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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-3",
    "name": "Ennead III — Cosmos, Time, Providence"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
      "url": "/sources/plotinus-enneads/"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 2,
    "slug": "2-on-providence-1",
    "title": "III.2 — On Providence (1)",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 9438,
    "text": "## SECOND TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SECOND TRACTATE.\n\nON PROVIDENCE (1).\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. To make the existence and coherent structure of this Universe\ndepend upon automatic activity and upon chance is against all good\nsense.\n\nSuch a notion could be entertained only where there is neither\nintelligence nor even ordinary perception; and reason enough has\nbeen urged against it, though none is really necessary.\n\nBut there is still the question as to the process by which the\nindividual things of this sphere have come into being, how they were\nmade.\n\nSome of them seem so undesirable as to cast doubts upon a\nUniversal Providence; and we find, on the one hand, the denial of\nany controlling power, on the other the belief that the Kosmos is\nthe work of an evil creator.\n\nThis matter must be examined through and through from the very\nfirst principles. We may, however, omit for the present any\nconsideration of the particular providence, that beforehand decision\nwhich accomplishes or holds things in abeyance to some good purpose\nand gives or withholds in our own regard: when we have\nestablished the\nUniversal Providence which we affirm, we can link the secondary with\nit.\n\nOf course the belief that after a certain lapse of time a Kosmos\npreviously non-existent came into being would imply a\nforeseeing and a\nreasoned plan on the part of God providing for the production of the\nUniverse and securing all possible perfection in it- a guidance and\npartial providence, therefore, such as is indicated. But\nsince we hold\nthe eternal existence of the Universe, the utter absence of a\nbeginning to it, we are forced, in sound and sequent reasoning, to\nexplain the providence ruling in the Universe as a universal\nconsonance with the divine Intelligence to which the Kosmos is\nsubsequent not in time but in the fact of derivation, in the\nfact that\nthe Divine Intelligence, preceding it in Kind, is its cause as being\nthe Archetype and Model which it merely images, the primal by which,\nfrom all eternity, it has its existence and subsistence.\n\nThe relationship may be presented thus:\n\nThe authentic and primal Kosmos is the Being of the Intellectual\nPrinciple and of the Veritable Existent. This contains within itself\nno spatial distinction, and has none of the feebleness of division,\nand even its parts bring no incompleteness to it since here the\nindividual is not severed from the entire. In this Nature inheres\nall life and all intellect, a life living and having intellection as\none act within a unity: every part that it gives forth is a\nwhole; all\nits content is its very own, for there is here no separation of\nthing from thing, no part standing in isolated existence estranged\nfrom the rest, and therefore nowhere is there any wronging of any\nother, any opposition. Everywhere one and complete, it is at rest\nthroughout and shows difference at no point; it does not\nmake over any\nof its content into any new form; there can be no reason for\nchanging what is everywhere perfect.\n\nWhy should Reason elaborate yet another Reason, or Intelligence\nanother Intelligence? An indwelling power of making things is in the\ncharacter of a being not at all points as it should be but making,\nmoving, by reason of some failure in quality. Those whose nature is\nall blessedness have no more to do than to repose in\nthemselves and be\ntheir being.\n\nA widespread activity is dangerous to those who must go out from\nthemselves to act. But such is the blessedness of this Being that in\nits very non-action it magnificently operates and in its\nself-dwelling\nit produces mightily.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. By derivation from that Authentic Kosmos, one within itself,\nthere subsists this lower kosmos, no longer a true unity.\n\nIt is multiple, divided into various elements, thing standing\napart from thing in a new estrangement. No longer is there concord\nunbroken; hostility, too, has entered as the result of difference\nand distance; imperfection has inevitably introduced discord; for a\npart is not self-sufficient, it must pursue something outside itself\nfor its fulfillment, and so it becomes the enemy to what it needs.\n\nThis Kosmos of parts has come into being not as the result of a\njudgement establishing its desirability, but by the sheer\nnecessity of\na secondary Kind.\n\nThe Intellectual Realm was not of a nature to be the ultimate of\nexistents. It was the First and it held great power, all there is of\npower; this means that it is productive without seeking to produce;\nfor if effort and search were incumbent upon it, the Act would not\nbe its own, would not spring from its essential nature; it would be,\nlike a craftsman, producing by a power not inherent but acquired,\nmastered by dint of study.\n\nThe Intellectual Principle, then, in its unperturbed serenity\nhas brought the universe into being, by communicating from its own\nstore to Matter: and this gift is the Reason-Form flowing\nfrom it. For\nthe Emanation of the Intellectual Principle is Reason, an emanation\nunfailing as long as the Intellectual Principle continues to have\nplace among beings.\n\nThe Reason-Principle within a seed contains all the parts and\nqualities concentrated in identity; there is no distinction, no\njarring, no internal hindering; then there comes a pushing out into\nbulk, part rises in distinction with part, and at once the members\nof the organism stand in each other's way and begin to wear\neach other\ndown.\n\nSo from this, the One Intellectual Principle, and the\nReason-Form emanating from it, our Universe rises and develops part,\nand inevitably are formed groups concordant and helpful in contrast\nwith groups discordant and combative; sometimes of choice and\nsometimes incidentally, the parts maltreat each other; engendering\nproceeds by destruction.\n\nYet: Amid all that they effect and accept, the divine Realm\nimposes the one harmonious act; each utters its own voice, but all\nis brought into accord, into an ordered system, for the universal\npurpose, by the ruling Reason-Principle. This Universe is not\nIntelligence and Reason, like the Supernal, but participant in\nIntelligence and Reason: it stands in need of the harmonizing\nbecause it is the meeting ground of Necessity and divine\nReason-Necessity pulling towards the lower, towards the\nunreason which\nis its own characteristic, while yet the Intellectual Principle\nremains sovereign over it.