{
  "meta": {
    "schema_version": "1.1",
    "endpoint": "/api/sources/plotinus-enneads/ennead-3/6-the-impassivity-of-the-unembodied.json"
  },
  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-3",
    "name": "Ennead III — Cosmos, Time, Providence"
  },
  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
      "url": "/sources/plotinus-enneads/"
    }
  ],
  "chapter": {
    "num": 6,
    "slug": "6-the-impassivity-of-the-unembodied",
    "title": "III.6 — The Impassivity of the Unembodied",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 11025,
    "text": "## SIXTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SIXTH TRACTATE.\n\nTHE IMPASSIVITY OF THE UNEMBODIED.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. In our theory, feelings are not states; they are action upon\nexperience, action accompanied by judgement: the states, we hold,\nare seated elsewhere; they may be referred to the vitalized body;\nthe judgement resides in the Soul, and is distinct from the state-\nfor, if it is not distinct, another judgement is demanded,\none that is\ndistinct, and, so, we may be sent back for ever.\n\nStill, this leaves it undecided whether in the act of judgement\nthe judging faculty does or does not take to itself something of its\nobject.\n\nIf the judging faculty does actually receive an imprint, then it\npartakes of the state- though what are called the Impressions may be\nof quite another nature than is supposed; they may be like Thought,\nthat is to say they may be acts rather than states; there\nmay be, here\ntoo, awareness without participation.\n\nFor ourselves, it could never be in our system- or in our\nliking- to bring the Soul down to participation in such modes and\nmodifications as the warmth and cold of material frames.\n\nWhat is known as the Impressionable faculty of the soul- to\npathetikon- would need to be identified: we must satisfy ourselves\nas to whether this too, like the Soul as a unity, is to be classed\nas immune or, on the contrary, as precisely the only part\nsusceptible of being affected; this question, however, may be held\nover; we proceed to examine its preliminaries.\n\nEven in the superior phase of the Soul- that which precedes the\nimpressionable faculty and any sensation- how can we reconcile\nimmunity with the indwelling of vice, false notions, ignorance?\nInviolability; and yet likings and dislikings, the Soul enjoying,\ngrieving, angry, grudging, envying, desiring, never at peace but\nstirring and shifting with everything that confronts it!\n\nIf the Soul were material and had magnitude, it would be\ndifficult, indeed quite impossible, to make it appear to be immune,\nunchangeable, when any of such emotions lodge in it. And even\nconsidering it as an Authentic Being, devoid of magnitude and\nnecessarily indestructible, we must be very careful how we attribute\nany such experiences to it or we will find ourselves unconsciously\nmaking it subject to dissolution. If its essence is a Number or as\nwe hold a Reason-Principle, under neither head could it be\nsusceptible\nof feeling. We can think, only, that it entertains unreasoned\nreasons and experiences unexperienced, all transmuted from the\nmaterial frames, foreign and recognized only by parallel, so that it\npossesses in a kind of non-possession and knows affection without\nbeing affected. How this can be demands enquiry.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Let us begin with virtue and vice in the Soul. What has\nreally occurred when, as we say, vice is present? In speaking of\nextirpating evil and implanting goodness, of introducing order and\nbeauty to replace a former ugliness, we talk in terms of real things\nin the Soul.\n\nNow when we make virtue a harmony, and vice a breach of harmony,\nwe accept an opinion approved by the ancients; and the\ntheory helps us\ndecidedly to our solution. For if virtue is simply a natural\nconcordance among the phases of the Soul, and vice simply a discord,\nthen there is no further question of any foreign presence; harmony\nwould be the result of every distinct phase or faculty joining in,\ntrue to itself; discord would mean that not all chimed in at their\nbest and truest. Consider, for example, the performers in a choral\ndance; they sing together though each one has his particular\npart, and\nsometimes one voice is heard while the others are silent; and each\nbrings to the chorus something of his own; it is not enough that all\nlift their voices together; each must sing, choicely, his own part\nto the music set for him. Exactly so in the case of the Soul; there\nwill be harmony when each faculty performs its appropriate part.\n\nYes: but this very harmony constituting the virtue of the Soul\nmust depend upon a previous virtue, that of each several faculty\nwithin itself; and before there can be the vice of discord there\nmust be the vice of the single parts, and these can be bad\nonly by the\nactual presence of vice as they can be good only by the presence of\nvirtue. It is true that no presence is affirmed when vice is\nidentified with ignorance in the reasoning faculty of the Soul;\nignorance is not a positive thing; but in the presence of false\njudgements- the main cause of vice- must it not be admitted that\nsomething positive has entered into the Soul, something\nperverting the\nreasoning faculty? So, the initiative faculty; is it not, itself,\naltered as one varies between timidity and boldness? And the\ndesiring faculty, similarly, as it runs wild or accepts control?\n\nOur teaching is that when the particular faculty is sound it\nperforms the reasonable act of its essential nature, obeying the\nreasoning faculty in it which derives from the Intellectual\nPrinciple and communicates to the rest. And this following of reason\nis not the acceptance of an imposed shape; it is like using the\neyes; the Soul sees by its act, that of looking towards reason. The\nfaculty of sight in the performance of its act is essentially what\nit was when it lay latent; its act is not a change in it, but simply\nits entering into the relation that belongs to its essential\ncharacter; it knows- that is, sees- without suffering any change:\nso, precisely, the reasoning phase of the Soul stands towards the\nIntellectual Principle; this it sees by its very essence; this\nvision is its knowing faculty; it takes in no stamp, no impression;\nall that enters it is the object of vision- possessed, once more,\nwithout possession; it possesses by the fact of knowing but \"without\npossession\" in the sense that there is no incorporation of anything\nleft behind by the object of vision, like the impression of the seal\non sealing-wax.\n\nAnd note that we do not appeal to stored-up impressions\nto account\nfor memory: we think of the mind awakening its powers in\nsuch a way as\nto possess something not present to it.\n\nVery good: but is it not different before and after acquiring\nthe memory?\n\nBe it so; but it has suffered no change- unless we are\nto think of\nthe mere progress from latency to actuality as change- nothing has\nbeen introduced into the mind; it has simply achieved the\nAct dictated\nby its nature.\n\nIt is universally true that the characteristic Act of immaterial\nentities is performed without any change in them- otherwise\nthey would\nat last be worn away- theirs is the Act of the unmoving; where act\nmeans suffering change, there is Matter: an immaterial Being would\nhave no ground of permanence if its very Act changed it.\n\nThus in the case of Sight, the seeing faculty is in act but the\nmaterial organ alone suffers change: judgements are similar to\nvisual experiences.\n\nBut how explain the alternation of timidity and daring in the\ninitiative faculty?\n\nTimidity would come by the failure to look towards the\nReason-Principle or by looking towards some inferior phase\nof it or by\nsome defect in the organs of action- some lack or flaw in the bodily\nequipment- or by outside prevention of the natural act or by the\nmere absence of adequate stimulus: boldness would arise from the\nreverse conditions: neither implies any change, or even any\nexperience, in the Soul.