of\nits nature, by being characteristically the creative power- how\nexplain the making of this universe?\n\nAnd when will it destroy the work? If it repents of its\nwork, what\nis it waiting for? If it has not yet repented, then it will never\nrepent: it must be already accustomed to the world, must be growing\nmore tender towards it with the passing of time.\n\nCan it be waiting for certain souls still here? Long since would\nthese have ceased returning for such re-birth, having known in\nformer life the evils of this sphere; long since would they have\nforeborne to come.\n\nNor may we grant that this world is of unhappy origin because\nthere are many jarring things in it. Such a judgement would rate it\ntoo high, treating it as the same with the Intelligible Realm and\nnot merely its reflection.\n\nAnd yet- what reflection of that world could be conceived more\nbeautiful than this of ours? What fire could be a nobler\nreflection of\nthe fire there than the fire we know here? Or what other earth than\nthis could have been modelled after that earth? And what globe more\nminutely perfect than this, or more admirably ordered in its course\ncould have been conceived in the image of the self-centred\ncircling of\nthe World of Intelligibles? And for a sun figuring the Divine\nsphere, if it is to be more splendid than the sun visible to us,\nwhat a sun it must be.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. Still more unreasonably:\n\nThere are men, bound to human bodies and subject to\ndesire, grief,\nanger, who think so generously of their own faculty that they\ndeclare themselves in contact with the Intelligible World, but deny\nthat the sun possesses a similar faculty less subject to\ninfluence, to\ndisorder, to change; they deny that it is any wiser than we, the\nlate born, hindered by so many cheats on the way towards truth.\n\nTheir own soul, the soul of the least of mankind, they declare\ndeathless, divine; but the entire heavens and the stars within the\nheavens have had no communion with the Immortal Principle, though\nthese are far purer and lovelier than their own souls- yet they are\nnot blind to the order, the shapely pattern, the discipline\nprevailing\nin the heavens, since they are the loudest in complaint of the\ndisorder that troubles our earth. We are to imagine the\ndeathless Soul\nchoosing of design the less worthy place, and preferring to abandon\nthe nobler to the Soul that is to die.\n\nEqually unreasonable is their introduction of that other Soul\nwhich they piece together from the elements.\n\nHow could any form or degree of life come about by a blend of\nthe elements? Their conjunction could produce only a warm or cold or\nan intermediate substance, something dry or wet or intermediate.\n\nBesides, how could such a soul be a bond holding the\nfour elements\ntogether when it is a later thing and rises from them? And this\nelement- soul is described as possessing consciousness and will and\nthe rest- what can we think?\n\nFurthermore, these teachers, in their contempt for this creation\nand this earth, proclaim that another earth has been made for them\ninto which they are to enter when they depart. Now this new earth is\nthe Reason-Form [the Logos] of our world. Why should they desire to\nlive in the archetype of a world abhorrent to them?\n\nThen again, what is the origin of that pattern world? It would\nappear, from the theory, that the Maker had already declined towards\nthe things of this sphere before that pattern came into being.\n\nNow let us suppose the Maker craving to construct such an\nIntermediate World- though what motive could He have?- in addition\nto the Intellectual world which He eternally possesses. If\nHe made the\nmid-world first, what end was it to serve?\n\nTo be a dwelling-place for Souls?\n\nHow then did they ever fall from it? It exists in vain.\n\nIf He made it later than this world- abstracting the formal-idea\nof this world and leaving the Matter out- the Souls that have come\nto know that intermediate sphere would have experienced\nenough to keep\nthem from entering this. If the meaning is simply that Souls exhibit\nthe Ideal-Form of the Universe, what is there distinctive in the\nteaching?\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. And, what are we to think of the new forms of being they\nintroduce- their \"Exiles\" and \"Impressions\" and \"Repentings\"?\n\nIf all comes to states of the Soul- \"Repentance\" when it has\nundergone a change of purpose; \"Impressions\" when it contemplates\nnot the Authentic Existences but their simulacra- there is nothing\nhere but a jargon invented to make a case for their school: all this\nterminology is piled up only to conceal their debt to the ancient\nGreek philosophy which taught, clearly and without bombast,\nthe ascent\nfrom the cave and the gradual advance of souls to a truer and truer\nvision.\n\nFor, in sum, a part of their doctrine comes from Plato; all the\nnovelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their\nown have been picked up outside of the truth.\n\nFrom Plato come their punishments, their rivers of the\nunderworld and the changing from body to body; as for the plurality\nthey assert in the Intellectual Realm- the Authentic Existent, the\nIntellectual-Principle, the Second Creator and the Soul- all this is\ntaken over from the Timaeus, where we read:\n\n\"As many Ideal-Forms as the Divine Mind beheld dwelling\nwithin the\nVeritably Living Being, so many the Maker resolved should be\ncontained\nin this All.\"\n\nMisunderstanding their text, they conceived one Mind passively\nincluding within itself all that has being, another mind, a distinct\nexistence, having vision, and a third planning the Universe- though\noften they substitute Soul for this planning Mind as the creating\nPrinciple- and they think that this third being is the Creator\naccording to Plato.\n\nThey are in fact quite outside of the truth in their\nidentification of the Creator.\n\nIn every way they misrepresent Plato's theory as to the method\nof creation as in many other respects they dishonour his teaching:\nthey, we are to understand, have penetrated the Intellectual Nature,\nwhile Plato and all those other illustrious teachers have failed.