\n\nThe Intellectual Sphere [the Divine] alone is Reason, and there\ncan never be another Sphere that is Reason and nothing else; so\nthat, given some other system, it cannot be as noble as that\nfirst; it\ncannot be Reason: yet since such a system cannot be merely Matter,\nwhich is the utterly unordered, it must be a mixed thing. Its two\nextremes are Matter and the Divine Reason; its governing principle\nis Soul, presiding over the conjunction of the two, and to be\nthought of not as labouring in the task but as administering\nserenely by little more than an act of presence.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. Nor would it be sound to condemn this Kosmos as less than\nbeautiful, as less than the noblest possible in the corporeal; and\nneither can any charge be laid against its source.\n\nThe world, we must reflect, is a product of Necessity, not of\ndeliberate purpose: it is due to a higher Kind engendering in its\nown likeness by a natural process. And none the less, a second\nconsideration, if a considered plan brought it into being it would\nstill be no disgrace to its maker- for it stands a stately whole,\ncomplete within itself, serving at once its own purpose and that of\nall its parts which, leading and lesser alike, are of such a\nnature as\nto further the interests of the total. It is, therefore,\nimpossible to\ncondemn the whole on the merits of the parts which, besides, must be\njudged only as they enter harmoniously or not into the\nwhole, the main\nconsideration, quite overpassing the members which thus cease to\nhave importance. To linger about the parts is to condemn not the\nKosmos but some isolated appendage of it; in the entire living Being\nwe fasten our eyes on a hair or a toe neglecting the marvellous\nspectacle of the complete Man; we ignore all the tribes and kinds of\nanimals except for the meanest; we pass over an entire race,\nhumanity,\nand bring forward- Thersites.\n\nNo: this thing that has come into Being is the Kosmos\ncomplete: do\nbut survey it, and surely this is the pleading you will hear:\n\nI am made by a God: from that God I came perfect above all forms\nof life, adequate to my function, self-sufficing, lacking\nnothing: for\nI am the container of all, that is, of every plant and every animal,\nof all the Kinds of created things, and many Gods and nations of\nSpirit-Beings and lofty souls and men happy in their goodness.\n\nAnd do not think that, while earth is ornate with all its\ngrowths and with living things of every race, and while the very sea\nhas answered to the power of Soul, do not think that the\ngreat air and\nthe ether and the far-spread heavens remain void of it: there it is\nthat all good Souls dwell, infusing life into the stars and into\nthat orderly eternal circuit of the heavens which in its conscious\nmovement ever about the one Centre, seeking nothing beyond, is a\nfaithful copy of the divine Mind. And all that is within me strives\ntowards the Good; and each, to the measure of its faculty, attains.\nFor from that Good all the heavens depend, with all my own Soul and\nthe Gods that dwell in my every part, and all that lives and grows,\nand even all in me that you may judge inanimate.\n\nBut there are degrees of participation: here no more than\nExistence, elsewhere Life; and, in Life, sometimes mainly that of\nSensation, higher again that of Reason, finally Life in all its\nfullness. We have no right to demand equal powers in the unequal:\nthe finger is not to be asked to see; there is the eye for that; a\nfinger has its own business- to be finger and have finger power.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. That water extinguishes fire and fire consumes other things\nshould not astonish us. The thing destroyed derived its being from\noutside itself: this is no case of a self-originating substance\nbeing annihilated by an external; it rose on the ruin of something\nelse, and thus in its own ruin it suffers nothing strange; and for\nevery fire quenched, another is kindled.\n\nIn the immaterial heaven every member is unchangeably itself for\never; in the heavens of our universe, while the whole has life\neternally and so too all the nobler and lordlier components,\nthe Souls\npass from body to body entering into varied forms- and, when\nit may, a\nSoul will rise outside of the realm of birth and dwell with the one\nSoul of all. For the embodied lives by virtue of a Form or Idea:\nindividual or partial things exist by virtue of Universals;\nfrom these\npriors they derive their life and maintenance, for life here is a\nthing of change; only in that prior realm is it unmoving. From that\nunchangingness, change had to emerge, and from that self-cloistered\nLife its derivative, this which breathes and stirs, the\nrespiration of\nthe still life of the divine.\n\nThe conflict and destruction that reign among living beings are\ninevitable, since things here are derived, brought into existence\nbecause the Divine Reason which contains all of them in the upper\nHeavens- how could they come here unless they were There?- must\noutflow over the whole extent of Matter.\n\nSimilarly, the very wronging of man by man may be derived from\nan effort towards the Good; foiled, in their weakness, of their true\ndesire, they turn against each other: still, when they do wrong,\nthey pay the penalty- that of having hurt their Souls by their evil\nconduct and of degradation to a lower place- for nothing can ever\nescape what stands decreed in the law of the Universe.\n\nThis is not to accept the idea, sometimes urged, that order is\nan outcome of disorder and law of lawlessness, as if evil were a\nnecessary preliminary to their existence or their manifestation: on\nthe contrary order is the original and enters this sphere as imposed\nfrom without: it is because order, law and reason exist that\nthere can\nbe disorder; breach of law and unreason exist because Reason exists-\nnot that these better things are directly the causes of the bad but\nsimply that what ought to absorb the Best is prevented by its own\nnature, or by some accident, or by foreign interference. An entity\nwhich must look outside itself for a law, may be foiled of\nits purpose\nby either an internal or an external cause; there will be\nsome flaw in\nits own nature, or it will be hurt by some alien influence, for\noften harm follows, unintended, upon the action of others in the\npursuit of quite unrelated aims. Such living beings, on the other\nhand, as have freedom of motion under their own will sometimes take\nthe right turn, sometimes the wrong.\n\nWhy the wrong course is followed is scarcely worth enquiring: a\nslight deviation at the beginning develops with every advance into a\ncontinuously wider and graver error- especially since there is the\nattached body with its inevitable concomitant of desire- and\nthe first\nstep, the hasty movement not previously considered and not\nimmediately\ncorrected, ends by establishing a set habit where there was at first\nonly a fall.