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    "slug": "ennead-3",
    "name": "Ennead III — Cosmos, Time, Providence"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 3,
    "slug": "3-on-providence-2",
    "title": "III.3 — On Providence (2)",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 3541,
    "text": "## THIRD TRACTATE\n\n\n#### THIRD TRACTATE.\n\nON PROVIDENCE (2).\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. What is our answer?\n\nAll events and things, good and evil alike, are included\nunder the\nUniversal Reason-Principle of which they are parts- strictly\n\"included\" for this Universal Idea does not engender them but\nencompasses them.\n\nThe Reason-Principles are acts or expressions of a\nUniversal Soul;\nits parts [i.e., events good and evil] are expressions of these\nSoulparts.\n\nThis unity, Soul, has different parts; the Reason-Principles,\ncorrespondingly, will also have their parts, and so, too, will the\nultimates of the system, all that they bring into being.\n\nThe Souls are in harmony with each other and so, too, are their\nacts and effects; but it is harmony in the sense of a resultant\nunity built out of contraries. All things, as they rise from a\nunity, come back to unity by a sheer need of nature; differences\nunfold themselves, contraries are produced, but all is drawn into\none organized system by the unity at the source.\n\nThe principle may be illustrated from the different classes of\nanimal life: there is one genus, horse, though horses among\nthemselves\nfight and bite and show malice and angry envy: so all the others\nwithin the unity of their Kind; and so humanity.\n\nAll these types, again, can be ranged under the one Kind, that\nof living things; objects without life can be thought of under their\nspecific types and then be resumed under the one Kind of the\n\"non-living\"; if we choose to go further yet, living and non-living\nmay be included under the one Kind, \"Beings,\" and, further still,\nunder the Source of Being.\n\nHaving attached all to this source, we turn to move down again\nin continuous division: we see the Unity fissuring, as it reaches\nout into Universality, and yet embracing all in one system so that\nwith all its differentiation it is one multiple living thing- an\norganism in which each member executes the function of its own\nnature while it still has its being in that One Whole; fire burns;\nhorse does horse work; men give, each the appropriate act of the\npeculiar personal quality- and upon the several particular Kinds to\nwhich each belongs follow the acts, and the good or evil of the life.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Circumstances are not sovereign over the good of\nlife, for they\nare themselves moulded by their priors and come in as members of a\nsequence. The Leading-Principle holds all the threads while the\nminor agents, the individuals, serve according to their own\ncapacities, as in a war the generalissimo lays down the plan and his\nsubordinates do their best to its furtherance. The Universe has been\nordered by a Providence that may be compared to a general; he has\nconsidered operations, conditions and such practical needs\nas food and\ndrink, arms and engines of war; all the problem of reconciling these\ncomplex elements has been worked out beforehand so as to make it\nprobable that the final event may be success. The entire scheme\nemerges from the general's mind with a certain plausible promise,\nthough it cannot cover the enemy's operations, and there is no power\nover the disposition of the enemy's forces: but where the mighty\ngeneral is in question whose power extends over all that is, what\ncan pass unordered, what can fail to fit into the plan?\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. For, even though the I is sovereign in choosing, yet by the\nfact of the choice the thing done takes its place in the ordered\ntotal. Your personality does not come from outside into the\nuniversal scheme; you are a part of it, you and your personal\ndisposition.\n\nBut what is the cause of this initial personality?\n\nThis question resolves itself into two: are we to make the\nCreator, if Creator there is, the cause of the moral quality of the\nindividual or does the responsibility lie with the creature?\n\nOr is there, perhaps, no responsibility? After all, none is\ncharged in the case of plants brought into being without the\nperceptive faculties; no one is blamed because animals are not all\nthat men are- which would be like complaining that men are not all\nthat gods are. Reason acquits plant and animal and, their maker; how\ncan it complain because men do not stand above humanity?\n\nIf the reproach simply means that Man might improve by bringing\nfrom his own stock something towards his betterment we must\nallow that\nthe man failing in this is answerable for his own inferiority: but\nif the betterment must come not from within the man but from\nwithout, from his Author, it is folly to ask more than has\nbeen given,\nas foolish in the case of man as in plant and animal.\n\nThe question is not whether a thing is inferior to something\nelse but whether in its own Kind it suffices to its own part;\nuniversal equality there cannot be.\n\nThen the Reason-Principle has measured things out with the set\npurpose of inequality?