\n\nSo with the faculty of desire: what we call loose living\nis caused\nby its acting unaccompanied; it has done all of itself; the other\nfaculties, whose business it is to make their presence felt\nin control\nand to point the right way, have lain in abeyance; the Seer in the\nSoul was occupied elsewhere, for, though not always at least\nsometimes, it has leisure for a certain degree of contemplation of\nother concerns.\n\nOften, moreover, the vice of the desiring faculty will be merely\nsome ill condition of the body, and its virtue, bodily\nsoundness; thus\nthere would again be no question of anything imported into the Soul.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. But how do we explain likings and aversions? Sorrow, too, and\nanger and pleasure, desire and fear- are these not changes,\naffectings, present and stirring within the Soul?\n\nThis question cannot be ignored. To deny that changes take place\nand are intensely felt is in sharp contradiction to obvious facts.\nBut, while we recognize this, we must make very sure what it is that\nchanges. To represent the Soul or Mind as being the seat of these\nemotions is not far removed from making it blush or turn pale; it is\nto forget that while the Soul or Mind is the means, the effect takes\nplace in the distinct organism, the animated body.\n\nAt the idea of disgrace, the shame is in the Soul; but\nthe body is\noccupied by the Soul- not to trouble about words- is, at any rate,\nclose to it and very different from soulless matter; and so, is\naffected in the blood, mobile in its nature. Fear begins in the\nmind; the pallor is simply the withdrawal of the blood inwards. So\nin pleasure, the elation is mental, but makes itself felt in\nthe body;\nthe purely mental phase has not reached the point of sensation: the\nsame is true of pain. So desire is ignored in the Soul where the\nimpulse takes its rise; what comes outward thence, the Sensibility\nknows.\n\nWhen we speak of the Soul or Mind being moved- as in desire,\nreasoning, judging- we do not mean that it is driven into its act;\nthese movements are its own acts.\n\nIn the same way when we call Life a movement we have no idea of\na changing substance; the naturally appropriate act of each member\nof the living thing makes up the Life, which is, therefore, not a\nshifting thing.\n\nTo bring the matter to the point: put it that life, tendency,\nare no changements; that memories are not forms stamped upon\nthe mind,\nthat notions are not of the nature of impressions on sealing-wax; we\nthence draw the general conclusion that in all such states and\nmovements the Soul, or Mind, is unchanged in substance and\nin essence,\nthat virtue and vice are not something imported into the\nSoul- as heat\nand cold, blackness or whiteness are importations into body-\nbut that,\nin all this relation, matter and spirit are exactly and\ncomprehensively contraries.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. We have, however, still to examine what is called the\naffective\nphase of the Soul. This has, no doubt, been touched upon above where\nwe dealt with the passions in general as grouped about the\ninitiative phase of the Soul and the desiring faculty in its\neffort to\nshape things to its choice: but more is required; we must begin by\nforming a clear idea of what is meant by this affective\nfaculty of the\nSoul.\n\nIn general terms it means the centre about which we recognize\nthe affections to be grouped; and by affections we mean those states\nupon which follow pleasure and pain.\n\nNow among these affections we must distinguish. Some are pivoted\nupon judgements; thus, a Man judging his death to be at hand may\nfeel fear; foreseeing some fortunate turn of events, he is happy:\nthe opinion lies in one sphere; the affection is stirred in another.\nSometimes the affections take the lead and automatically bring in\nthe notion which thus becomes present to the appropriate faculty:\nbut as we have explained, an act of opinion does not introduce any\nchange into the Soul or Mind: what happens is that from the notion\nof some impending evil is produced the quite separate thing,\nfear, and\nthis fear, in turn, becomes known in that part of the Mind which is\nsaid under such circumstances to harbour fear.\n\nBut what is the action of this fear upon the Mind?\n\nThe general answer is that it sets up trouble and\nconfusion before\nan evil anticipated. It should, however, be quite clear that the\nSoul or Mind is the seat of all imaginative representation- both the\nhigher representation known as opinion or judgement and the lower\nrepresentation which is not so much a judgement as a vague notion\nunattended by discrimination, something resembling the action by\nwhich, as is believed, the \"Nature\" of common speech produces,\nunconsciously, the objects of the partial sphere. It is equally\ncertain that in all that follows upon the mental act or state, the\ndisturbance, confined to the body, belongs to the sense-order;\ntrembling, pallor, inability to speak, have obviously nothing to do\nwith the spiritual portion of the being. The Soul, in fact,\nwould have\nto be described as corporeal if it were the seat of such symptoms:\nbesides, in that case the trouble would not even reach the body\nsince the only transmitting principle, oppressed by sensation,\njarred out of itself, would be inhibited.\n\nNone the less, there is an affective phase of the Soul\nor Mind and\nthis is not corporeal; it can be, only, some kind of Ideal-form.\n\nNow Matter is the one field of the desiring faculty, as of the\nprinciples of nutrition growth and engendering, which are root and\nspring to desire and to every other affection known to this\nIdeal-form. No Ideal-form can be the victim of disturbance or be in\nany way affected: it remains in tranquillity; only the Matter\nassociated with it can be affected by any state or experience\ninduced by the movement which its mere presence suffices to set up.\nThus the vegetal Principle induces vegetal life but it does not,\nitself, pass through the processes of vegetation; it gives growth\nbut it does not grow; in no movement which it originates is it moved\nwith the motion it induces; it is in perfect repose, or, at\nleast, its\nmovement, really its act, is utterly different from what it causes\nelsewhere.\n\nThe nature of an Ideal-form is to be, of itself, an activity; it\noperates by its mere presence: it is as if Melody itself plucked the\nstrings. The affective phase of the Soul or Mind will be the\noperative\ncause of all affection; it originates the movement either under the\nstimulus of some sense-presentment or independently- and it is a\nquestion to be examined whether the judgement leading to the\nmovement operates from above or not- but the affective phase itself\nremains unmoved like Melody dictating music. The causes originating\nthe movement may be likened to the musician; what is moved\nis like the\nstrings of his instrument, and once more, the Melodic\nPrinciple itself\nis not affected, but only the strings, though, however much the\nmusician desired it, he could not pluck the strings except under\ndictation from the principle of Melody.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. But why have we to call in Philosophy to make the Soul immune\nif it is thus immune from the beginning?\n\nBecause representations attack it at what we call the affective\nphase and cause a resulting experience, a disturbance, to which\ndisturbance is joined the image of threatened evil: this\namounts to an\naffection and Reason seeks to extinguish it, to ban it as\ndestructive to the well-being of the Soul which by the mere\nabsence of\nsuch a condition is immune, the one possible cause of affection not\nbeing present.\n\nTake it that some such affections have engendered appearances\npresented before the Soul or Mind from without but taken [for\npractical purposes] to be actual experiences within it- then\nPhilosophy's task is like that of a man who wishes to throw off the\nshapes presented in dreams, and to this end recalls to waking\ncondition the mind that is breeding them.\n\nBut what can be meant by the purification of a Soul that\nhas never\nbeen stained and by the separation of the Soul from a body\nto which it\nis essentially a stranger?