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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-4",
    "name": "Ennead IV — On the Soul"
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  "parents": [
    {
      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
      "name": "Enneads",
      "url": "/sources/plotinus-enneads/"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 4,
    "slug": "4-problems-of-the-soul-2",
    "title": "IV.4 — Problems of the Soul (2)",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 21105,
    "text": "## FOURTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### FOURTH TRACTATE.\n\nPROBLEMS OF THE SOUL (2).\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. What, then, will be the Soul's discourse, what its memories\nin the Intellectual Realm, when at last it has won its way to that\nEssence?\n\nObviously from what we have been saying, it will be in\ncontemplation of that order, and have its Act upon the things among\nwhich it now is; failing such Contemplation and Act, its being is\nnot there. Of things of earth it will know nothing; it will not, for\nexample, remember an act of philosophic virtue, or even that in its\nearthly career it had contemplation of the Supreme.\n\nWhen we seize anything in the direct intellectual act there is\nroom for nothing else than to know and to contemplate the object;\nand in the knowing there is not included any previous knowledge; all\nsuch assertion of stage and progress belongs to the lower and is a\nsign of the altered; this means that, once purely in the\nIntellectual,\nno one of us can have any memory of our experience here. Further; if\nall intellection is timeless- as appears from the fact that the\nIntellectual beings are of eternity not of time- there can be no\nmemory in the intellectual world, not merely none of earthly things\nbut none whatever: all is presence There; for nothing passes away,\nthere is no change from old to new.\n\nThis, however, does not alter the fact that distinction exists\nin that realm- downwards from the Supreme to the Ideas, upward from\nthe Ideas to the Universal and to the Supreme. Admitting that the\nHighest, as a self-contained unity, has no outgoing effect, that\ndoes not prevent the soul which has attained to the Supreme from\nexerting its own characteristic Act: it certainly may have the\nintuition, not by stages and parts, of that Being which is without\nstage and part.\n\nBut that would be in the nature of grasping a pure unity?\n\nNo: in the nature of grasping all the intellectual facts\nof a many\nthat constitutes a unity. For since the object of vision has variety\n[distinction within its essential oneness] the intuition must be\nmultiple and the intuitions various, just as in a face we see at the\none glance eyes and nose and all the rest.\n\nBut is not this impossible when the object to be thus divided\nand treated as a thing of grades, is a pure unity?\n\nNo: there has already been discrimination within the\nIntellectual-Principle; the Act of the soul is little more than a\nreading of this.\n\nFirst and last is in the Ideas not a matter of time, and so does\nnot bring time into the soul's intuition of earlier and later among\nthem. There is a grading by order as well: the ordered disposition\nof some growing thing begins with root and reaches to topmost point,\nbut, to one seeing the plant as a whole, there is no other first and\nlast than simply that of the order.\n\nStill, the soul [in this intuition within the divine] looks to\nwhat is a unity; next it entertains multiplicity, all that is: how\nexplain this grasping first of the unity and later of the rest?\n\nThe explanation is that the unity of this power [the Supreme] is\nsuch as to allow of its being multiple to another principle [the\nsoul], to which it is all things and therefore does not\npresent itself\nas one indivisible object of intuition: its activities do not [like\nits essence] fall under the rule of unity; they are for ever\nmultiple in virtue of that abiding power, and in their outgoing they\nactually become all things.\n\nFor with the Intellectual or Supreme- considered as distinct\nfrom the One- there is already the power of harbouring that\nPrinciple of Multiplicity, the source of things not previously\nexistent in its superior.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Enough on that point: we come now to the question of memory\nof the personality?\n\nThere will not even be memory of the personality; no thought\nthat the contemplator is the self- Socrates, for example- or that it\nis Intellect or Soul. In this connection it should be borne in mind\nthat, in contemplative vision, especially when it is vivid,\nwe are not\nat the time aware of our own personality; we are in possession of\nourselves but the activity is towards the object of vision with\nwhich the thinker becomes identified; he has made himself over as\nmatter to be shaped; he takes ideal form under the action of the\nvision while remaining, potentially, himself. This means that he is\nactively himself when he has intellection of nothing.\n\nOr, if he is himself [pure and simple], he is empty of\nall: if, on\nthe contrary, he is himself [by the self-possession of\ncontemplation] in such a way as to be identified with what is all,\nthen by the act of self-intellection he has the simultaneous\nintellection of all: in such a case self-intuition by personal\nactivity brings the intellection, not merely of the self, but also\nof the total therein embraced; and similarly the intuition of the\ntotal of things brings that of the personal self as included among\nall.\n\nBut such a process would appear to introduce into the\nIntellectual\nthat element of change against which we ourselves have only now been\nprotesting?\n\nThe answer is that, while unchangeable identity is essential to\nthe Intellectual-Principle, the soul, lying so to speak on\nthe borders\nof the Intellectual Realm, is amenable to change; it has,\nfor example,\nits inward advance, and obviously anything that attains position\nnear to something motionless does so by a change directed\ntowards that\nunchanging goal and is not itself motionless in the same degree. Nor\nis it really change to turn from the self to the constituents of\nself or from those constituents to the self; and in this case the\ncontemplator is the total; the duality has become unity.\n\nNone the less the soul, even in the Intellectual Realm, is under\nthe dispensation of a variety confronting it and a content\nof its own?\n\nNo: once pure in the Intellectual, it too possesses that same\nunchangeableness: for it possesses identity of essence; when it is\nin that region it must of necessity enter into oneness with the\nIntellectual-Principle by the sheer fact of its self-orientation,\nfor by that intention all interval disappears; the soul advances and\nis taken into unison, and in that association becomes one with the\nIntellectual-Principle- but not to its own destruction: the two are\none, and two. In such a state there is no question of stage and\nchange: the soul, without motion [but by right of its\nessential being]\nwould be intent upon its intellectual act, and in possession,\nsimultaneously, of its self-awareness; for it has become one\nsimultaneous existence with the Supreme.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. But it leaves that conjunction; it cannot suffer that\nunity; it\nfalls in love with its own powers and possessions, and desires to\nstand apart; it leans outward so to speak: then, it appears\nto acquire\na memory of itself.\n\nIn this self-memory a distinction is to be made; the memory\ndealing with the Intellectual Realm upbears the soul, not to\nfall; the\nmemory of things here bears it downwards to this universe; the\nintermediate memory dealing with the heavenly sphere holds it there\ntoo; and, in all its memory, the thing it has in mind it is and\ngrows to; for this bearing-in-mind must be either intuition [i.e.,\nknowledge with identity] or representation by image: and the imaging\nin the case of the is not a taking in of something but is vision and\ncondition- so much so, that, in its very sense- sight, it is\nthe lower\nin the degree in which it penetrates the object. Since its\npossession of the total of things is not primal but\nsecondary, it does\nnot become all things perfectly [in becoming identical with\nthe All in\nthe Intellectual]; it is of the boundary order, situated between two\nregions, and has tendency to both.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. In that realm it has also vision, through the\nIntellectual-Principle, of The Good which does not so hold to itself\nas not to reach the soul; what intervenes between them is\nnot body and\ntherefore is no hindrance- and, indeed, where bodily forms do\nintervene there is still access in many ways from the primal to the\ntertiaries.\n\nIf, on the contrary, the soul gives itself to the inferior, the\nsame principle of penetration comes into play, and it possesses\nitself, by memory and imagination, of the thing it desired: and\nhence the memory, even dealing with the highest, is not the highest.\nMemory, of course, must be understood not merely of what might be\ncalled the sense of remembrance, but so as to include a condition\ninduced by the past experience or vision. There is such a thing as\npossessing more powerfully without consciousness than in full\nknowledge; with full awareness the possession is of something quite\ndistinct from the self; unconscious possession runs very close to\nidentity, and any such approach to identification with the\nlower means\nthe deeper fall of the soul.\n\nIf the soul, on abandoning its place in the Supreme, revives its\nmemories of the lower, it must have in some form possessed them even\nthere though the activity of the beings in that realm kept them in\nabeyance: they could not be in the nature of impressions permanently\nadopted- a notion which would entail absurdities- but were no more\nthan a potentiality realized after return. When that energy of the\nIntellectual world ceases to tell upon the soul, it sees what it saw\nin the earlier state before it revisited the Supreme.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. But this power which determines memory is it also the\nprinciple\nby which the Supreme becomes effective in us?\n\nAt any time when we have not been in direct vision of\nthat sphere,\nmemory is the source of its activity within us; when we have\npossessed\nthat vision, its presence is due to the principle by which we\nenjoyed it: this principle awakens where it wakens; and it alone has\nvision in that order; for this is no matter to be brought to\nus by way\nof analogy, or by the syllogistic reasoning whose grounds lie\nelsewhere; the power which, even here, we possess of discoursing\nupon the Intellectual Beings is vested, as we show, in that\nprinciple which alone is capable of their contemplation.\nThat, we must\nawaken, so to speak, and thus attain the vision of the Supreme, as\none, standing on some lofty height and lifting his eyes, sees what\nto those that have not mounted with him is invisible.\n\nMemory, by this account, commences after the soul has left the\nhigher spheres; it is first known in the celestial period.\n\nA soul that has descended from the Intellectual region to the\ncelestial and there comes to rest, may very well be understood to\nrecognize many other souls known in its former state supposing that,\nas we have said, it retains recollection of much that it knew here.\nThis recognition would be natural if the bodies with which\nthose souls\nare vested in the celestial must reproduce the former appearance;\nsupposing the spherical form [of the stars inhabited by souls in the\nmid-realm] means a change of appearance, recognition would go by\ncharacter, by the distinctive quality of personality: this is not\nfantastic; conditions changing need not mean a change of\ncharacter. If\nthe souls have mutual conversation, this too would mean recognition.\n\nBut those whose descent from the Intellectual is complete, how\nis it with them?\n\nThey will recall their memories, of the same things, but\nwith less\nforce than those still in the celestial, since they have had other\nexperiences to remember, and the lapse of time will have utterly\nobliterated much of what was formerly present to them.\n\nBut what way of remembering the Supreme is left if the souls\nhave turned to the sense-known kosmos, and are to fall into this\nsphere of process?\n\nThey need not fall to the ultimate depth: their downward\nmovement may be checked at some one moment of the way; and as long\nas they have not touched the lowest of the region of process [the\npoint at which non-being begins] there is nothing to prevent them\nrising once more.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. Souls that descend, souls that change their state-\nthese, then,\nmay be said to have memory, which deals with what has come and gone;\nbut what subjects of remembrance can there be for souls whose lot is\nto remain unchanged?\n\nThe question touches memory in the stars in general, and also in\nthe sun and moon and ends by dealing with the soul of the\nAll, even by\naudaciously busying itself with the memories of Zeus himself. The\nenquiry entails the examination and identification of acts of\nunderstanding and of reasoning in these beings, if such acts take\nplace.\n\nNow if, immune from all lack, they neither seek nor doubt, and\nnever learn, nothing being absent at any time from their knowledge-\nwhat reasonings, what processes of rational investigation, can take\nplace in them, what acts of the understanding?\n\nEven as regards human concerns they have no need for observation\nor method; their administration of our affairs and of earth's in\ngeneral does not go so; the right ordering, which is their\ngift to the\nuniverse, is effected by methods very different.\n\nIn other words, they have seen God and they do not remember?\n\nAh, no: it is that they see God still and always, and that, as\nlong as they see, they cannot tell themselves they have had the\nvision; such reminiscence is for souls that have lost it.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. Well but can they not tell themselves that yesterday, or last\nyear, they moved round the earth, that they lived yesterday or at\nany given moment in their lives?\n\nTheir living is eternal, and eternity is an unchanging unity. To\nidentify a yesterday or a last year in their movement would be like\nisolating the movement of one of the feet, and finding a this or a\nthat and an entire series in what is a single act. The\nmovement of the\ncelestial beings is one movement: it is our measuring that\npresents us\nwith many movements, and with distinct days determined by\nintervening nights: There all is one day; series has no place; no\nyesterday, no last year.\n\nStill: the space traversed is different; there are the various\nsections of the Zodiac: why, then, should not the soul say \"I have\ntraversed that section and now I am in this other?\" If,\nalso, it looks\ndown over the concerns of men, must it not see the changes\nthat befall\nthem, that they are not as they were, and, by that observation, that\nthe beings and the things concerned were otherwise formerly? And\ndoes not that mean memory?