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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-3",
    "name": "Ennead III — Cosmos, Time, Providence"
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      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 5,
    "slug": "5-on-love",
    "title": "III.5 — On Love",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 5128,
    "text": "## FIFTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### FIFTH TRACTATE.\n\nON LOVE.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. What is Love? A God, a Celestial Spirit, a state of\nmind? Or is\nit, perhaps, sometimes to be thought of as a God or Spirit and\nsometimes merely as an experience? And what is it essentially in\neach of these respects?\n\nThese important questions make it desirable to review prevailing\nopinions on the matter, the philosophical treatment it has received\nand, especially, the theories of the great Plato who has\nmany passages\ndealing with Love, from a point of view entirely his own.\n\nPlato does not treat of it as simply a state observed in\nSouls; he\nalso makes it a Spirit-being so that we read of the birth of Eros,\nunder definite circumstances and by a certain parentage.\n\nNow everyone recognizes that the emotional state for\nwhich we make\nthis \"Love\" responsible rises in souls aspiring to be knit in the\nclosest union with some beautiful object, and that this aspiration\ntakes two forms, that of the good whose devotion is for\nbeauty itself,\nand that other which seeks its consummation in some vile\nact. But this\ngenerally admitted distinction opens a new question: we need a\nphilosophical investigation into the origin of the two phases.\n\nIt is sound, I think, to find the primal source of Love in a\ntendency of the Soul towards pure beauty, in a recognition, in a\nkinship, in an unreasoned consciousness of friendly\nrelation. The vile\nand ugly is in clash, at once, with Nature and with God: Nature\nproduces by looking to the Good, for it looks towards Order-\nwhich has\nits being in the consistent total of the good, while the unordered\nis ugly, a member of the system of evil- and besides Nature itself,\nclearly, springs from the divine realm, from Good and\nBeauty; and when\nanything brings delight and the sense of kinship, its very image\nattracts.\n\nReject this explanation, and no one can tell how the mental\nstate rises and where are its causes: it is the explanation of even\ncopulative love which is the will to beget in beauty; Nature seeks\nto produce the beautiful and therefore by all reason cannot desire\nto procreate in the ugly.\n\nThose that desire earthly procreation are satisfied with the\nbeauty found on earth, the beauty of image and of body; it is\nbecause they are strangers to the Archetype, the source of even the\nattraction they feel towards what is lovely here. There are Souls to\nwhom earthly beauty is a leading to the memory of that in the higher\nrealm and these love the earthly as an image; those that have not\nattained to this memory do not understand what is happening within\nthem, and take the image for the reality. Once there is perfect\nself-control, it is no fault to enjoy the beauty of earth; where\nappreciation degenerates into carnality, there is sin.\n\nPure Love seeks the beauty alone, whether there is\nReminiscence or\nnot; but there are those that feel, also, a desire of such\nimmortality\nas lies within mortal reach; and these are seeking Beauty in their\ndemand for perpetuity, the desire of the eternal; Nature teaches\nthem to sow the seed and to beget in beauty, to sow towards\neternity, but in beauty through their own kinship with the\nbeautiful. And indeed the eternal is of the one stock with the\nbeautiful, the Eternal-Nature is the first shaping of beauty\nand makes\nbeautiful all that rises from it.\n\nThe less the desire for procreation, the greater is the\ncontentment with beauty alone, yet procreation aims at the\nengendering\nof beauty; it is the expression of a lack; the subject is\nconscious of\ninsufficiency and, wishing to produce beauty, feels that the\nway is to\nbeget in a beautiful form. Where the procreative desire is lawless\nor against the purposes of nature, the first inspiration has been\nnatural, but they have diverged from the way, they have slipped and\nfallen, and they grovel; they neither understand whither Love sought\nto lead them nor have they any instinct to production; they have not\nmastered the right use of the images of beauty; they do not know\nwhat the Authentic Beauty is.