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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-3",
    "name": "Ennead III — Cosmos, Time, Providence"
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      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 8,
    "slug": "8-nature-contemplation-and-the-one",
    "title": "III.8 — On Nature, Contemplation, and the One",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 5973,
    "text": "## EIGHTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### EIGHTH TRACTATE.\n\nNATURE CONTEMPLATION AND THE ONE.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. Supposing we played a little before entering upon our serious\nconcern and maintained that all things are striving after\nContemplation, looking to Vision as their one end- and this, not\nmerely beings endowed with reason but even the unreasoning animals,\nthe Principle that rules in growing things, and the Earth that\nproduces these- and that all achieve their purpose in the measure\npossible to their kind, each attaining Vision and possessing\nitself of\nthe End in its own way and degree, some things in entire reality,\nothers in mimicry and in image- we would scarcely find anyone to\nendure so strange a thesis. But in a discussion entirely among\nourselves there is no risk in a light handling of our own ideas.\n\nWell- in the play of this very moment am I engaged in the act of\nContemplation?\n\nYes; I and all that enter this play are in\nContemplation: our play\naims at Vision; and there is every reason to believe that child or\nman, in sport or earnest, is playing or working only towards Vision,\nthat every act is an effort towards Vision; the compulsory act,\nwhich tends rather to bring the Vision down to outward\nthings, and the\nact thought of as voluntary, less concerned with the outer,\noriginate alike in the effort towards Vision.\n\nThe case of Man will be treated later on; let us speak, first,\nof the earth and of the trees and vegetation in general, asking\nourselves what is the nature of Contemplation in them, how we relate\nto any Contemplative activity the labour and productiveness of the\nearth, how Nature, held to be devoid of reason and even of conscious\nrepresentation, can either harbour Contemplation or produce by means\nof the Contemplation which it does not possess.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. There is, obviously, no question here of hands or feet, of\nany implement borrowed or inherent: Nature needs simply the Matter\nwhich it is to work upon and bring under Form; its\nproductivity cannot\ndepend upon mechanical operation. What driving or hoisting goes to\nproduce all that variety of colour and pattern?\n\nThe wax-workers, whose methods have been cited as parallel to\nthe creative act of Nature, are unable to make colours; all they can\ndo to impose upon their handicraft colours taken from elsewhere.\nNone the less there is a parallel which demands attention:\nin the case\nof workers in such arts there must be something locked within\nthemselves, an efficacy not going out from them and yet guiding\ntheir hands in all their creation; and this observation should have\nindicated a similar phenomenon in Nature; it should be clear\nthat this\nindwelling efficacy, which makes without hands, must exist in\nNature, no less than in the craftsman- but, there, as a thing\ncompletely inbound. Nature need possess no outgoing force as against\nthat remaining within; the only moved thing is Matter; there\ncan be no\nmoved phase in this Nature-Principle; any such moved phase could not\nbe the primal mover; this Nature-Principle is no such moved\nentity; it\nis the unmoved Principle operating in the Kosmos.\n\nWe may be answered that the Reason-Principle is, no doubt,\nunmoved, but that the Nature-Principle, another being, operates by\nmotion.\n\nBut, if Nature entire is in question here, it is identical with\nthe Reason-Principle; and any part of it that is unmoved is the\nReason-Principle. The Nature-Principle must be an Ideal-Form, not a\ncompound of Form and Matter; there is no need for it to possess\nMatter, hot and cold: the Matter that underlies it, on which it\nexercises its creative act, brings all that with it, or, natively\nwithout quality, becomes hot and cold, and all the rest, when\nbrought under Reason: Matter, to become fire, demands the\napproach not\nof fire but of a Reason-Principle.