\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. But, we need not record in memory all we see; mere incidental\nconcomitants need not occupy the imagination; when things vividly\npresent to intuition, or knowledge, happen to occur in concrete\nform, it is not necessary- unless for purposes of a strictly\npractical\nadministration- to pass over that direct acquaintance, and\nfasten upon\nthe partial sense-presentation, which is already known in the larger\nknowledge, that of the Universe.\n\nI will take this point by point:\n\nFirst: it is not essential that everything seen should be laid\nup in the mind; for when the object is of no importance, or of no\npersonal concern, the sensitive faculty, stimulated by the\ndifferences\nin the objects present to vision, acts without accompaniment of the\nwill, and is alone in entertaining the impression. The soul does not\ntake into its deeper recesses such differences as do not meet any of\nits needs, or serve any of its purposes. Above all, when the soul's\nact is directed towards another order, it must utterly reject the\nmemory of such things, things over and done with now, and not even\ntaken into knowledge when they were present.\n\nOn the second point: circumstances, purely accidental, need\nnot be present to the imaging faculty, and if they do so appear they\nneed not be retained or even observed, and in fact the impression of\nany such circumstance does not entail awareness. Thus in local\nmovement, if there is no particular importance to us in the fact\nthat we pass through first this and then that portion of air, or\nthat we proceed from some particular point, we do not take notice,\nor even know it as we walk. Similarly, if it were of no importance\nto us to accomplish any given journey, mere movement in the air\nbeing the main concern, we would not trouble to ask at what\nparticular\npoint of place we were, or what distance we had traversed; if we\nhave to observe only the act of movement and not its\nduration, nothing\nto do which obliges us to think of time, the minutes are not\nrecorded in our minds.\n\nAnd finally, it is of common knowledge that, when the\nunderstanding is possessed of the entire act undertaken and has no\nreason to foresee any departure from the normal, it will no longer\nobserve the detail; in a process unfailingly repeated without\nvariation, attention to the unvarying detail is idleness.\n\nSo it is with the stars. They pass from point to point, but they\nmove on their own affairs and not for the sake of traversing\nthe space\nthey actually cover; the vision of the things that appear on the\nway, the journey by, nothing of this is their concern: their passing\nthis or that is of accident not of essence, and their intention is\nto greater objects: moreover each of them journeys, unchangeably,\nthe same unchanging way; and again, there is no question to them of\nthe time they spend in any given section of the journey, even\nsupposing time division to be possible in the case. All this\ngranted, nothing makes it necessary that they should have any memory\nof places or times traversed. Besides this life of the ensouled\nstars is one identical thing [since they are one in the All-Soul] so\nthat their very spatial movement is pivoted upon identity\nand resolves\nitself into a movement not spatial but vital, the movement\nof a single\nliving being whose act is directed to itself, a being which to\nanything outside is at rest, but is in movement by dint of the inner\nlife it possesses, the eternal life. Or we may take the comparison\nof the movement of the heavenly bodies to a choral dance; if we\nthink of it as a dance which comes to rest at some given period, the\nentire dance, accomplished from beginning to end, will be perfect\nwhile at each partial stage it was imperfect: but if the dance is a\nthing of eternity, it is in eternal perfection. And if it is in\neternal perfection, it has no points of time and place at which it\nwill achieve perfection; it will, therefore, have no concern about\nattaining to any such points: it will, therefore, make no\nmeasurements\nof time or place; it will have, therefore, no memory of time and\nplace.\n\nIf the stars live a blessed life in their vision of the life\ninherent in their souls, and if, by force of their souls' tendency\nto become one, and by the light they cast from themselves upon the\nentire heavens, they are like the strings of a lyre which, being\nstruck in tune, sing a melody in some natural scale... if this is\nthe way the heavens, as one, are moved, and the component parts in\ntheir relation to the whole- the sidereal system moving as one, and\neach part in its own way, to the same purpose, though each, too,\nhold its own place- then our doctrine is all the more surely\nestablished; the life of the heavenly bodies is the more clearly an\nunbroken unity.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. But Zeus- ordering all, governor, guardian and disposer,\npossessor for ever of the kingly soul and the kingly intellect,\nbringing all into being by his providence, and presiding over all\nthings as they come, administering all under plan and system,\nunfolding the periods of the kosmos, many of which stand already\naccomplished- would it not seem inevitable that, in this\nmultiplicity of concern, Zeus should have memory of all the periods,\ntheir number and their differing qualities? Contriving the future,\nco-ordinating, calculating for what is to be, must he not surely be\nthe chief of all in remembering, as he is chief in producing?\n\nEven this matter of Zeus' memory of the kosmic periods is\ndifficult; it is a question of their being numbered, and of his\nknowledge of their number. A determined number would mean\nthat the All\nhad a beginning in time [which is not so]; if the periods are\nunlimited, Zeus cannot know the number of his works.\n\nThe answer is that he will know all to be one thing existing in\nvirtue of one life for ever: it is in this sense that the All is\nunlimited, and thus Zeus' knowledge of it will not be as of\nsomething seen from outside but as of something embraced in true\nknowledge, for this unlimited thing is an eternal indweller within\nhimself- or, to be more accurate, eternally follows upon him- and is\nseen by an indwelling knowledge; Zeus knows his own unlimited life,\nand, in that knowledge knows the activity that flows from him to the\nkosmos; but he knows it in its unity not in its process.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. The ordering principle is twofold; there is the principle\nknown to us as the Demiurge and there is the Soul of the\nAll; we apply\nthe appellation \"Zeus\" sometimes to the Demiurge and sometimes to\nthe principle conducting the universe.\n\nWhen under the name of Zeus we are considering the Demiurge we\nmust leave out all notions of stage and progress, and recognize one\nunchanging and timeless life.\n\nBut the life in the kosmos, the life which carries the leading\nprinciple of the universe, still needs elucidation; does it operate\nwithout calculation, without searching into what ought to be done?\n\nYes: for what must be stands shaped before the kosmos, and is\nordered without any setting in order: the ordered things are merely\nthe things that come to be; and the principle that brings them into\nbeing is Order itself; this production is an act of a soul\nlinked with\nan unchangeably established wisdom whose reflection in that soul is\nOrder. It is an unchanging wisdom, and there can therefore be no\nchanging in the soul which mirrors it, not sometimes turned towards\nit, and sometimes away from it- and in doubt because it has turned\naway- but an unremitting soul performing an unvarying task.\n\nThe leading principle of the universe is a unity- and one that\nis sovereign without break, not sometimes dominant and sometimes\ndominated. What source is there for any such multiplicity of leading\nprinciples as might result in contest and hesitation? And this\ngoverning unity must always desire the one thing: what could bring\nit to wish now for this and now for that, to its own greater\nperplexing? But observe: no perplexity need follow upon any\ndevelopment of this soul essentially a unity. The All stands a\nmultiple thing no doubt, having parts, and parts dashing with parts,\nbut that does not imply that it need be in doubt as to its conduct:\nthat soul does not take its essence from its ultimates or from its\nparts, but from the Primals; it has its source in the First and\nthence, along an unhindered path, it flows into a total of things,\nconferring grace, and, because it remains one same thing occupied in\none task, dominating. To suppose it pursuing one new object after\nanother is to raise the question whence that novelty comes\ninto being;\nthe soul, besides, would be in doubt as to its action; its very\nwork, the kosmos, would be the less well done by reason of the\nhesitancy which such calculations would entail.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. The administration of the kosmos is to be thought of as that\nof a living unit: there is the action determined by what is\nexternal, and has to do with the parts, and there is that determined\nby the internal and by the principle: thus a doctor basing his\ntreatment on externals and on the parts directly affected will often\nbe baffled and obliged to all sorts of calculation, while Nature\nwill act on the basis of principle and need no deliberation.\nAnd in so\nfar as the kosmos is a conducted thing, its administration and its\nadministrator will follow not the way of the doctor but the way of\nNature.\n\nAnd in the case of the universe, the administration is all the\nless complicated from the fact that the soul actually circumscribes,\nas parts of a living unity, all the members which it\nconducts. For all\nthe Kinds included in the universe are dominated by one Kind, upon\nwhich they follow, fitted into it, developing from it, growing out\nof it, just as the Kind manifested in the bough is related\nto the Kind\nin the tree as a whole.\n\nWhat place, then, is there for reasoning, for calculation, what\nplace for memory, where wisdom and knowledge are eternal,\nunfailingly present, effective, dominant, administering in an\nidentical process?\n\nThe fact that the product contains diversity and difference does\nnot warrant the notion that the producer must be subject to\ncorresponding variations. On the contrary, the more varied the\nproduct, the more certain the unchanging identity of the producer:\neven in the single animal the events produced by Nature are many and\nnot simultaneous; there are the periods, the developments at fixed\nepochs- horns, beard, maturing breasts, the acme of life,\nprocreation-\nbut the principles which initially determined the nature of the\nbeing are not thereby annulled; there is process of growth, but no\ndiversity in the initial principle. The identity underlying all the\nmultiplicity is confirmed by the fact that the principle\nconstituting the parent is exhibited unchanged, undiminished, in the\noffspring. We have reason, then, for thinking that one and the same\nwisdom envelops both, and that this is the unalterable wisdom of the\nkosmos taken as a whole; it is manifold, diverse and yet simplex,\npresiding over the most comprehensive of living beings, and\nin no wise\naltered within itself by this multiplicity, but stably one\nReason-Principle, the concentrated totality of things: if it were\nnot thus all things, it would be a wisdom of the later and partial,\nnot the wisdom of the Supreme.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. It may be urged that all the multiplicity and development\nare the work of Nature, but that, since there is wisdom within the\nAll, there must be also, by the side of such natural operation, acts\nof reasoning and of memory.\n\nBut this is simply a human error which assumes wisdom to be what\nin fact is unwisdom, taking the search for wisdom to be\nwisdom itself.\nFor what can reasoning be but a struggle, the effort to discover the\nwise course, to attain the principle which is true and derives from\nreal-being? To reason is like playing the cithara for the sake of\nachieving the art, like practising with a view to mastery, like any\nlearning that aims at knowing. What reasoners seek, the wise hold:\nwisdom, in a word, is a condition in a being that possesses repose.\nThink what happens when one has accomplished the reasoning\nprocess: as\nsoon as we have discovered the right course, we cease to reason: we\nrest because we have come to wisdom. If then we are to range the\nleading principle of the All among learners, we must allow it\nreasonings, perplexities and those acts of memory which link the\npast with the present and the future: if it is to be considered as a\nknower, then the wisdom within it consists in a rest possessing the\nobject [absolved, therefore, from search and from remembrance].\n\nAgain, if the leading principle of the universe knows the future\nas it must- then obviously it will know by what means that future is\nto come about; given this knowledge, what further need is\nthere of its\nreasoning towards it, or confronting past with present? And, of\ncourse, this knowledge of things to come- admitting it to exist- is\nnot like that of the diviners; it is that of the actual causing\nprinciples holding the certainty that the thing will exist, the\ncertainty inherent in the all-disposers, above perplexity and\nhesitancy; the notion is constituent and therefore unvarying. The\nknowledge of future things is, in a word, identical with that of the\npresent; it is a knowledge in repose and thus a knowledge\ntranscending\nthe processes of cogitation.\n\nIf the leading principle of the universe does not know the\nfuture which it is of itself to produce, it cannot produce with\nknowledge or to purpose; it will produce just what happens to come,\nthat is to say by haphazard. As this cannot be, it must\ncreate by some\nstable principle; its creations, therefore, will be shaped in the\nmodel stored up in itself; there can be no varying, for, if there\nwere, there could also be failure.\n\nThe produced universe will contain difference, but its\ndiversities\nspring not from its own action but from its obedience to superior\nprinciples which, again, spring from the creating power, so that all\nis guided by Reason-Principles in their series; thus the creating\npower is in no sense subjected to experimenting, to perplexity, to\nthat preoccupation which to some minds makes the\nadministration of the\nAll seem a task of difficulty. Preoccupation would obviously\nimply the\nundertaking of alien tasks, some business- that would mean- not\ncompletely within the powers; but where the power is sovereign and\nsole, it need take thought of nothing but itself and its own will,\nwhich means its own wisdom, since in such a being the will is\nwisdom. Here, then, creating makes no demand, since the wisdom that\ngoes to it is not sought elsewhere, but is the creator's very self,\ndrawing on nothing outside- not, therefore, on reasoning or\non memory,\nwhich are handlings of the external.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. But what is the difference between the Wisdom thus\nconducting the universe and the principle known as Nature?