\n\nThe purification of the Soul is simply to allow it to be\nalone; it\nis pure when it keeps no company; when it looks to nothing without\nitself; when it entertains no alien thoughts- be the mode or\norigin of\nsuch notions or affections what they may, a subject on which we have\nalready touched- when it no longer sees in the world of image, much\nless elaborates images into veritable affections. Is it not a true\npurification to turn away towards the exact contrary of earthly\nthings?\n\nSeparation, in the same way, is the condition of a soul no\nlonger entering into the body to lie at its mercy; it is to\nstand as a\nlight, set in the midst of trouble but unperturbed through all.\n\nIn the particular case of the affective phase of the Soul,\npurification is its awakening from the baseless visions which beset\nit, the refusal to see them; its separation consists in limiting its\ndescent towards the lower and accepting no picture thence, and of\ncourse in the banning for its part too of all which the higher Soul\nignores when it has arisen from the trouble storm and is no longer\nbound to the flesh by the chains of sensuality and of\nmultiplicity but\nhas subdued to itself the body and its entire surrounding so that it\nholds sovereignty, tranquilly, over all.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. the Intellectual Essence, wholly of the order of Ideal-form,\nmust be taken as impassive has been already established.\n\nBut Matter also is an incorporeal, though after a mode\nof its own;\nwe must examine, therefore, how this stands, whether it is\npassive, as\nis commonly held, a thing that can be twisted to every shape\nand Kind,\nor whether it too must be considered impassive and in what sense and\nfashion so. But in engaging this question and defining the nature of\nmatter we must correct certain prevailing errors about the nature of\nthe Authentic Existent, about Essence, about Being.\n\nThe Existent- rightly so called- is that which has authentic\nexistence, that, therefore, which is existent completely, and\ntherefore, again, that which at no point fails in existence. Having\nexistence perfectly, it needs nothing to preserve it in being; it\nis, on the contrary, the source and cause from which all that\nappears to exist derives that appearance. This admitted, it must of\nnecessity be in life, in a perfect life: if it failed it\nwould be more\nnearly the nonexistent than the existent. But: The Being thus\nindicated is Intellect, is wisdom unalloyed. It is, therefore,\ndetermined and rounded off; it is nothing potentially that is not of\nthe same determined order, otherwise it would be in default.\n\nHence its eternity, its identity, its utter irreceptivity and\nimpermeability. If it took in anything, it must be taking in\nsomething\noutside itself, that is to say, Existence would at last include\nnon-existence. But it must be Authentic Existence all through; it\nmust, therefore, present itself equipped from its own stores with\nall that makes up Existence so that all stands together and\nall is one\nthing. The Existent [Real Being] must have thus much of\ndetermination:\nif it had not, then it could not be the source of the Intellectual\nPrinciple and of Life which would be importations into it\noriginating in the sphere of non-Being; and Real Being would be\nlifeless and mindless; but mindlessness and lifelessness are the\ncharacteristics of non-being and must belong to the lower order, to\nthe outer borders of the existent; for Intellect and Life rise from\nthe Beyond-Existence [the Indefinable Supreme]- though Itself has no\nneed of them- and are conveyed from It into the Authentic Existent.\n\nIf we have thus rightly described the Authentic Existent, we see\nthat it cannot be any kind of body nor the under-stuff of body; in\nsuch entities the Being is simply the existing of things outside of\nBeing.\n\nBut body, a non-existence? Matter, on which all this universe\nrises, a non-existence? Mountain and rock, the wide solid earth, all\nthat resists, all that can be struck and driven, surely all\nproclaims the real existence of the corporeal? And how, it will be\nasked, can we, on the contrary, attribute Being, and the only\nAuthentic Being, to entities like Soul and Intellect, things\nhaving no\nweight or pressure, yielding to no force, offering no resistance,\nthings not even visible?\n\nYet even the corporeal realm witnesses for us; the resting earth\nhas certainly a scantier share in Being than belongs to what has\nmore motion and less solidity- and less than belongs to its own most\nupward element, for fire begins, already, to flit up and away\noutside of the body-kind.\n\nIn fact, it appears to be precisely the most self-sufficing that\nbear least hardly, least painfully, on other things, while the\nheaviest and earthiest bodies- deficient, falling, unable to bear\nthemselves upward- these, by the very down-thrust due to their\nfeebleness, offer the resistance which belongs to the falling habit\nand to the lack of buoyancy. It is lifeless objects that deal the\nseverest blows; they hit hardest and hurt most; where there is life-\nthat is to say participation in Being- there is beneficence towards\nthe environment, all the greater as the measure of Being is fuller.\n\nAgain, Movement, which is a sort of life within bodies, an\nimitation of true Life, is the more decided where there is the least\nof body a sign that the waning of Being makes the object\naffected more\ndistinctly corporeal.\n\nThe changes known as affections show even more clearly that\nwhere the bodily quality is most pronounced susceptibility is at its\nintensest- earth more susceptible than other elements, and these\nothers again more or less so in the degree of their corporeality:\nsever the other elements and, failing some preventive force,\nthey join\nagain; but earthy matter divided remains apart indefinitely. Things\nwhose nature represents a diminishment have no power of recuperation\nafter even a slight disturbance and they perish; thus what has most\ndefinitely become body, having most closely approximated to\nnon-being lacks the strength to reknit its unity: the heavy and\nviolent crash of body against body works destruction, and weak is\npowerful against weak, non-being against its like.\n\nThus far we have been meeting those who, on the evidence\nof thrust\nand resistance, identify body with real being and find assurance of\ntruth in the phantasms that reach us through the senses, those, in a\nword, who, like dreamers, take for actualities the figments of their\nsleeping vision. The sphere of sense, the Soul in its\nslumber; for all\nof the Soul that is in body is asleep and the true getting-up is not\nbodily but from the body: in any movement that takes the body with\nit there is no more than a passage from sleep to sleep, from bed to\nbed; the veritable waking or rising is from corporeal things; for\nthese, belonging to the Kind directly opposed to Soul, present to it\nwhat is directly opposed to its essential existence: their origin,\ntheir flux, and their perishing are the warning of their exclusion\nfrom the Kind whose Being is Authentic.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. We are thus brought back to the nature of that underlying\nmatter and the things believed to be based upon it;\ninvestigation will\nshow us that Matter has no reality and is not capable of being\naffected.\n\nMatter must be bodiless- for body is a later production, a\ncompound made by Matter in conjunction with some other\nentity. Thus it\nis included among incorporeal things in the sense that body is\nsomething that is neither Real-Being nor Matter.\n\nMatter is no Soul; it is not Intellect, is not Life, is no\nIdeal-Principle, no Reason-Principle; it is no limit or bound, for\nit is mere indetermination; it is not a power, for what does it\nproduce?