\n\nPunishment naturally follows: there is no injustice in a man\nsuffering what belongs to the condition in which he is; nor\ncan we ask\nto be happy when our actions have not earned us happiness; the good,\nonly, are happy; divine beings are happy only because they are good.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. Now, once Happiness is possible at all to Souls in this\nUniverse, if some fail of it, the blame must fall not upon the place\nbut upon the feebleness insufficient to the staunch combat in the\none arena where the rewards of excellence are offered. Men are not\nborn divine; what wonder that they do not enjoy a divine life. And\npoverty and sickness mean nothing to the good- only to the evil are\nthey disastrous- and where there is body there must be ill health.\n\nBesides, these accidents are not without their service in the\nco-ordination and completion of the Universal system.\n\nOne thing perishes, and the Kosmic Reason- whose control nothing\nanywhere eludes- employs that ending to the beginning of something\nnew; and, so, when the body suffers and the Soul, under the\naffliction, loses power, all that has been bound under illness and\nevil is brought into a new set of relations, into another class or\norder. Some of these troubles are helpful to the very sufferers-\npoverty and sickness, for example- and as for vice, even this brings\nsomething to the general service: it acts as a lesson in right\ndoing, and, in many ways even, produces good; thus, by setting men\nface to face with the ways and consequences of iniquity, it\ncalls them\nfrom lethargy, stirs the deeper mind and sets the understanding to\nwork; by the contrast of the evil under which wrong-doers labour it\ndisplays the worth of the right. Not that evil exists for this\npurpose; but, as we have indicated, once the wrong has come\nto be, the\nReason of the Kosmos employs it to good ends; and, precisely, the\nproof of the mightiest power is to be able to use the ignoble nobly\nand, given formlessness, to make it the material of unknown forms.\n\nThe principle is that evil by definition is a falling short in\ngood, and good cannot be at full strength in this Sphere where it is\nlodged in the alien: the good here is in something else, in\nsomething distinct from the Good, and this something else\nconstitutes the falling short for it is not good. And this\nis why evil\nis ineradicable: there is, first, the fact that in relation to this\nprinciple of Good, thing will always stand less than thing, and,\nbesides, all things come into being through it and are what they are\nby standing away from it.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. As for the disregard of desert- the good afflicted, the\nunworthy thriving- it is a sound explanation no doubt that\nto the good\nnothing is evil and to the evil nothing can be good: still the\nquestion remains why should what essentially offends our nature fall\nto the good while the wicked enjoy all it demands? How can such an\nallotment be approved?\n\nNo doubt since pleasant conditions add nothing to true happiness\nand the unpleasant do not lessen the evil in the wicked, the\nconditions matter little: as well complain that a good man happens\nto be ugly and a bad man handsome.\n\nStill, under such a dispensation, there would surely be a\npropriety, a reasonableness, a regard to merit which, as things are,\ndo not appear, though this would certainly be in keeping with the\nnoblest Providence: even though external conditions do not affect a\nman's hold upon good or evil, none the less it would seem utterly\nunfitting that the bad should be the masters, be sovereign in the\nstate, while honourable men are slaves: a wicked ruler may commit\nthe most lawless acts; and in war the worst men have a free hand and\nperpetrate every kind of crime against their prisoners.\n\nWe are forced to ask how such things can be, under a Providence.\nCertainly a maker must consider his work as a whole, but\nnone the less\nhe should see to the due ordering of all the parts, especially when\nthese parts have Soul, that is, are Living and Reasoning Beings: the\nProvidence must reach to all the details; its functioning\nmust consist\nin neglecting no point.\n\nHolding, therefore, as we do, despite all, that the Universe\nlies under an Intellectual Principle whose power has touched every\nexistent, we cannot be absolved from the attempt to show in what way\nthe detail of this sphere is just.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. A preliminary observation: in looking for excellence in this\nthing of mixture, the Kosmos, we cannot require all that is\nimplied in\nthe excellence of the unmingled; it is folly to ask for Firsts in\nthe Secondary, and since this Universe contains body, we must allow\nfor some bodily influence upon the total and be thankful if the\nmingled existent lack nothing of what its nature allowed it\nto receive\nfrom the Divine Reason.\n\nThus, supposing we were enquiring for the finest type of\nthe human\nbeing as known here, we would certainly not demand that he prove\nidentical with Man as in the Divine Intellect; we would think it\nenough in the Creator to have so brought this thing of flesh\nand nerve\nand bone under Reason as to give grace to these corporeal\nelements and\nto have made it possible for Reason to have contact with Matter.\n\nOur progress towards the object of our investigation must begin\nfrom this principle of gradation which will open to us the wonder of\nthe Providence and of the power by which our universe holds\nits being.\n\nWe begin with evil acts entirely dependent upon the Souls which\nperpetrate them- the harm, for example, which perverted Souls do to\nthe good and to each other. Unless the foreplanning power alone is\nto be charged with the vice in such Souls, we have no ground of\naccusation, no claim to redress: the blame lies on the Soul\nexercising\nits choice. Even a Soul, we have seen, must have its individual\nmovement; it is not abstract Spirit; the first step towards animal\nlife has been taken and the conduct will naturally be in keeping\nwith that character.\n\nIt is not because the world existed that Souls are here: before\nthe world was, they had it in them to be of the world, to concern\nthemselves with it, to presuppose it, to administer it: it was in\ntheir nature to produce it- by whatever method, whether by giving\nforth some emanation while they themselves remained above, or by an\nactual descent, or in both ways together, some presiding from above,\nothers descending; some for we are not at the moment concerned about\nthe mode of creation but are simply urging that, however the\nworld was\nproduced, no blame falls on Providence for what exists within it.