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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-5",
    "name": "Ennead V — On the Intellectual-Principle"
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      "slug": "plotinus-enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 3,
    "slug": "3-the-knowing-hypostases-and-the",
    "title": "V.3 — The Knowing Hypostases and That Which Is Beyond",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 9256,
    "text": "## THIRD TRACTATE\n\n\n#### THIRD TRACTATE.\n\nTHE KNOWING HYPOSTASES AND THE\n\nTRANSCENDENT.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. Are we to think that a being knowing itself must contain\ndiversity, that self-knowledge can be affirmed only when some one\nphase of the self perceives other phases, and that therefore an\nabsolutely simplex entity would be equally incapable of introversion\nand of self-awareness?\n\nNo: a being that has no parts or phases may have this\nconsciousness; in fact there would be no real self-knowing in an\nentity presented as knowing itself in virtue of being a\ncompound- some\nsingle element in it perceiving other elements- as we may\nknow our own\nform and entire bodily organism by sense-perception: such\nknowing does\nnot cover the whole field; the knowing element has not had the\nrequired cognisance at once of its associates and of itself; this is\nnot the self-knower asked for; it is merely something that knows\nsomething else.\n\nEither we must exhibit the self-knowing of an uncompounded\nbeing- and show how that is possible- or abandon the belief that any\nbeing can possess veritable self-cognition.\n\nTo abandon the belief is not possible in view of the many\nabsurdities thus entailed.\n\nIt would be already absurd enough to deny this power to the soul\nor mind, but the very height of absurdity to deny it to the nature\nof the Intellectual-Principle, presented thus as knowing the rest of\nthings but not attaining to knowledge, or even awareness, of itself.\n\nIt is the province of sense and in some degree of understanding\nand judgement, but not of the Intellectual-Principle, to handle the\nexternal, though whether the Intellectual-Principle holds the\nknowledge of these things is a question to be examined, but it is\nobvious that the Intellectual-Principle must have knowledge of the\nIntellectual objects. Now, can it know those objects alone or must\nit not simultaneously know itself, the being whose function it is to\nknow just those things? Can it have self-knowledge in the sense\n[dismissed above as inadequate] of knowing its content while it\nignores itself? Can it be aware of knowing its members and yet\nremain in ignorance of its own knowing self? Self and content must\nbe simultaneously present: the method and degree of this knowledge\nwe must now consider.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. We begin with the soul, asking whether it is to be allowed\nself-knowledge and what the knowing principle in it would be and how\noperating.\n\nThe sense-principle in it we may at once decide, takes\ncognisance only of the external; even in any awareness of events\nwithin the body it occupies, this is still the perception of\nsomething\nexternal to a principle dealing with those bodily conditions not as\nwithin but as beneath itself.\n\nThe reasoning-principle in the Soul acts upon the\nrepresentations standing before it as the result of\nsense-perception; these it judges, combining, distinguishing: or it\nmay also observe the impressions, so to speak, rising from the\nIntellectual-Principle, and has the same power of handling these;\nand reasoning will develop to wisdom where it recognizes the new and\nlate-coming impressions [those of sense] and adapts them, so\nto speak,\nto those it holds from long before- the act which may be described\nas the soul's Reminiscence.\n\nSo far as this, the efficacy of the Intellectual-Principle in\nthe Soul certainly reaches; but is there also introversion and\nself-cognition or is that power to be reserved strictly for\nthe Divine\nMind?\n\nIf we accord self-knowing to this phase of the soul we make it\nan Intellectual-Principle and will have to show what distinguishes\nit from its prior; if we refuse it self-knowing, all our thought\nbrings us step by step to some principle which has this power, and\nwe must discover what such self-knowing consists in. If, again, we\ndo allow self-knowledge in the lower we must examine the question of\ndegree; for if there is no difference of degree, then the reasoning\nprinciple in soul is the Intellectual-Principle unalloyed.