\n\nIt lives on the farther side of all these categories and\nso has no\ntide to the name of Being. It will be more plausibly called a\nnon-being, and this in the sense not of movement [away from Being]\nor station (in Not-Being) but of veritable Not-Being, so\nthat it is no\nmore than the image and phantasm of Mass, a bare aspiration towards\nsubstantial existence; it is stationary but not in the sense\nof having\nposition, it is in itself invisible, eluding all effort to\nobserve it,\npresent where no one can look, unseen for all our gazing,\nceaselessly presenting contraries in the things based upon it; it is\nlarge and small, more and less, deficient and excessive; a phantasm\nunabiding and yet unable to withdraw- not even strong enough to\nwithdraw, so utterly has it failed to accept strength from the\nIntellectual Principle, so absolute its lack of all Being.\n\nIts every utterance, therefore, is a lie; it pretends to be\ngreat and it is little, to be more and it is less; and the Existence\nwith which it masks itself is no Existence, but a passing\ntrick making\ntrickery of all that seems to be present in it, phantasms within a\nphantasm; it is like a mirror showing things as in itself when they\nare really elsewhere, filled in appearance but actually empty,\ncontaining nothing, pretending everything. Into it and out of it\nmove mimicries of the Authentic Existents, images playing upon an\nimage devoid of Form, visible against it by its very formlessness;\nthey seem to modify it but in reality effect nothing, for they are\nghostly and feeble, have no thrust and meet none in Matter either;\nthey pass through it leaving no cleavage, as through water; or they\nmight be compared to shapes projected so as to make some appearance\nupon what we can know only as the Void.\n\nFurther: if visible objects were of the rank of the\noriginals from\nwhich they have entered into Matter we might believe Matter to be\nreally affected by them, for we might credit them with some share of\nthe power inherent in their Senders: but the objects of our\nexperiences are of very different virtue than the realities they\nrepresent, and we deduce that the seeming modification of matter by\nvisible things is unreal since the visible thing itself is unreal,\nhaving at no point any similarity with its source and cause. Feeble,\nin itself, a false thing and projected upon a falsity, like an image\nin dream or against water or on a mirror, it can but leave Matter\nunaffected; and even this is saying too little, for water and mirror\ndo give back a faithful image of what presents itself before them.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. It is a general principle that, to be modified, an object\nmust be opposed in faculty, and in quality to the forces that enter\nand act upon it.\n\nThus where heat is present, the change comes by something that\nchills, where damp by some drying agency: we say a subject\nis modified\nwhen from warm it becomes cold, from dry wet.\n\nA further evidence is in our speaking of a fire being burned\nout, when it has passed over into another element; we do not say\nthat the Matter has been burned out: in other words, modification\naffects what is subject to dissolution; the acceptance of\nmodification\nis the path towards dissolution; susceptibility to modification and\nsusceptibility to dissolution go necessarily together. But Matter\ncan never be dissolved. What into? By what process?\n\nStill: Matter harbours heat, cold, qualities beyond all count;\nby these it is differentiated; it holds them as if they were of its\nvery substance and they blend within it- since no quality is found\nisolated to itself- Matter lies there as the meeting ground of all\nthese qualities with their changes as they act and react in\nthe blend:\nhow, then, can it fail to be modified in keeping? The only escape\nwould be to declare Matter utterly and for ever apart from the\nqualities it exhibits; but the very notion of Substance implies that\nany and every thing present in it has some action upon it.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. In answer: It must, first, be noted that there are a\nvariety of\nmodes in which an object may be said to be present to another or to\nexist in another. There is a \"presence\" which acts by changing the\nobject- for good or for ill- as we see in the case of bodies,\nespecially where there is life. But there is also a \"presence\" which\nacts, towards good or ill, with no modification of the object, as we\nhave indicated in the case of the Soul. Then there is the case\nrepresented by the stamping of a design upon wax, where the\n\"presence\"\nof the added pattern causes no modification in the substance nor\ndoes its obliteration diminish it. And there is the example of Light\nwhose presence does not even bring change of pattern to the object\nilluminated. A stone becoming cold does not change its nature in the\nprocess; it remains the stone it was. A drawing does not\ncease to be a\ndrawing for being coloured.\n\nThe intermediary mass on which these surface changes appear is\ncertainly not transmuted by them; but might there not be a\nmodification of the underlying Matter?\n\nNo: it is impossible to think of Matter being modified by, for\ninstance, colour- for, of course we must not talk of\nmodification when\nthere is no more than a presence, or at most a presenting of shape.\n\nMirrors and transparent objects, even more, offer a close\nparallel; they are quite unaffected by what is seen in or through\nthem: material things are reflections, and the Matter on which they\nappear is further from being affected than is a mirror. Heat and\ncold are present in Matter, but the Matter itself suffers no\nchange of\ntemperature: growing hot and growing cold have to do only with\nquality; a quality enters and brings the impassible Substance under\na new state- though, by the way, research into nature may show that\ncold is nothing positive but an absence, a mere negation. The\nqualities come together into Matter, but in most cases they can have\nno action upon each other; certainly there can be none between those\nof unlike scope: what effect, for example, could fragrance have on\nsweetness or the colour-quality on the quality of form, any\nquality on\nanother of some unrelated order? The illustration of the mirror may\nwell indicate to us that a given substratum may contain something\nquite distinct from itself- even something standing to it as a\ndirect contrary- and yet remain entirely unaffected by what is thus\npresent to it or merged into it.\n\nA thing can be hurt only by something related to it, and\nsimilarly\nthings are not changed or modified by any chance presence:\nmodification comes by contrary acting upon contrary; things merely\ndifferent leave each other as they were. Such modification\nby a direct\ncontrary can obviously not occur in an order of things to which\nthere is no contrary: Matter, therefore [the mere absence of\nReality] cannot be modified: any modification that takes place can\noccur only in some compound of Matter and reality, or, speaking\ngenerally, in some agglomeration of actual things. The Matter\nitself- isolated, quite apart from all else, utterly simplex- must\nremain immune, untouched in the midst of all the interacting\nagencies;\njust as when people fight within their four walls, the house and the\nair in it remain without part in the turmoil.\n\nWe may take it, then, that while all the qualities and entities\nthat appear upon Matter group to produce each the effect belonging\nto its nature, yet Matter itself remains immune, even more\ndefinitely immune than any of those qualities entering into it\nwhich, not being contraries, are not affected by each other.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. Further: If Matter were susceptible of modification, it must\nacquire something by the incoming of the new state; it will either\nadopt that state, or, at least, it will be in some way different\nfrom what it was. Now upon this first incoming quality suppose a\nsecond to supervene; the recipient is no longer Matter but a\nmodification of Matter: this second quality, perhaps, departs, but\nit has acted and therefore leaves something of itself after it; the\nsubstratum is still further altered. This process proceeding, the\nsubstratum ends by becoming something quite different from Matter;\nit becomes a thing settled in many modes and many shapes; at once it\nis debarred from being the all-recipient; it will have closed the\nentry against many incomers. In other words, the Matter is no longer\nthere: Matter is destructible.