\n\nThose that love beauty of person without carnal desire love for\nbeauty's sake; those that have- for women, of course- the copulative\nlove, have the further purpose of self-perpetuation: as long as they\nare led by these motives, both are on the right path, though\nthe first\nhave taken the nobler way. But, even in the right, there is the\ndifference that the one set, worshipping the beauty of earth, look\nno further, while the others, those of recollection,\nvenerate also the\nbeauty of the other world while they, still, have no\ncontempt for this\nin which they recognize, as it were, a last outgrowth, an\nattenuation of the higher. These, in sum, are innocent frequenters\nof beauty, not to be confused with the class to whom it becomes an\noccasion of fall into the ugly- for the aspiration towards a good\ndegenerates into an evil often.\n\nSo much for love, the state.\n\nNow we have to consider Love, the God.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. The existence of such a being is no demand of the\nordinary man,\nmerely; it is supported by Theologians and, over and over again, by\nPlato to whom Eros is child of Aphrodite, minister of beautiful\nchildren, inciter of human souls towards the supernal beauty or\nquickener of an already existing impulse thither. All this requires\nphilosophical examination. A cardinal passage is that in the\nSymposium\nwhere we are told Eros was not a child of Aphrodite but born on the\nday of Aphrodite's birth, Penia, Poverty, being the mother,\nand Poros,\nPossession, the father.\n\nThe matter seems to demand some discussion of Aphrodite, since\nin any case Eros is described as being either her son or in some\nassociation with her. Who then is Aphrodite, and in what\nsense is Love\neither her child or born with her or in some way both her child and\nher birth-fellow?\n\nTo us Aphrodite is twofold; there is the heavenly Aphrodite,\ndaughter of Ouranos or Heaven: and there is the other the daughter of\nZeus and Dione, this is the Aphrodite who presides over earthly\nunions; the higher was not born of a mother and has no part in\nmarriages for in Heaven there is no marrying.\n\nThe Heavenly Aphrodite, daughter of Kronos who is no other than\nthe Intellectual Principle- must be the Soul at its divinest:\nunmingled as the immediate emanation of the unmingled; remaining\never Above, as neither desirous nor capable of descending to this\nsphere, never having developed the downward tendency, a divine\nHypostasis essentially aloof, so unreservedly an Authentic\nBeing as to\nhave no part with Matter- and therefore mythically \"the unmothered\"\njustly called not Celestial Spirit but God, as knowing no admixture,\ngathered cleanly within itself.\n\nAny Nature springing directly from the Intellectual\nPrinciple must\nbe itself also a clean thing: it will derive a resistance of its own\nfrom its nearness to the Highest, for all its tendency, no less than\nits fixity, centres upon its author whose power is certainly\nsufficient to maintain it Above.\n\nSoul then could never fall from its sphere; it is closer held to\nthe divine Mind than the very sun could hold the light it gives\nforth to radiate about it, an outpouring from itself held firmly to\nit, still.\n\nBut following upon Kronos- or, if you will, upon Heaven, the\nfather of Kronos- the Soul directs its Act towards him and holds\nclosely to him and in that love brings forth the Eros through whom\nit continues to look towards him. This Act of the Soul has\nproduced an\nHypostasis, a Real-Being; and the mother and this Hypostasis- her\noffspring, noble Love gaze together upon Divine Mind. Love, thus, is\never intent upon that other loveliness, and exists to be the medium\nbetween desire and that object of desire. It is the eye of the\ndesirer; by its power what loves is enabled to see the loved thing.\nBut it is first; before it becomes the vehicle of vision, it\nis itself\nfilled with the sight; it is first, therefore, and not even in the\nsame order- for desire attains to vision only through the efficacy\nof Love, while Love, in its own Act, harvests the spectacle of\nbeauty playing immediately above it.