\n\nThere remains the other phase of the question- the\ndistribution of\nevil to the opposite classes of men: the good go bare while\nthe wicked\nare rich: all that human need demands, the least deserving have in\nabundance; it is they that rule; peoples and states are at their\ndisposal. Would not all this imply that the divine power does not\nreach to earth?\n\nThat it does is sufficiently established by the fact that Reason\nrules in the lower things: animals and plants have their share in\nReason, Soul and Life.\n\nPerhaps, then, it reaches to earth but is not master over all?\n\nWe answer that the universe is one living organism: as well\nmaintain that while human head and face are the work of nature and\nof the ruling reason-principle, the rest of the frame is due to\nother agencies- accident or sheer necessity- and owes its\ninferiority to this origin, or to the incompetence of unaided\nNature. And even granting that those less noble members are not in\nthemselves admirable it would still be neither pious nor\neven reverent\nto censure the entire structure.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. Thus we come to our enquiry as to the degree of excellence\nfound in things of this Sphere, and how far they belong to an\nordered system or in what degree they are, at least, not evil.\n\nNow in every living being the upper parts- head, face- are the\nmost beautiful, the mid and lower members inferior. In the Universe\nthe middle and lower members are human beings; above them,\nthe Heavens\nand the Gods that dwell there; these Gods with the entire circling\nexpanse of the heavens constitute the greater part of the Kosmos:\nthe earth is but a central point, and may be considered as simply\none among the stars. Yet human wrong-doing is made a matter\nof wonder;\nwe are evidently asked to take humanity as the choice member of the\nUniverse, nothing wiser existent!\n\nBut humanity, in reality, is poised midway between gods and\nbeasts, and inclines now to the one order, now to the other; some\nmen grow like to the divine, others to the brute, the greater number\nstand neutral. But those that are corrupted to the point of\napproximating to irrational animals and wild beasts pull the\nmid-folk about and inflict wrong upon them; the victims are no doubt\nbetter than the wrongdoers, but are at the mercy of their\ninferiors in\nthe field in which they themselves are inferior, where, that is,\nthey cannot be classed among the good since they have not trained\nthemselves in self-defence.\n\nA gang of lads, morally neglected, and in that respect\ninferior to\nthe intermediate class, but in good physical training, attack and\nthrow another set, trained neither physically nor morally, and make\noff with their food and their dainty clothes. What more is called\nfor than a laugh?\n\nAnd surely even the lawgiver would be right in allowing\nthe second\ngroup to suffer this treatment, the penalty of their sloth and\nself-indulgence: the gymnasium lies there before them, and they, in\nlaziness and luxury and listlessness, have allowed themselves to\nfall like fat-loaded sheep, a prey to the wolves.\n\nBut the evil-doers also have their punishment: first they pay in\nthat very wolfishness, in the disaster to their human quality: and\nnext there is laid up for them the due of their Kind: living\nill here,\nthey will not get off by death; on every precedent through all the\nline there waits its sequent, reasonable and natural- worse to the\nbad, better to the good.\n\nThis at once brings us outside the gymnasium with its fun for\nboys; they must grow up, both kinds, amid their childishness and\nboth one day stand girt and armed. Then there is a finer spectacle\nthan is ever seen by those that train in the ring. But at this stage\nsome have not armed themselves- and the duly armed win the day.\n\nNot even a God would have the right to deal a blow for the\nunwarlike: the law decrees that to come safe out of battle is for\nfighting men, not for those that pray. The harvest comes home not\nfor praying but for tilling; healthy days are not for those that\nneglect their health: we have no right to complain of the ignoble\ngetting the richer harvest if they are the only workers in\nthe fields,\nor the best.\n\nAgain: it is childish, while we carry on all the affairs of our\nlife to our own taste and not as the Gods would have us, to expect\nthem to keep all well for us in spite of a life that is lived\nwithout regard to the conditions which the Gods have prescribed for\nour well-being. Yet death would be better for us than to go on\nliving lives condemned by the laws of the Universe. If\nthings took the\ncontrary course, if all the modes of folly and wickedness brought no\ntrouble in life- then indeed we might complain of the indifference\nof a Providence leaving the victory to evil.\n\nBad men rule by the feebleness of the ruled: and this is\njust; the\ntriumph of weaklings would not be just.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. It would not be just, because Providence cannot be a\nsomething reducing us to nothingness: to think of Providence as\neverything, with no other thing in existence, is to annihilate the\nUniverse; such a providence could have no field of action; nothing\nwould exist except the Divine. As things are, the Divine, of course,\nexists, but has reached forth to something other- not to reduce that\nto nothingness but to preside over it; thus in the case of Man, for\ninstance, the Divine presides as the Providence, preserving the\ncharacter of human nature, that is the character of a being under\nthe providential law, which, again, implies subjection to what that\nlaw may enjoin.\n\nAnd that law enjoins that those who have made themselves good\nshall know the best of life, here and later, the bad the reverse.\nBut the law does not warrant the wicked in expecting that their\nprayers should bring others to sacrifice themselves for their sakes;\nor that the gods should lay aside the divine life in order to direct\ntheir daily concerns; or that good men, who have chosen a path\nnobler than all earthly rule, should become their rulers.\nThe perverse\nhave never made a single effort to bring the good into authority,\nnor do they take any steps to improve themselves; they are all spite\nagainst anyone that becomes good of his own motion, though\nif good men\nwere placed in authority the total of goodness would be increased.\n\nIn sum: Man has come into existence, a living being but not a\nmember of the noblest order; he occupies by choice an intermediate\nrank; still, in that place in which he exists, Providence does not\nallow him to be reduced to nothing; on the contrary he is ever being\nled upwards by all those varied devices which the Divine employs in\nits labour to increase the dominance of moral value. The human race,\ntherefore, is not deprived by Providence of its rational being; it\nretains its share, though necessarily limited, in wisdom,\nintelligence, executive power and right doing, the right doing, at\nleast, of individuals to each other- and even in wronging others\npeople think they are doing right and only paying what is due.