\n\nNo: if there is to be a Matter at all, it must be always\nidentically as it has been from the beginning: to speak of Matter as\nchanging is to speak of it as not being Matter.\n\nAnother consideration: it is a general principle that a thing\nchanging must remain within its constitutive Idea so that the\nalteration is only in the accidents and not in the essential thing;\nthe changing object must retain this fundamental permanence, and the\npermanent substance cannot be the member of it which accepts\nmodification.\n\nTherefore there are only two possibilities: the first,\nthat Matter\nitself changes and so ceases to be itself, the second that it never\nceases to be itself and therefore never changes.\n\nWe may be answered that it does not change in its character as\nMatter: but no one could tell us in what other character it changes;\nand we have the admission that the Matter in itself is not subject\nto change.\n\nJust as the Ideal Principles stand immutably in their essence-\nwhich consists precisely in their permanence- so, since the\nessence of\nMatter consists in its being Matter [the substratum to all material\nthings] it must be permanent in this character; because it is\nMatter, it is immutable. In the Intellectual realm we have the\nimmutable Idea; here we have Matter, itself similarly immutable.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. I think, in fact, that Plato had this in mind where he\njustly speaks of the Images of Real Existents \"entering and passing\nout\": these particular words are not used idly: he wishes us to\ngrasp the precise nature of the relation between Matter and\nthe Ideas.\n\nThe difficulty on this point is not really that which presented\nitself to most of our predecessors- how the Ideas enter into Matter-\nit is rather the mode of their presence in it.\n\nIt is in fact strange at sight that Matter should remain itself\nintact, unaffected by Ideal-forms present within it,\nespecially seeing\nthat these are affected by each other. It is surprising,\ntoo, that the\nentrant Forms should regularly expel preceding shapes and qualities,\nand that the modification [which cannot touch Matter] should affect\nwhat is a compound [of Idea with Matter] and this, again, not a\nhaphazard but precisely where there is need of the incoming or\noutgoing of some certain Ideal-form, the compound being deficient\nthrough the absence of a particular principle whose presence will\ncomplete it.\n\nBut the reason is that the fundamental nature of Matter can take\nno increase by anything entering it, and no decrease by any\nwithdrawal: what from the beginning it was, it remains. It\nis not like\nthose things whose lack is merely that of arrangement and order\nwhich can be supplied without change of substance as when we dress\nor decorate something bare or ugly.\n\nBut where the bringing to order must cut through to the very\nnature, the base original must be transmuted: it can leave ugliness\nfor beauty only by a change of substance. Matter, then, thus brought\nto order must lose its own nature in the supreme degree unless its\nbaseness is an accidental: if it is base in the sense of being\nBaseness the Absolute, it could never participate in order, and, if\nevil in the sense of being Evil the Absolute, it could never\nparticipate in good.\n\nWe conclude that Matter's participation in Idea is not by way of\nmodification within itself: the process is very different; it is a\nbare seeming. Perhaps we have here the solution of the difficulty as\nto how Matter, essentially evil, can be reaching towards The Good:\nthere would be no such participation as would destroy its essential\nnature. Given this mode of pseudo-participation- in which Matter\nwould, as we say, retain its nature, unchanged, always being what it\nhas essentially been- there is no longer any reason to wonder as to\nhow while essentially evil, it yet participates in Idea: for, by\nthis mode, it does not abandon its own character:\nparticipation is the\nlaw, but it participates only just so far as its essence\nallows. Under\na mode of participation which allows it to remain on its own\nfooting, its essential nature stands none the less, whatsoever the\nIdea, within that limit, may communicate to it: it is by no means\nthe less evil for remaining immutably in its own order. If it had\nauthentic participation in The Good and were veritably changed, it\nwould not be essentially evil.\n\nIn a word, when we call Matter evil we are right only if we mean\nthat it is not amenable to modification by The Good; but that means\nsimply that it is subject to no modification whatever.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. This is Plato's conception: to him participation does not,\nin the case of Matter, comport any such presence of an\nIdeal-form in a\nSubstance to be shaped by it as would produce one compound thing\nmade up of the two elements changing at the same moment, merging\ninto one another, modified each by the other.\n\nIn his haste to his purpose he raises many difficult questions,\nbut he is determined to disown that view; he labours to indicate in\nwhat mode Matter can receive the Ideal-forms without being, itself,\nmodified. The direct way is debarred since it is not easy to point\nto things actually present in a base and yet leaving that base\nunaffected: he therefore devises a metaphor for participation\nwithout modification, one which supports, also, his thesis that all\nappearing to the senses is void of substantial existence and that\nthe region of mere seeming is vast.\n\nHolding, as he does, that it is the patterns displayed\nupon Matter\nthat cause all experience in living bodies while the Matter itself\nremains unaffected, he chooses this way of stating its immutability,\nleaving us to make out for ourselves that those very patterns\nimpressed upon it do not comport any experience, any modification,\nin itself.\n\nIn the case, no doubt, of the living bodies that take one\npattern or shape after having borne another, it might be said that\nthere was a change, the variation of shape being made verbally\nequivalent to a real change: but since Matter is essentially without\nshape or magnitude, the appearing of shape upon it can by no freedom\nof phrase be described as a change within it. On this point one must\nhave \"a rule for thick and thin\" one may safely say that the\nunderlying Kind contains nothing whatever in the mode commonly\nsupposed.\n\nBut if we reject even the idea of its really containing at least\nthe patterns upon it, how is it, in any sense, a recipient?\n\nThe answer is that in the metaphor cited we have some reasonably\nadequate indication of the impassibility of Matter coupled with the\npresence upon it of what may be described as images of things not\npresent.\n\nBut we cannot leave the point of its impassibility without a\nwarning against allowing ourselves to be deluded by sheer custom of\nspeech.\n\nPlato speaks of Matter as becoming dry, wet, inflamed,\nbut we must\nremember the words that follow: \"and taking the shape of air and of\nwater\": this blunts the expressions \"becoming wet, becoming\ninflamed\";\nonce we have Matter thus admitting these shapes, we learn that it\nhas not itself become a shaped thing but that the shapes remain\ndistinct as they entered. We see, further, that the expression\n\"becoming inflamed\" is not to be taken strictly: it is rather a case\nof becoming fire. Becoming fire is very different from becoming\ninflamed, which implies an outside agency and, therefore,\nsusceptibility to modification. Matter, being itself a portion of\nfire, cannot be said to catch fire. To suggest that the fire not\nmerely permeates the matter, but actually sets it on fire is like\nsaying that a statue permeates its bronze.\n\nFurther, if what enters must be an Ideal-Principle how could it\nset Matter aflame? But what if it is a pattern or condition? No: the\nobject set aflame is so in virtue of the combination of Matter and\ncondition.\n\nBut how can this follow on the conjunction when no unity has\nbeen produced by the two?