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. That Love is a Hypostasis [a \"Person\"] a Real-Being\nsprung from\na Real-Being- lower than the parent but authentically existent- is\nbeyond doubt.\n\nFor the parent-Soul was a Real-Being sprung directly from the\nAct of the Hypostasis that ranks before it: it had life; it was a\nconstituent in the Real-Being of all that authentically is- in the\nReal-Being which looks, rapt, towards the very Highest. That was the\nfirst object of its vision; it looked towards it as towards its\ngood, and it rejoiced in the looking; and the quality of what it saw\nwas such that the contemplation could not be void of effect;\nin virtue\nof that rapture, of its position in regard to its object, of the\nintensity of its gaze, the Soul conceived and brought forth an\noffspring worthy of itself and of the vision. Thus; there is a\nstrenuous activity of contemplation in the Soul; there is an\nemanation\ntowards it from the object contemplated; and Eros is born, the Love\nwhich is an eye filled with its vision, a seeing that bears its\nimage with it; Eros taking its name, probably, from the fact that\nits essential being is due to this horasis, this seeing. Of course\nLove, as an emotion, will take its name from Love, the\nPerson, since a\nReal-Being cannot but be prior to what lacks this reality. The\nmental state will be designated as Love, like the Hypostasis, though\nit is no more than a particular act directed towards a particular\nobject; but it must not be confused with the Absolute Love,\nthe Divine\nBeing. The Eros that belongs to the supernal Soul must be of one\ntemper with it; it must itself look aloft as being of the\nhousehold of\nthat Soul, dependent upon that Soul, its very offspring; and\ntherefore\ncaring for nothing but the contemplation of the Gods.\n\nOnce that Soul which is the primal source of light to the\nheavens is recognized as an Hypostasis standing distinct and aloof\nit must be admitted that Love too is distinct and aloof though not,\nperhaps, so loftily celestial a being as the Soul. Our own best we\nconceive as inside ourselves and yet something apart; so, we must\nthink of this Love- as essentially resident where the unmingling\nSoul inhabits.\n\nBut besides this purest Soul, there must be also a Soul of the\nAll: at once there is another Love- the eye with which this second\nSoul looks upwards- like the supernal Eros engendered by force of\ndesire. This Aphrodite, the secondary Soul, is of this Universe- not\nSoul unmingled alone, not Soul, the Absolute, giving birth,\ntherefore,\nto the Love concerned with the universal life; no, this is the Love\npresiding over marriages; but it, also, has its touch of the upward\ndesire; and, in the degree of that striving, it stirs and leads\nupwards the Souls of the young and every Soul with which it is\nincorporated in so far as there is a natural tendency to remembrance\nof the divine. For every Soul is striving towards The Good, even the\nmingling Soul and that of particular beings, for each holds directly\nfrom the divine Soul, and is its offspring.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. Does each individual Soul, then, contain within itself such a\nLove in essence and substantial reality?\n\nSince not only the pure All-Soul but also that of the Universe\ncontain such a Love, it would be difficult to explain why\nour personal\nSoul should not. It must be so, even, with all that has life.\n\nThis indwelling love is no other than the Spirit which, as we\nare told, walks with every being, the affection dominant in each\nseveral nature. It implants the characteristic desire; the\nparticular Soul, strained towards its own natural objects, brings\nforth its own Eros, the guiding spirit realizing its worth and the\nquality of its Being.\n\nAs the All-Soul contains the Universal Love, so must the single\nSoul be allowed its own single Love: and as closely as the\nsingle Soul\nholds to the All-Soul, never cut off but embraced within it, the two\ntogether constituting one principle of life, so the single separate\nLove holds to the All-Love. Similarly, the individual love keeps\nwith the individual Soul as that other, the great Love, goes with\nthe All-Soul; and the Love within the All permeates it throughout so\nthat the one Love becomes many, showing itself where it\nchooses at any\nmoment of the Universe, taking definite shape in these its partial\nphases and revealing itself at its will.