\n\nThis Wisdom is a first [within the All-Soul] while Nature is a\nlast: for Nature is an image of that Wisdom, and, as a last in the\nsoul, possesses only the last of the Reason-Principle: we may\nimagine a thick waxen seal, in which the imprint has\npenetrated to the\nvery uttermost film so as to show on both sides, sharp cut on the\nupper surface, faint on the under. Nature, thus, does not know, it\nmerely produces: what it holds it passes, automatically, to its\nnext; and this transmission to the corporeal and material\nconstitutes its making power: it acts as a thing warmed,\ncommunicating\nto what lies in next contact to it the principle of which it is the\nvehicle so as to make that also warm in some less degree.\n\nNature, being thus a mere communicator, does not possess even\nthe imaging act. There is [within the Soul] intellection, superior\nto imagination; and there is imagination standing midway between\nthat intellection and the impression of which alone Nature\nis capable.\nFor Nature has no perception or consciousness of anything;\nimagination\n[the imaging faculty] has consciousness of the external, for it\nenables that which entertains the image to have knowledge of the\nexperience encountered, while Nature's function is to engender- of\nitself though in an act derived from the active principle [of the\nsoul].\n\nThus the Intellectual-Principle possesses: the Soul of the All\neternally receives from it; this is the soul's life; its\nconsciousness\nis its intellection of what is thus eternally present to it; what\nproceeds from it into Matter and is manifested there is Nature, with\nwhich- or even a little before it- the series of real being comes to\nan end, for all in this order are the ultimates of the intellectual\norder and the beginnings of the imitative.\n\nThere is also the decided difference that Nature operates toward\nsoul, and receives from it: soul, near to Nature but superior,\noperates towards Nature but without receiving in turn; and there is\nthe still higher phase [the purely Intellectual] with no action\nwhatever upon body or upon Matter.\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. Of the corporeal thus brought into being by Nature the\nelemental materials of things are its very produce, but how do\nanimal and vegetable forms stand to it?\n\nAre we to think of them as containers of Nature present within\nthem?\n\nLight goes away and the air contains no trace of it, for\nlight and\nair remain each itself, never coalescing: is this the relation of\nNature to the formed object?\n\nIt is rather that existing between fire and the object it has\nwarmed: the fire withdrawn, there remains a certain warmth, distinct\nfrom that in the fire, a property, so to speak, of the object\nwarmed. For the shape which Nature imparts to what it has\nmoulded must\nbe recognized as a form quite distinct from Nature itself, though it\nremains a question to be examined whether besides this\n[specific] form\nthere is also an intermediary, a link connecting it with Nature, the\ngeneral principle.\n\nThe difference between Nature and the Wisdom described\nas dwelling\nin the All has been sufficiently dealt with.\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. But there is a difficulty affecting this entire settlement:\nEternity is characteristic of the Intellectual-Principle, time of\nthe soul- for we hold that time has its substantial being in the\nactivity of the soul, and springs from soul- and, since time is a\nthing of division and comports a past, it would seem that\nthe activity\nproducing it must also be a thing of division, and that its\nattention to that past must imply that even the All-Soul has memory?\nWe repeat, identity belongs to the eternal, time must be the\nmedium of\ndiversity; otherwise there is nothing to distinguish them,\nespecially since we deny that the activities of the soul can\nthemselves experience change.\n\nCan we escape by the theory that, while human souls- receptive\nof change, even to the change of imperfection and lack- are in time,\nyet the Soul of the All, as the author of time, is itself timeless?\nBut if it is not in time, what causes it to engender time rather\nthan eternity?\n\nThe answer must be that the realm it engenders is not that of\neternal things but a realm of things enveloped in time: it is just\nas the souls [under, or included in, the All-Soul] are not in time,\nbut some of their experiences and productions are. For a soul is\neternal, and is before time; and what is in time is of a lower order\nthan time itself: time is folded around what is in time\nexactly as- we\nread- it is folded about what is in place and in number.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. But if in the soul thing follows thing, if there is earlier\nand later in its productions, if it engenders or creates in\ntime, then\nit must be looking towards the future; and if towards the\nfuture, then\ntowards the past as well?\n\nNo: prior and past are in the things its produces; in itself\nnothing is past; all, as we have said, is one simultaneous\ngrouping of\nReason-Principles. In the engendered, dissimilarity is not\ncompatible with unity, though in the Reason-Principles supporting\nthe engendered such unity of dissimilars does occur- hand\nand foot are\nin unity in the Reason-Principle [of man], but apart in the realm of\nsense. Of course, even in that ideal realm there is apartness, but\nin a characteristic mode, just as in a mode, there is priority.\n\nNow, apartness may be explained as simply\ndifferentiation: but how\naccount for priority unless on the assumption of some ordering\nprinciple arranging from above, and in that disposal necessarily\naffirming a serial order?\n\nThere must be such a principle, or all would exist\nsimultaneously;\nbut the indicated conclusion does not follow unless order\nand ordering\nprinciple are distinct; if the ordering principle is Primal Order,\nthere is no such affirmation of series; there is simply making, the\nmaking of this thing after that thing. The affirmation would imply\nthat the ordering principle looks away towards Order and therefore\nis not, itself, Order.\n\nBut how are Order and this orderer one and the same?\n\nBecause the ordering principle is no conjoint of matter and idea\nbut is soul, pure idea, the power and energy second only to the\nIntellectual-Principle: and because the succession is a fact of the\nthings themselves, inhibited as they are from this comprehensive\nunity. The ordering soul remains august, a circle, as we may figure\nit, in complete adaptation to its centre, widening outward, but fast\nupon it still, an outspreading without interval.\n\nThe total scheme may be summarized in the illustration\nof The Good\nas a centre, the Intellectual-Principle as an unmoving circle, the\nSoul as a circle in motion, its moving being its aspiration: the\nIntellectual-Principle possesses and has ever embraced that which is\nbeyond being; the soul must seek it still: the sphere of the\nuniverse,\nby its possession of the soul thus aspirant, is moved to the\naspiration which falls within its own nature; this is no more than\nsuch power as body may have, the mode of pursuit possible where the\nobject pursued is debarred from entrance; it is the motion of\ncoiling about, with ceaseless return upon the same path- in other\nwords, it is circuit.\n\n\n## Section 17\n\n\n##### Section 17\n\n17. But how comes it that the intuitions and the\nReason-Principles\nof the soul are not in the same timeless fashion within\nourselves, but\nthat here the later of order is converted into a later of time-\nbringing in all these doubts?\n\nIs it because in us the governing and the answering\nprinciples are\nmany and there is no sovereign unity?\n\nThat condition; and, further, the fact that our mental acts fall\ninto a series according to the succession of our needs, being not\nself-determined but guided by the variations of the\nexternal: thus the\nwill changes to meet every incident as each fresh need arises and as\nthe external impinges in its successive things and events.\n\nA variety of governing principles must mean variety in the\nimages formed upon the representative faculty, images not\nissuing from\none internal centre, but, by difference of origin and of acting-\npoint, strange to each other, and so bringing compulsion to bear\nupon the movements and efficiencies of the self.\n\nWhen the desiring faculty is stirred, there is a presentment of\nthe object- a sort of sensation, in announcement and in picture, of\nthe experience- calling us to follow and to attain: the personality,\nwhether it resists or follows and procures, is necessarily thrown\nout of equilibrium. The same disturbance is caused by passion urging\nrevenge and by the needs of the body; every other sensation or\nexperience effects its own change upon our mental attitude;\nthen there\nis the ignorance of what is good and the indecision of a\nsoul [a human\nsoul] thus pulled in every direction; and, again, the interaction of\nall these perplexities gives rise to yet others.\n\nBut do variations of judgement affect that very highest in us?\n\nNo: the doubt and the change of standard are of the Conjoint [of\nthe soul-phase in contact with body]; still, the right reason of\nthat highest is weaker by being given over to inhabit this mingled\nmass: not that it sinks in its own nature: it is much as amid the\ntumult of a public meeting the best adviser speaks but fails to\ndominate; assent goes to the roughest of the brawlers and roarers,\nwhile the man of good counsel sits silent, ineffectual,\noverwhelmed by\nthe uproar of his inferiors.\n\nThe lowest human type exhibits the baser nature; the man is a\ncompost calling to mind inferior political organization: in the\nmid-type we have a citizenship in which some better section sways a\ndemotic constitution not out of control: in the superior\ntype the life\nis aristocratic; it is the career of one emancipated from what is a\nbase in humanity and tractable to the better; in the finest type,\nwhere the man has brought himself to detachment, the ruler is one\nonly, and from this master principle order is imposed upon the rest,\nso that we may think of a municipality in two sections, the superior\ncity and, kept in hand by it, the city of the lower elements.\n\n\n## Section 18\n\n\n##### Section 18\n\n18. There remains the question whether the body possesses any\nforce of its own- so that, with the incoming of the soul, it lives\nin some individuality- or whether all it has is this Nature we have\nbeen speaking of, the superior principle which enters into relations\nwith it.\n\nCertainly the body, container of soul and of nature, cannot even\nin itself be as a soulless form would be: it cannot even be like air\ntraversed by light; it must be like air storing heat: the\nbody holding\nanimal or vegetive life must hold also some shadow of soul; and it\nis body thus modified that is the seat of corporeal pains and\npleasures which appear before us, the true human being, in such a\nway as to produce knowledge without emotion. By \"us, the true human\nbeing\" I mean the higher soul for, in spite of all, the modified\nbody is not alien but attached to our nature and is a concern to us\nfor that reason: \"attached,\" for this is not ourselves nor yet are\nwe free of it; it is an accessory and dependent of the human being;\n\"we\" means the master-principle; the conjoint, similarly is\nin its own\nway an \"ours\"; and it is because of this that we care for\nits pain and\npleasure, in proportion as we are weak rather than strong, gripped\nrather than working towards detachment.\n\nThe other, the most honourable phase of our being, is what we\nthink of as the true man and into this we are penetrating.\n\nPleasure and pain and the like must not be attributed to the\nsoul alone, but to the modified body and to something intermediary\nbetween soul and body and made up of both. A unity is independent:\nthus body alone, a lifeless thing, can suffer no hurt- in its\ndissolution there is no damage to the body, but merely to its unity-\nand soul in similar isolation cannot even suffer dissolution, and by\nits very nature is immune from evil.\n\nBut when two distinct things become one in an artificial unity,\nthere is a probable source of pain to them in the mere fact that\nthey were inapt to partnership. This does not, of course,\nrefer to two\nbodies; that is a question of one nature; and I am speaking of two\nnatures. When one distinct nature seeks to associate itself with\nanother, a different, order of being- the lower participating in the\nhigher, but unable to take more than a faint trace of it- then the\nessential duality becomes also a unity, but a unity standing midway\nbetween what the lower was and what it cannot absorb, and therefore\na troubled unity; the association is artificial and uncertain,\ninclining now to this side and now to that in ceaseless vacillation;\nand the total hovers between high and low, telling, downward bent,\nof misery but, directed to the above, of longing for unison.\n\n\n## Section 19\n\n\n##### Section 19\n\n19. Thus what we know as pleasure and pain may be\nidentified: pain\nis our perception of a body despoiled, deprived of the image of the\nsoul; pleasure our perception of the living frame in which the image\nof the soul is brought back to harmonious bodily operation. The\npainful experience takes place in that living frame; but the\nperception of it belongs to the sensitive phase of the soul,\nwhich, as\nneighbouring the living body, feels the change and makes it known to\nthe principle, the imaging faculty, into which the sensations\nfinally merge; then the body feels the pain, or at least the body is\naffected: thus in an amputation, when the flesh is cut the cutting\nis an event within the material mass; but the pain felt in that mass\nis there felt because it is not a mass pure and simple, but a mass\nunder certain [non-material] conditions; it is to that modified\nsubstance that the sting of the pain is present, and the\nsoul feels it\nby an adoption due to what we think of as proximity.\n\nAnd, itself unaffected, it feels the corporeal\nconditions at every\npoint of its being, and is thereby enabled to assign every condition\nto the exact spot at which the wound or pain occurs. Being present\nas a whole at every point of the body, if it were itself affected\nthe pain would take it at every point, and it would suffer as one\nentire being, so that it could not know, or make known, the spot\naffected; it could say only that at the place of its presence there\nexisted pain- and the place of its presence is the entire\nhuman being.\nAs things are, when the finger pains the man is in pain\nbecause one of\nhis members is in pain; we class him as suffering, from his finger\nbeing painful, just as we class him as fair from his eyes being blue.\n\nBut the pain itself is in the part affected unless we include in\nthe notion of pain the sensation following upon it, in which case we\nare saying only that distress implies the perception of distress.\nBut [this does not mean that the soul is affected] we cannot\ndescribe the perception itself as distress; it is the\nknowledge of the\ndistress and, being knowledge, is not itself affected, or it\ncould not\nknow and convey a true message: a messenger, affected, overwhelmed\nby the event, would either not convey the message or not convey it\nfaithfully.