\n\nThey hope to get the credit of minute and exact identification\nby setting up a plurality of intellectual Essences; but in reality\nthis multiplication lowers the Intellectual Nature to the\nlevel of the\nSense-Kind: their true course is to seek to reduce number to\nthe least\npossible in the Supreme, simply referring all things to the Second\nHypostasis- which is all that exists as it is Primal Intellect and\nReality and is the only thing that is good except only for the first\nNature- and to recognize Soul as the third Principle, accounting for\nthe difference among souls merely by diversity of experience and\ncharacter. Instead of insulting those venerable teachers they should\nreceive their doctrine with the respect due to the older thought and\nhonour all that noble system- an immortal soul, an Intellectual and\nIntelligible Realm, the Supreme God, the Soul's need of emancipation\nfrom all intercourse with the body, the fact of separation from it,\nthe escape from the world of process to the world of\nessential-being. These doctrines, all emphatically asserted by\nPlato, they do well to adopt: where they differ, they are at full\nliberty to speak their minds, but not to procure assent for their\nown theories by flaying and flouting the Greeks: where they have a\ndivergent theory to maintain they must establish it by its\nown merits,\ndeclaring their own opinions with courtesy and with philosophical\nmethod and stating the controverted opinion fairly; they must point\ntheir minds towards the truth and not hunt fame by insult, reviling\nand seeking in their own persons to replace men honoured by the fine\nintelligences of ages past.\n\nAs a matter of fact the ancient doctrine of the Divine Essences\nwas far the sounder and more instructed, and must be accepted by all\nnot caught in the delusions that beset humanity: it is easy also to\nidentify what has been conveyed in these later times from\nthe ancients\nwith incongruous novelties- how for example, where they must set up\na contradictory doctrine, they introduce a medley of generation and\ndestruction, how they cavil at the Universe, how they make the Soul\nblameable for the association with body, how they revile the\nAdministrator of this All, how they ascribe to the Creator,\nidentified\nwith the Soul, the character and experiences appropriate to\npartial be\nbeings.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. That this world has neither beginning nor end but exists for\never as long as the Supreme stands is certainly no novel\nteaching. And\nbefore this school rose it had been urged that commerce with the\nbody is no gain to a Soul.\n\nBut to treat the human Soul as a fair presentment of the Soul of\nthe Universe is like picking out potters and blacksmiths and making\nthem warrant for discrediting an entire well-ordered city.\n\nWe must recognize how different is the governance\nexercised by the\nAll-Soul; the relation is not the same: it is not in fetters. Among\nthe very great number of differences it should not have been\noverlooked that the We [the human Soul] lies under fetter;\nand this in\na second limitation, for the Body-Kind, already fettered within the\nAll-Soul, imprisons all that it grasps.\n\nBut the Soul of the Universe cannot be in bond to what itself\nhas bound: it is sovereign and therefore immune of the lower things,\nover which we on the contrary are not masters. That in it which is\ndirected to the Divine and Transcendent is ever unmingled, knows no\nencumbering; that in it which imparts life to the body admits\nnothing bodily to itself. It is the general fact that an\ninset [as the\nBody], necessarily shares the conditions of its containing principle\n[as the Soul], and does not communicate its own conditions where\nthat principle has an independent life: thus a graft will die if the\nstock dies, but the stock will live on by its proper life though the\ngraft wither. The fire within your own self may be quenched, but the\nthing, fire, will exist still; and if fire itself were annihilated\nthat would make no difference to the Soul, the Soul in the Supreme,\nbut only to the plan of the material world; and if the other\nelements sufficed to maintain a Kosmos, the Soul in the Supreme\nwould be unconcerned.\n\nThe constitution of the All is very different from that of the\nsingle, separate forms of life: there, the established rule\ncommanding\nto permanence is sovereign; here things are like deserters kept to\ntheir own place and duty by a double bond; there is no\noutlet from the\nAll, and therefore no need of restraining or of driving errants back\nto bounds: all remains where from the beginning the Soul's nature\nappointed.\n\nThe natural movement within the plan will be injurious\nto anything\nwhose natural tendency it opposes: one group will sweep\nbravely onward\nwith the great total to which it is adapted; the others, not able to\ncomply with the larger order, are destroyed. A great choral is\nmoving to its concerted plan; midway in the march, a tortoise is\nintercepted; unable to get away from the choral line it is trampled\nunder foot; but if it could only range itself within the greater\nmovement it too would suffer nothing.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. To ask why the Soul has created the Kosmos, is to ask\nwhy there\nis a Soul and why a Creator creates. The question, also, implies a\nbeginning in the eternal and, further, represents creation as the\nact of a changeful Being who turns from this to that.\n\nThose that so think must be instructed- if they would but bear\nwith correction- in the nature of the Supernals, and brought\nto desist\nfrom that blasphemy of majestic powers which comes so easily to\nthem, where all should be reverent scruple.\n\nEven in the administration of the Universe there is no ground\nfor such attack, for it affords manifest proof of the\ngreatness of the\nIntellectual Kind.\n\nThis All that has emerged into life is no amorphous structure-\nlike those lesser forms within it which are born night and day out\nof the lavishness of its vitality- the Universe is a life organized,\neffective, complex, all-comprehensive, displaying an unfathomable\nwisdom. How, then, can anyone deny that it is a clear image,\nbeautifully formed, of the Intellectual Divinities? No doubt it is\ncopy, not original; but that is its very nature; it cannot be at\nonce symbol and reality. But to say that it is an inadequate copy is\nfalse; nothing has been left out which a beautiful representation\nwithin the physical order could include.