\n\nMan is, therefore, a noble creation, as perfect as the scheme\nallows; a part, no doubt, in the fabric of the All, he yet\nholds a lot\nhigher than that of all the other living things of earth.\n\nNow, no one of any intelligence complains of these others, man's\ninferiors, which serve to the adornment of the world; it would be\nfeeble indeed to complain of animals biting man, as if we\nwere to pass\nour days asleep. No: the animal, too, exists of necessity, and is\nserviceable in many ways, some obvious and many progressively\ndiscovered- so that not one lives without profit to itself\nand even to\nhumanity. It is ridiculous, also, to complain that many of them are\ndangerous- there are dangerous men abroad as well- and if they\ndistrust us, and in their distrust attack, is that anything to\nwonder at?\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. But: if the evil in men is involuntary, if their own will\nhas not made them what they are, how can we either blame wrong-doers\nor even reproach their victims with suffering through their\nown fault?\n\nIf there is a Necessity, bringing about human wickedness\neither by\nforce of the celestial movement or by a rigorous sequence set up by\nthe First Cause, is not the evil a thin rooted in Nature? And if\nthus the Reason-Principle of the universe is the creator of evil,\nsurely all is injustice?\n\nNo: Men are no doubt involuntary sinners in the sense\nthat they do\nnot actually desire to sin; but this does not alter the fact that\nwrongdoers, of their own choice, are, themselves, the agents; it is\nbecause they themselves act that the sin is in their own; if\nthey were\nnot agents they could not sin.\n\nThe Necessity [held to underlie human wickedness] is not an\nouter force [actually compelling the individual], but exists only in\nthe sense of a universal relationship.\n\nNor is the force of the celestial Movement such as to leave us\npowerless: if the universe were something outside and apart\nfrom us it\nwould stand as its makers willed so that, once the gods had\ndone their\npart, no man, however impious, could introduce anything contrary to\ntheir intention. But, as things are, efficient act does come\nfrom men:\ngiven the starting Principle, the secondary line, no doubt, is\ninevitably completed; but each and every principle\ncontributes towards\nthe sequence. Now Men are Principles, or, at least, they are moved\nby their characteristic nature towards all that is good, and that\nnature is a Principle, a freely acting cause.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. Are we, then, to conclude that particular things are\ndetermined by Necessities rooted in Nature and by the sequence of\ncauses, and that everything is as good as anything can be?\n\nNo: the Reason-Principle is the sovereign, making all: it wills\nthings as they are and, in its reasonable act, it produces even what\nwe know as evil: it cannot desire all to be good: an artist would\nnot make an animal all eyes; and in the same way, the\nReason-Principle\nwould not make all divine; it makes Gods but also celestial spirits,\nthe intermediate order, then men, then the animals; all is graded\nsuccession, and this in no spirit of grudging but in the\nexpression of\na Reason teeming with intellectual variety.\n\nWe are like people ignorant of painting who complain that the\ncolours are not beautiful everywhere in the picture: but the Artist\nhas laid on the appropriate tint to every spot. Or we are censuring\na drama because the persons are not all heroes but include a servant\nand a rustic and some scurrilous clown; yet take away the low\ncharacters and the power of the drama is gone; these are part and\nparcel of it.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. Suppose this Universe were the direct creation of the\nReason-Principle applying itself, quite unchanged, to Matter,\nretaining, that is, the hostility to partition which it derives from\nits Prior, the Intellectual Principle- then, this its product, so\nproduced, would be of supreme and unparalleled excellence. But the\nReason-Principle could not be a thing of entire identity or even of\nclosely compact diversity; and the mode in which it is here\nmanifested\nis no matter of censure since its function is to be all things, each\nsingle thing in some distinctive way.\n\nBut has it not, besides itself entering Matter, brought other\nbeings down? Has it not for example brought Souls into Matter and,\nin adapting them to its creation, twisted them against their own\nnature and been the ruin of many of them? And can this be right?\n\nThe answer is that the Souls are, in a fair sense,\nmembers of this\nReason-Principle and that it has not adapted them to the creation by\nperverting them, but has set them in the place here to which their\nquality entitles them.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. And we must not despise the familiar observation\nthat there is\nsomething more to be considered than the present. There are the\nperiods of the past and, again, those in the future; and these have\neverything to do with fixing worth of place.\n\nThus a man, once a ruler, will be made a slave because he abused\nhis power and because the fall is to his future good. Those that\nhave money will be made poor- and to the good poverty is no\nhindrance.\nThose that have unjustly killed, are killed in turn, unjustly as\nregards the murderer but justly as regards the victim, and those\nthat are to suffer are thrown into the path of those that administer\nthe merited treatment.\n\nIt is not an accident that makes a man a slave; no one is a\nprisoner by chance; every bodily outrage has its due cause. The man\nonce did what he now suffers. A man that murders his mother will\nbecome a woman and be murdered by a son; a man that wrongs a woman\nwill become a woman, to be wronged.\n\nHence arises that awesome word \"Adrasteia\" [the Inevadable\nRetribution]; for in very truth this ordinance is an Adrasteia,\njustice itself and a wonderful wisdom.\n\nWe cannot but recognize from what we observe in this\nuniverse that\nsome such principle of order prevails throughout the entire of\nexistence- the minutest of things a tributary to the vast total; the\nmarvellous art shown not merely in the mightiest works and sublimest\nmembers of the All, but even amid such littleness as one would think\nProvidence must disdain: the varied workmanship of wonder in any and\nevery animal form; the world of vegetation, too; the grace of fruits\nand even of leaves, the lavishness, the delicacy, the diversity of\nexquisite bloom; and all this not issuing once, and then to die out,\nbut made ever and ever anew as the Transcendent Beings move\nvariously over this earth.