\n\nThis is no slight evidence that in the animal and\nvegetable realms\nthe Reason-Principles are the makers and that Nature is a\nReason-Principle producing a second Reason-Principle, its offspring,\nwhich, in turn, while itself, still, remaining intact, communicates\nsomething to the underlie, Matter.\n\nThe Reason-Principle presiding over visible Shape is the very\nultimate of its order, a dead thing unable to produce further: that\nwhich produces in the created realm is the living Reason-Principle-\nbrother no doubt, to that which gives mere shape, but having\nlife-giving power.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. But if this Reason-Principle [Nature] is in act- and produces\nby the process indicated- how can it have any part in Contemplation?\n\nTo begin with, since in all its production it is stationary and\nintact, a Reason-Principle self-indwelling, it is in its own nature\na Contemplative act. All doing must be guided by an Idea, and will\ntherefore be distinct from that Idea: the Reason-Principle then, as\naccompanying and guiding the work, will be distinct from the\nwork; not\nbeing action but Reason-Principle it is, necessarily, Contemplation.\nTaking the Reason-Principle, the Logos, in all its phases, the\nlowest and last springs from a mental act [in the higher\nLogos] and is\nitself a contemplation, though only in the sense of being\ncontemplated, but above it stands the total Logos with its two\ndistinguishable phases, first, that identified not as Nature but as\nAll-Soul and, next, that operating in Nature and being itself the\nNature-Principle.\n\nAnd does this Reason-Principle, Nature, spring from a\ncontemplation?\n\nWholly and solely?\n\nFrom self-contemplation, then? Or what are we to think?\nIt derives\nfrom a Contemplation and some contemplating Being; how are we to\nsuppose it to have Contemplation itself?\n\nThe Contemplation springing from the reasoning faculty- that, I\nmean, of planning its own content, it does not possess.\n\nBut why not, since it is a phase of Life, a\nReason-Principle and a\ncreative Power?\n\nBecause to plan for a thing is to lack it: Nature does not lack;\nit creates because it possesses. Its creative act is simply its\npossession of it own characteristic Essence; now its\nEssence, since it\nis a Reason-Principle, is to be at once an act of\ncontemplation and an\nobject of contemplation. In other words, the, Nature-Principle\nproduces by virtue of being an act of contemplation, an object of\ncontemplation and a Reason-Principle; on this triple\ncharacter depends\nits creative efficacy.\n\nThus the act of production is seen to be in Nature an act of\ncontemplation, for creation is the outcome of a contemplation which\nnever becomes anything else, which never does anything else, but\ncreates by simply being a contemplation.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. And Nature, asked why it brings forth its works, might answer\nif it cared to listen and to speak:\n\n\"It would have been more becoming to put no question but to\nlearn in silence just as I myself am silent and make no habit of\ntalking. And what is your lesson? This; that whatsoever comes into\nbeing is my is my vision, seen in my silence, the vision that\nbelongs to my character who, sprung from vision, am vision-loving\nand create vision by the vision-seeing faculty within me. The\nmathematicians from their vision draw their figures: but I draw\nnothing: I gaze and the figures of the material world take\nbeing as if\nthey fell from my contemplation. As with my Mother (the All-Soul]\nand the Beings that begot me so it is with me: they are born of a\nContemplation and my birth is from them, not by their Act\nbut by their\nBeing; they are the loftier Reason-Principles, they contemplate\nthemselves and I am born.\"\n\nNow what does this tell us?\n\nIt tells: that what we know as Nature is a Soul, offspring of a\nyet earlier Soul of more powerful life; that it possesses,\ntherefore, in its repose, a vision within itself; that it has no\ntendency upward nor even downward but is at peace, steadfast, in its\nown Essence; that, in this immutability accompanied by what may be\ncalled Self-Consciousness, it possesses- within the measure of its\npossibility- a knowledge of the realm of subsequent things perceived\nin virtue of that understanding and consciousness; and,\nachieving thus\na resplendent and delicious spectacle, has no further aim.\n\nOf course, while it may be convenient to speak of\n\"understanding\" or \"perception\" in the Nature-Principle, this is not\nin the full sense applicable to other beings; we are\napplying to sleep\na word borrowed from the wake.