\n\nCertainly not: the inequality is inevitable by the nature of\nthings: the Reason-Principle of this Universe follows upon a phase\nof the Soul; the Soul itself follows upon an Intellectual Principle,\nand this Intellectual Principle is not one among the things of the\nUniverse but is all things; in all things, there is implied\nvariety of\nthings; where there is variety and not identity there must\nbe primals,\nsecondaries, tertiaries and every grade downward. Forms of\nlife, then,\nthere must be that are not pure Soul but the dwindling of Souls\nenfeebled stage by stage of the process. There is, of course, a Soul\nin the Reason-Principle constituting a living being, but it\nis another\nSoul [a lesser phase], not that [the Supreme Soul] from which the\nReason-Principle itself derives; and this combined vehicle of life\nweakens as it proceeds towards matter, and what it engenders is\nstill more deficient. Consider how far the engendered stands from\nits origin and yet, what a marvel!\n\nIn sum nothing can secure to a thing of process the\nquality of the\nprior order, loftier than all that is product and amenable to no\ncharge in regard to it: the wonder is, only, that it reaches\nand gives\nto the lower at all, and that the traces of its presence should be\nso noble. And if its outgiving is greater than the lower can\nappropriate, the debt is the heavier; all the blame must\nfall upon the\nunreceptive creature, and Providence be the more exalted.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. If man were all of one piece- I mean, if he were nothing more\nthan a made thing, acting and acted upon according to a fixed\nnature- he could be no more subject to reproach and punishment than\nthe mere animals. But as the scheme holds, man is singled out for\ncondemnation when he does evil; and this with justice. For he is no\nmere thing made to rigid plan; his nature contains a Principle apart\nand free.\n\nThis does not, however, stand outside of Providence or of the\nReason of the All; the Over-World cannot be dependent upon the World\nof Sense. The higher shines down upon the lower, and this\nillumination\nis Providence in its highest aspect: The Reason-Principle has two\nphases, one which creates the things of process and another which\nlinks them with the higher beings: these higher beings constitute\nthe over-providence on which depends that lower providence which is\nthe secondary Reason-Principle inseparably united with its\nprimal: the\ntwo- the Major and Minor Providence- acting together produce the\nuniversal woof, the one all-comprehensive Providence.\n\nMen possess, then, a distinctive Principle: but not all men turn\nto account all that is in their Nature; there are men that\nlive by one\nPrinciple and men that live by another or, rather, by several\nothers, the least noble. For all these Principles are present even\nwhen not acting upon the man- though we cannot think of them as\nlying idle; everything performs its function.\n\n\"But,\" it will be said, \"what reason can there be for their not\nacting upon the man once they are present; inaction must mean\nabsence?\"\n\nWe maintain their presence always, nothing void of them.\n\nBut surely not where they exercise no action? If they\nnecessarily reside in all men, surely they must be operative in all-\nthis Principle of free action, especially.\n\nFirst of all, this free Principle is not an absolute\npossession of\nthe animal Kinds and is not even an absolute possession to all men.\n\nSo this Principle is not the only effective force in all men?\n\nThere is no reason why it should not be. There are men in whom\nit alone acts, giving its character to the life while all else is\nbut Necessity [and therefore outside of blame].\n\nFor [in the case of an evil life] whether it is that the\nconstitution of the man is such as to drive him down the troubled\npaths or whether [the fault is mental or spiritual in that] the\ndesires have gained control, we are compelled to attribute the guilt\nto the substratum [something inferior to the highest principle in\nMan]. We would be naturally inclined to say that this substratum\n[the responsible source of evil] must be Matter and not, as our\nargument implies, the Reason-Principle; it would appear that not the\nReason-Principle but Matter were the dominant, crude Matter at the\nextreme and then Matter as shaped in the realized man: but we must\nremember that to this free Principle in man [which is a phase of the\nAll Soul] the Substratum [the direct inferior to be moulded] is [not\nMatter but] the Reason-Principle itself with whatever that produces\nand moulds to its own form, so that neither crude Matter nor Matter\norganized in our human total is sovereign within us.\n\nThe quality now manifested may be probably referred to\nthe conduct\nof a former life; we may suppose that previous actions have made the\nReason-Principle now governing within us inferior in radiance to\nthat which ruled before; the Soul which later will shine out again\nis for the present at a feebler power.