\n\nWe ask, then, whether the understanding principle in the soul\nhas equally the power of turning inwards upon itself or\nwhether it has\nno more than that of comprehending the impressions, superior and\ninferior, which it receives.\n\nThe first stage is to discover what this comprehension is.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. Sense sees a man and transmits the impression to the\nunderstanding. What does the understanding say? It has nothing to\nsay as yet; it accepts and waits; unless, rather, it questions\nwithin itself \"Who is this?\"- someone it has met before- and then,\ndrawing on memory, says, \"Socrates.\"\n\nIf it should go on to develop the impression received, it\ndistinguishes various elements in what the representative faculty\nhas set before it; supposing it to say \"Socrates, if the man\nis good,\"\nthen, while it has spoken upon information from the senses, its\ntotal pronouncement is its own; it contains within itself a standard\nof good.\n\nBut how does it thus contain the good within itself?\n\nIt is, itself, of the nature of the good and it has been\nstrengthened still towards the perception of all that is good by the\nirradiation of the Intellectual-Principle upon it; for this\npure phase\nof the soul welcomes to itself the images implanted from its prior.\n\nBut why may we not distinguish this understanding phase as\nIntellectual-Principle and take soul to consist of the later phases\nfrom the sensitive downwards?\n\nBecause all the activities mentioned are within the scope of a\nreasoning faculty, and reasoning is characteristically the\nfunction of\nsoul.\n\nWhy not, however, absolve the question by assigning\nself-cognisance to this phase?\n\nBecause we have allotted to soul the function of dealing- in\nthought and in multiform action- with the external, and we hold that\nobservation of self and of the content of self must belong to\nIntellectual-Principle.\n\nIf any one says, \"Still; what precludes the reasoning soul from\nobserving its own content by some special faculty?\" he is no longer\nposting a principle of understanding or of reasoning but, simply,\nbringing in the Intellectual-Principle unalloyed.\n\nBut what precludes the Intellectual-Principle from being\npresent, unalloyed, within the soul? Nothing, we admit; but are we\nentitled therefore to think of it as a phase of soul?\n\nWe cannot describe it as belonging to the soul though we do\ndescribe it as our Intellectual-Principle, something\ndistinct from the\nunderstanding, advanced above it, and yet ours even though we cannot\ninclude it among soul-phases: it is ours and not ours; and therefore\nwe use it sometimes and sometimes not, whereas we always have use of\nthe understanding; the Intellectual-Principle is ours when we act by\nit, not ours when we neglect it.\n\nBut what is this acting by it? Does it mean that we become the\nIntellectual-Principle so that our utterance is the utterance of the\nIntellectual-Principle, or that we represent it?\n\nWe are not the Intellectual-Principle; we represent it in virtue\nof that highest reasoning faculty which draws upon it.\n\nStill; we perceive by means of the perceptive faculty and are,\nourselves, the percipients: may we not say the same of the\nintellective act?\n\nNo: our reasoning is our own; we ourselves think the\nthoughts that\noccupy the understanding- for this is actually the We- but the\noperation of the Intellectual-Principle enters from above us as that\nof the sensitive faculty from below; the We is the soul at its\nhighest, the mid-point between two powers, between the sensitive\nprinciple, inferior to us, and the intellectual principle\nsuperior. We\nthink of the perceptive act as integral to ourselves because our\nsense-perception is uninterrupted; we hesitate as to the\nIntellectual-Principle both because we are not always\noccupied with it\nand because it exists apart, not a principle inclining to us but one\nto which we incline when we choose to look upwards.\n\nThe sensitive principle is our scout; the Intellectual-Principle\nour King.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. But we, too, are king when we are moulded to the\nIntellectual-Principle.\n\nThat correspondence may be brought about in two ways: either the\nradii from that centre are traced upon us to be our law or we are\nfilled full of the Divine Mind, which again may have become to us a\nthing seen and felt as a presence.\n\nHence our self-knowing comes to the knowing of all the\nrest of our\nbeing in virtue of this thing patently present; or by that power\nitself communicating to us its own power of self-knowing; or by our\nbecoming identical with that principle of knowledge.