\n\nFor the Vision on which Nature broods, inactive, is a\nself-intuition, a spectacle laid before it by virtue of its\nunaccompanied self-concentration and by the fact that in itself it\nbelongs to the order of intuition. It is a Vision silent but\nsomewhat blurred, for there exists another a clearer of which Nature\nis the image: hence all that Nature produces is weak; the weaker act\nof intuition produces the weaker object.\n\nIn the same way, human beings, when weak on the side of\ncontemplation, find in action their trace of vision and of reason:\ntheir spiritual feebleness unfits them for contemplation; they are\nleft with a void, because they cannot adequately seize the\nvision; yet\nthey long for it; they are hurried into action as their way to the\nvision which they cannot attain by intellection. They act from the\ndesire of seeing their action, and of making it visible and sensible\nto others when the result shall prove fairly well equal to the plan.\nEverywhere, doing and making will be found to be either an\nattenuation\nor a complement of vision-attenuation if the doer was aiming only at\nthe thing done; complement if he is to possess something nobler to\ngaze upon than the mere work produced.\n\nGiven the power to contemplate the Authentic, who would run, of\nchoice, after its image?\n\nThe relation of action to contemplation is indicated in the way\nduller children, inapt to study and speculation, take to crafts and\nmanual labour.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. This discussion of Nature has shown us how the origin\nof things\nis a Contemplation: we may now take the matter up to the higher\nSoul; we find that the Contemplation pursued by this, its instinct\ntowards knowing and enquiring, the birth pangs set up by the\nknowledge\nit attains, its teeming fullness, have caused it- in itself, all one\nobject of Vision- to produce another Vision [that of the Kosmos]: it\nis just as a given science, complete in itself, becomes the\nsource and\ncause of what might be called a minor science in the student who\nattains to some partial knowledge of all its divisions. But the\nvisible objects and the objects of intellectual contemplation of\nthis later creation are dim and helpless by the side of the\ncontent of\nthe Soul.\n\nThe primal phase of the Soul- inhabitant of the Supreme and, by\nits participation in the Supreme, filled and illuminated- remains\nunchangeably There; but in virtue of that first\nparticipation, that of\nthe primal participant, a secondary phase also participates in the\nSupreme, and this secondary goes forth ceaselessly as Life streaming\nfrom Life; for energy runs through the Universe and there is no\nextremity at which it dwindles out. But, travel as far as it may, it\nnever draws that first part of itself from the place whence the\noutgoing began: if it did, it would no longer be everywhere [its\ncontinuous Being would be broken and] it would be present at the\nend, only, of its course.\n\nNone the less that which goes forth cannot be equal to that\nwhich remains.\n\nIn sum, then:\n\nThe Soul is to extend throughout the Universe, no spot\nvoid of its\nenergy: but, a prior is always different from its secondary, and\nenergy is a secondary, rising as it must from contemplation or act;\nact, however, is not at this stage existent since it depends upon\ncontemplation: therefore the Soul, while its phases differ, must, in\nall of them, remain a contemplation and what seems to be an act done\nunder contemplation must be in reality that weakened contemplation\nof which we have spoken: the engendered must respect the Kind, but\nin weaker form, dwindled in the descent.\n\nAll goes softly since nothing here demands the parade of thought\nor act upon external things: it is a Soul in vision and, by this\nvision, creating its own subsequent- this Principle [of Nature],\nitself also contemplative but in the feebler degree since it lies\nfurther away and cannot reproduce the quality or experiences of its\nprior- a Vision creates the Vision.\n\n[Such creative contemplation is not inexplicable] for no limit\nexists either to contemplation or to its possible objects, and this\nexplains how the Soul is universal: where can this thing fail to be,\nwhich is one identical thing in every Soul; Vision is not cabined\nwithin the bournes of magnitude.