\n\nIn all the changing, there is no change by chance: there is no\ntaking of new forms but to desirable ends and in ways worthy\nof Divine\nPowers. All that is Divine executes the Act of its quality; its\nquality is the expression of its essential Being: and this essential\nBeing in the Divine is the Being whose activities produce as\none thing\nthe desirable and the just- for if the good and the just are not\nproduced there, where, then, have they their being?\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. The ordinance of the Kosmos, then, is in keeping with the\nIntellectual Principle. True, no reasoning went to its creation, but\nit so stands that the keenest reasoning must wonder- since no\nreasoning could be able to make it otherwise- at the spectacle\nbefore it, a product which, even in the Kinds of the partial and\nparticular Sphere, displays the Divine Intelligence to a degree in\nwhich no arranging by reason could express it. Every one of the\nceaselessly recurrent types of being manifests a creating\nReason-Principle above all censure. No fault is to be found unless\non the assumption that everything ought to come into being with all\nthe perfection of those that have never known such a coming, the\nEternals. In that case, things of the Intellectual realm and\nthings of\nthe realm of sense must remain one unbroken identity for ever.\n\nIn this demand for more good than exists, there is implied a\nfailure to recognize that the form allotted to each entity is\nsufficient in itself; it is like complaining because one kind of\nanimal lacks horns. We ought to understand both that the\nReason-Principle must extend to every possible existent and, at the\nsame time, that every greater must include lesser things, that to\nevery whole belong its parts, and that all cannot be equality unless\nall part is to be absent.\n\nThis is why in the Over-World each entity is all, while here,\nbelow, the single thing is not all [is not the Universe but\na \"Self\"].\nThus too, a man, an individual, in so far as he is a part, is not\nHumanity complete: but wheresoever there is associated with the\nparts something that is no part [but a Divine, an\nIntellectual Being],\nthis makes a whole of that in which it dwells. Man, man as partial\nthing, cannot be required to have attained to the very summit of\ngoodness: if he had, he would have ceased to be of the partial\norder. Not that there is any grudging in the whole towards the part\nthat grows in goodness and dignity; such an increase in value is a\ngain to the beauty of the whole; the lesser grows by being made over\nin the likeness of the greater, by being admitted, as it were, to\nsomething of that greatness, by sharing in that rank, and thus even\nfrom this place of man, from man's own self, something gleams forth,\nas the stars shine in the divine firmament, so that all appears one\ngreat and lovely figure- living or wrought in the furnaces of\ncraftsmanship- with stars radiant not only in the ears and\non the brow\nbut on the breasts too, and wherever else they may be displayed in\nbeauty.\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. These considerations apply very well to things considered as\nstanding alone: but there is a stumbling-block, a new\nproblem, when we\nthink of all these forms, permanent and ceaselessly produced, in\nmutual relationship.\n\nThe animals devour each other: men attack each other: all is war\nwithout rest, without truce: this gives new force to the question\nhow Reason can be author of the plan and how all can be declared\nwell done.\n\nThis new difficulty is not met by the former answer; that all\nstands as well as the nature of things allows; that the blame for\ntheir condition falls on Matter dragging them down; that, given the\nplan as we know it, evil cannot be eliminated and should not be;\nthat the Matter making its presence felt is still not supreme but\nremains an element taken in from outside to contribute to a definite\ntotal, or rather to be itself brought to order by Reason.\n\nThe Divine Reason is the beginning and the end; all that comes\ninto being must be rational and fall at its coming into an ordered\nscheme reasonable at every point. Where, then, is the necessity of\nthis bandit war of man and beast?\n\nThis devouring of Kind by Kind is necessary as the means to the\ntransmutation of living things which could not keep form for\never even\nthough no other killed them: what grievance is it that when they\nmust go their despatch is so planned as to be serviceable to others?\n\nStill more, what does it matter when they are devoured only to\nreturn in some new form? It comes to no more than the murder\nof one of\nthe personages in a play; the actor alters his make-up and\nenters in a\nnew role. The actor, of course, was not really killed; but\nif dying is\nbut changing a body as the actor changes a costume, or even an exit\nfrom the body like the exit of the actor from the boards when he has\nno more to say or do, what is there so very dreadful in this\ntransformation of living beings one into another?\n\nSurely it is much better so than if they had never existed: that\nway would mean the bleak quenching of life, precluded from passing\noutside itself; as the plan holds, life is poured copiously\nthroughout\na Universe, engendering the universal things and weaving variety\ninto their being, never at rest from producing an endless sequence\nof comeliness and shapeliness, a living pastime.\n\nMen directing their weapons against each other- under doom of\ndeath yet neatly lined up to fight as in the pyrrhic sword-dances of\ntheir sport- this is enough to tell us that all human intentions are\nbut play, that death is nothing terrible, that to die in a\nwar or in a\nfight is but to taste a little beforehand what old age has in store,\nto go away earlier and come back the sooner. So for misfortunes that\nmay accompany life, the loss of property, for instance; the\nloser will\nsee that there was a time when it was not his, that its possession\nis but a mock boon to the robbers, who will in their turn lose it to\nothers, and even that to retain property is a greater loss than to\nforfeit it.\n\nMurders, death in all its guises, the reduction and sacking of\ncities, all must be to us just such a spectacle as the\nchanging scenes\nof a play; all is but the varied incident of a plot, costume on and\noff, acted grief and lament. For on earth, in all the succession of\nlife, it is not the Soul within but the Shadow outside of the\nauthentic man, that grieves and complains and acts out the plot on\nthis world stage which men have dotted with stages of their own\nconstructing. All this is the doing of man knowing no more than to\nlive the lower and outer life, and never perceiving that, in his\nweeping and in his graver doings alike, he is but at play; to handle\naustere matters austerely is reserved for the thoughtful: the other\nkind of man is himself a futility. Those incapable of\nthinking gravely\nread gravity into frivolities which correspond to their own\nfrivolous Nature. Anyone that joins in their trifling and so comes\nto look on life with their eyes must understand that by lending\nhimself to such idleness he has laid aside his own character. If\nSocrates himself takes part in the trifling, he trifles in the outer\nSocrates.