\n\nIn the same way we must conceive many Aphrodites in the All,\nSpirits entering it together with Love, all emanating from an\nAphrodite of the All, a train of particular Aphrodites dependent\nupon the first, and each with the particular Love in attendance:\nthis multiplicity cannot be denied, if Soul be the mother of\nLove, and\nAphrodite mean Soul, and Love be an act of a Soul seeking good.\n\nThis Love, then, leader of particular Souls to The Good, is\ntwofold: the Love in the loftier Soul would be a god ever linking\nthe Soul to the divine; the Love in the mingling Soul will be a\ncelestial spirit.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. But what is the Nature of this Spirit- of the Supernals in\ngeneral?\n\nThe Spirit-Kind is treated in the Symposium where, with\nmuch about\nthe others, we learn of Eros- Love- born to Penia- Poverty-\nand Poros-\nPossession- who is son of Metis- Resource- at Aphrodite's\nbirth feast.\n\nBut to take Plato as meaning, by Eros, this Universe- and not\nsimply the Love native within it- involves much that is\nself-contradictory.\n\nFor one thing, the universe is described as a blissful god and\nas self-sufficing, while this \"Love\" is confessedly neither\ndivine nor\nself-sufficing but in ceaseless need.\n\nAgain, this Kosmos is a compound of body and soul; but Aphrodite\nto Plato is the Soul itself, therefore Aphrodite would\nnecessarily- he\na constituent part of Eros, dominant member! A man is the man's\nSoul, if the world is, similarly, the world's Soul, then Aphrodite,\nthe Soul, is identical with Love, the Kosmos! And why should this\none spirit, Love, be the Universe to the exclusion of all the\nothers, which certainly are sprung from the same Essential-Being?\nOur only escape would be to make the Kosmos a complex of Supernals.\n\nLove, again, is called the Dispenser of beautiful children: does\nthis apply to the Universe? Love is represented as homeless, bedless\nand barefooted: would not that be a shabby description of the Kosmos\nand quite out of the truth?\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. What then, in sum, is to be thought of Love and of his\n\"birth\" as we are told of it?\n\nClearly we have to establish the significance, here, of Poverty\nand Possession, and show in what way the parentage is appropriate:\nwe have also to bring these two into line with the other Supernals\nsince one spirit nature, one spirit essence, must characterize all\nunless they are to have merely a name in common.\n\nWe must, therefore, lay down the grounds on which we distinguish\nthe Gods from the Celestials- that is, when we emphasize the\nseparate nature of the two orders and are not, as often in practice,\nincluding these Spirits under the common name of Gods.\n\nIt is our teaching and conviction that the Gods are immune to\nall passion while we attribute experience and emotion to the\nCelestials which, though eternal Beings and directly next to\nthe Gods,\nare already a step towards ourselves and stand between the divine\nand the human.\n\nBut by what process was the immunity lost? What in their nature\nled them downwards to the inferior?\n\nAnd other questions present themselves.\n\nDoes the Intellectual Realm include no member of this spirit\norder, not even one? And does the Kosmos contain only these spirits,\nGod being confined to the Intellectual? Or are there Gods in the\nsub-celestial too, the Kosmos itself being a God, the third, as is\ncommonly said, and the Powers down to the Moon being all\nGods as well?\n\nIt is best not to use the word \"Celestial\" of any Being of that\nRealm; the word \"God\" may be applied to the Essential-Celestial- the\nautodaimon- and even to the Visible Powers of the Universe of Sense\ndown to the Moon; Gods, these too, visible, secondary, sequent upon\nthe Gods of the Intellectual Realm, consonant with Them, held about\nThem, as the radiance about the star.\n\nWhat, then, are these spirits?\n\nA Celestial is the representative generated by each Soul when it\nenters the Kosmos.\n\nAnd why, by a Soul entering the Kosmos?\n\nBecause Soul pure of the Kosmos generates not a Celestial Spirit\nbut a God; hence it is that we have spoken of Love, offspring of\nAphrodite the Pure Soul, as a God.