\n\n\n## Section 20\n\n\n##### Section 20\n\n20. As with bodily pain and pleasure so with the bodily desires;\ntheir origin, also, must be attributed to what thus stands midway,\nto that Nature we described as the corporeal.\n\nBody undetermined cannot be imagined to give rise to appetite\nand purpose, nor can pure soul be occupied about sweet and\nbitter: all\nthis must belong to what is specifically body but chooses to be\nsomething else as well, and so has acquired a restless movement\nunknown to the soul and by that acquisition is forced to aim at a\nvariety of objects, to seek, as its changing states demand, sweet or\nbitter, water or warmth, with none of which it could have any\nconcern if it remained untouched by life.\n\nIn the case of pleasure and pain we showed how upon distress\nfollows the knowledge of it, and that the soul, seeking to alienate\nwhat is causing the condition, inspires a withdrawal which the\nmember primarily affected has itself indicated, in its own mode, by\nits contraction. Similarly in the case of desire: there is the\nknowledge in the sensation [the sensitive phase of the soul] and in\nthe next lower phase, that described as the \"Nature\" which\ncarries the\nimprint of the soul to the body; that Nature knows the fully formed\ndesire which is the culmination of the less formed desire in body;\nsensation knows the image thence imprinted upon the Nature; and from\nthe moment of the sensation the soul, which alone is competent, acts\nupon it, sometimes procuring, sometimes on the contrary resisting,\ntaking control and paying heed neither to that which originated the\ndesire nor to that which subsequently entertained it.\n\nBut why, thus, two phases of desire; why should not the body as\na determined entity [the living total] be the sole desirer?\n\nBecause there are [in man] two distinct things, this Nature and\nthe body, which, through it, becomes a living being: the Nature\nprecedes the determined body which is its creation, made and\nshaped by\nit; it cannot originate the desires; they must belong to the living\nbody meeting the experiences of this life and seeking in its\ndistress to alter its state, to substitute pleasure for pain,\nsufficiency for want: this Nature must be like a mother reading the\nwishes of a suffering child, and seeking to set it right and to\nbring it back to herself; in her search for the remedy she attaches\nherself by that very concern to the sufferer's desire and makes the\nchild's experience her own.\n\nIn sum, the living body may be said to desire of its own\nmotion in\na fore-desiring with, perhaps, purpose as well; Nature desires for,\nand because of, that living body; granting or withholding belongs to\nanother again, the higher soul.\n\n\n## Section 21\n\n\n##### Section 21\n\n21. That this is the phase of the human being in which desire\ntakes its origin is shown by observation of the different stages of\nlife; in childhood, youth, maturity, the bodily desires\ndiffer; health\nor sickness also may change them, while the [psychic] faculty is of\ncourse the same through all: the evidence is clear that the\nvariety of\ndesire in the human being results from the fact that he is a\ncorporeal\nentity, a living body subject to every sort of vicissitude.\n\nThe total movement of desire is not always stirred\nsimultaneously with what we call the impulses to the\nsatisfaction even\nof the lasting bodily demands; it may refuse assent to the idea of\neating or drinking until reason gives the word: this shows us\ndesire- the degree of it existing in the living body- advancing\ntowards some object, with Nature [the lower soul-phase] refusing its\nco-operation and approval, and as sole arbiter between what is\nnaturally fit and unfit, rejecting what does not accord with the\nnatural need.\n\nWe may be told that the changing state of the body is sufficient\nexplanation of the changing desires in the faculty; but that would\nrequire the demonstration that the changing condition of a given\nentity could effect a change of desire in another, in one\nwhich cannot\nitself gain by the gratification; for it is not the desiring faculty\nthat profits by food, liquid, warmth, movement, or by any relief\nfrom overplenty or any filling of a void; all such services touch\nthe body only.\n\n\n## Section 22\n\n\n##### Section 22\n\n22. And as regards vegetal forms? Are we to imagine beneath the\nleading principle [the \"Nature\" phase] some sort of corporeal echo\nof it, something that would be tendency or desire in us and is\ngrowth in them? Or are we to think that, while the earth [which\nnourishes them] contains the principle of desire by virtue of\ncontaining soul, the vegetal realm possesses only this latter\nreflection of desire?\n\nThe first point to be decided is what soul is present in the\nearth.\n\nIs it one coming from the sphere of the All, a radiation upon\nearth from that which Plato seems to represent as the only thing\npossessing soul primarily? Or are we to go by that other\npassage where\nhe describes earth as the first and oldest of all the gods within\nthe scope of the heavens, and assigns to it, as to the other stars,\na soul peculiar to itself?\n\nIt is difficult to see how earth could be a god if it did not\npossess a soul thus distinct: but the whole matter is obscure since\nPlato's statements increase or at least do not lessen the\nperplexity. It is best to begin by facing the question as a matter\nof reasoned investigation.\n\nThat earth possesses the vegetal soul may be taken as\ncertain from\nthe vegetation upon it. But we see also that it produces animals;\nwhy then should we not argue that it is itself animated? And,\nanimated, no small part of the All, must it not be plausible\nto assert\nthat it possesses an Intellectual-Principle by which it\nholds its rank\nas a god? If this is true of every one of the stars, why\nshould it not\nbe so of the earth, a living part of the living All? We cannot think\nof it as sustained from without by an alien soul and incapable of\ncontaining one appropriate to itself.\n\nWhy should those fiery globes be receptive of soul, and the\nearthly globe not? The stars are equally corporeal, and they lack\nthe flesh, blood, muscle, and pliant material of earth, which,\nbesides, is of more varied content and includes every form\nof body. If\nthe earth's immobility is urged in objection, the answer is that\nthis refers only to spatial movement.\n\nBut how can perception and sensation [implied in ensoulment] be\nsupposed to occur in the earth?\n\nHow do they occur in the stars? Feeling does not belong to\nfleshy matter: soul to have perception does not require\nbody; body, on\nthe contrary, requires soul to maintain its being and its\nefficiency, judgement [the foundation of perception] belongs to the\nsoul which overlooks the body, and, from what is experienced there,\nforms its decisions.\n\nBut, we will be asked to say what are the experiences, within\nthe earth, upon which the earth-soul is thus to form its decisions:\ncertainly vegetal forms, in so far as they belong to earth have no\nsensation or perception: in what then, and through what, does such\nsensation take place, for sensation without organs is too rash a\nnotion. Besides, what would this sense-perception profit the soul?\nIt could not be necessary to knowledge: surely the consciousness of\nwisdom suffices to beings which have nothing to gain from sensation?\n\nThis argument is not to be accepted: it ignores the\nconsideration that, apart from all question of practical utility,\nobjects of sense provide occasion for a knowing which brings\npleasure:\nthus we ourselves take delight in looking upon sun, stars, sky,\nlandscape, for their own sake. But we will deal with this\npoint later:\nfor the present we ask whether the earth has perceptions and\nsensations, and if so through what vital members these would take\nplace and by what method: this requires us to examine certain\ndifficulties, and above all to decide whether earth could have\nsensation without organs, and whether this would be directed to some\nnecessary purpose even when incidentally it might bring other\nresults as well.\n\n\n## Section 23\n\n\n##### Section 23\n\n23. A first principle is that the knowing of sensible objects is\nan act of the soul, or of the living conjoint, becoming aware of the\nquality of certain corporeal entities, and appropriating the ideas\npresent in them.\n\nThis apprehension must belong either to the soul isolated,\nself-acting, or to soul in conjunction with some other entity.\n\nIsolated, self-acting, how is it possible? Self-acting, it has\nknowledge of its own content, and this is not perception but\nintellection: if it is also to know things outside itself it\ncan grasp\nthem only in one of two ways: either it must assimilate itself to\nthe external objects, or it must enter into relations with something\nthat has been so assimilated.\n\nNow as long as it remains self-centred it cannot assimilate: a\nsingle point cannot assimilate itself to an external line: even line\ncannot adapt itself to line in another order, line of the\nintellectual\nto line of the sensible, just as fire of the intellectual and man of\nthe intellectual remain distinct from fire and man of the sensible.\nEven Nature, the soul-phase which brings man into being,\ndoes not come\nto identity with the man it shapes and informs: it has the faculty\nof dealing with the sensible, but it remains isolated, and, its task\ndone, ignores all but the intellectual as it is itself ignored by\nthe sensible and utterly without means of grasping it.\n\nSuppose something visible lying at a distance: the soul sees it;\nnow, admitting to the full that at first only the pure idea of the\nthing is seized- a total without discerned part- yet in the end it\nbecomes to the seeing soul an object whose complete detail of colour\nand form is known: this shows that there is something more here than\nthe outlying thing and the soul; for the soul is immune from\nexperience; there must be a third, something not thus exempt; and it\nis this intermediate that accepts the impressions of shape and the\nlike.\n\nThis intermediate must be able to assume the modifications of\nthe material object so as to be an exact reproduction of its states,\nand it must be of the one elemental-stuff: it, thus, will exhibit\nthe condition which the higher principle is to perceive; and the\ncondition must be such as to preserve something of the originating\nobject, and yet not be identical with it: the essential vehicle of\nknowledge is an intermediary which, as it stands between the soul\nand the originating object, will, similarly, present a condition\nmidway between the two spheres, of sense and the\nintellectual-linking the extremes, receiving from one side to\nexhibit to the other, in virtue of being able to assimilate itself\nto each. As an instrument by which something is to receive\nknowledge, it cannot be identical with either the knower or\nthe known:\nbut it must be apt to likeness with both- akin to the external\nobject by its power of being affected, and to the internal, the\nknower, by the fact that the modification it takes becomes an idea.\n\nIf this theory of ours is sound, bodily organs are necessary to\nsense-perception, as is further indicated by the reflection that the\nsoul entirely freed of body can apprehend nothing in the order of\nsense.\n\nThe organ must be either the body entire or some member set\napart for a particular function; thus touch for one, vision for\nanother. The tools of craftsmanship will be seen to be\nintermediaries between the judging worker and the judged object,\ndisclosing to the experimenter the particular character of the\nmatter under investigation: thus a ruler, representing at once the\nstraightness which is in the mind and the straightness of a plank,\nis used as an intermediary by which the operator proves his work.\n\nSome questions of detail remain for consideration\nelsewhere: Is it\nnecessary that the object upon which judgement or perception is to\ntake place should be in contact with the organ of perception, or can\nthe process occur across space upon an object at a distance? Thus,\nis the heat of a fire really at a distance from the flesh it warms,\nthe intermediate space remaining unmodified; is it possible to see\ncolour over a sheer blank intervening between the colour and the\neye, the organ of vision reaching to its object by its own power?\n\nFor the moment we have one certainty, that perception of\nthings of\nsense belongs to the embodied soul and takes place through the body.\n\n\n## Section 24\n\n\n##### Section 24\n\n24. The next question is whether perception is concerned\nonly with\nneed.\n\nThe soul, isolated, has no sense-perception; sensations go with\nthe body; sensation itself therefore must occur by means of the body\nto which the sensations are due; it must be something\nbrought about by\nassociation with the body.\n\nThus either sensation occurs in a soul compelled to follow upon\nbodily states- since every graver bodily experience reaches\nat last to\nsoul- or sensation is a device by which a cause is dealt with before\nit becomes so great as actually to injure us or even before it has\nbegun to make contact.\n\nAt this, sense-impressions would aim at utility. They may serve\nalso to knowledge, but that could be service only to some being not\nliving in knowledge but stupefied as the result of a\ndisaster, and the\nvictim of a Lethe calling for constant reminding: they would be\nuseless to any being free from either need or forgetfulness.\nThis This\nreflection enlarges the enquiry: it is no longer a question of earth\nalone, but of the whole star-system, all the heavens, the kosmos\nentire. For it would follow that, in the sphere of things not exempt\nfrom modification, sense-perception would occur in every part having\nrelation to any other part: in a whole, however- having relation\nonly to itself, immune, universally self-directed and\nself-possessing-\nwhat perception could there be?\n\nGranted that the percipient must act through an organ and that\nthis organ must be different from the object perceived, then the\nuniverse, as an All, can have [no sensation since it has] no organ\ndistinct from object: it can have self-awareness, as we have; but\nsense-perception, the constant attendant of another order, it cannot\nhave.\n\nOur own apprehension of any bodily condition apart from\nthe normal\nis the sense of something intruding from without: but\nbesides this, we\nhave the apprehension of one member by another; why then should not\nthe All, by means of what is stationary in it, perceive that\nregion of\nitself which is in movement, that is to say the earth and the\nearth's content?\n\nThings of earth are certainly affected by what passes in other\nregions of the All; what, then, need prevent the All from having, in\nsome appropriate way, the perception of those changes? In addition\nto that self-contemplating vision vested in its stationary part, may\nit not have a seeing power like that of an eye able to\nannounce to the\nAll-Soul what has passed before it? Even granted that it is entirely\nunaffected by its lower, why, still, should it not see like an eye,\nensouled as it is, all lightsome?