\n\nWe must remember, too, that we cannot take tears and laments as\nproof that anything is wrong; children cry and whimper where there\nis nothing amiss.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. But if all this is true, what room is left for evil?\nWhere are\nwe to place wrong-doing and sin?\n\nHow explain that in a world organized in good, the efficient\nagents [human beings] behave unjustly, commit sin? And how comes\nmisery if neither sin nor injustice exists?\n\nAgain, if all our action is determined by a natural process, how\ncan the distinction be maintained between behaviour in\naccordance with\nnature and behaviour in conflict with it?\n\nAnd what becomes of blasphemy against the divine? The blasphemer\nis made what he is: a dramatist has written a part insulting and\nmaligning himself and given it to an actor to play.\n\nThese considerations oblige us to state the Logos [the\nReason-Principle of the Universe] once again, and more\nclearly, and to\njustify its nature.\n\nThis Reason-Principle, then- let us dare the definition in the\nhope of conveying the truth- this Logos is not the Intellectual\nPrinciple unmingled, not the Absolute Divine Intellect; nor does it\ndescend from the pure Soul alone; it is a dependent of that Soul\nwhile, in a sense, it is a radiation from both those divine\nHypostases; the Intellectual Principle and the Soul- the Soul as\nconditioned by the Intellectual Principle engender this\nLogos which is\na Life holding restfully a certain measure of Reason.\n\nNow all life, even the least valuable, is an activity, and not a\nblind activity like that of flame; even where there is not sensation\nthe activity of life is no mere haphazard play of Movement:\nany object\nin which life is present, and object which participates in\nLife, is at\nonce enreasoned in the sense that the activity peculiar to life is\nformative, shaping as it moves.\n\nLife, then, aims at pattern as does the pantomimic\ndancer with his\nset movements; the mime, in himself, represents life, and, besides,\nhis movements proceed in obedience to a pattern designed to\nsymbolize life.\n\nThus far to give us some idea of the nature of Life in general.\n\nBut this Reason-Principle which emanates from the complete\nunity, divine Mind, and the complete unity Life [= Soul]- is\nneither a\nuniate complete Life nor a uniate complete divine Mind, nor does it\ngive itself whole and all-including to its subject. [By an imperfect\ncommunication] it sets up a conflict of part against part:\nit produces\nimperfect things and so engenders and maintains war and attack, and\nthus its unity can be that only of a sum-total not of a thing\nundivided. At war with itself in the parts which it now exhibits, it\nhas the unity, or harmony, of a drama torn with struggle. The drama,\nof course, brings the conflicting elements to one final harmony,\nweaving the entire story of the clashing characters into one thing;\nwhile in the Logos the conflict of the divergent elements\nrises within\nthe one element, the Reason-Principle: the comparison therefore is\nrather with a harmony emerging directly from the conflicting\nelements themselves, and the question becomes what\nintroduces clashing\nelements among these Reason-Principles.\n\nNow in the case of music, tones high and low are the product of\nReason-Principles which, by the fact that they are Principles of\nharmony, meet in the unit of Harmony, the absolute Harmony, a more\ncomprehensive Principle, greater than they and including them as its\nparts. Similarly in the Universe at large we find contraries- white\nand black, hot and cold, winged and wingless, footed and footless,\nreasoning and unreasoning- but all these elements are members of one\nliving body, their sum-total; the Universe is a\nself-accordant entity,\nits members everywhere clashing but the total being the\nmanifestation of a Reason-Principle. That one Reason-Principle,\nthen, must be the unification of conflicting Reason-Principles whose\nvery opposition is the support of its coherence and, almost, of its\nBeing.\n\nAnd indeed, if it were not multiple, it could not be a Universal\nPrinciple, it could not even be at all a Reason-Principle;\nin the fact\nof its being a Reason-Principle is contained the fact of interior\ndifference. Now the maximum of difference is contrariety; admitting\nthat this differentiation exists and creates, it will create\ndifference in the greatest and not in the least degree; in other\nwords, the Reason-Principle, bringing about differentiation to the\nuttermost degree, will of necessity create contrarieties: it will be\ncomplete only by producing itself not in merely diverse things but\nin contrary things.\n\n\n## Section 17\n\n\n##### Section 17\n\n17. The nature of the Reason-Principle is adequately expressed\nin its Act and, therefore, the wider its extension the\nnearer will its\nproductions approach to full contrariety: hence the world of sense\nis less a unity than is its Reason-Principle; it contains a wider\nmultiplicity and contrariety: its partial members will, therefore,\nbe urged by a closer intention towards fullness of life, a warmer\ndesire for unification.\n\nBut desire often destroys the desired; it seeks its own\ngood, and,\nif the desired object is perishable, the ruin follows: and\nthe partial\nthing straining towards its completing principle draws towards\nitself all it possibly can.\n\nThus, with the good we have the bad: we have the opposed\nmovements\nof a dancer guided by one artistic plan; we recognize in his\nsteps the\ngood as against the bad, and see that in the opposition lies\nthe merit\nof the design.\n\nBut, thus, the wicked disappear?\n\nNo: their wickedness remains; simply, their role is not of their\nown planning.\n\nBut, surely, this excuses them?\n\nNo; excuse lies with the Reason-Principle- and the\nReason-Principle does not excuse them.\n\nNo doubt all are members of this Principle but one is a good\nman, another is bad- the larger class, this- and it goes as\nin a play;\nthe poet while he gives each actor a part is also using them as they\nare in their own persons: he does not himself rank the men as\nleading actor, second, third; he simply gives suitable words to\neach, and by that assignment fixes each man's standing.