\n\nSuch a reproduction there must necessarily be- though not by\ndeliberation and contrivance- for the Intellectual could not be the\nlast of things, but must have a double Act, one within itself and\none outgoing; there must, then, be something later than the Divine;\nfor only the thing with which all power ends fails to pass downwards\nsomething of itself. In the Supreme there flourishes a marvellous\nvigour, and therefore it produces.\n\nSince there is no Universe nobler than this, is it not clear\nwhat this must be? A representation carrying down the features of\nthe Intellectual Realm is necessary; there is no other Kosmos than\nthis; therefore this is such a representation.\n\nThis earth of ours is full of varied life-forms and of immortal\nbeings; to the very heavens it is crowded. And the stars,\nthose of the\nupper and the under spheres, moving in their ordered path,\nfellow-travellers with the universe, how can they be less than gods?\nSurely they must be morally good: what could prevent them? All that\noccasions vice here below is unknown there evil of body,\nperturbed and\nperturbing.\n\nKnowledge, too; in their unbroken peace, what hinders them from\nthe intellectual grasp of the God-Head and the Intellectual\nGods? What\ncan be imagined to give us a wisdom higher than belongs to the\nSupernals? Could anyone, not fallen to utter folly, bear with such\nan idea?\n\nAdmitting that human Souls have descended under constraint of\nthe All-Soul, are we to think the constrained the nobler?\nAmong Souls,\nwhat commands must be higher than what obeys. And if the coming was\nunconstrained, why find fault with a world you have chosen and can\nquit if you dislike it?\n\nAnd further, if the order of this Universe is such that we are\nable, within it, to practise wisdom and to live our earthly course\nby the Supernal, does not that prove it a dependency of the Divine?\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. Wealth and poverty, and all inequalities of that order, are\nmade ground of complaint. But this is to ignore that the Sage\ndemands no equality in such matters: he cannot think that to own\nmany things is to be richer or that the powerful have the better of\nthe simple; he leaves all such preoccupations to another kind of\nman. He has learned that life on earth has two distinct\nforms, the way\nof the Sage and the way of the mass, the Sage intent upon the\nsublimest, upon the realm above, while those of the more strictly\nhuman type fall, again, under two classes, the one reminiscent of\nvirtue and therefore not without touch with good, the other mere\npopulace, serving to provide necessaries to the better sort.\n\nBut what of murder? What of the feebleness that brings men under\nslavery to the passions?\n\nIs it any wonder that there should be failing and error, not in\nthe highest, the intellectual, Principle but in Souls that are like\nundeveloped children? And is not life justified even so if it is a\ntraining ground with its victors and its vanquished?\n\nYou are wronged; need that trouble an immortal? You are put to\ndeath; you have attained your desire. And from the moment your\ncitizenship of the world becomes irksome you are not bound to it.\n\nOur adversaries do not deny that even here there is a system of\nlaw and penalty: and surely we cannot in justice blame a dominion\nwhich awards to every one his due, where virtue has its honour, and\nvice comes to its fitting shame, in which there are not merely\nrepresentations of the gods, but the gods themselves, watchers from\nabove, and- as we read- easily rebutting human reproaches, since\nthey lead all things in order from a beginning to an end,\nallotting to\neach human being, as life follows life, a fortune shaped to all that\nhas preceded- the destiny which, to those that do not penetrate it,\nbecomes the matter of boorish insolence upon things divine.\n\nA man's one task is to strive towards making himself perfect-\nthough not in the idea- really fatal to perfection- that to\nbe perfect\nis possible to himself alone.\n\nWe must recognize that other men have attained the heights of\ngoodness; we must admit the goodness of the celestial spirits, and\nabove all of the gods- those whose presence is here but their\ncontemplation in the Supreme, and loftiest of them, the lord of this\nAll, the most blessed Soul. Rising still higher, we hymn the\ndivinities of the Intellectual Sphere, and, above all these, the\nmighty King of that dominion, whose majesty is made patent\nin the very\nmultitude of the gods.\n\nIt is not by crushing the divine unto a unity but by displaying\nits exuberance- as the Supreme himself has displayed it- that we\nshow knowledge of the might of God, who, abidingly what He is, yet\ncreates that multitude, all dependent on Him, existing by\nHim and from\nHim.\n\nThis Universe, too, exists by Him and looks to Him- the Universe\nas a whole and every God within it- and tells of Him to men,\nall alike\nrevealing the plan and will of the Supreme.\n\nThese, in the nature of things, cannot be what He is, but that\ndoes not justify you in contempt of them, in pushing yourself\nforward as not inferior to them.\n\nThe more perfect the man, the more compliant he is, even towards\nhis fellows; we must temper our importance, not thrusting insolently\nbeyond what our nature warrants; we must allow other beings, also,\ntheir place in the presence of the Godhead; we may not set ourselves\nalone next after the First in a dream-flight which deprives us of\nour power of attaining identity with the Godhead in the measure\npossible to the human Soul, that is to say, to the point of likeness\nto which the Intellectual-Principle leads us; to exalt\nourselves above\nthe Intellectual-Principle is to fall from it.\n\nYet imbeciles are found to accept such teaching at the mere\nsound of the words \"You, yourself, are to be nobler than all else,\nnobler than men, nobler than even gods.