\n\nEven if such a unity had been produced, it would be a unity of\nthings not mutually sharing experiences but acting upon each other.\nAnd the question would then arise whether each was effective upon\nthe other or whether the sole action was not that of one (the form)\npreventing the other [the Matter] from slipping away?\n\nBut when any material thing is severed, must not the Matter be\ndivided with it? Surely the bodily modification and other experience\nthat have accompanied the sundering, must have occurred,\nidentically, within the Matter?\n\nThis reasoning would force the destructibility of Matter upon\nus: \"the body is dissolved; then the Matter is dissolved.\" We would\nhave to allow Matter to be a thing of quantity, a magnitude.\nBut since\nit is not a magnitude it could not have the experiences that\nbelong to\nmagnitude and, on the larger scale, since it is not body it cannot\nknow the experiences of body.\n\nIn fact those that declare Matter subject to modification may as\nwell declare it body right out.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. Further, they must explain in what sense they hold\nthat Matter\ntends to slip away from its form [the Idea]. Can we conceive it\nstealing out from stones and rocks or whatever else envelops it?\n\nAnd of course they cannot pretend that Matter in some\ncases rebels\nand sometimes not. For if once it makes away of its own will, why\nshould it not always escape? If it is fixed despite itself,\nit must be\nenveloped by some Ideal-Form for good and all. This, however, leaves\nstill the question why a given portion of Matter does not remain\nconstant to any one given form: the reason lies mainly in the fact\nthat the Ideas are constantly passing into it.\n\nIn what sense, then, is it said to elude form?\n\nBy very nature and for ever?\n\nBut does not this precisely mean that it never ceases to be\nitself, in other words that its one form is an invincible\nformlessness? In no other sense has Plato's dictum any value to\nthose that invoke it.\n\nMatter [we read] is \"the receptacle and nurse of all generation.\"\n\nNow if Matter is such a receptacle and nurse, all generation is\ndistinct from it; and since all the changeable lies in the realm of\ngeneration, Matter, existing before all generation, must exist\nbefore all change.\n\n\"Receptacle\" and \"nurse\"; then it \"retains its identity;\nit is not\nsubject to modification. Similarly if it is\" [as again we read] \"the\nground on which individual things appear and disappear,\" and so,\ntoo, if it is a \"place, a base.\" Where Plato describes and\nidentifies it as \"a ground to the ideas\" he is not attributing any\nstate to it; he is probing after its distinctive manner of being.\n\nAnd what is that?\n\nThis which we think of as a Nature-Kind cannot be included among\nExistents but must utterly rebel from the Essence of Real Beings and\nbe therefore wholly something other than they- for they are\nReason-Principles and possess Authentic Existence- it must\ninevitably,\nby virtue of that difference, retain its integrity to the point of\nbeing permanently closed against them and, more, of rejecting close\nparticipation in any image of them.\n\nOnly on these terms can it be completely different: once it took\nany Idea to hearth and home, it would become a new thing,\nfor it would\ncease to be the thing apart, the ground of all else, the\nreceptacle of\nabsolutely any and every form. If there is to be a ceaseless coming\ninto it and going out from it, itself must be unmoved and immune in\nall the come and go. The entrant Idea will enter as an image, the\nuntrue entering the untruth.\n\nBut, at least, in a true entry?\n\nNo: How could there be a true entry into that which, by being\nfalsity, is banned from ever touching truth?\n\nIs this then a pseudo-entry into a pseudo-entity-\nsomething merely\nbrought near, as faces enter the mirror, there to remain just as\nlong as the people look into it?\n\nYes: if we eliminated the Authentic Existents from this Sphere\nnothing of all now seen in sense would appear one moment longer.\n\nHere the mirror itself is seen, for it is itself an Ideal-Form\nof a Kind [has some degree of Real Being]; but bare Matter, which is\nno Idea, is not a visible thing; if it were, it would have been\nvisible in its own character before anything else appeared upon it.\nThe condition of Matter may be illustrated by that of air penetrated\nby light and remaining, even so, unseen because it is invisible\nwhatever happens.\n\nThe reflections in the mirror are not taken to be real, all the\nless since the appliance on which they appear is seen and remains\nwhile the images disappear, but Matter is not seen either with the\nimages or without them. But suppose the reflections on the mirror\nremaining and the mirror itself not seen, we would never doubt the\nsolid reality of all that appears.\n\nIf, then, there is, really, something in a mirror, we may\nsuppose objects of sense to be in Matter in precisely that way: if\nin the mirror there is nothing, if there is only a seeming of\nsomething, then we may judge that in Matter there is the\nsame delusion\nand that the seeming is to be traced to the Substantial-Existence of\nthe Real-Beings, that Substantial-Existence in which the\nAuthentic has\nthe real participation while only an unreal participation can belong\nto the unauthentic since their condition must differ from that which\nthey would know if the parts were reversed, if the Authentic\nExistents\nwere not and they were.\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. But would this mean that if there were no Matter\nnothing would\nexist?\n\nPrecisely as in the absence of a mirror, or something of similar\npower, there would be no reflection.\n\nA thing whose very nature is to be lodged in something\nelse cannot\nexist where the base is lacking- and it is the character of a\nreflection to appear in something not itself.\n\nOf course supposing anything to desert from the Authentic\nBeings, this would not need an alien base: but these Beings are not\nsubject to flux, and therefore any outside manifestation of them\nimplies something other than themselves, something offering a base\nto what never enters, something which by its presence, in its\ninsistence, by its cry for help, in its beggardom, strives as it\nwere by violence to acquire and is always disappointed, so that its\npoverty is enduring, its cry unceasing.\n\nThis alien base exists and the myth represents it as a pauper to\nexhibit its nature, to show that Matter is destitute of The Good.\nThe claimant does not ask for all the Giver's store, but it welcomes\nwhatever it can get; in other words, what appears in Matter is not\nReality.\n\nThe name, too [Poverty], conveys that Matter's need is never\nmet. The union with Poros, Possession, is designed to show\nthat Matter\ndoes not attain to Reality, to Plenitude, but to some bare\nsufficiency- in point of fact to imaging skill.\n\nIt is, of course, impossible that an outside thing belonging in\nany degree to Real-Being- whose Nature is to engender Real-Beings-\nshould utterly fail of participation in Reality: but here we have\nsomething perplexing; we are dealing with utter Non-Being,\nabsolutely without part in Reality; what is this participation by\nthe non-participant, and how does mere neighbouring confer\nanything on\nthat which by its own nature is precluded from any association?\n\nThe answer is that all that impinges upon this Non-Being is\nflung back as from a repelling substance; we may think of an Echo\nreturned from a repercussive plane surface; it is precisely\nbecause of\nthe lack of retention that the phenomenon is supposed to belong to\nthat particular place and even to arise there.\n\nIf Matter were participant and received Reality to the extent\nwhich we are apt to imagine, it would be penetrated by a Reality\nthus sucked into its constitution. But we know that the\nEntrant is not\nthus absorbed: Matter remains as it was, taking nothing to itself:\nit is the check to the forthwelling of Authentic Existence; it is a\nground that repels; it is a mere receptacle to the Realities as they\ntake their common path and here meet and mingle. It resembles those\nreflecting vessels, filled with water, which are often set\nagainst the\nsun to produce fire: the heat rays- prevented, by their contrary\nwithin, from being absorbed- are flung out as one mass.