\n\nAnd any Reason-Principle may be said to include within itself\nthe Reason-Principle of Matter which therefore it is able to\nelaborate\nto its own purposes, either finding it consonant with itself or\nbestowing upon it the quality which makes it so. The\nReason-Principle of an ox does not occur except in\nconnection with the\nMatter appropriate to the ox-Kind. It must be by such a process that\nthe transmigration, of which we read takes place; the Soul must lose\nits nature, the Reason-Principle be transformed; thus there comes\nthe ox-soul which once was Man.\n\nThe degradation, then, is just.\n\nStill, how did the inferior Principle ever come into being, and\nhow does the higher fall to it?\n\nOnce more- not all things are Firsts; there are Secondaries and\nTertiaries, of a nature inferior to that of their Priors;\nand a slight\ntilt is enough to determine the departure from the straight course.\nFurther, the linking of any one being with any other amounts to a\nblending such as to produce a distinct entity, a compound of the\ntwo; it is not that the greater and prior suffers any diminution of\nits own nature; the lesser and secondary is such from its very\nbeginning; it is in its own nature the lesser thing it\nbecomes, and if\nit suffers the consequences, such suffering is merited: all our\nreasonings on these questions must take account of previous living\nas the source from which the present takes its rise.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. There is, then a Providence, which permeates the Kosmos from\nfirst to last, not everywhere equal, as in a numerical distribution,\nbut proportioned, differing, according to the grades of\nplace- just as\nin some one animal, linked from first to last, each member\nhas its own\nfunction, the nobler organ the higher activity while others\nsuccessively concern the lower degrees of the life, each part acting\nof itself, and experiencing what belongs to its own nature and what\ncomes from its relation with every other. Strike, and what\nis designed\nfor utterance gives forth the appropriate volume of sound while\nother parts take the blow in silence but react in their own especial\nmovement; the total of all the utterance and action and receptivity\nconstitutes what we may call the personal voice, life and history of\nthe living form. The parts, distinct in Kind, have distinct\nfunctions:\nthe feet have their work and the eyes theirs; the\nunderstanding serves\nto one end, the Intellectual Principle to another.\n\nBut all sums to a unity, a comprehensive Providence. From the\ninferior grade downwards is Fate: the upper is Providence alone: for\nin the Intellectual Kosmos all is Reason-Principle or its\nPriors-Divine Mind and unmingled Soul-and immediately upon these\nfollows Providence which rises from Divine Mind, is the\ncontent of the\nUnmingled Soul, and, through this Soul, is communicated to the\nSphere of living things.\n\nThis Reason-Principle comes as a thing of unequal parts, and\ntherefore its creations are unequal, as, for example, the several\nmembers of one Living Being. But after this allotment of rank and\nfunction, all act consonant with the will of the gods keeps the\nsequence and is included under the providential government, for the\nReason-Principle of providence is god-serving.\n\nAll such right-doing, then, is linked to Providence; but\nit is not\ntherefore performed by it: men or other agents, living or lifeless,\nare causes of certain things happening, and any good that may result\nis taken up again by Providence. In the total, then, the right rules\nand what has happened amiss is transformed and corrected. Thus, to\ntake an example from a single body, the Providence of a living\norganism implies its health; let it be gashed or otherwise wounded,\nand that Reason-Principle which governs it sets to work to draw it\ntogether, knit it anew, heal it, and put the affected part to rights.\n\nIn sum, evil belongs to the sequence of things, but it comes\nfrom necessity. It originates in ourselves; it has its causes no\ndoubt, but we are not, therefore, forced to it by Providence: some\nof these causes we adapt to the operation of Providence and of its\nsubordinates, but with others we fail to make the connection; the\nact instead of being ranged under the will of Providence consults\nthe desire of the agent alone or of some other element in the\nUniverse, something which is either itself at variance with\nProvidence\nor has set up some such state of variance in ourselves.\n\nThe one circumstance does not produce the same result wherever\nit acts; the normal operation will be modified from case to case:\nHelen's beauty told very differently on Paris and on Idomeneus;\nbring together two handsome people of loose character and two living\nhonourably and the resulting conduct is very different; a good man\nmeeting a libertine exhibits a distinct phase of his nature and,\nsimilarly, the dissolute answer to the society of their betters.\n\nThe act of the libertine is not done by Providence or in\naccordance with Providence; neither is the action of the good done\nby Providence- it is done by the man- but it is done in accordance\nwith Providence, for it is an act consonant with the\nReason-Principle.\nThus a patient following his treatment is himself an agent and yet\nis acting in accordance with the doctor's method inspired by the art\nconcerned with the causes of health and sickness: what one does\nagainst the laws of health is one's act, but an act conflicting with\nthe Providence of medicine.