\n\nThus the self-knower is a double person: there is the one that\ntakes cognisance of the principle in virtue of which understanding\noccurs in the soul or mind; and there is the higher, knowing himself\nby the Intellectual-Principle with which he becomes identical: this\nlatter knows the self as no longer man but as a being that has\nbecome something other through and through: he has thrown himself as\none thing over into the superior order, taking with him only that\nbetter part of the soul which alone is winged for the\nIntellectual Act\nand gives the man, once established There, the power to appropriate\nwhat he has seen.\n\nWe can scarcely suppose this understanding faculty to be unaware\nthat it has understanding; that it takes cognisance of things\nexternal; that in its judgements it decides by the rules and\nstandards\nwithin itself held directly from the Intellectual-Principle; that\nthere is something higher than itself, something which, moreover, it\nhas no need to seek but fully possesses. What can we conceive to\nescape the self-knowledge of a principle which admittedly knows the\nplace it holds and the work it has to do? It affirms that it springs\nfrom Intellectual-Principle whose second and image it is, that it\nholds all within itself, the universe of things, engraved, so to\nsay, upon it as all is held There by the eternal engraver. Aware so\nfar of itself, can it be supposed to halt at that? Are we to suppose\nthat all we can do is to apply a distinct power of our\nnature and come\nthus to awareness of that Intellectual-Principle as aware of itself?\nOr may we not appropriate that principle- which belongs to\nus as we to\nit- and thus attain to awareness, at once, of it and of ourselves?\nYes: this is the necessary way if we are to experience the\nself-knowledge vested in the Intellectual-Principle. And a\nman becomes\nIntellectual-Principle when, ignoring all other phases of his being,\nhe sees through that only and sees only that and so knows himself by\nmeans of the self- in other words attains the self-knowledge\nwhich the\nIntellectual-Principle possesses.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. Does it all come down, then, to one phase of the self knowing\nanother phase?\n\nThat would be a case of knower distinguished from known,\nand would\nnot be self-knowing.\n\nWhat, then, if the total combination were supposed to be of one\npiece, knower quite undistinguished from known, so that, seeing any\ngiven part of itself as identical with itself, it sees\nitself by means\nof itself, knower and known thus being entirely without\ndifferentiation?\n\nTo begin with, the distinction in one self thus suggested is a\nstrange phenomenon. How is the self to make the partition? The thing\ncannot happen of itself. And, again, which phase makes it? The phase\nthat decides to be the knower or that which is to be the known? Then\nhow can the knowing phase know itself in the known when it has\nchosen to be the knower and put itself apart from the known? In such\nself-knowledge by sundering it can be aware only of the\nobject, not of\nthe agent; it will not know its entire content, or itself as an\nintegral whole; it knows the phase seen but not the seeing phase and\nthus has knowledge of something else, not self-knowledge.\n\nIn order to perfect self-knowing it must bring over from itself\nthe knowing phase as well: seeing subject and seen objects must be\npresent as one thing. Now if in this coalescence of seeing subject\nwith seen objects, the objects were merely representations of the\nreality, the subject would not possess the realities: if it is to\npossess them it must do so not by seeing them as the result of any\nself-division but by knowing them, containing them, before any\nself-division occurs.\n\nAt that, the object known must be identical with the knowing act\n[or agent], the Intellectual-Principle, therefore, identical with\nthe Intellectual Realm. And in fact, if this identity does not\nexist, neither does truth; the Principle that should contain\nrealities\nis found to contain a transcript, something different from the\nrealities; that constitutes non-Truth; Truth cannot apply to\nsomething\nconflicting with itself; what it affirms it must also be.\n\nThus we find that the Intellectual-Principle, the Intellectual\nRealm and Real Being constitute one thing, which is the Primal\nBeing; the primal Intellectual-Principle is that which contains the\nrealities or, rather, which is identical with them.\n\nBut taking Primal Intellection and its intellectual\nobject to be a\nunity, how does that give an Intellective Being knowing itself? An\nintellection enveloping its object or identical with it is far from\nexhibiting the Intellectual-Principle as self-knowing.