\n\nIt is in this sense and way that Matter becomes the cause of the\ngenerated realm; the combinations within it hold together only after\nsome such reflective mode.\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. Now the objects attracting the sun-rays to themselves-\nilluminated by a fire of the sense-order- are necessarily of the\nsense-order; there is perceptibility because there has been\na union of\nthings at once external to each other and continuous, contiguous, in\ndirect contact, two extremes in one line. But the Reason-Principle\noperating upon Matter is external to it only in a very different\nmode and sense: exteriority in this case is amply supplied by\ncontrariety of essence and can dispense with any opposite ends [any\nquestion of lineal position]; or, rather, the difference is one that\nactually debars any local extremity; sheer incongruity of\nessence, the\nutter failure in relationship, inhibits admixture [between Matter\nand any form of Being].\n\nThe reason, then, of the immutability of Matter is that the\nentrant principle neither possesses it nor is possessed by it.\nConsider, as an example, the mode in which an opinion or\nrepresentation is present in the mind; there is no admixture; the\nnotion that came goes in its time, still integrally itself alone,\ntaking nothing with it, leaving nothing after it, because it has not\nbeen blended with the mind; there is no \"outside\" in the sense of\ncontact broken, and the distinction between base and entrant\nis patent\nnot to the senses but to the reason.\n\nIn that example, no doubt, the mental representation- though it\nseems to have a wide and unchecked control- is an image, while the\nSoul [Mind] is in its nature not an image [but a Reality]: none the\nless the Soul or Mind certainly stands to the concept as\nMatter, or in\nsome analogous relation. The representation, however, does not cover\nthe Mind over; on the contrary it is often expelled by some activity\nthere; however urgently it presses in, it never effects such an\nobliteration as to be taken for the Soul; it is confronted there by\nindwelling powers, by Reason-Principles, which repel all such attack.\n\nMatter- feebler far than the Soul for any exercise of power, and\npossessing no phase of the Authentic Existents, not even in\npossession\nof its own falsity- lacks the very means of manifesting itself,\nutter void as it is; it becomes the means by which other things\nappear, but it cannot announce its own presence. Penetrating thought\nmay arrive at it, discriminating it from Authentic\nExistence; then, it\nis discerned as something abandoned by all that really is,\nby even the\ndimmest semblants of being, as a thing dragged towards every\nshape and\nproperty and appearing to follow- yet in fact not even following.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. An Ideal-Principle approaches and leads Matter towards some\ndesired dimension, investing this non-existent underlie with a\nmagnitude from itself which never becomes incorporate- for Matter,\nif it really incorporated magnitude, would be a mass.\n\nEliminate this Ideal-Form and the substratum ceases to be a\nthing of magnitude, or to appear so: the mass produced by the Idea\nwas, let us suppose, a man or a horse; the horse-magnitude came upon\nthe Matter when a horse was produced upon it; when the horse\nceases to\nexist upon the Matter, the magnitude of the horse departs also. If\nwe are told that the horse implies a certain determined bulk and\nthat this bulk is a permanent thing, we answer that what is\npermanent in this case is not the magnitude of the horse but the\nmagnitude of mass in general. That same Magnitude might be fire or\nearth; on their disappearance their particular magnitudes would\ndisappear with them. Matter, then, can never take to itself either\npattern or magnitude; if it did, it would no longer be able to turn\nfrom being fire, let us say, into being something else; it would\nbecome and be fire once for all.\n\nIn a word, though Matter is far extended- so vastly as to appear\nco-extensive with all this sense-known Universe- yet if the Heavens\nand their content came to an end, all magnitude would simultaneously\npass from Matter with, beyond a doubt, all its other properties; it\nwould be abandoned to its own Kind, retaining nothing of all that\nwhich, in its own peculiar mode, it had hitherto exhibited.\n\nWhere an entrant force can effect modification it will\ninevitably leave some trace upon its withdrawal; but where there can\nbe no modification, nothing can be retained; light comes and\ngoes, and\nthe air is as it always was.\n\nThat a thing essentially devoid of magnitude should come to a\ncertain size is no more astonishing than that a thing essentially\ndevoid of heat should become warm: Matter's essential existence is\nquite separate from its existing in bulk, since, of course,\nmagnitude is an immaterial principle as pattern is. Besides,\nif we are\nnot to reduce Matter to nothing, it must be all things by way of\nparticipation, and Magnitude is one of those all things.\n\nIn bodies, necessarily compounds, Magnitude though not a\ndetermined Magnitude must be present as one of the\nconstituents; it is\nimplied in the very notion of body; but Matter- not a Body- excludes\neven undetermined Magnitude.\n\n\n## Section 17\n\n\n##### Section 17\n\n17. Nor can we, on the other hand, think that matter is simply\nAbsolute Magnitude.\n\nMagnitude is not, like Matter, a receptacle; it is an\nIdeal-Principle: it is a thing standing apart to itself, not some\ndefinite Mass. The fact is that the self-gathered content of the\nIntellectual Principle or of the All-Soul, desires expansion [and\nthereby engenders secondaries]: in its images- aspiring and moving\ntowards it and eagerly imitating its act- is vested a\nsimilar power of\nreproducing their states in their own derivatives. The Magnitude\nlatent in the expansive tendency of the Image-making phase [of\nIntellect or All-Soul] runs forth into the Absolute Magnitude of the\nUniverse; this in turn enlists into the process the spurious\nmagnitude\nof Matter: the content of the Supreme, thus, in virtue of its own\nprior extension enables Matter- which never possesses a content- to\nexhibit the appearance of Magnitude. It must be understood that\nspurious Magnitude consists in the fact that a thing [Matter] not\npossessing actual Magnitude strains towards it and has the extension\nof that straining. All that is Real Being gives forth a reflection\nof itself upon all else; every Reality, therefore, has\nMagnitude which\nby this process is communicated to the Universe.\n\nThe Magnitude inherent in each Ideal-Principle- that of\na horse or\nof anything else- combines with Magnitude the Absolute with\nthe result\nthat, irradiated by that Absolute, Matter entire takes Magnitude and\nevery particle of it becomes a mass; in this way, by virtue\nat once of\nthe totality of Idea with its inherent magnitude and of each several\nspecific Idea, all things appear under mass; Matter takes on what we\nconceive as extension; it is compelled to assume a relation\nto the All\nand, gathered under this Idea and under Mass, to be all\nthings- in the\ndegree in which the operating power can lead the really nothing to\nbecome all.\n\nBy the conditions of Manifestation, colour rises from non-colour\n[= from the colourless prototype of colour in the Ideal Realm].\nQuality, known by the one name with its parallel in the sphere of\nPrimals, rises, similarly, from non-quality: in precisely the same\nmode, the Magnitude appearing upon Matter rises from non-Magnitude\nor from that Primal which is known to us by the same name; so that\nmaterial things become visible through standing midway between bare\nunderlie and Pure Idea. All is perceptible by virtue of this\norigin in\nthe Intellectual Sphere but all is falsity since the base in\nwhich the\nmanifestation takes place is a non-existent.