\n\nBut, first what prevents every one of the Celestials\nfrom being an\nEros, a Love? And why are they not untouched by Matter like the Gods?\n\nOn the first question: Every Celestial born in the\nstriving of the\nSoul towards the good and beautiful is an Eros; and all the Souls\nwithin the Kosmos do engender this Celestial; but other\nSpirit-Beings,\nequally born from the Soul of the All, but by other faculties of\nthat Soul, have other functions: they are for the direct service of\nthe All, and administer particular things to the purpose of the\nUniverse entire. The Soul of the All must be adequate to all that is\nand therefore must bring into being spirit powers serviceable not\nmerely in one function but to its entire charge.\n\nBut what participation can the Celestials have in Matter, and in\nwhat Matter?\n\nCertainly none in bodily Matter; that would make them simply\nliving things of the order of sense. And if, even, they are to\ninvest themselves in bodies of air or of fire, the nature must have\nalready been altered before they could have any contact with the\ncorporeal. The Pure does not mix, unmediated, with body- though many\nthink that the Celestial-Kind, of its very essence, comports a body\naerial or of fire.\n\nBut why should one order of Celestial descend to body and\nanother not? The difference implies the existence of some cause or\nmedium working upon such as thus descend. What would\nconstitute such a\nmedium?\n\nWe are forced to assume that there is a Matter of the\nIntellectual\nOrder, and that Beings partaking of it are thereby enabled to enter\ninto the lower Matter, the corporeal.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. This is the significance of Plato's account of the birth of\nLove.\n\nThe drunkenness of the father Poros or Possession is caused by\nNectar, \"wine yet not existing\"; Love is born before the realm of\nsense has come into being: Penia had participation in the\nIntellectual\nbefore the lower image of that divine Realm had appeared;\nshe dwelt in\nthat Sphere, but as a mingled being consisting partly of Form but\npartly also of that indetermination which belongs to the Soul before\nshe attains the Good and when all her knowledge of Reality is a\nfore-intimation veiled by the indeterminate and unordered: in this\nstate Poverty brings forth the Hypostasis, Love.\n\nThis, then, is a union of Reason with something that is\nnot Reason\nbut a mere indeterminate striving in a being not yet illuminated:\nthe offspring Love, therefore, is not perfect, not self-sufficient,\nbut unfinished, bearing the signs of its parentage, the undirected\nstriving and the self-sufficient Reason. This offspring is a\nReason-Principle but not purely so; for it includes within itself an\naspiration ill-defined, unreasoned, unlimited- it can never be sated\nas long as it contains within itself that element of the\nIndeterminate. Love, then, clings to the Soul, from which it\nsprung as\nfrom the principle of its Being, but it is lessened by including an\nelement of the Reason-Principle which did not remain\nself-concentrated\nbut blended with the indeterminate, not, it is true, by immediate\ncontact but through its emanation. Love, therefore, is like\na goad; it\nis without resource in itself; even winning its end, it is\npoor again.\n\nIt cannot be satisfied because a thing of mixture never\ncan be so:\ntrue satisfaction is only for what has its plenitude in its\nown being;\nwhere craving is due to an inborn deficiency, there may be\nsatisfaction at some given moment but it does not last. Love, then,\nhas on the one side the powerlessness of its native\ninadequacy, on the\nother the resource inherited from the Reason-Kind.\n\nSuch must be the nature and such the origin of the entire Spirit\nOrder, each- like its fellow, Love- has its appointed sphere, is\npowerful there, and wholly devoted to it, and, like Love,\nnone is ever\ncomplete of itself but always straining towards some good which it\nsees in things of the partial sphere.\n\nWe understand, now, why good men have no other Love other Eros\nof life- than that for the Absolute and Authentic Good, and never\nfollow the random attractions known to those ranged under the lower\nSpirit Kind.