\n\nThis, of course, does not mean that the Soul is present at the\nsame strength in each and every place and thing- any more\nthan that it\nis at the same strength in each of its own phases.\n\nThe Charioteer [the Leading Principle of the Soul, in\nthe Phaedrus\nMyth] gives the two horses [its two dissonant faculties] what he has\nseen and they, taking that gift, showed that they were\nhungry for what\nmade that vision; there was something lacking to them: if in their\ndesire they acted, their action aimed at what they craved for- and\nthat was vision, and an object of vision.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. Action, thus, is set towards contemplation and an object of\ncontemplation, so that even those whose life is in doing have seeing\nas their object; what they have not been able to achieve by\nthe direct\npath, they hope to come at by the circuit.\n\nFurther: suppose they succeed; they desired a certain thing to\ncome about, not in order to be unaware of it but to know it,\nto see it\npresent before the mind: their success is the laying up of a vision.\nWe act for the sake of some good; this means not for something to\nremain outside ourselves, not in order that we possess nothing but\nthat we may hold the good of the action. And hold it, where?\nWhere but\nin the mind?\n\nThus once more, action is brought back to contemplation:\nfor [mind\nor] Soul is a Reason-Principle and anything that one lays up in the\nSoul can be no other than a Reason-Principle, a silent\nthing, the more\ncertainly such a principle as the impression made is the deeper.\n\nThis vision achieved, the acting instinct pauses; the mind is\nsatisfied and seeks nothing further; the contemplation, in one so\nconditioned, remains absorbed within as having acquired certainty to\nrest upon. The brighter the certainty, the more tranquil is the\ncontemplation as having acquired the more perfect unity; and- for\nnow we come to the serious treatment of the subject-\n\nIn proportion to the truth with which the knowing faculty knows,\nit comes to identification with the object of its knowledge.\n\nAs long as duality persists, the two lie apart, parallel as it\nwere to each other; there is a pair in which the two elements remain\nstrange to one another, as when Ideal-Principles laid up in the mind\nor Soul remain idle.\n\nHence the Idea must not be left to lie outside but must be made\none identical thing with the soul of the novice so that he finds it\nreally his own.\n\nThe Soul, once domiciled within that Idea and brought to\nlikeness with it, becomes productive, active; what it always held by\nits primary nature it now grasps with knowledge and applies in deed,\nso becoming, as it were, a new thing and, informed as it now\nis by the\npurely intellectual, it sees [in its outgoing act] as a stranger\nlooking upon a strange world. It was, no doubt, essentially a\nReason-Principle, even an Intellectual Principle; but its function\nis to see a [lower] realm which these do not see.\n\nFor, it is a not a complete thing: it has a lack; it is\nincomplete\nin regard to its Prior; yet it, also, has a tranquil vision\nof what it\nproduces. What it has once brought into being it produces no\nmore, for\nall its productiveness is determined by this lack: it\nproduces for the\npurpose of Contemplation, in the desire of knowing all its content:\nwhen there is question of practical things it adapts its content to\nthe outside order.\n\nThe Soul has a greater content than Nature has and\ntherefore it is\nmore tranquil; it is more nearly complete and therefore more\ncontemplative. It is, however, not perfect, and is all the more\neager to penetrate the object of contemplation, and it seeks the\nvision that comes by observation. It leaves its native realm and\nbusies itself elsewhere; then it returns, and it possesses its\nvision by means of that phase of itself from which it had parted.\nThe self-indwelling Soul inclines less to such experiences.\n\nThe Sage, then, is the man made over into a Reason-Principle: to\nothers he shows his act but in himself he is Vision: such a man is\nalready set, not merely in regard to exterior things but also within\nhimself, towards what is one and at rest: all his faculty\nand life are\ninward-bent.