\n\nParticular entities thus attain their Magnitude through being\ndrawn out by the power of the Existents which mirror themselves and\nmake space for themselves in them. And no violence is\nrequired to draw\nthem into all the diversity of Shapes and Kinds because the\nphenomenal\nAll exists by Matter [by Matter's essential all-receptivity] and\nbecause each several Idea, moreover, draws Matter its own way by the\npower stored within itself, the power it holds from the Intellectual\nRealm. Matter is manifested in this sphere as Mass by the\nfact that it\nmirrors the Absolute Magnitude; Magnitude here is the reflection in\nthe mirror. The Ideas meet all of necessity in Matter [the\nUltimate of\nthe emanatory progress]: and Matter, both as one total thing and in\nits entire scope, must submit itself, since it is the Material of\nthe entire Here, not of any one determined thing: what is, in its\nown character, no determined thing may become determined by\nan outside\nforce- though, in becoming thus determined, it does not become the\ndefinite thing in question, for thus it would lose its own\ncharacteristic indetermination.\n\n\n## Section 18\n\n\n##### Section 18\n\n18. The Ideal Principle possessing the Intellection [= Idea,\nNoesis] of Magnitude- assuming that this Intellection is of\nsuch power\nas not merely to subsist within itself but to be urged outward as it\nwere by the intensity of its life- will necessarily realize itself\nin a Kind [= Matter] not having its being in the Intellective\nPrinciple, not previously possessing the Idea of Magnitude or any\ntrace of that Idea or any other.\n\nWhat then will it produce [in this Matter] by virtue of that\npower?\n\nNot horse or cow: these are the product of other Ideas.\n\nNo: this Principle comes from the source of Magnitude [=\nis primal\n\"Magnitude\"] and therefore Matter can have no extension, in which to\nharbour the Magnitude of the Principle, but can take in only its\nreflected appearance.\n\nTo the thing which does not enjoy Magnitude in the sense\nof having\nmass-extension in its own substance and parts, the only\npossibility is\nthat it present some partial semblance of Magnitude, such as being\ncontinuous, not here and there and everywhere, that its parts be\nrelated within it and ungapped. An adequate reflection of a\ngreat mass\ncannot be produced in a small space- mere size prevents- but the\ngreater, pursuing the hope of that full self-presentment, makes\nprogress towards it and brings about a nearer approach to adequate\nmirroring in the parallel from which it can never withhold its\nradiation: thus it confers Magnitude upon that [= Matter] which has\nnone and cannot even muster up the appearance of having any, and the\nvisible resultant exhibits the Magnitude of mass.\n\nMatter, then, wears Magnitude as a dress thrown about it by its\nassociation with that Absolute Magnitude to whose movement it must\nanswer; but it does not, for that, change its Kind; if the Idea\nwhich has clothed it were to withdraw, it would once again be what\nit permanently is, what it is by its own strength, or it would have\nprecisely the Magnitude lent to it by any other form that happens to\nbe present in it.\n\nThe [Universal] Soul- containing the Ideal Principles of\nReal-Beings, and itself an Ideal Principle- includes all in\nconcentration within itself, just as the Ideal Principle of each\nparticular entity is complete and self-contained: it, therefore,\nsees these principles of sensible things because they are turned, as\nit were, towards it and advancing to it: but it cannot\nharbour them in\ntheir plurality, for it cannot depart from its Kind; it sees them,\ntherefore, stripped of Mass. Matter, on the contrary, destitute of\nresisting power since it has no Act of its own and is a mere shadow,\ncan but accept all that an active power may choose to send.\nIn what is\nthus sent, from the Reason-Principle in the Intellectual Realm,\nthere is already contained a degree of the partial object that is to\nbe formed: in the image-making impulse within the Reason-Principle\nthere is already a step [towards the lower manifestation] or we may\nput it that the downward movement from the Reason-Principle\nis a first\nform of the partial: utter absence of partition would mean\nno movement\nbut [sterile] repose. Matter cannot be the home of all things in\nconcentration as the Soul is: if it were so, it would belong to the\nIntellective Sphere. It must be all-recipient but not in\nthat partless\nmode. It is to be the Place of all things, and it must therefore\nextend universally, offer itself to all things, serve to all\ninterval:\nthus it will be a thing unconfined to any moment [of space or time]\nbut laid out in submission to all that is to be.\n\nBut would we not expect that some one particularized form should\noccupy Matter [at once] and so exclude such others as are not able\nto enter into combination?\n\nNo: for there is no first Idea except the Ideal Principle of the\nUniverse- and, by this Idea, Matter is [the seat of] all things at\nonce and of the particular thing in its parts- for the Matter of a\nliving being is disparted according to the specific parts of the\norganism: if there were no such partition nothing would exist but\nthe Reason-Principle.\n\n\n## Section 19\n\n\n##### Section 19\n\n19. The Ideal Principles entering into Matter as to a Mother [to\nbe \"born into the Universe\"] affect it neither for better nor for\nworse.\n\nTheir action is not upon Matter but upon each other; these\npowers conflict with their opponent principles, not with their\nsubstrata- which it would be foolish to confuse with the entrant\nforms- Heat [the Principle] annuls Cold, and Blackness annuls\nWhiteness; or, the opponents blend to form an intermediate quality.\nOnly that is affected which enters into combinations: being affected\nis losing something of self-identity.\n\nIn beings of soul and body, the affection occurs in the body,\nmodified according to the qualities and powers presiding at\nthe act of\nchange: in all such dissolution of constituent parts, in the new\ncombinations, in all variation from the original structure, the\naffection is bodily, the Soul or Mind having no more than an\naccompanying knowledge of the more drastic changes, or perhaps not\neven that. [Body is modified: Mind knows] but the Matter concerned\nremains unaffected; heat enters, cold leaves it, and it is unchanged\nbecause neither Principle is associated with it as friend or enemy.\n\nSo the appellation \"Recipient and Nurse\" is the better\ndescription: Matter is the mother only in the sense indicated; it\nhas no begetting power. But probably the term Mother is used by\nthose who think of a Mother as Matter to the offspring, as a\ncontainer\nonly, giving nothing to them, the entire bodily frame of the child\nbeing formed out of food. But if this Mother does give\nanything to the\noffspring it does so not in its quality as Matter but as being an\nIdeal-Form; for only the Idea is generative; the contrary Kind is\nsterile.\n\nThis, I think, is why the doctors of old, teaching\nthrough symbols\nand mystic representations, exhibit the ancient Hermes with the\ngenerative organ always in active posture; this is to convey that\nthe generator of things of sense is the Intellectual Reason\nPrinciple:\nthe sterility of Matter, eternally unmoved, is indicated by the\neunuchs surrounding it in its representation as the All-Mother.\n\nThis too exalting title is conferred upon it in order to\nindicate that it is the source of things in the sense of being their\nunderlie: it is an approximate name chosen for a general conception;\nthere is no intention of suggesting a complete parallel with\nmotherhood to those not satisfied with a surface impression but\nneeding a precisely true presentment; by a remote symbolism, the\nnearest they could find, they indicate that Matter is sterile, not\nfemale to full effect, female in receptivity only, not in pregnancy:\nthis they accomplish by exhibiting Matter as approached by what is\nneither female nor effectively male, but castrated of that\nimpregnating power which belongs only to the unchangeably masculine.",
    "project_translation": false,
    "license": null,
    "methodology_url": null
  }
}