\" Human audacity is\nvery great:\na man once modest, restrained and simple hears, \"You, yourself, are\nthe child of God; those men whom you used to venerate, those beings\nwhose worship they inherit from antiquity, none of these are His\nchildren; you without lifting a hand are nobler than the very\nheavens\"; others take up the cry: the issue will be much as if in a\ncrowd all equally ignorant of figures, one man were told that he\nstands a thousand cubic feet; he will naturally accept his thousand\ncubits even though the others present are said to measure only five\ncubits; he will merely tell himself that the thousand indicates a\nconsiderable figure.\n\nAnother point: God has care for you; how then can He be\nindifferent to the entire Universe in which you exist?\n\nWe may be told that He is too much occupied to look upon the\nUniverse, and that it would not be right for Him to do so; yet, when\nHe looks down and upon these people, is He not looking\noutside Himself\nand upon the Universe in which they exist? If He cannot look outside\nHimself so as to survey the Kosmos, then neither does He look upon\nthem.\n\nBut they have no need of Him?\n\nThe Universe has need of Him, and He knows its ordering and its\nindwellers and how far they belong to it and how far to the Supreme,\nand which of the men upon it are friends of God, mildly acquiescing\nwith the Kosmic dispensation when in the total course of things some\npain must be brought to them- for we are to look not to the single\nwill of any man but to the universe entire, regarding every one\naccording to worth but not stopping for such things where\nall that may\nis hastening onward.\n\nNot one only kind of being is bent upon this quest, which brings\nbliss to whatsoever achieves, and earns for the others a future\ndestiny in accord with their power. No man, therefore, may flatter\nhimself that he alone is competent; a pretension is not a\npossession; many boast though fully conscious of their lack and many\nimagine themselves to possess what was never theirs and even to be\nalone in possessing what they alone of men never had.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. Under detailed investigation, many other tenets of this\nschool- indeed we might say all- could be corrected with an\nabundance of proof. But I am withheld by regard for some of our own\nfriends who fell in with this doctrine before joining our circle\nand, strangely, still cling to it.\n\nThe school, no doubt, is free-spoken enough- whether in the set\npurpose of giving its opinions a plausible colour of verity or in\nhonest belief- but we are addressing here our own acquaintances, not\nthose people with whom we could make no way. We have spoken in the\nhope of preventing our friends from being perturbed by a party which\nbrings, not proof- how could it?- but arbitrary, tyrannical\nassertion;\nanother style of address would be applicable to such as have the\naudacity to flout the noble and true doctrines of the august\nteachers of antiquity.\n\nThat method we will not apply; anyone that has fully grasped the\npreceding discussion will know how to meet every point in the system.\n\nOnly one other tenet of theirs will be mentioned before passing\nthe matter; it is one which surpasses all the rest in sheer folly,\nif that is the word.\n\nThey first maintain that the Soul and a certain \"Wisdom\"\n[Sophia] declined and entered this lower sphere though they leave us\nin doubt of whether the movement originated in Soul or in this\nSophia of theirs, or whether the two are the same to them- then they\ntell us that the other Souls came down in the descent and that these\nmembers of Sophia took to themselves bodies, human bodies, for\nexample.\n\nYet in the same breath, that very Soul which was the occasion of\ndescent to the others is declared not to have descended. \"It knew no\ndecline,\" but merely illuminated the darkness in such a way that an\nimage of it was formed upon the Matter. Then, they shape an image of\nthat image somewhere below- through the medium of Matter or of\nMateriality or whatever else of many names they choose to give it in\ntheir frequent change of terms, invented to darken their\ndoctrine- and\nso they bring into being what they call the Creator or Demiurge,\nthen this lower is severed from his Mother [Sophia] and becomes the\nauthor of the Kosmos down to the latest of the succession of images\nconstituting it.\n\nSuch is the blasphemy of one of their writers.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. Now, in the first place, if the Soul has not actually come\ndown but has illuminated the darkness, how can it truly be said to\nhave declined? The outflow from it of something in the\nnature of light\ndoes not justify the assertion of its decline; for that, it must\nmake an actual movement towards the object lying in the lower realm\nand illuminate it by contact.\n\nIf, on the other hand, the Soul keeps to its own place and\nilluminates the lower without directing any act towards that end,\nwhy should it alone be the illuminant? Why should not the Kosmos\ndraw light also from the yet greater powers contained in the total\nof existence?\n\nAgain, if the Soul possesses the plan of a Universe, and\nby virtue\nof this plan illuminates it, why do not that illumination and the\ncreating of the world take place simultaneously? Why must the Soul\nwait till the representations of the plan be made actual?\n\nThen again this Plan- the \"Far Country\" of their terminology-\nbrought into being, as they hold, by the greater powers, could not\nhave been the occasion of decline to the creators.\n\nFurther, how explain that under this illumination the Matter of\nthe Kosmos produces images of the order of Soul instead of mere\nbodily-nature? An image of Soul could not demand darkness or Matter,\nbut wherever formed it would exhibit the character of the producing\nelement and remain in close union with it.\n\nNext, is this image a real-being, or, as they say, an\nIntellection?\n\nIf it is a reality, in what way does it differ from its\noriginal? By being a distinct form of the Soul? But then, since the\noriginal is the reasoning Soul, this secondary form must be the\nvegetative and generative Soul; and then, what becomes of the theory\nthat it is produced for glory's sake, what becomes of the creation\nin arrogance and self-assertion? The theory puts an end also to\ncreation by representation and, still more decidedly, to any\nthinking in the act; and what need is left for a creator creating by\nway of Matter and Image?