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. Certain Principles, then, we may take to be established- some\nself-evident, others brought out by our treatment above:\n\nAll the forms of Authentic Existence spring from vision and are\na vision. Everything that springs from these Authentic Existences in\ntheir vision is an object of vision-manifest to sensation or to true\nknowledge or to surface-awareness. All act aims at this knowing; all\nimpulse is towards knowledge, all that springs from vision exists to\nproduce Ideal-Form, that is a fresh object of vision, so that\nuniversally, as images of their engendering principles, they all\nproduce objects of vision, Ideal-forms. In the engendering of these\nsub-existences, imitations of the Authentic, it is made manifest\nthat the creating powers operate not for the sake of creation and\naction but in order to produce an object of vision. This same vision\nis the ultimate purpose of all the acts of the mind and, even\nfurther downward, of all sensation, since sensation also is an\neffort towards knowledge; lower still, Nature, producing\nsimilarly its\nsubsequent principle, brings into being the vision and Idea that we\nknow in it. It is certain, also, that as the Firsts exist in vision\nall other things must be straining towards the same condition; the\nstarting point is, universally, the goal.\n\nWhen living things reproduce their Kind, it is that the\nReason-Principles within stir them; the procreative act is the\nexpression of a contemplation, a travail towards the creation of\nmany forms, many objects of contemplation, so that the\nuniverse may be\nfilled full with Reason-Principles and that contemplation may be, as\nnearly as possible, endless: to bring anything into being is to\nproduce an Idea-Form and that again is to enrich the universe with\ncontemplation: all the failures, alike in being and in doing, are\nbut the swerving of visionaries from the object of vision: in the\nend the sorriest craftsman is still a maker of forms,\nungracefully. So\nLove, too, is vision with the pursuit of Ideal-Form.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. From this basis we proceed:\n\nIn the advancing stages of Contemplation rising from that in\nNature, to that in the Soul and thence again to that in the\nIntellectual-Principle itself- the object contemplated becomes\nprogressively a more and more intimate possession of the\nContemplating\nBeings, more and more one thing with them; and in the advanced Soul\nthe objects of knowledge, well on the way towards the\nIntellectual-Principle, are close to identity with their container.\n\nHence we may conclude that, in the Intellectual-Principle\nItself, there is complete identity of Knower and Known, and this not\nby way of domiciliation, as in the case of even the highest soul,\nbut by Essence, by the fact that, there, no distinction\nexists between\nBeing and Knowing; we cannot stop at a principle containing separate\nparts; there must always be a yet higher, a principle above all such\ndiversity.\n\nThe Supreme must be an entity in which the two are one; it will,\ntherefore, be a Seeing that lives, not an object of vision\nlike things\nexisting in something other than themselves: what exists in\nan outside\nelement is some mode of living-thing; it is not the Self-Living.\n\nNow admitting the existence of a living thing that is at once a\nThought and its object, it must be a Life distinct from the\nvegetative\nor sensitive life or any other life determined by Soul.\n\nIn a certain sense no doubt all lives are thoughts- but\nqualified as thought vegetative, thought sensitive and thought\npsychic.\n\nWhat, then, makes them thoughts?\n\nThe fact that they are Reason-Principles. Every life is some\nform of thought, but of a dwindling clearness like the\ndegrees of life\nitself. The first and clearest Life and the first\nIntelligence are one\nBeing. The First Life, then, is an Intellection and the next form of\nLife is the next Intellection and the last form of Life is the last\nform of Intellection. Thus every Life, of the order strictly so\ncalled, is an Intellection.\n\nBut while men may recognize grades in life they reject grade in\nthought; to them there are thoughts [full and perfect] and anything\nelse is no thought.\n\nThis is simply because they do not seek to establish\nwhat Life is.\n\nThe essential is to observe that, here again, all reasoning\nshows that whatever exists is a bye-work of visioning: if, then, the\ntruest Life is such by virtue of an Intellection and is\nidentical with\nthe truest Intellection, then the truest Intellection is a living\nbeing; Contemplation and its object constitute a living\nthing, a Life,\ntwo inextricably one.\n\nThe duality, thus, is a unity; but how is this unity also a\nplurality?