\n\nEach human being is set under his own Spirit-Guides, but this is\nmere blank possession when they ignore their own and live by some\nother spirit adopted by them as more closely attuned to the\noperative part of the Soul in them. Those that go after evil are\nnatures that have merged all the Love-Principles within them in the\nevil desires springing in their hearts and allowed the right reason,\nwhich belongs to our kind, to fall under the spell of false\nideas from\nanother source.\n\nAll the natural Loves, all that serve the ends of Nature, are\ngood; in a lesser Soul, inferior in rank and in scope; in the\ngreater Soul, superior; but all belong to the order of Being. Those\nforms of Love that do not serve the purposes of Nature are merely\naccidents attending on perversion: in no sense are they\nReal-Beings or\neven manifestations of any Reality; for they are no true issue of\nSoul; they are merely accompaniments of a spiritual flaw which the\nSoul automatically exhibits in the total of disposition and conduct.\n\nIn a word; all that is truly good in a Soul acting to\nthe purposes\nof nature and within its appointed order, all this is Real-Being:\nanything else is alien, no act of the Soul, but merely something\nthat happens to it: a parallel may be found in false mentation,\nnotions behind which there is no reality as there is in the case of\nauthentic ideas, the eternal, the strictly defined, in which there\nis at once an act of true knowing, a truly knowable object and\nauthentic existence- and this not merely in the Absolute, but also\nin the particular being that is occupied by the\nauthentically knowable\nand by the Intellectual-Principle manifest in every several form.\n\nIn each particular human being we must admit the existence of\nthe authentic Intellective Act and of the authentically knowable\nobject- though not as wholly merged into our being, since we are not\nthese in the absolute and not exclusively these- and hence\nour longing\nfor absolute things: it is the expression of our intellective\nactivities: if we sometimes care for the partial, that affection is\nnot direct but accidental, like our knowledge that a given\ntriangular figure is made up of two right angles because the\nabsolute triangle is so.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. But what are we to understand by this Zeus with the\ngarden into\nwhich, we are told, Poros or Wealth entered? And what is the garden?\n\nWe have seen that the Aphrodite of the Myth is the Soul and that\nPoros, Wealth, is the Reason-Principle of the Universe: we have\nstill to explain Zeus and his garden.\n\nWe cannot take Zeus to be the Soul, which we have agreed is\nrepresented by Aphrodite.\n\nPlato, who must be our guide in this question, speaks in the\nPhaedrus of this God, Zeus, as the Great Leader- though elsewhere he\nseems to rank him as one of three- but in the Philebus he speaks\nmore plainly when he says that there is in Zeus not only a\nroyal Soul,\nbut also a royal Intellect.\n\nAs a mighty Intellect and Soul, he must be a principle of Cause;\nhe must be the highest for several reasons but especially because to\nbe King and Leader is to be the chief cause: Zeus then is the\nIntellectual Principle. Aphrodite, his daughter, issue of him,\ndwelling with him, will be Soul, her very name Aphrodite [=\nthe habra,\ndelicate] indicating the beauty and gleam and innocence and delicate\ngrace of the Soul.\n\nAnd if we take the male gods to represent the Intellectual\nPowers and the female gods to be their souls- to every Intellectual\nPrinciple its companion Soul- we are forced, thus also, to make\nAphrodite the Soul of Zeus; and the identification is confirmed by\nPriests and Theologians who consider Aphrodite and Hera one and the\nsame and call Aphrodite's star the star of Hera.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. This Poros, Possession, then, is the Reason-Principle of all\nthat exists in the Intellectual Realm and in the supreme Intellect;\nbut being more diffused, kneaded out as it were, it must touch Soul,\nbe in Soul, [as the next lower principle].\n\nFor, all that lies gathered in the Intellect is native to it:\nnothing enters from without; but \"Poros intoxicated\" is some Power\nderiving satisfaction outside itself: what, then, can we\nunderstand by\nthis member of the Supreme filled with Nectar but a Reason-Principle\nfalling from a loftier essence to a lower? This means that the\nReason-Principle upon \"the birth of Aphrodite\" left the Intellectual\nfor the Soul, breaking into the garden of Zeus.