\n\nIf it is an Intellection, then we ask first \"What justifies the\nname?\" and next, \"How does anything come into being unless the Soul\ngive this Intellection creative power and how, after all,\ncan creative\npower reside in a created thing?\" Are we to be told that it is a\nquestion of a first Image followed by a second?\n\nBut this is quite arbitrary.\n\nAnd why is fire the first creation?\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. And how does this image set to its task immediately after it\ncomes into being?\n\nBy memory of what it has seen?\n\nBut it was utterly non-existent, it could have no vision, either\nit or the Mother they bestow upon it.\n\nAnother difficulty: These people come upon earth not as\nSoul-Images but as veritable Souls; yet, by great stress and strain,\none or two of them are able to stir beyond the limits of the world,\nand when they do attain Reminiscence barely carry with them some\nslight recollection of the Sphere they once knew: on the other hand,\nthis Image, a new-comer into being, is able, they tell us- as also\nis its Mother- to form at least some dim representation of the\ncelestial world. It is an Image, stamped in Matter, yet it not\nmerely has the conception of the Supreme and adopts from that world\nthe plan of this, but knows what elements serve the purpose. How,\nfor instance, did it come to make fire before anything else?\nWhat made\nit judge fire a better first than some other object?\n\nAgain, if it created the fire of the Universe by\nthinking of fire,\nwhy did it not make the Universe at a stroke by thinking of the\nUniverse? It must have conceived the product complete from the\nfirst; the constituent elements would be embraced in that general\nconception.\n\nThe creation must have been in all respects more according to\nthe way of Nature than to that of the arts- for the arts are of\nlater origin than Nature and the Universe, and even at the present\nstage the partial things brought into being by the natural Kinds do\nnot follow any such order- first fire, then the several other\nelements, then the various blends of these- on the contrary\nthe living\norganism entire is encompassed and rounded off within the uterine\ngerm. Why should not the material of the Universe be similarly\nembraced in a Kosmic Type in which earth, fire and the rest would be\nincluded? We can only suppose that these people themselves, acting\nby their more authentic Soul, would have produced the world by such\na process, but that the Creator had not wit to do so.\n\nAnd yet to conceive the vast span of the Heavens- to be great in\nthat degree- to devise the obliquity of the Zodiac and the circling\npath of all the celestial bodies beneath it, and this earth of ours-\nand all in such a way that reason can be given for the plan- this\ncould never be the work of an Image; it tells of that Power [the\nAll-Soul] next to the very Highest Beings.\n\nAgainst their will, they themselves admit this: their\n\"outshining upon the darkness,\" if the doctrine is sifted, makes it\nimpossible to deny the true origins of the Kosmos.\n\nWhy should this down-shining take place unless such a process\nbelonged to a universal law?\n\nEither the process is in the order of Nature or against that\norder. If it is in the nature of things, it must have taken\nplace from\neternity; if it is against the nature of things, then the breach of\nnatural right exists in the Supreme also; evil antedates this world;\nthe cause of evil is not the world; on the contrary the\nSupreme is the\nevil to us; instead of the Soul's harm coming from this sphere, we\nhave this Sphere harmed by the Soul.\n\nIn fine, the theory amounts to making the world one of the\nPrimals, and with it the Matter from which it emerges.\n\nThe Soul that declined, they tell us, saw and illuminated the\nalready existent Darkness. Now whence came that Darkness?\n\nIf they tell us that the Soul created the Darkness by\nits Decline,\nthen, obviously, there was nowhere for the Soul to decline to; the\ncause of the decline was not the Darkness but the very nature of the\nSoul. The theory, therefore, refers the entire process to\npre-existing\ncompulsions: the guilt inheres in the Primal Beings.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. Those, then, that censure the constitution of the Kosmos do\nnot understand what they are doing or where this audacity leads\nthem. They do not understand that there is a successive order of\nPrimals, Secondaries, Tertiaries and so on continuously to the\nUltimates; that nothing is to be blamed for being inferior to the\nFirst; that we can but accept, meekly, the constitution of the\ntotal, and make our best way towards the Primals,\nwithdrawing from the\ntragic spectacle, as they see it, of the Kosmic spheres- which in\nreality are all suave graciousness.\n\nAnd what, after all, is there so terrible in these Spheres with\nwhich it is sought to frighten people unaccustomed to thinking,\nnever trained in an instructive and coherent gnosis?\n\nEven the fact that their material frame is of fire does not make\nthem dreadful; their Movements are in keeping with the All and with\nthe Earth: but what we must consider in them is the Soul, that on\nwhich these people base their own title to honour.\n\nAnd, yet, again, their material frames are pre-eminent\nin vastness\nand beauty, as they cooperate in act and in influence with the\nentire order of Nature, and can never cease to exist as long as the\nPrimals stand; they enter into the completion of the All of\nwhich they\nare major Parts.\n\nIf men rank highly among other living Beings, much more do\nthese, whose office in the All is not to play the tyrant but to\nserve towards beauty and order. The action attributed to them must\nbe understood as a foretelling of coming events, while the causing\nof all the variety is due, in part to diverse destinies- for there\ncannot be one lot for the entire body of men- in part to the birth\nmoment, in part to wide divergencies of place, in part to states of\nthe Souls.