\n\nThe explanation is that in a unity there can be no seeing [a\npure unity has no room for vision and an object]; and in its\nContemplation the One is not acting as a Unity; if it were, the\nIntellectual-Principle cannot exist. The Highest began as a unity\nbut did not remain as it began; all unknown to itself, it became\nmanifold; it grew, as it were, pregnant: desiring universal\npossession, it flung itself outward, though it were better had it\nnever known the desire by which a Secondary came into being: it is\nlike a Circle [in the Idea] which in projection becomes a figure, a\nsurface, a circumference, a centre, a system of radii, of upper and\nlower segments. The Whence is the better; the Whither is less good:\nthe Whence is not the same as the Whence-followed-by-a-Whither; the\nWhence all alone is greater than with the Whither added to it.\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle on the other hand was never merely\nthe Principle of an inviolable unity; it was a universal as well\nand, being so, was the Intellectual-Principle of all things. Being,\nthus, all things and the Principle of all, it must\nessentially include\nthis part of itself [this element-of-plurality] which is\nuniversal and\nis all things: otherwise, it contains a part which is not\nIntellectual-Principle: it will be a juxtaposition of\nnon-Intellectuals, a huddled heap waiting to be made over from the\nmass of things into the Intellectual-Principle!\n\nWe conclude that this Being is limitless and that, in all the\noutflow from it, there is no lessening either in its emanation,\nsince this also is the entire universe, nor in itself, the starting\npoint, since it is no assemblage of parts [to be diminished by any\noutgo].\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. Clearly a Being of this nature is not the primal existent;\nthere must exist that which transcends it, that Being [the\nAbsolute], to which all our discussion has been leading.\n\nIn the first place, Plurality is later than Unity. The\nIntellectual-Principle is a number [= the expression of a\nplurality]; and number derives from unity: the source of a\nnumber such\nas this must be the authentically One. Further, it is the sum of an\nIntellectual-Being with the object of its Intellection, so that it\nis a duality; and, given this duality, we must find what\nexists before\nit.\n\nWhat is this?\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle taken separately, perhaps?\n\nNo: an Intellect is always inseparable from an intelligible\nobject; eliminate the intelligible, and the Intellectual-Principle\ndisappears with it. If, then, what we are seeking cannot be the\nIntellectual-Principle but must be something that rejects the\nduality there present, then the Prior demanded by that\nduality must be\nsomething on the further side of the Intellectual-Principle.\n\nBut might it not be the Intelligible object itself?\n\nNo: for the Intelligible makes an equally inseparable\nduality with\nthe Intellectual-Principle.\n\nIf, then, neither the Intellectual-Principle nor the\nIntelligible Object can be the First Existent, what is?\n\nOur answer can only be:\n\nThe source of both.\n\nWhat will This be; under what character can we picture It?\n\nIt must be either Intellective or without Intellection: if\nIntellective it is the Intellectual-Principle; if not, it will be\nwithout even knowledge of itself- so that, either way, what is there\nso august about it?\n\nIf we define it as The Good and the wholly simplex, we will, no\ndoubt, be telling the truth, but we will not be giving any\ncertain and\nlucid account of it as long as we have in mind no entity in which to\nlodge the conception by which we define it.\n\nYet: our knowledge of everything else comes by way of our\nintelligence; our power is that of knowing the intelligible by means\nof the intelligence: but this Entity transcends all of the\nintellectual nature; by what direct intuition, then, can it\nbe brought\nwithin our grasp?\n\nTo this question the answer is that we can know it only in the\ndegree of human faculty: we indicate it by virtue of what in\nourselves\nis like it.\n\nFor in us, also, there is something of that Being; nay, nothing,\nripe for that participation, can be void of it.\n\nWherever you be, you have only to range over against this\nomnipresent Being that in you which is capable of drawing\nfrom It, and\nyou have your share in it: imagine a voice sounding over a vast\nwaste of land, and not only over the emptiness alone but over human\nbeings; wherever you be in that great space you have but to\nlisten and\nyou take the voice entire- entire though yet with a difference.