\n\nStill: \"eyes were not necessary to it,\" we read. If this meant\nsimply that nothing is left to be seen outside of the All,\nstill there\nis the inner content, and there can be nothing to prevent it seeing\nwhat constitutes itself: if the meaning is that such\nself-vision could\nserve to no use, we may think that it has vision not as a main\nintention for vision's sake but as a necessary concomitant of its\ncharacteristic nature; it is difficult to conceive why such a body\nshould be incapable of seeing.\n\n\n## Section 25\n\n\n##### Section 25\n\n25. But the organ is not the only requisite to vision or to\nperception of any kind: there must be a state of the soul\ninclining it\ntowards the sphere of sense.\n\nNow it is the soul's character to be ever in the Intellectual\nsphere, and even though it were apt to sense-perception, this could\nnot accompany that intention towards the highest; to ourselves when\nabsorbed in the Intellectual, vision and the other acts of sense are\nin abeyance for the time; and, in general, any special\nattention blurs\nevery other. The desire of apprehension from part to part- a subject\nexamining itself- is merely curiosity even in beings of our own\nstanding, and, unless for some definite purpose, is waste of energy:\nand the desire to apprehend something external- for the sake of a\npleasant sight- is the sign of suffering or deficiency.\n\nSmelling, tasting flavours [and such animal perceptions] may\nperhaps be described as mere accessories, distractions of the soul,\nwhile seeing and hearing would belong to the sun and the other\nheavenly bodies as incidentals to their being. This would not be\nunreasonable if seeing and hearing are means by which they apply\nthemselves to their function.\n\nBut if they so apply themselves, they must have memory; it is\nimpossible that they should have no remembrance if they are to be\nbenefactors, their service could not exist without memory.\n\n\n## Section 26\n\n\n##### Section 26\n\n26. Their knowledge of our prayers is due to what we may call an\nenlinking, a determined relation of things fitted into a system; so,\ntoo, the fulfillment of the petitions; in the art of magic all looks\nto this enlinkment: prayer and its answer, magic and its success,\ndepend upon the sympathy of enchained forces.\n\nThis seems to oblige us to accord sense-perception to the earth.\n\nBut what perception?\n\nWhy not, to begin with, that of contact-feeling, the\napprehension of part by part, the apprehension of fire by the rest\nof the entire mass in a sensation transmitted upwards to the earth's\nleading principle? A corporeal mass [such as that of the\nearth] may be\nsluggish but is not utterly inert. Such perceptions, of course,\nwould not be of trifles, but of the graver movement of things.\n\nBut why even of them?\n\nBecause those gravest movements could not possibly remain\nunknown where there is an immanent soul.\n\nAnd there is nothing against the idea that sensation in the\nearth exists for the sake of the human interests furthered by the\nearth. They would be served by means of the sympathy that has been\nmentioned; petitioners would be heard and their prayers met,\nthough in\na way not ours. And the earth, both in its own interest and\nin that of\nbeings distinct from itself, might have the experiences of the other\nsenses also- for example, smell and taste where, perhaps,\nthe scent of\njuices or sap might enter into its care for animal life, as in the\nconstructing or restoring of their bodily part.\n\nBut we need not demand for earth the organs by which we,\nourselves, act: not even all the animals have these; some, without\nears perceive sound.\n\nFor sight it would not need eyes- though if light is\nindispensable\nhow can it see?\n\nThat the earth contains the principle of growth must be\nadmitted; it is difficult not to allow in consequence that,\nsince this\nvegetal principle is a member of spirit, the earth is\nprimarily of the\nspiritual order; and how can we doubt that in a spirit all is lucid?\nThis becomes all the more evident when we reflect that, besides\nbeing as a spirit lightsome, it is physically illuminated moving in\nthe light of kosmic revolution.\n\nThere is, thus, no longer any absurdity or impossibility in the\nnotion that the soul in the earth has vision: we must, further,\nconsider that it is the soul of no mean body; that in fact\nit is a god\nsince certainly soul must be everywhere good.\n\n\n## Section 27\n\n\n##### Section 27\n\n27. If the earth transmits the generative soul to growing\nthings- or retains it while allowing a vestige of it to\nconstitute the\nvegetal principle in them- at once the earth is ensouled, as\nour flesh\nis, and any generative power possessed by the plant world is of its\nbestowing: this phase of the soul is immanent in the body of the\ngrowing thing, and transmits to it that better element by which it\ndiffers from the broken off part no longer a thing of growth but a\nmere lump of material.\n\nBut does the entire body of the earth similarly receive anything\nfrom the soul?\n\nYes: for we must recognize that earthly material broken off from\nthe main body differs from the same remaining continuously attached;\nthus stones increase as long as they are embedded, and, from the\nmoment they are separated, stop at the size attained.\n\nWe must conclude, then, that every part and member of the earth\ncarries its vestige of this principle of growth, an under-phase of\nthat entire principle which belongs not to this or that member but\nto the earth as a whole: next in order is the nature [the\nsoul-phase],\nconcerned with sensation, this not interfused [like the vegetal\nprinciple] but in contact from above: then the higher soul and the\nIntellectual-Principle, constituting together the being known as\nHestia [Earth-Mind] and Demeter [Earth-Soul]- a nomenclature\nindicating the human intuition of these truths, asserted in the\nattribution of a divine name and nature.\n\n\n## Section 28\n\n\n##### Section 28\n\n28. Thus much established, we may return on our path: we have to\ndiscuss the seat of the passionate element in the human being.\n\nPleasures and pains- the conditions, that is, not the perception\nof them- and the nascent stage of desire, we assigned to the\nbody as a\ndetermined thing, the body brought, in some sense, to life: are we\nentitled to say the same of the nascent stage of passion? Are we to\nconsider passion in all its forms as vested in the determined body\nor in something belonging to it, for instance in the heart\nor the bile\nnecessarily taking condition within a body not dead? Or are we to\nthink that just as that which bestows the vestige of the soul is a\ndistinct entity, so we may reason in this case- the\npassionate element\nbeing one distinct thing, itself, and not deriving from any\npassionate\nor percipient faculty?\n\nNow in the first case the soul-principle involved, the vegetal,\npervades the entire body, so that pain and pleasure and\nnascent desire\nfor the satisfaction of need are present all over it- there is\npossibly some doubt as to the sexual impulse, which, however, it may\nsuffice to assign to the organs by which it is executed- but in\ngeneral the region about the liver may be taken to be the starting\npoint of desire, since it is the main acting point of the vegetal\nprinciple which transmits the vestige phase of the soul to the liver\nand body- the seat, because the spring.\n\nBut in this other case, of passion, we have to settle what it\nis, what form of soul it represents: does it act by communicating a\nlower phase of itself to the regions round the heart, or is it set\nin motion by the higher soul-phase impinging upon the Conjoint [the\nanimate-total], or is there, in such conditions no question of\nsoul-phase, but simply passion itself producing the act or state of\n[for example] anger?\n\nEvidently the first point for enquiry is what passion is.\n\nNow we all know that we feel anger not only over our own bodily\nsuffering, but also over the conduct of others, as when some of our\nassociates act against our right and due, and in general over any\nunseemly conduct. It is at once evident that anger implies some\nsubject capable of sensation and of judgement: and this\nconsideration suffices to show that the vegetal nature is not its\nsource, that we must look for its origin elsewhere.\n\nOn the other hand, anger follows closely upon bodily states;\npeople in whom the blood and the bile are intensely active are as\nquick to anger as those of cool blood and no bile are slow; animals\ngrow angry though they pay attention to no outside\ncombinations except\nwhere they recognize physical danger; all this forces us again to\nplace the seat of anger in the strictly corporeal element, the\nprinciple by which the animal organism is held together. Similarly,\nthat anger or its first stirring depends upon the condition of the\nbody follows from the consideration that the same people are more\nirritable ill than well, fasting than after food: it would seem that\nthe bile and the blood, acting as vehicles of life, produce these\nemotions.\n\nOur conclusion [reconciling with these corporeal facts\nthe psychic\nor mental element indicated] will identify, first, some suffering in\nthe body answered by a movement in the blood or in the bile:\nsensation\nensues and the soul, brought by means of the representative\nfaculty to\npartake in the condition of the affected body, is directed\ntowards the\ncause of the pain: the reasoning soul, in turn, from its place above\nthe phase not inbound with body-acts in its own mode when the breach\nof order has become manifest to it: it calls in the alliance of that\nready passionate faculty which is the natural combatant of the evil\ndisclosed.\n\nThus anger has two phases; there is firstly that which, rising\napart from all process of reasoning, draws reason to itself by the\nmedium of the imaging faculty, and secondly that which, rising in\nreason, touches finally upon the specific principle of the emotion.\nBoth these depend upon the existence of that principle of\nvegetal life\nand generation by which the body becomes an organism aware\nof pleasure\nand pain: this principle it was that made the body a thing\nof bile and\nbitterness, and thus it leads the indwelling soul-phase to\ncorresponding states- churlish and angry under stress of\nenvironment- so that being wronged itself, it tries, as we\nmay put it,\nto return the wrong upon its surroundings, and bring them to the\nsame condition.\n\nThat this soul-vestige, which determines the movements of\npassion is of one essence [con-substantial] with the other is\nevident from the consideration that those of us less avid of\ncorporeal\npleasures, especially those that wholly repudiate the body, are the\nleast prone to anger and to all experiences not rising from reason.\n\nThat this vegetal principle, underlying anger, should be present\nin trees and yet passion be lacking in them cannot surprise us since\nthey are not subject to the movements of blood and bile. If the\noccasions of anger presented themselves where there is no power of\nsensation there could be no more than a physical ebullition with\nsomething approaching to resentment [an unconscious reaction]; where\nsensation exists there is at once something more; the recognition of\nwrong and of the necessary defence carries with it the intentional\nact.\n\nBut the division of the unreasoning phase of the soul into a\ndesiring faculty and a passionate faculty- the first identical with\nthe vegetal principle, the second being a lower phase of it acting\nupon the blood or bile or upon the entire living organism- such a\ndivision would not give us a true opposition, for the two would\nstand in the relation of earlier phase to derivative.\n\nThis difficulty is reasonably met by considering that both\nfaculties are derivatives and making the division apply to them in\nso far as they are new productions from a common source; for the\ndivision applies to movements of desire as such, not to the essence\nfrom which they rise.\n\nThat essence is not, of its own nature, desire; it is, however,\nthe force which by consolidating itself with the active\nmanifestation proceeding from it makes the desire a completed thing.\nAnd that derivative which culminates in passion may not unreasonably\nbe thought of as a vestige-phase lodged about the heart, since the\nheart is not the seat of the soul, but merely the centre to that\nportion of the blood which is concerned in the movements of passion.\n\n\n## Section 29\n\n\n##### Section 29\n\n29. But- keeping to our illustration, by which the body is\nwarmed by soul and not merely illuminated by it- how is it that when\nthe higher soul withdraws there is no further trace of the vital\nprinciple?\n\nFor a brief space there is; and, precisely, it begins to\nfade away\nimmediately upon the withdrawal of the other, as in the case\nof warmed\nobjects when the fire is no longer near them: similarly hair\nand nails\nstill grow on the dead; animals cut to pieces wriggle for a good\ntime after; these are signs of a life force still indwelling.\n\nBesides, simultaneous withdrawal would not prove the identity of\nthe higher and lower phases: when the sun withdraws there\ngoes with it\nnot merely the light emanating from it, guided by it, attached to\nit, but also at once that light seen upon obliquely situated\nobjects, a light secondary to the sun's and cast upon things outside\nof its path [reflected light showing as colour]; the two are not\nidentical and yet they disappear together.\n\nBut is this simultaneous withdrawal or frank obliteration?\n\nThe question applies equally to this secondary light and to the\ncorporeal life, that life which we think of as being completely sunk\ninto body.\n\nNo light whatever remains in the objects once illuminated; that\nmuch is certain; but we have to ask whether it has sunk back into\nits source or is simply no longer in existence.\n\nHow could it pass out of being, a thing that once has been?\n\nBut what really was it? We must remember that what we know as\ncolour belongs to bodies by the fact that they throw off light, yet\nwhen corruptible bodies are transformed the colour disappears and we\nno more ask where the colour of a burned-out fire is than where its\nshape is.\n\nStill: the shape is merely a configuration, like the lie of the\nhands clenched or spread; the colour is no such accidental\nbut is more\nlike, for example, sweetness: when a material substance\nbreaks up, the\nsweetness of what was sweet in it, and the fragrance of what was\nfragrant, may very well not be annihilated, but enter into some\nother substance, passing unobserved there because the new habitat is\nnot such that the entrant qualities now offer anything solid to\nperception.\n\nMay we not think that, similarly, the light belonging to bodies\nthat have been dissolved remains in being while the solid total,\nmade up of all that is characteristic, disappears?\n\nIt might be said that the seeing is merely the sequel to some\nlaw [of our own nature], so that what we call qualities do not\nactually exist in the substances.\n\nBut this is to make the qualities indestructible and not\ndependent\nupon the composition of the body; it would no longer be the\nReason-Principles within the sperm that produce, for instance, the\ncolours of a bird's variegated plumage; these principles would\nmerely blend and place them, or if they produced them would draw\nalso on the full store of colours in the sky, producing in the\nsense, mainly, of showing in the formed bodies something very\ndifferent from what appears in the heavens.