\n\nOnce more, we have no right to ask that all men shall be good,\nor to rush into censure because such universal virtue is not\npossible:\nthis would be repeating the error of confusing our sphere with the\nSupreme and treating evil as a nearly negligible failure in\nwisdom- as\ngood lessened and dwindling continuously, a continuous fading out;\nit would be like calling the Nature-Principle evil because it is not\nSense-Perception and the thing of sense evil for not being a\nReason-Principle. If evil is no more than that, we will be obliged\nto admit evil in the Supreme also, for there, too, Soul is less\nexalted than the Intellectual-Principle, and That too has its\nSuperior.\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. In yet another way they infringe still more gravely upon the\ninviolability of the Supreme.\n\nIn the sacred formulas they inscribe, purporting to address the\nSupernal Beings- not merely the Soul but even the Transcendents-\nthey are simply uttering spells and appeasements and\nevocations in the\nidea that these Powers will obey a call and be led about by a word\nfrom any of us who is in some degree trained to use the appropriate\nforms in the appropriate way- certain melodies, certain sounds,\nspecially directed breathings, sibilant cries, and all else to which\nis ascribed magic potency upon the Supreme. Perhaps they would\nrepudiate any such intention: still they must explain how\nthese things\nact upon the unembodied: they do not see that the power they\nattribute\nto their own words is so much taken away from the majesty of the\ndivine.\n\nThey tell us they can free themselves of diseases.\n\nIf they meant, by temperate living and an appropriate\nregime, they\nwould be right and in accordance with all sound knowledge. But they\nassert diseases to be Spirit-Beings and boast of being able to expel\nthem by formula: this pretension may enhance their\nimportance with the\ncrowd, gaping upon the powers of magicians; but they can never\npersuade the intelligent that disease arises otherwise than from\nsuch causes as overstrain, excess, deficiency, putrid decay; in a\nword, some variation whether from within or from without.\n\nThe nature of illness is indicated by its very cure. A motion, a\nmedicine, the letting of blood, and the disease shifts down and\naway; sometimes scantiness of nourishment restores the system:\npresumably the Spiritual power gets hungry or is debilitated by the\npurge. Either this Spirit makes a hasty exit or it remains within.\nIf it stays, how does the disease disappear, with the cause still\npresent? If it quits the place, what has driven it out? Has anything\nhappened to it? Are we to suppose it throve on the disease? In that\ncase the disease existed as something distinct from the\nSpirit-Power. Then again, if it steps in where no cause of sickness\nexists, why should there be anything else but illness? If there must\nbe such a cause, the Spirit is unnecessary: that cause is sufficient\nto produce that fever. As for the notion, that just when the cause\npresents itself, the watchful Spirit leaps to incorporate itself\nwith it, this is simply amusing.\n\nBut the manner and motive of their teaching have been\nsufficiently\nexhibited; and this was the main purpose of the discussion here upon\ntheir Spirit-Powers. I leave it to yourselves to read the books and\nexamine the rest of the doctrine: you will note all through how our\nform of philosophy inculcates simplicity of character and honest\nthinking in addition to all other good qualities, how it cultivates\nreverence and not arrogant self-assertion, how its boldness is\nbalanced by reason, by careful proof, by cautious progression, by\nthe utmost circumspection- and you will compare those other\nsystems to\none proceeding by this method. You will find that the tenets of\ntheir school have been huddled together under a very different plan:\nthey do not deserve any further examination here.\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. There is, however, one matter which we must on no account\noverlook- the effect of these teachings upon the hearers led by them\ninto despising the world and all that is in it.\n\nThere are two theories as to the attainment of the End of life.\nThe one proposes pleasure, bodily pleasure, as the term; the other\npronounces for good and virtue, the desire of which comes\nfrom God and\nmoves, by ways to be studied elsewhere, towards God.\n\nEpicurus denies a Providence and recommends pleasure and its\nenjoyment, all that is left to us: but the doctrine under discussion\nis still more wanton; it carps at Providence and the Lord of\nProvidence; it scorns every law known to us; immemorial\nvirtue and all\nrestraint it makes into a laughing stock, lest any loveliness be\nseen on earth; it cuts at the root of all orderly living, and of the\nrighteousness which, innate in the moral sense, is made perfect by\nthought and by self-discipline: all that would give us a noble human\nbeing is gone. What is left for them except where the pupil\nby his own\ncharacter betters the teaching- comes to pleasure, self-seeking, the\ngrudge of any share with one's fellows, the pursuit of advantage.\n\nTheir error is that they know nothing good here: all\nthey care for\nis something else to which they will at some future time apply\nthemselves: yet, this world, to those that have known it\nonce, must be\nthe starting-point of the pursuit: arrived here from out of\nthe divine\nnature, they must inaugurate their effort by some earthly\ncorrection. The understanding of beauty is not given except to a\nnature scorning the delight of the body, and those that have no part\nin well-doing can make no step towards the Supernal.\n\nThis school, in fact, is convicted by its neglect of all mention\nof virtue: any discussion of such matters is missing utterly: we are\nnot told what virtue is or under what different kinds it appears;\nthere is no word of all the numerous and noble reflections upon it\nthat have come down to us from the ancients; we do not learn what\nconstitutes it or how it is acquired, how the Soul is tended, how it\nis cleaned. For to say \"Look to God\" is not helpful without some\ninstruction as to what this looking imports: it might very well be\nsaid that one can \"look\" and still sacrifice no pleasure,\nstill be the\nslave of impulse, repeating the word God but held in the\ngrip of every\npassion and making no effort to master any. Virtue, advancing\ntowards the Term and, linked with thought, occupying a Soul makes\nGod manifest: God on the lips, without a good conduct of life, is a\nword.