\n\nThus, every man has his place, a place that fits the good man, a\nplace that fits the bad: each within the two orders of them makes\nhis way, naturally, reasonably, to the place, good or bad, that\nsuits him, and takes the position he has made his own. There he\ntalks and acts, in blasphemy and crime or in all goodness: for the\nactors bring to this play what they were before it was ever staged.\n\nIn the dramas of human art, the poet provides the words but the\nactors add their own quality, good or bad- for they have more to do\nthan merely repeat the author's words- in the truer drama which\ndramatic genius imitates in its degree, the Soul displays itself in\na part assigned by the creator of the piece.\n\nAs the actors of our stages get their masks and their costume,\nrobes of state or rags, so a Soul is allotted its fortunes,\nand not at\nhaphazard but always under a Reason: it adapts itself to the\nfortunes assigned to it, attunes itself, ranges itself rightly to\nthe drama, to the whole Principle of the piece: then it\nspeaks out its\nbusiness, exhibiting at the same time all that a Soul can express of\nits own quality, as a singer in a song. A voice, a bearing,\nnaturally fine or vulgar, may increase the charm of a piece; on the\nother hand, an actor with his ugly voice may make a sorry exhibition\nof himself, yet the drama stands as good a work as ever: the\ndramatist, taking the action which a sound criticism suggests,\ndisgraces one, taking his part from him, with perfect\njustice: another\nman he promotes to more serious roles or to any more\nimportant play he\nmay have, while the first is cast for whatever minor work there may\nbe.\n\nJust so the Soul, entering this drama of the Universe, making\nitself a part of the Play, bringing to its acting its personal\nexcellence or defect, set in a definite place at the entry and\naccepting from the author its entire role- superimposed upon its own\ncharacter and conduct- just so, it receives in the end its\npunishment and reward.\n\nBut these actors, Souls, hold a peculiar dignity: they act in a\nvaster place than any stage: the Author has made them masters of all\nthis world; they have a wide choice of place; they themselves\ndetermine the honour or discredit in which they are agents\nsince their\nplace and part are in keeping with their quality: they therefore fit\ninto the Reason-Principle of the Universe, each adjusted, most\nlegitimately, to the appropriate environment, as every string of the\nlyre is set in the precisely right position, determined by the\nPrinciple directing musical utterance, for the due production of the\ntones within its capacity. All is just and good in the Universe in\nwhich every actor is set in his own quite appropriate place,\nthough it\nbe to utter in the Darkness and in Tartarus the dreadful sounds\nwhose utterance there is well.\n\nThis Universe is good not when the individual is a\nstone, but when\neveryone throws in his own voice towards a total harmony, singing\nout a life- thin, harsh, imperfect, though it be. The Syrinx does\nnot utter merely one pure note; there is a thin obscure sound which\nblends in to make the harmony of Syrinx music: the harmony is made\nup from tones of various grades, all the tones differing, but the\nresultant of all forming one sound.\n\nSimilarly the Reason-Principle entire is One, but it is broken\ninto unequal parts: hence the difference of place found in the\nUniverse, better spots and worse; and hence the inequality of Souls,\nfinding their appropriate surroundings amid this local\ninequality. The\ndiverse places of this sphere, the Souls of unequal grade and unlike\nconduct, are wen exemplified by the distinction of parts in\nthe Syrinx\nor any other instrument: there is local difference, but from every\nposition every string gives forth its own tone, the sound\nappropriate,\nat once, to its particular place and to the entire plan.\n\nWhat is evil in the single Soul will stand a good thing in the\nuniversal system; what in the unit offends nature will serve\nnature in\nthe total event- and still remains the weak and wrong tone it is,\nthough its sounding takes nothing from the worth of the whole, just\nas, in another order of image, the executioner's ugly office does\nnot mar the well-governed state: such an officer is a civic\nnecessity;\nand the corresponding moral type is often serviceable; thus, even as\nthings are, all is well.\n\n\n## Section 18\n\n\n##### Section 18\n\n18. Souls vary in worth; and the difference is due, among other\ncauses, to an almost initial inequality; it is in reason that,\nstanding to the Reason-Principle, as parts, they should be unequal\nby the fact of becoming separate.\n\nWe must also remember that every Soul has its second\ngrade and its\nthird, and that, therefore, its expression may take any one of three\nmain forms. But this point must be dealt with here again: the matter\nrequires all possible elucidation.\n\nWe may perhaps think of actors having the right to add something\nto the poet's words: the drama as it stands is not perfectly filled\nin, and they are to supply where the Author has left blank\nspaces here\nand there; the actors are to be something else as well; they become\nparts of the poet, who on his side has a foreknowledge of the word\nthey will add, and so is able to bind into one story what the actors\nbring in and what is to follow.\n\nFor, in the All, the sequences, including what follows upon\nwickedness, become Reason-Principles, and therefore in right reason.\nThus: from adultery and the violation of prisoners the process of\nnature will produce fine children, to grow, perhaps, into fine men;\nand where wicked violence has destroyed cities, other and nobler\ncities may rise in their place.\n\nBut does not this make it absurd to introduce Souls as\nresponsible\ncauses, some acting for good and some for evil? If we thus exonerate\nthe Reason-Principle from any part in wickedness do we not\nalso cancel\nits credit for the good? Why not simply take the doings of these\nactors for representative parts of the Reason-Principle as the\ndoings of stage-actors are representative parts of the stage-drama?\nWhy not admit that the Reason-Principle itself includes evil\naction as\nmuch as good action, and inspires the precise conduct of all its\nrepresentatives? Would not this be all the more Plausible in that\nthe universal drama is the completer creation and that the\nReason-Principle is the source of all that exists?\n\nBut this raises the question: \"What motive could lead\nthe Logos to\nproduce evil?\"\n\nThe explanation, also, would take away all power in the Universe\nfrom Souls, even those nearest to the divine; they would all be mere\nparts of a Reason-Principle.\n\nAnd, further- unless all Reason-Principles are Souls- why should\nsome be souls and others exclusively Reason-Principles when\nthe All is\nitself a Soul?",
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