\n\nBut whatever we may think on this doubtful point, if, as long as\nthe bodies remain unaltered, the light is constant and\nunsevered, then\nit would seem natural that, on the dissolution of the body,\nthe light-\nboth that in immediate contact and any other attached to that-\nshould pass away at the same moment, unseen in the going as in the\ncoming.\n\nBut in the case of the soul it is a question whether the\nsecondary\nphases follow their priors- the derivatives their sources- or\nwhether every phase is self-governing, isolated from its\npredecessors and able to stand alone; in a word, whether no part of\nthe soul is sundered from the total, but all the souls are\nsimultaneously one soul and many, and, if so, by what mode; this\nquestion, however, is treated elsewhere.\n\nHere we have to enquire into the nature and being of that\nvestige of the soul actually present in the living body: if there is\ntruly a soul, then, as a thing never cut off from its total, it will\ngo with soul as soul must: if it is rather to be thought of as\nbelonging to the body, as the life of the body, we have the same\nquestion that rose in the case of the vestige of light; we must\nexamine whether life can exist without the presence of soul,\nexcept of\ncourse in the sense of soul living above and acting upon the remote\nobject.\n\n\n## Section 30\n\n\n##### Section 30\n\n30. We have declared acts of memory unnecessary to the stars,\nbut we allow them perceptions, hearing as well as seeing; for we\nsaid that prayers to them were heard- our supplications to the sun,\nand those, even, of certain other men to the stars. It has moreover\nbeen the belief that in answer to prayer they accomplish many human\nwishes, and this so lightheartedly that they become not\nmerely helpers\ntowards good but even accomplices in evil. Since this matter lies in\nour way, it must be considered, for it carries with it grave\ndifficulties that very much trouble those who cannot think of divine\nbeings as, thus, authors or auxiliaries in unseemliness even\nincluding\nthe connections of loose carnality.\n\nIn view of all this it is especially necessary to study the\nquestion with which we began, that of memory in the heavenly bodies.\n\nIt is obvious that, if they act on our prayers and if this\naction is not immediate, but with delay and after long periods of\ntime, they remember the prayers men address to them. This is\nsomething\nthat our former argument did not concede; though it appeared\nplausible\nthat, for their better service of mankind, they might have been\nendowed with such a memory as we ascribed to Demeter and\nHestia- or to\nthe latter alone if only the earth is to be thought of as beneficent\nto man.\n\nWe have, then, to attempt to show: firstly, how acts implying\nmemory in the heavenly bodies are to be reconciled with our system\nas distinguished from those others which allow them memory\nas a matter\nof course; secondly, what vindication of those gods of the heavenly\nspheres is possible in the matter of seemingly anomalous acts- a\nquestion which philosophy cannot ignore- then too, since the charge\ngoes so far, we must ask whether credence is to be given to those\nwho hold that the entire heavenly system can be put under spell by\nman's skill and audacity: our discussion will also deal with the\nspirit-beings and how they may be thought to minister to these ends-\nunless indeed the part played by the Celestials prove to be\nsettled by\nthe decision upon the first questions.\n\n\n## Section 31\n\n\n##### Section 31\n\n31. Our problem embraces all act and all experience\nthroughout the\nentire kosmos- whether due to nature, in the current phrase, or\neffected by art. The natural proceeds, we must hold, from the All\ntowards its members and from the members to the All, or from\nmember to\nother member: the artificial either remains, as it began, within the\nlimit of the art- attaining finality in the artificial product\nalone- or is the expression of an art which calls to its aid natural\nforces and agencies, and so sets up act and experience within the\nsphere of the natural.\n\nWhen I speak of the act and experience of the All I mean\nthe total\neffect of the entire kosmic circuit upon itself and upon its\nmembers: for by its motion it sets up certain states both within\nitself and upon its parts, upon the bodies that move within it and\nupon all that it communicates to those other parts of it, the things\nof our earth.\n\nThe action of part upon part is manifest; there are the\nrelations and operations of the sun, both towards the other spheres\nand towards the things of earth; and again relations among\nelements of\nthe sun itself, of other heavenly bodies, of earthly things and of\nthings in the other stars, demand investigation.\n\nAs for the arts: Such as look to house building and the like are\nexhausted when that object is achieved; there are again those-\nmedicine, farming, and other serviceable pursuits- which deal\nhelpfully with natural products, seeking to bring them to natural\nefficiency; and there is a class- rhetoric, music and every other\nmethod of swaying mind or soul, with their power of modifying for\nbetter or for worse- and we have to ascertain what these arts come\nto and what kind of power lies in them.\n\nOn all these points, in so far as they bear on our present\npurpose, we must do what we can to work out some approximate\nexplanation.\n\nIt is abundantly evident that the Circuit is a cause; it\nmodifies,\nfirstly, itself and its own content, and undoubtedly also it tells\non the terrestrial, not merely in accordance with bodily conditions\nbut also by the states of the soul it sets up; and each of\nits members\nhas an operation upon the terrestrial and in general upon all the\nlower.\n\nWhether there is a return action of the lower upon the\nhigher need\nnot trouble us now: for the moment we are to seek, as far as\ndiscussion can exhibit it, the method by which action takes\nplace; and\nwe do not challenge the opinions universally or very generally\nentertained.\n\nWe take the question back to the initial act of causation. It\ncannot be admitted that either heat or cold and the like what are\nknown as the primal qualities of the elements- or any admixture of\nthese qualities, should be the first causes we are seeking; equally\ninacceptable, that while the sun's action is all by heat, there is\nanother member of the Circuit operating wholly by cold-\nincongruous in\nthe heavens and in a fiery body- nor can we think of some other star\noperating by liquid fire.\n\nSuch explanations do not account for the differences of things,\nand there are many phenomena which cannot be referred to any of\nthese causes. Suppose we allow them to be the occasion of moral\ndifferences- determined, thus, by bodily composition and\nconstitution under a reigning heat or cold- does that give us a\nreasonable explanation of envy, jealously, acts of violence?\nOr, if it\ndoes, what, at any rate, are we to think of good and bad\nfortune, rich\nmen and poor, gentle blood, treasure-trove?\n\nAn immensity of such examples might be adduced, all leading far\nfrom any corporeal quality that could enter the body and soul of a\nliving thing from the elements: and it is equally impossible that\nthe will of the stars, a doom from the All, any deliberation among\nthem, should be held responsible for the fate of each and\nall of their\ninferiors. It is not to be thought that such beings engage\nthemselves in human affairs in the sense of making men thieves,\nslave-dealers, burglars, temple-strippers, or debased effeminates\npractising and lending themselves to disgusting actions: that is not\nmerely unlike gods; it is unlike mediocre men; it is,\nperhaps, beneath\nthe level of any existing being where there is not the least\npersonal advantage to be gained.\n\n\n## Section 32\n\n\n##### Section 32\n\n32. If we can trace neither to material agencies [blind\nelements] nor to any deliberate intention the influences from\nwithout which reach to us and to the other forms of life and to the\nterrestrial in general, what cause satisfactory to reason remains?\n\nThe secret is: firstly, that this All is one universally\ncomprehensive living being, encircling all the living beings within\nit, and having a soul, one soul, which extends to all its members in\nthe degree of participant membership held by each; secondly, that\nevery separate thing is an integral part of this All by belonging to\nthe total material fabric- unrestrictedly a part by bodily\nmembership,\nwhile, in so far as it has also some participation in the All. Soul,\nit possesses in that degree spiritual membership as well, perfect\nwhere participation is in the All-Soul alone, partial where there is\nalso a union with a lower soul.\n\nBut, with all this gradation, each several thing is affected by\nall else in virtue of the common participation in the All, and to\nthe degree of its own participation.\n\nThis One-All, therefore, is a sympathetic total and stands as\none living being; the far is near; it happens as in one animal with\nits separate parts: talon, horn, finger, and any other member are\nnot continuous and yet are effectively near; intermediate parts feel\nnothing, but at a distant point the local experience is known.\nCorrespondent things not side by side but separated by others placed\nbetween, the sharing of experience by dint of like condition- this\nis enough to ensure that the action of any distant member be\ntransmitted to its distant fellow. Where all is a living\nthing summing\nto a unity there is nothing so remote in point of place as not to be\nnear by virtue of a nature which makes of the one living being a\nsympathetic organism.\n\nWhere there is similarity between a thing affected and the thing\naffecting it, the affection is not alien; where the\naffecting cause is\ndissimilar the affection is alien and unpleasant.\n\nSuch hurtful action of member upon member within one living\nbeing need not seem surprising: within ourselves, in our own\nactivities, one constituent can be harmed by another; bile and\nanimal spirit seem to press and goad other members of the\nhuman total:\nin the vegetal realm one part hurts another by sucking the moisture\nfrom it. And in the All there is something analogous to bile and\nanimal spirit, as to other such constituents. For visibly it is not\nmerely one living organism; it is also a manifold. In virtue of the\nunity the individual is preserved by the All: in virtue of the\nmultiplicity of things having various contacts, difference often\nbrings about mutual hurt; one thing, seeking its own need, is\ndetrimental to another; what is at once related and different is\nseized as food; each thing, following its own natural path, wrenches\nfrom something else what is serviceable to itself, and destroys or\nchecks in its own interest whatever is becoming a menace to it:\neach, occupied with its peculiar function, assists no doubt anything\nable to profit by that, but harms or destroys what is too weak to\nwithstand the onslaught of its action, like fire withering things\nround it or greater animals in their march thrusting aside or\ntrampling under foot the smaller.\n\nThe rise of all these forms of being and their modification,\nwhether to their loss or gain, all goes to the fulfillment of the\nnatural unhindered life of that one living being: for it was not\npossible for the single thing to be as if it stood alone; the final\npurpose could not serve to that only end, intent upon the\npartial: the\nconcern must be for the whole to which each item is member:\nthings are\ndifferent both from each other and in their own stages, therefore\ncannot be complete in one unchanging form of life; nor could\nanything remain utterly without modification if the All is to be\ndurable; for the permanence of an All demands varying forms.\n\n\n## Section 33\n\n\n##### Section 33\n\n33. The Circuit does not go by chance but under the\nReason-Principle of the living whole; therefore there must be a\nharmony between cause and caused; there must be some order ranging\nthings to each other's purpose, or in due relation to each other:\nevery several configuration within the Circuit must be accompanied\nby a change in the position and condition of things\nsubordinate to it,\nwhich thus by their varied rhythmic movement make up one total\ndance-play.\n\nIn our dance-plays there are outside elements contributing to\nthe total effect- fluting, singing, and other linked accessories-\nand each of these changes in each new movement: there is no need to\ndwell on these; their significance is obvious. But besides this\nthere is the fact that the limbs of the dancer cannot possibly keep\nthe same positions in every figure; they adapt themselves to\nthe plan,\nbending as it dictates, one lowered, another raised, one active,\nanother resting as the set pattern changes. The dancer's mind is on\nhis own purpose; his limbs are submissive to the dance-movement\nwhich they accomplish to the end, so that the connoisseur can\nexplain that this or that figure is the motive for the lifting,\nbending, concealment, effacing, of the various members of the body;\nand in all this the executant does not choose the particular motions\nfor their own sake; the whole play of the entire person dictates the\nnecessary position to each limb and member as it serves to the plan.\n\nNow this is the mode in which the heavenly beings [the diviner\nmembers of the All] must be held to be causes wherever they have any\naction, and, when. they do not act, to indicate.\n\nOr, a better statement: the entire kosmos puts its entire life\ninto act, moving its major members with its own action and\nunceasingly\nsetting them in new positions; by the relations thus established, of\nthese members to each other and to the whole, and by the different\nfigures they make together, the minor members in turn are brought\nunder the system as in the movements of some one living\nbeing, so that\nthey vary according to the relations, positions, configurations: the\nbeings thus co-ordinated are not the causes; the cause is the\ncoordinating All; at the same time it is not to be thought of as\nseeking to do one thing and actually doing another, for there is\nnothing external to it since it is the cause by actually\nbeing all: on\nthe one side the configurations, on the other the inevitable effects\nof those configurations upon a living being moving as a unit and,\nagain, upon a living being [an All] thus by its nature conjoined and\nconcomitant and, of necessity, at once subject and object to its own\nactivities.\n\n\n## Section 34\n\n\n##### Section 34\n\n34. For ourselves, while whatever in us belongs to the\nbody of the\nAll should be yielded to its action, we ought to make sure that we\nsubmit only within limits, realizing that the entire man is not thus\nbound to it: intelligent servitors yield a part of\nthemselves to their\nmasters but in part retain their personality, and are thus less\nabsolutely at beck and call, as not being slaves, not utterly\nchattels.\n\nThe changing configurations within the All could not fail to be\nproduced as they are, since the moving bodies are not of equal speed.