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. But, if all this be true, how can evil fall within\nthe scope of\nseership? The predictions of the seers are based on\nobservation of the\nUniversal Circuit: how can this indicate the evil with the good?\n\nClearly the reason is that all contraries coalesce. Take, for\nexample, Shape and Matter: the living being [of the lower order] is\na coalescence of these two; so that to be aware of the Shape and the\nReason-Principle is to be aware of the Matter on which the Shape has\nbeen imposed.\n\nThe living-being of the compound order is not present\n[as pure and\nsimple Idea] like the living being of the Intellectual order: in the\ncompound entity, we are aware, at once, of the\nReason-Principle and of\nthe inferior element brought under form. Now the Universe is such a\ncompound living thing: to observe, therefore, its content is to be\naware not less of its lower elements than of the Providence which\noperates within it.\n\nThis Providence reaches to all that comes into being; its scope\ntherefore includes living things with their actions and states, the\ntotal of their history at once overruled by the Reason-Principle and\nyet subject in some degree to Necessity.\n\nThese, then, are presented as mingled both by their\ninitial nature\nand by the continuous process of their existence; and the Seer is\nnot able to make a perfect discrimination setting on the one side\nProvidence with all that happens under Providence and on the other\nside what the substrate communicates to its product. Such\ndiscrimination is not for a man, not for a wise man or a divine man:\none may say it is the prerogative of a god. Not causes but facts lie\nin the Seer's province; his art is the reading of the scriptures of\nNature which tell of the ordered and never condescend to the\ndisorderly; the movement of the Universe utters its testimony to him\nand, before men and things reveal themselves, brings to light what\nseverally and collectively they are.\n\nHere conspires with There and There with Here, elaborating\ntogether the consistency and eternity of a Kosmos and by their\ncorrespondences revealing the sequence of things to the trained\nobserver- for every form of divination turns upon correspondences.\nUniversal interdependence, there could not be, but universal\nresemblance there must. This probably is the meaning of the saying\nthat Correspondences maintain the Universe.\n\nThis is a correspondence of inferior with inferior, of superior\nwith superior, eye with eye, foot with foot, everything with its\nfellow and, in another order, virtue with right action and vice with\nunrighteousness. Admit such correspondence in the All and we have\nthe possibility of prediction. If the one order acts on the\nother, the\nrelation is not that of maker to thing made- the two are\ncoeval- it is\nthe interplay of members of one living being; each in its own place\nand way moves as its own nature demands; to every organ its grade\nand task, and to every grade and task its effective organ.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. And since the higher exists, there must be the lower as well.\nThe Universe is a thing of variety, and how could there be\nan inferior\nwithout a superior or a superior without an inferior? We cannot\ncomplain about the lower in the higher; rather, we must be\ngrateful to\nthe higher for giving something of itself to the lower.\n\nIn a word, those that would like evil driven out from the All\nwould drive out Providence itself.\n\nWhat would Providence have to provide for? Certainly not for\nitself or for the Good: when we speak of a Providence above, we mean\nan act upon something below.\n\nThat which resumes all under a unity is a Principle in which all\nthings exist together and the single thing is All. From this\nPrinciple, which remains internally unmoved, particular things push\nforth as from a single root which never itself emerges. They are a\nbranching into part, into multiplicity, each single outgrowth\nbearing its trace of the common source. Thus, phase by\nphase, there in\nfinally the production into this world; some things close\nstill to the\nroot, others widely separate in the continuous progression until we\nhave, in our metaphor, bough and crest, foliage and fruit. At the\none side all is one point of unbroken rest, on the other is the\nceaseless process, leaf and fruit, all the things of process\ncarrying ever within themselves the Reason-Principles of the Upper\nSphere, and striving to become trees in their own minor order and\nproducing, if at all, only what is in strict gradation from\nthemselves.\n\nAs for the abandoned spaces in what corresponds to the branches\nthese two draw upon the root, from which, despite all their\nvariance, they also derive; and the branches again operate upon\ntheir own furthest extremities: operation is to be traced only from\npoint to next point, but, in the fact, there has been both inflow\nand outgo [of creative or modifying force] at the very root which,\nitself again, has its priors.\n\nThe things that act upon each other are branchings from a\nfar-off beginning and so stand distinct; but they derive initially\nfrom the one source: all interaction is like that of brothers,\nresemblant as drawing life from the same parents.",
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