\n\nA garden is a place of beauty and a glory of wealth: all the\nloveliness that Zeus maintains takes its splendour from the\nReason-Principle within him; for all this beauty is the radiation of\nthe Divine Intellect upon the Divine Soul, which it has penetrated.\nWhat could the Garden of Zeus indicate but the images of his\nBeing and\nthe splendours of his glory? And what could these divine splendours\nand beauties be but the Ideas streaming from him?\n\nThese Reason-Principles- this Poros who is the lavishness, the\nabundance of Beauty- are at one and are made manifest; this is the\nNectar-drunkenness. For the Nectar of the gods can be no other than\nwhat the god-nature essentially demands; and this is the Reason\npouring down from the divine Mind.\n\nThe Intellectual Principle possesses Itself to satiety, but\nthere is no \"drunken\" abandonment in this possession which brings\nnothing alien to it. But the Reason-Principle- as its offspring, a\nlater hypostasis- is already a separate Being and established in\nanother Realm, and so is said to lie in the garden of this\nZeus who is\ndivine Mind; and this lying in the garden takes place at the moment\nwhen, in our way of speaking, Aphrodite enters the realm of Being.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. \"Our way of speaking\"- for myths, if they are to serve their\npurpose, must necessarily import time-distinctions into their\nsubject and will often present as separate, Powers which exist in\nunity but differ in rank and faculty; they will relate the births of\nthe unbegotten and discriminate where all is one substance; the\ntruth is conveyed in the only manner possible, it is left to our\ngood sense to bring all together again.\n\nOn this principle we have, here, Soul dwelling with the divine\nIntelligence, breaking away from it, and yet again being filled to\nsatiety with the divine Ideas- the beautiful abounding in all\nplenty, so that every splendour become manifest in it with the\nimages of whatever is lovely- Soul which, taken as one all, is\nAphrodite, while in it may be distinguished the Reason-Principles\nsummed under the names of Plenty and Possession, produced by the\ndownflow of the Nectar of the over realm. The splendours contained\nin Soul are thought of as the garden of Zeus with reference to their\nexisting within Life; and Poros sleeps in this garden in the sense\nof being sated and heavy with its produce. Life is eternally\nmanifest,\nan eternal existent among the existences, and the banqueting of the\ngods means no more than that they have their Being in that vital\nblessedness. And Love- \"born at the banquet of the gods\"- has of\nnecessity been eternally in existence, for it springs from the\nintention of the Soul towards its Best, towards the Good; as long as\nSoul has been, Love has been.\n\nStill this Love is of mixed quality. On the one hand there is in\nit the lack which keeps it craving: on the other, it is not entirely\ndestitute; the deficient seeks more of what it has, and certainly\nnothing absolutely void of good would ever go seeking the good.\n\nIt is said then to spring from Poverty and Possession in\nthe sense\nthat Lack and Aspiration and the Memory of the Ideal Principles, all\npresent together in the Soul, produce that Act towards The Good\nwhich is Love. Its Mother is Poverty, since striving is for\nthe needy;\nand this Poverty is Matter, for Matter is the wholly poor: the very\nambition towards the good is a sign of existing\nindetermination; there\nis a lack of shape and of Reason in that which must aspire\ntowards the\nGood, and the greater degree of effort implies the lower depth of\nmateriality. A thing aspiring towards the Good is an Ideal-principle\nonly when the striving [with attainment] will leave it still\nunchanged\nin Kind: when it must take in something other than itself, its\naspiration is the presentment of Matter to the incoming power.\n\nThus Love is at once, in some degree a thing of Matter and at\nthe same time a Celestial, sprung of the Soul; for Love\nlacks its Good\nbut, from its very birth, strives towards It.",
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}