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. On the other hand, to despise this Sphere, and the\nGods within\nit or anything else that is lovely, is not the way to goodness.\n\nEvery evil-doer began by despising the Gods; and one not\npreviously corrupt, taking to this contempt, even though in other\nrespects not wholly bad, becomes an evil-doer by the very fact.\n\nBesides, in this slighting of the Mundane Gods and the world,\nthe honour they profess for the gods of the Intellectual Sphere\nbecomes an inconsistency; Where we love, our hearts are warm also to\nthe Kin of the beloved; we are not indifferent to the children of\nour friend. Now every Soul is a child of that Father; but in the\nheavenly bodies there are Souls, intellective, holy, much closer to\nthe Supernal Beings than are ours; for how can this Kosmos be a\nthing cut off from That and how imagine the gods in it to\nstand apart?\n\nBut of this matter we have treated elsewhere: here we urge that\nwhere there is contempt for the Kin of the Supreme the knowledge of\nthe Supreme itself is merely verbal.\n\nWhat sort of piety can make Providence stop short of earthly\nconcerns or set any limit whatsoever to it?\n\nAnd what consistency is there in this school when they proceed\nto assert that Providence cares for them, though for them alone?\n\nAnd is this Providence over them to be understood of their\nexistence in that other world only or of their lives here as well?\nIf in the other world, how came they to this? If in this world, why\nare they not already raised from it?\n\nAgain, how can they deny that the Lord of Providence is here?\nHow else can He know either that they are here, or that in their\nsojourn here they have not forgotten Him and fallen away?\nAnd if He is\naware of the goodness of some, He must know of the wickedness of\nothers, to distinguish good from bad. That means that He is\npresent to\nall, is, by whatever mode, within this Universe. The Universe,\ntherefore, must be participant in Him.\n\nIf He is absent from the Universe, He is absent from yourselves,\nand you can have nothing to tell about Him or about the powers that\ncome after Him.\n\nBut, allowing that a Providence reaches to you from the world\nbeyond- making any concession to your liking- it remains\nnone the less\ncertain that this world holds from the Supernal and is not deserted\nand will not be: a Providence watching entires is even more likely\nthan one over fragments only; and similarly, Participation is more\nperfect in the case of the All-Soul- as is shown, further,\nby the very\nexistence of things and the wisdom manifest in their existence. Of\nthose that advance these wild pretensions, who is so well ordered,\nso wise, as the Universe? The comparison is laughable, utterly out\nof place; to make it, except as a help towards truth, would be\nimpiety.\n\nThe very question can be entertained by no intelligent being but\nonly by one so blind, so utterly devoid of perception and thought,\nso far from any vision of the Intellectual Universe as not\neven to see\nthis world of our own.\n\nFor who that truly perceives the harmony of the\nIntellectual Realm\ncould fail, if he has any bent towards music, to answer to\nthe harmony\nin sensible sounds? What geometrician or arithmetician could fail to\ntake pleasure in the symmetries, correspondences and principles of\norder observed in visible things? Consider, even, the case of\npictures: those seeing by the bodily sense the productions of the\nart of painting do not see the one thing in the one only\nway; they are\ndeeply stirred by recognizing in the objects depicted to the eyes\nthe presentation of what lies in the idea, and so are called to\nrecollection of the truth- the very experience out of which Love\nrises. Now, if the sight of Beauty excellently reproduced upon a\nface hurries the mind to that other Sphere, surely no one seeing the\nloveliness lavish in the world of sense- this vast orderliness, the\nForm which the stars even in their remoteness display- no\none could be\nso dull-witted, so immoveable, as not to be carried by all this to\nrecollection, and gripped by reverent awe in the thought of all\nthis, so great, sprung from that greatness. Not to answer thus could\nonly be to have neither fathomed this world nor had any\nvision of that\nother.\n\n\n## Section 17\n\n\n##### Section 17\n\n17. Perhaps the hate of this school for the corporeal is due to\ntheir reading of Plato who inveighs against body as a grave\nhindrance to Soul and pronounces the corporeal to be\ncharacteristically the inferior.\n\nThen let them for the moment pass over the corporeal element in\nthe Universe and study all that still remains.\n\nThey will think of the Intellectual Sphere which includes within\nitself the Ideal-Form realized in the Kosmos. They will think of the\nSouls, in their ordered rank, that produce incorporeal magnitude and\nlead the Intelligible out towards spatial extension, so that finally\nthe thing of process becomes, by its magnitude, as adequate a\nrepresentation as possible of the principle void of parts\nwhich is its\nmodel- the greatness of power there being translated here into\ngreatness of bulk. Then whether they think of the Kosmic Sphere [the\nAll-Soul] as already in movement under the guidance of that power of\nGod which holds it through and through, beginning and middle and\nend, or whether they consider it as in rest and exercising as yet no\nouter governance: either approach will lead to a true appreciation\nof the Soul that conducts this Universe.\n\nNow let them set body within it- not in the sense that Soul\nsuffers any change but that, since \"In the Gods there can be no\ngrudging,\" it gives to its inferior all that any partial thing has\nstrength to receive and at once their conception of the\nKosmos must be\nrevised; they cannot deny that the Soul of the Kosmos has exercised\nsuch a weight of power as to have brought the corporeal-principle,\nin itself unlovely, to partake of good and beauty to the\nutmost of its\nreceptivity- and to a pitch which stirs Souls, beings of the divine\norder.