\n\nNow the movement is guided by a Reason-Principle; the\nrelations of\nthe living whole are altered in consequence; here in our own\nrealm all\nthat happens reacts in sympathy to the events of that higher sphere:\nit becomes, therefore, advisable to ask whether we are to think of\nthis realm as following upon the higher by agreement, or to\nattribute to the configurations the powers underlying the events,\nand whether such powers would be vested in the configurations simply\nor in the relations of the particular items.\n\nIt will be said that one position of one given thing has by no\nmeans an identical effect- whether of indication or of causation- in\nits relation to another and still less to any group of others, since\neach several being seems to have a natural tendency [or receptivity]\nof its own.\n\nThe truth is that the configuration of any given group means\nmerely the relationship of the several parts, and, changing the\nmembers, the relationship remains the same.\n\nBut, this being so, the power will belong, not to the positions\nbut to the beings holding those positions?\n\nTo both taken together. For as things change their relations,\nand as any one thing changes place, there is a change of power.\n\nBut what power? That of causation or of indication?\n\nTo this double thing- the particular configuration of particular\nbeings- there accrues often the twofold power, that of causation and\nthat of indication, but sometimes only that of indication.\nThus we are\nobliged to attribute powers both to the configuration and to the\nbeings entering into them. In mime dancers each of the hands has its\nown power, and so with all the limbs; the relative positions\nhave much\npower; and, for a third power, there is that of the accessories and\nconcomitants; underlying the action of the performers' limbs, there\nare such items as the clutched fingers and the muscles and veins\nfollowing suit.\n\n\n## Section 35\n\n\n##### Section 35\n\n35. But we must give some explanation of these powers. The\nmatter requires a more definite handling. How can there be a\ndifference of power between one triangular configuration and another?\n\nHow can there be the exercise of power from man to man;\nunder what\nlaw, and within what limits?\n\nThe difficulty is that we are unable to attribute\ncausation either\nto the bodies of the heavenly beings or to their wills: their bodies\nare excluded because the product transcends the causative power of\nbody, their will because it would be unseemly to suppose\ndivine beings\nto produce unseemliness.\n\nLet us keep in mind what we have laid down:\n\nThe being we are considering is a living unity and, therefore,\nnecessarily self-sympathetic: it is under a law of reason, and\ntherefore the unfolding process of its life must be self-accordant:\nthat life has no haphazard, but knows only harmony and ordinance:\nall the groupings follow reason: all single beings within it, all\nthe members of this living whole in their choral dance are under a\nrule of Number.\n\nHolding this in mind we are forced to certain conclusions: in\nthe expressive act of the All are comprised equally the\nconfigurations\nof its members and these members themselves, minor as well as major\nentering into the configurations. This is the mode of life\nof the All;\nand its powers work together to this end under the Nature in\nwhich the\nproducing agency within the Reason-Principles has brought them into\nbeing. The groupings [within the All] are themselves in the nature\nof Reason-Principles since they are the out-spacing of a\nliving-being,\nits reason-determined rhythms and conditions, and the entities thus\nspaced-out and grouped to pattern are its various members: then\nagain there are the powers of the living being- distinct these, too-\nwhich may be considered as parts of it, always excluding deliberate\nwill which is external to it, not contributory to the nature of the\nliving All.\n\nThe will of any organic thing is one; but the distinct powers\nwhich go to constitute it are far from being one: yet all the\nseveral wills look to the object aimed at by the one will of the\nwhole: for the desire which the one member entertains for\nanother is a\ndesire within the All: a part seeks to acquire something outside\nitself, but that external is another part of which it feels the\nneed: the anger of a moment of annoyance is directed to something\nalien, growth draws on something outside, all birth and becoming has\nto do with the external; but all this external is inevitably\nsomething\nincluded among fellow members of the system: through these its limbs\nand members, the All is bringing this activity into being while in\nitself it seeks- or better, contemplates- The Good. Right will,\nthen, the will which stands above accidental experience, seeks The\nGood and thus acts to the same end with it. When men serve another,\nmany of their acts are done under order, but the good servant is the\none whose purpose is in union with his master's.\n\nIn all the efficacy of the sun and other stars upon earthly\nmatters we can but believe that though the heavenly body is intent\nupon the Supreme yet- to keep to the sun- its warming of terrestrial\nthings, and every service following upon that, all springs from\nitself, its own act transmitted in virtue of soul, the vastly\nefficacious soul of Nature. Each of the heavenly bodies, similarly,\ngives forth a power, involuntary, by its mere radiation: all things\nbecome one entity, grouped by this diffusion of power, and so bring\nabout wide changes of condition; thus the very groupings have power\nsince their diversity produces diverse conditions; that the grouped\nbeings themselves have also their efficiency is clear since they\nproduce differently according to the different membership of the\ngroups.\n\nThat configuration has power in itself is within our own\nobservation here. Why else do certain groupments, in\ncontradistinction\nto others, terrify at sight though there has been no previous\nexperience of evil from them? If some men are alarmed by a\nparticular groupment and others by quite a different one, the reason\ncan be only that the configurations themselves have efficacy, each\nupon a certain type- an efficacy which cannot fail to reach anything\nnaturally disposed to be impressed by it, so that in one groupment\nthings attract observation which in another pass without effect.\n\nIf we are told that beauty is the motive of attraction, does not\nthis mean simply that the power of appeal to this or that\nmind depends\nupon pattern, configuration? How can we allow power to\ncolour and none\nto configuration? It is surely untenable that an entity should have\nexistence and yet have no power to effect: existence carries with it\neither acting or answering to action, some beings having\naction alone,\nothers both.\n\nAt the same time there are powers apart from pattern: and, in\nthings of our realm, there are many powers dependent not\nupon heat and\ncold but upon forces due to differing properties, forces which have\nbeen shaped to ideal-quality by the action of Reason-Principles and\ncommunicate in the power of Nature: thus the natural properties of\nstones and the efficacy of plants produce many astonishing results.\n\n\n## Section 36\n\n\n##### Section 36\n\n36. The Universe is immensely varied, the container of all the\nReason-Principles and of infinite and diverse efficacies. In man, we\nare told, the eye has its power, and the bones have their varied\npowers, and so with each separate part of hand and of foot; and\nthere is no member or organ without its own definite function, some\nseparate power of its own- a diversity of which we can have no\nnotion unless our studies take that direction. What is true of man\nmust be true of the universe, and much more, since all this order is\nbut a representation of the higher: it must contain an untellably\nwonderful variety of powers, with which, of course, the bodies\nmoving through the heavens will be most richly endowed.\n\nWe cannot think of the universe as a soulless habitation,\nhowever vast and varied, a thing of materials easily told\noff, kind by\nkind- wood and stone and whatever else there be, all blending into a\nkosmos: it must be alert throughout, every member living by its own\nlife, nothing that can have existence failing to exist within it.\n\nAnd here we have the solution of the problem, \"How an ensouled\nliving form can include the soulless\": for this account allows\ngrades of living within the whole, grades to some of which we deny\nlife only because they are not perceptibly self-moved: in the truth,\nall of these have a hidden life; and the thing whose life is\npatent to\nsense is made up of things which do not live to sense, but, none the\nless, confer upon their resultant total wonderful powers towards\nliving. Man would never have reached to his actual height if the\npowers by which he acts were the completely soulless elements of his\nbeing; similarly the All could not have its huge life unless\nits every\nmember had a life of its own; this however does not necessarily\nimply a deliberate intention; the All has no need of intention to\nbring about its acts: it is older than intention, and therefore its\npowers have many servitors.\n\n\n## Section 37\n\n\n##### Section 37\n\n37. We must not rob the universe of any factor in its being. If\nany of our theorists of to-day seek to explain the action of fire-\nor of any other such form, thought of as an agent- they will find\nthemselves in difficulties unless they recognize the act to be the\nobject's function in the All, and give a like explanation of other\nnatural forces in common use.\n\nWe do not habitually examine or in any way question the\nnormal: we\nset to doubting and working out identifications when we are\nconfronted\nby any display of power outside everyday experience: we wonder at a\nnovelty and we wonder at the customary when anyone brings\nforward some\nsingle object and explains to our ignorance the efficacy\nvested in it.\n\nSome such power, not necessarily accompanied by reason, every\nsingle item possesses; for each has been brought into being and into\nshape within a universe; each in its kind has partaken of\nsoul through\nthe medium of the ensouled All, as being embraced by that definitely\nconstituted thing: each then is a member of an animate being\nwhich can\ninclude nothing that is less than a full member [and therefore a\nsharer in the total of power]- though one thing is of mightier\nefficacy than another, and, especially members of the heavenly\nsystem than the objects of earth, since they draw upon a\npurer nature-\nand these powers are widely productive. But productivity does not\ncomport intention in what appears to be the source of the thing\naccomplished: there is efficacy, too, where there is no will: even\nattention is not necessary to the communication of power; the very\ntransmission of soul may proceed without either.\n\nA living being, we know, may spring from another without any\nintention, and as without loss so without consciousness in the\nbegetter: in fact any intention the animal exercised could be a\ncause of propagation only on condition of being identical with the\nanimal [i.e., the theory would make intention a propagative animal,\nnot a mental act?]\n\nAnd, if intention is unnecessary to the propagation of life,\nmuch more so is attention.\n\n\n## Section 38\n\n\n##### Section 38\n\n38. Whatever springs automatically from the All out of that\ndistinctive life of its own, and, in addition to that self-moving\nactivity, whatever is due to some specific agency- for example, to\nprayers, simple or taking the form of magic incantations- this\nentire range of production is to be referred, not to each such\nsingle cause, but to the nature of the thing produced [i.e., to a\ncertain natural tendency in the product to exist with its own\nquality].\n\nAll that forwards life or some other useful purpose is to be\nascribed to the transmission characteristic of the All; it is\nsomething flowing from the major of an integral to its\nminor. Where we\nthink we see the transmission of some force unfavourable to the\nproduction of living beings, the flaw must be found in the inability\nof the subject to take in what would serve it: for what happens does\nnot happen upon a void; there is always specific form and quality;\nanything that could be affected must have an underlying nature\ndefinite and characterized. The inevitable blendings, further, have\ntheir constructive effect, every element adding something\ncontributory\nto the life. Then again some influence may come into play at the\ntime when the forces of a beneficent nature are not acting: the\nco-ordination of the entire system of things does not always allow\nto each several entity everything that it needs: and further we\nourselves add a great deal to what is transmitted to us.\n\nNone the less all entwines into a unity: and there is something\nwonderful in the agreement holding among these various things of\nvaried source, even of sources frankly opposite; the secret lies in\na variety within a unity. When by the standard of the better kind\namong things of process anything falls short- the reluctance of its\nmaterial substratum having prevented its perfect shaping under idea-\nit may be thought of as being deficient in that noble element whose\nabsence brings to shame: the thing is a blend, something due to the\nhigh beings, an alloy from the underlying nature, something added by\nthe self.\n\nBecause all is ever being knit, all brought to culmination in\nunity, therefore all events are indicated; but this does not make\nvirtue a matter of compulsion; its spontaneity is equally\ninwoven into\nthe ordered system by the general law that the things of this sphere\nare pendant from the higher, that the content of our universe lies\nin the hands of the diviner beings in whom our world is participant.\n\n\n## Section 39\n\n\n##### Section 39\n\n39. We cannot, then, refer all that exists to Reason-Principles\ninherent in the seed of things [Spermatic Reasons]; the\nuniverse is to\nbe traced further back, to the more primal forces, to the principles\nby which that seed itself takes shape. Such spermatic principles\ncannot be the containers of things which arise independently of\nthem, such as what enters from Matter [the reasonless] into\nmembership\nof the All, or what is due to the mere interaction of existences.\n\nNo: the Reason-Principle of the universe would be better\nenvisaged\nas a wisdom uttering order and law to a state, in full knowledge of\nwhat the citizens will do and why, and in perfect adaptation\nof law to\ncustom; thus the code is made to thread its way in and out\nthrough all\ntheir conditions and actions with the honour or infamy\nearned by their\nconduct; and all coalesces by a kind of automatism.\n\nThe signification which exists is not a first intention;\nit arises\nincidentally by the fact that in a given collocation the members\nwill tell something of each other: all is unity sprung of unity and\ntherefore one thing is known by way of another other, a cause in the\nlight of the caused, the sequent as rising from its precedent, the\ncompound from the constituents which must make themselves\nknown in the\nlinked total.\n\nIf all this is sound, at once our doubts fall and we need no\nlonger ask whether the transmission of any evil is due to the gods.