\n\nAnd what do we take when we thus point the Intelligence?\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle in us must mount to its origins:\nessentially a thing facing two ways, it must deliver itself over to\nthose powers within it which tend upward; if it seeks the vision of\nthat Being, it must become something more than Intellect.\n\nFor the Intellectual-Principle is the earliest form of\nLife: it is\nthe Activity presiding over the outflowing of the universal\nOrder- the\noutflow, that is, of the first moment, not that of the continuous\nprocess.\n\nIn its character as Life, as emanation, as containing all things\nin their precise forms and not merely in the agglomerate mass- for\nthis would be to contain them imperfectly and inarticulately- it\nmust of necessity derive from some other Being, from one\nthat does not\nemanate but is the Principle of Emanation, of Life, of Intellect and\nof the Universe.\n\nFor the Universe is not a Principle and Source: it springs from\na source, and that source cannot be the All or anything belonging to\nthe All, since it is to generate the All, and must be not a\nplurality but the Source of plurality, since universally a begetting\npower is less complex than the begotten. Thus the Being that has\nengendered the Intellectual-Principle must be more simplex than the\nIntellectual-Principle.\n\nWe may be told that this engendering Principle is the\nOne-and-All.\n\nBut, at that, it must be either each separate entity from among\nall or it will be all things in the one mass.\n\nNow if it were the massed total of all, it must be of\nlater origin\nthan any of the things of which it is the sum; if it precedes the\ntotal, it differs from the things that make up the total and\nthey from\nit: if it and the total of things constitute a co-existence,\nit is not\na Source. But what we are probing for must be a Source; it must\nexist before all, that all may be fashioned as sequel to it.\n\nAs for the notion that it may be each separate entity of the\nAll, this would make a self-Identity into a what you like, where you\nlike, indifferently, and would, besides, abolish all distinction in\nthings themselves.\n\nOnce more we see that this can be no thing among things but must\nbe prior to all things.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. And what will such a Principle essentially be?\n\nThe potentiality of the Universe: the potentiality whose\nnon-existence would mean the non-existence of all the Universe and\neven of the Intellectual-Principle which is the primal Life and all\nLife.\n\nThis Principle on the thither side of Life is the cause of Life-\nfor that Manifestation of Life which is the Universe of things is\nnot the First Activity; it is itself poured forth, so to speak, like\nwater from a spring.\n\nImagine a spring that has no source outside itself; it gives\nitself to all the rivers, yet is never exhausted by what they take,\nbut remains always integrally as it was; the tides that proceed from\nit are at one within it before they run their several ways, yet all,\nin some sense, know beforehand down what channels they will\npour their\nstreams.\n\nOr: think of the Life coursing throughout some mighty tree while\nyet it is the stationary Principle of the whole, in no sense\nscattered\nover all that extent but, as it were, vested in the root: it is the\ngiver of the entire and manifold life of the tree, but\nremains unmoved\nitself, not manifold but the Principle of that manifold life.\n\nAnd this surprises no one: though it is in fact astonishing how\nall that varied vitality springs from the unvarying, and how\nthat very\nmanifoldness could not be unless before the multiplicity there were\nsomething all singleness; for, the Principle is not broken into\nparts to make the total; on the contrary, such partition\nwould destroy\nboth; nothing would come into being if its cause, thus broken up,\nchanged character.\n\nThus we are always brought back to The One.\n\nEvery particular thing has a One of its own to which it may be\ntraced; the All has its One, its Prior but not yet the Absolute One;\nthrough this we reach that Absolute One, where all such reference\ncomes to an end.