\n\nThese people may no doubt say that they themselves feel no such\nstirring, and that they see no difference between beautiful and ugly\nforms of body; but, at that, they can make no distinction between\nthe ugly and the beautiful in conduct; sciences can have no beauty;\nthere can be none in thought; and none, therefore, in God. This\nworld descends from the Firsts: if this world has no beauty, neither\nhas its Source; springing thence, this world, too, must have its\nbeautiful things. And while they proclaim their contempt for earthly\nbeauty, they would do well to ignore that of youths and women so as\nnot to be overcome by incontinence.\n\nIn fine, we must consider that their self-satisfaction could not\nturn upon a contempt for anything indisputably base; theirs is the\nperverse pride of despising what was once admired.\n\nWe must always keep in mind that the beauty in a partial thing\ncannot be identical with that in a whole; nor can any several\nobjects be as stately as the total.\n\nAnd we must recognize, that, even in the world of sense and\npart, there are things of a loveliness comparable to that of the\nCelestials- forms whose beauty must fill us with veneration for\ntheir creator and convince us of their origin in the divine, forms\nwhich show how ineffable is the beauty of the Supreme since they\ncannot hold us but we must, though in all admiration, leave these\nfor those. Further, wherever there is interior beauty, we may be\nsure that inner and outer correspond; where the interior is vile,\nall is brought low by that flaw in the dominants.\n\nNothing base within can be beautiful without- at least\nnot with an\nauthentic beauty, for there are examples of a good exterior\nnot sprung\nfrom a beauty dominant within; people passing as handsome but\nessentially base have that, a spurious and superficial beauty: if\nanyone tells me he has seen people really fine-looking but\ninteriorly vile, I can only deny it; we have here simply a false\nnotion of personal beauty; unless, indeed, the inner vileness were\nan accident in a nature essentially fine; in this Sphere there are\nmany obstacles to self-realization.\n\nIn any case the All is beautiful, and there can be no obstacle\nto its inner goodness: where the nature of a thing does not comport\nperfection from the beginning, there may be a failure in complete\nexpression; there may even be a fall to vileness, but the All never\nknew a childlike immaturity; it never experienced a progress\nbringing novelty into it; it never had bodily growth: there was\nnowhere from whence it could take such increment; it was always the\nAll-Container.\n\nAnd even for its Soul no one could imagine any such a path of\nprocess: or, if this were conceded, certainly it could not be\ntowards evil.\n\n\n## Section 18\n\n\n##### Section 18\n\n18. But perhaps this school will maintain that, while their\nteaching leads to a hate and utter abandonment of the body,\nours binds\nthe Soul down in it.\n\nIn other words: two people inhabit the one stately house; one of\nthem declaims against its plan and against its Architect,\nbut none the\nless maintains his residence in it; the other makes no complaint,\nasserts the entire competency of the Architect and waits cheerfully\nfor the day when he may leave it, having no further need of a house:\nthe malcontent imagines himself to be the wiser and to be the\nreadier to leave because he has learned to repeat that the walls are\nof soulless stone and timber and that the place falls far short of a\ntrue home; he does not see that his only distinction is in not being\nable to bear with necessity assuming that his conduct, his\ngrumbling, does not cover a secret admiration for the beauty of\nthose same \"stones.\" As long as we have bodies we must inhabit the\ndwellings prepared for us by our good sister the Soul in her vast\npower of labourless creation.\n\nOr would this school reject the word Sister? They are willing to\naddress the lowest of men as brothers; are they capable of\nsuch raving\nas to disown the tie with the Sun and the powers of the Heavens and\nthe very Soul of the Kosmos? Such kinship, it is true, is not for\nthe vile; it may be asserted only of those that have become good and\nare no longer body but embodied Soul and of a quality to inhabit the\nbody in a mode very closely resembling the indwelling. of\nthe All-Soul\nin the universal frame. And this means continence, self-restraint,\nholding staunch against outside pleasure and against outer\nspectacle, allowing no hardship to disturb the mind. The All-Soul is\nimmune from shock; there is nothing that can affect it: but\nwe, in our\npassage here, must call on virtue in repelling these\nassaults, reduced\nfor us from the beginning by a great conception of life, annulled by\nmatured strength.\n\nAttaining to something of this immunity, we begin to reproduce\nwithin ourselves the Soul of the vast All and of the heavenly\nbodies: when we are come to the very closest resemblance, all the\neffort of our fervid pursuit will be towards that goal to which they\nalso tend; their contemplative vision becomes ours, prepared as we\nare, first by natural disposition and afterwards by all this\ntraining,\nfor that state which is theirs by the Principle of their Being.\n\nThis school may lay claim to vision as a dignity reserved to\nthemselves, but they are not any the nearer to vision by the\nclaim- or\nby the boast that while the celestial powers, bound for ever to the\nordering of the Heavens, can never stand outside the material\nuniverse, they themselves have their freedom in their death.\nThis is a\nfailure to grasp the very notion of \"standing outside,\" a failure to\nappreciate the mode in which the All-Soul cares for the unensouled.\n\nNo: it is possible to go free of love for the body; to be\nclean-living, to disregard death; to know the Highest and aim at\nthat other world; not to slander, as negligent in the quest, others\nwho are able for it and faithful to it; and not to err with\nthose that\ndeny vital motion to the stars because to our sense they stand\nstill- the error which in another form leads this school to\ndeny outer\nvision to the Star-Nature, only because they do not see the\nStar-Soul in outer manifestation.",
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