\n\nFor, in sum: Firstly, intentions are not to be considered as the\noperative causes; necessities inherent in the nature of\nthings account\nfor all that comes from the other realm; it is a matter of the\ninevitable relation of parts, and, besides, all is the\nsequence to the\nliving existence of a unity. Secondly, there is the large\ncontribution\nmade by the individual. Thirdly, each several communication, good in\nitself, takes another quality in the resultant combination.\nFourthly, the life in the kosmos does not look to the individual but\nto the whole. Finally, there is Matter, the underlie, which being\ngiven one thing receives it as something else, and is unable to make\nthe best of what it takes.\n\n\n## Section 40\n\n\n##### Section 40\n\n40. But magic spells; how can their efficacy be explained?\n\nBy the reigning sympathy and by the fact in Nature that there is\nan agreement of like forces and an opposition of unlike, and by the\ndiversity of those multitudinous powers which converge in the one\nliving universe.\n\nThere is much drawing and spell-binding dependent on no\ninterfering machination; the true magic is internal to the All, its\nattractions and, not less, its repulsions. Here is the primal mage\nand sorcerer- discovered by men who thenceforth turn those same\nensorcellations and magic arts upon one another.\n\nLove is given in Nature; the qualities inducing love\ninduce mutual\napproach: hence there has arisen an art of magic love-drawing whose\npractitioners, by the force of contact implant in others a new\ntemperament, one favouring union as being informed with love; they\nknit soul to soul as they might train two separate trees towards\neach other. The magician too draws on these patterns of power, and\nby ranging himself also into the pattern is able tranquilly\nto possess\nhimself of these forces with whose nature and purpose he has become\nidentified. Supposing the mage to stand outside the All, his\nevocations and invocations would no longer avail to draw up\nor to call\ndown; but as things are he operates from no outside standground, he\npulls knowing the pull of everything towards any other thing in the\nliving system.\n\nThe tune of an incantation, a significant cry, the mien of the\noperator, these too have a natural leading power over the soul upon\nwhich they are directed, drawing it with the force of mournful\npatterns or tragic sounds- for it is the reasonless soul,\nnot the will\nor wisdom, that is beguiled by music, a form of sorcery which raises\nno question, whose enchantment, indeed, is welcomed,\nexacted, from the\nperformers. Similarly with regard to prayers; there is no question\nof a will that grants; the powers that answer to incantations do not\nact by will; a human being fascinated by a snake has neither\nperception nor sensation of what is happening; he knows only after\nhe has been caught, and his highest mind is never caught. In other\nwords, some influence falls from the being addressed upon the\npetitioner- or upon someone else- but that being itself, sun or\nstar, perceives nothing of it all.\n\n\n## Section 41\n\n\n##### Section 41\n\n41. The prayer is answered by the mere fact that part and other\npart are wrought to one tone like a musical string which, plucked at\none end, vibrates at the other also. Often, too, the sounding of one\nstring awakens what might pass for a perception in another,\nthe result\nof their being in harmony and tuned to one musical scale; now, if\nthe vibration in a lyre affects another by virtue of the sympathy\nexisting between them, then certainly in the All- even though it is\nconstituted in contraries- there must be one melodic system; for it\ncontains its unisons as well, and its entire content, even to those\ncontraries, is a kinship.\n\nThus, too, whatever is hurtful to man- the passionate spirit,\nfor example, drawn by the medium of the gall into the\nprinciple seated\nin the liver- comes with no intention of hurt; it is simply as one\ntransferring fire to another might innocently burn him: no doubt,\nsince he actually set the other on fire he is a cause, but\nonly as the\nattacking fire itself is a cause, that is by the merely accidental\nfact that the person to whom the fire was being brought blundered in\ntaking it.\n\n\n## Section 42\n\n\n##### Section 42\n\n42. It follows that, for the purposes which have induced this\ndiscussion, the stars have no need of memory or of any sense of\npetitions addressed to them; they give no such voluntary attention\nto prayers as some have thought: it is sufficient that, in virtue\nsimply of the nature of parts and of parts within a whole, something\nproceeds from them whether in answer to prayer or without prayer. We\nhave the analogy of many powers- as in some one living organism-\nwhich, independently of plan or as the result of applied method, act\nwithout any collaboration of the will: one member or function is\nhelped or hurt by another in the mere play of natural forces; and\nthe art of doctor or magic healer will compel some one centre to\npurvey something of its own power to another centre. just so the\nAll: it purveys spontaneously, but it purveys also under spell; some\nentity [acting like the healer] is concerned for a member situated\nwithin itself and summons the All which, then, pours in its gift; it\ngives to its own part by the natural law we have cited since the\npetitioner is no alien to it. Even though the suppliant be a sinner,\nthe answering need not shock us; sinners draw from the\nbrooks; and the\ngiver does not know of the gift but simply gives- though we must\nremember that all is one woof and the giving is always consonant\nwith the order of the universe. There is, therefore, no necessity by\nineluctable law that one who has helped himself to what lies open to\nall should receive his deserts then and there.\n\nIn sum, we must hold that the All cannot be affected; its\nleading principle remains for ever immune whatsoever happens to its\nmembers; the affection is really present to them, but since nothing\nexistent can be at strife with the total of existence, no such\naffection conflicts with its impassivity.\n\nThus the stars, in so far as they are parts, can be affected and\nyet are immune on various counts; their will, like that of\nthe All, is\nuntouched, just as their bodies and their characteristic natures are\nbeyond all reach of harm; if they give by means of their souls,\ntheir souls lose nothing; their bodies remain unchanged or, if there\nis ebb or inflow, it is of something going unfelt and coming\nunawares.\n\n\n## Section 43\n\n\n##### Section 43\n\n43. And the Proficient [the Sage], how does he stand with regard\nto magic and philtre-spells?\n\nIn the soul he is immune from magic; his reasoning part cannot\nbe touched by it, he cannot be perverted. But there is in him the\nunreasoning element which comes from the [material] All, and in this\nhe can be affected, or rather this can be affected in him.\nPhiltre-Love, however, he will not know, for that would require the\nconsent of the higher soul to the trouble stiffed in the lower. And,\njust as the unreasoning element responds to the call of incantation,\nso the adept himself will dissolve those horrible powers by\ncounter-incantations. Death, disease, any experience within the\nmaterial sphere, these may result, yes; for anything that has\nmembership in the All may be affected by another member, or by the\nuniverse of members; but the essential man is beyond harm.\n\nThat the effects of magic should be not instantaneous but\ndeveloped is only in accord with Nature's way.\n\nEven the Celestials, the Daimones, are not on their unreasoning\nside immune: there is nothing against ascribing acts of memory and\nexperiences of sense to them, in supposing them to accept\nthe traction\nof methods laid up in the natural order, and to give hearing to\npetitioners; this is especially true of those of them that\nare closest\nto this sphere, and in the degree of their concern about it.\n\nFor everything that looks to another is under spell to that:\nwhat we look to, draws us magically. Only the self-intent go free of\nmagic. Hence every action has magic as its source, and the\nentire life\nof the practical man is a bewitchment: we move to that only which\nhas wrought a fascination upon us. This is indicated where we read\n\"for the burgher of greathearted Erechtheus has a pleasant face [but\nyou should see him naked; then you would be cautious].\" For what\nconceivably turns a man to the external? He is drawn, drawn by the\narts not of magicians but of the natural order which administers the\ndeceiving draught and links this to that, not in local contact but\nin the fellowship of the philtre.\n\n\n## Section 44\n\n\n##### Section 44\n\n44. Contemplation alone stands untouched by magic; no man\nself-gathered falls to a spell; for he is one, and that unity is all\nhe perceives, so that his reason is not beguiled but holds the due\ncourse, fashioning its own career and accomplishing its task.\n\nIn the other way of life, it is not the essential man that gives\nthe impulse; it is not the reason; the unreasoning also acts as a\nprinciple, and this is the first condition of the misfortune. Caring\nfor children, planning marriage- everything that works as\nbait, taking\nvalue by dint of desire- these all tug obviously: so it is with our\naction, sometimes stirred, not reasonably, by a certain spirited\ntemperament, sometimes as foolishly by greed; political\ninterests, the\nsiege of office, all betray a forth-summoning lust of power; action\nfor security springs from fear; action for gain, from desire; action\nundertaken for the sake of sheer necessities- that is, for supplying\nthe insufficiency of nature- indicates, manifestly, the\ncajoling force\nof nature to the safeguarding of life.\n\nWe may be told that no such magic underlies good action,\nsince, at\nthat, Contemplation itself, certainly a good action, implies a magic\nattraction.\n\nThe answer is that there is no magic when actions recognized as\ngood are performed upon sheer necessity with the\nrecollection that the\nveritable good is elsewhere; this is simply knowledge of need; it is\nnot a bewitchment binding the life to this sphere or to any thing\nalien; all is permissible under duress of human nature, and in the\nspirit of adaptation to the needs of existence in general- or even\nto the needs of the individual existence, since it certainly seems\nreasonable to fit oneself into life rather than to withdraw from it.\n\nWhen, on the contrary, the agent falls in love with what is good\nin those actions, and, cheated by the mere track and trace of the\nAuthentic Good makes them his own, then, in his pursuit of a lower\ngood, he is the victim of magic. For all dalliance with what\nwears the\nmask of the authentic, all attraction towards that mere semblance,\ntells of a mind misled by the spell of forces pulling towards\nunreality.\n\nThe sorcery of Nature is at work in this; to pursue the non-good\nas a good, drawn in unreasoning impulse by its specious\nappearance: it\nis to be led unknowing down paths unchosen; and what can we call\nthat but magic.\n\nAlone in immunity from magic is he who, though drawn by the\nalien parts of his total being, withholds his assent to their\nstandards of worth, recognizing the good only where his\nauthentic self\nsees and knows it, neither drawn nor pursuing, but tranquilly\npossessing and so never charmed away.\n\n\n## Section 45\n\n\n##### Section 45\n\n45. From this discussion it becomes perfectly clear that the\nindividual member of the All contributes to that All in the degree\nof its kind and condition; thus it acts and is acted upon. In any\nparticular animal each of the limbs and organs, in the measure of\nits kind and purpose, aids the entire being by service performed and\ncounts in rank and utility: it gives what is in it its gift and\ntakes from its fellows in the degree of receptive power belonging to\nits kind; there is something like a common sensitiveness linking the\nparts, and in the orders in which each of the parts is also animate,\neach will have, in addition to its rank as part, the very particular\nfunctions of a living being.\n\nWe have learned, further, something of our human\nstanding; we know\nthat we too accomplish within the All a work not confined to the\nactivity and receptivity of body in relation to body; we know that\nwe bring to it that higher nature of ours, linked as we are by\naffinities within us towards the answering affinities outside us;\nbecoming by our soul and the conditions of our kind thus linked- or,\nbetter, being linked by Nature- with our next highest in the\ncelestial\nor demonic realm, and thence onwards with those above the\nCelestials, we cannot fail to manifest our quality. Still, we are\nnot all able to offer the same gifts or to accept identically: if we\ndo not possess good, we cannot bestow it; nor can we ever purvey any\ngood thing to one that has no power of receiving good. Anyone that\nadds his evil to the total of things is known for what he is and, in\naccordance with his kind, is pressed down into the evil which he has\nmade his own, and hence, upon death, goes to whatever region fits\nhis quality- and all this happens under the pull of natural forces.\n\nFor the good man, the giving and the taking and the changes of\nstate go quite the other way; the particular tendencies of\nthe nature,\nwe may put it, transpose the cords [so that we are moved by that\nonly which, in Plato's metaphor of the puppets, draws towards the\nbest].\n\nThus this universe of ours is a wonder of power and wisdom,\neverything by a noiseless road coming to pass according to a\nlaw which\nnone may elude- which the base man never conceives though it is\nleading him, all unknowingly, to that place in the All where his lot\nmust be cast- which the just man knows, and, knowing, sets out to\nthe place he must, understanding, even as he begins the\njourney, where\nhe is to be housed at the end, and having the good hope that he will\nbe with gods.\n\nIn a living being of small scope the parts vary but slightly,\nand have but a faint individual consciousness, and, unless\npossibly in\na few and for a short time, are not themselves alive. But in a\nliving universe, of high expanse, where every entity has vast scope\nand many of the members have life, there must be wider movement and\ngreater changes. We see the sun and the moon and the other stars\nshifting place and course in an ordered progression. It is therefore\nwithin reason that the souls, also, of the All should have their\nchanges, not retaining unbrokenly the same quality, but\nranged in some\nanalogy with their action and experience- some taking rank\nas head and\nsome as foot in a disposition consonant with the Universal\nBeing which\nhas its degrees in better and less good. A soul, which\nneither chooses\nthe highest that is here, nor has lent itself to the lowest, is one\nwhich has abandoned another, a purer, place, taking this sphere in\nfree election.\n\nThe punishments of wrong-doing are like the treatment of\ndiseased parts of the body- here, medicines to knit sundered flesh;\nthere, amputations; elsewhere, change of environment and condition-\nand the penalties are planned to bring health to the All by settling\nevery member in the fitting place: and this health of the\nAll requires\nthat one man be made over anew and another, sick here, be taken\nhence to where he shall be weakly no longer.",
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  }
}