\n\nNow when we reach a One- the stationary Principle- in\nthe tree, in\nthe animal, in Soul, in the All- we have in every case the most\npowerful, the precious element: when we come to the One in the\nAuthentically Existent Beings- their Principle and source and\npotentiality- shall we lose confidence and suspect it of\nbeing-nothing?\n\nCertainly this Absolute is none of the things of which it is the\nsource- its nature is that nothing can be affirmed of it- not\nexistence, not essence, not life- since it is That which transcends\nall these. But possess yourself of it by the very\nelimination of Being\nand you hold a marvel. Thrusting forward to This, attaining, and\nresting in its content, seek to grasp it more and more-\nunderstanding it by that intuitive thrust alone, but knowing its\ngreatness by the Beings that follow upon it and exist by its power.\n\nAnother approach:\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle is a Seeing, and a Seeing which\nitself sees; therefore it is a potentiality which has become\neffective.\n\nThis implies the distinction of Matter and Form in it- as there\nmust be in all actual seeing- the Matter in this case being the\nIntelligibles which the Intellectual-Principle contains and sees.\nAll actual seeing implies duality; before the seeing takes\nplace there\nis the pure unity [of the power of seeing]. That unity [of\nprinciple] acquires duality [in the act of seeing], and the\nduality is\n[always to be traced back to] a unity.\n\nNow as our sight requires the world of sense for its\nsatisfaction and realization, so the vision in the\nIntellectual-Principle demands, for its completion, The Good.\n\nIt cannot be, itself, The Good, since then it would not need to\nsee or to perform any other Act; for The Good is the centre of all\nelse, and it is by means of The Good that every thing has Act, while\nthe Good is in need of nothing and therefore possesses nothing\nbeyond itself.\n\nOnce you have uttered \"The Good,\" add no further thought: by any\naddition, and in proportion to that addition, you introduce a\ndeficiency.\n\nDo not even say that it has Intellection; you would be dividing\nit; it would become a duality, Intellect and the Good. The\nGood has no\nneed of the Intellectual-Principle which, on the contrary, needs it,\nand, attaining it, is shaped into Goodness and becomes perfect by\nit: the Form thus received, sprung from the Good, brings it to\nlikeness with the Good.\n\nThus the traces of the Good discerned upon it must be taken as\nindication of the nature of that Archetype: we form a conception of\nits Authentic Being from its image playing upon the\nIntellectual-Principle. This image of itself, it has communicated to\nthe Intellect that contemplates it: thus all the striving is on the\nside of the Intellect, which is the eternal striver and eternally\nthe attainer. The Being beyond neither strives, since it feels no\nlack, nor attains, since it has no striving. And this marks it off\nfrom the Intellectual-Principle, to which characteristically belongs\nthe striving, the concentrated strain towards its Form.\n\nYet: The Intellectual-Principle; beautiful; the most beautiful\nof all; lying lapped in pure light and in clear radiance;\ncircumscribing the Nature of the Authentic Existents; the original\nof which this beautiful world is a shadow and an image; tranquil in\nthe fullness of glory since in it there is nothing devoid of\nintellect, nothing dark or out of rule; a living thing in a life of\nblessedness: this, too, must overwhelm with awe any that has seen\nit, and penetrated it, to become a unit of its Being.\n\nBut: As one that looks up to the heavens and sees the\nsplendour of\nthe stars thinks of the Maker and searches, so whoever has\ncontemplated the Intellectual Universe and known it and wondered for\nit must search after its Maker too. What Being has raised so noble a\nfabric? And where? And how? Who has begotten such a child, this\nIntellectual-Principle, this lovely abundance so abundantly endowed?\n\nThe Source of all this cannot be an Intellect; nor can it be an\nabundant power: it must have been before Intellect and\nabundance were;\nthese are later and things of lack; abundance had to be made\nabundant and Intellection needed to know.\n\nThese are very near to the un-needing, to that which has no\nneed of Knowing, they have abundance and intellection authentically,\nas being the first to possess. But, there is that before them which\nneither needs nor possesses anything, since, needing or possessing\nanything else, it would not be what it is- the Good.",
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