\n\nAll turns on the identity. The intellectual object is itself an\nactivity, not a mere potentiality; it is not lifeless; nor are the\nlife and intellection brought into it as into something naturally\ndevoid of them, some stone or other dead matter; no, the\nintellectual object is essentially existent, the primal\nreality. As an\nactive force, the first activity, it must be, also itself,\nthe noblest\nintellection, intellection possessing real being since it is\nentirely true; and such an intellection, primal and primally\nexistent,\ncan be no other than the primal principle of Intellection: for that\nprimal principle is no potentiality and cannot be an agent distinct\nfrom its act and thus, once more, possessing its essential being as\na mere potentiality. As an act- and one whose very being is\nan act- it\nmust be undistinguishably identical with its act: but Being and the\nIntellectual object are also identical with that act; therefore the\nIntellectual-Principle, its exercise of intellection and the\nobject of\nintellection all are identical. Given its intellection identical\nwith intellectual object and the object identical with the Principle\nitself, it cannot but have self-knowledge: its intellection operates\nby the intellectual act which is itself upon the intellectual object\nwhich similarly is itself. It possesses self-knowing, thus, on every\ncount; the act is itself; and the object seen in that act- self, is\nitself.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. Thus we have shown that there exists that which in the\nstrictest sense possesses self-knowing.\n\nThis self-knowing agent, perfect in the\nIntellectual-Principle, is\nmodified in the Soul.\n\nThe difference is that, while the soul knows itself as within\nsomething else, the Intellectual-Principle knows itself as\nself-depending, knows all its nature and character, and\nknows by right\nof its own being and by simple introversion. When it looks upon the\nauthentic existences it is looking upon itself; its vision as its\neffective existence, and this efficacy is itself since the\nIntellectual-Principle and the Intellectual Act are one: this is an\nintegral seeing itself by its entire being, not a part seeing by a\npart.\n\nBut has our discussion issued in an Intellectual-Principle\nhaving a persuasive activity [furnishing us with probability]?\n\nNo: it brings compulsion not persuasion; compulsion\nbelongs to the\nIntellectual-Principle, persuasion to the soul or mind, and\nwe seem to\ndesire to be persuaded rather than to see the truth in the pure\nintellect.\n\nAs long as we were Above, collected within the Intellectual\nnature, we were satisfied; we were held in the intellectual act; we\nhad vision because we drew all into unity- for the thinker in us was\nthe Intellectual-Principle telling us of itself- and the soul or\nmind was motionless, assenting to that act of its prior. But now\nthat we are once more here- living in the secondary, the\nsoul- we seek\nfor persuasive probabilities: it is through the image we desire to\nknow the archetype.\n\nOur way is to teach our soul how the Intellectual-Principle\nexercises self-vision; the phase thus to be taught is that which\nalready touches the intellective order, that which we call the\nunderstanding or intelligent soul, indicating by the very\nname that it\nis already of itself in some degree an Intellectual-Principle or\nthat it holds its peculiar power through and from that\nPrinciple. This\nphase must be brought to understand by what means it has knowledge\nof the thing it sees and warrant for what it affirms: if it became\nwhat it affirms, it would by that fact possess self-knowing. All its\nvision and affirmation being in the Supreme or deriving from\nit- There\nwhere itself also is- it will possess self-knowledge by its\nright as a\nReason-Principle, claiming its kin and bringing all into accord with\nthe divine imprint upon it.\n\nThe soul therefore [to attain self-knowledge] has only\nto set this\nimage [that is to say, its highest phase] alongside the veritable\nIntellectual-Principle which we have found to be identical with the\ntruths constituting the objects of intellection, the world of\nPrimals and Reality: for this Intellectual-Principle, by very\ndefinition, cannot be outside of itself, the Intellectual Reality:\nself-gathered and unalloyed, it is Intellectual-Principle through\nall the range of its being- for unintelligent intelligence is not\npossible- and thus it possesses of necessity self-knowing, as a\nbeing immanent to itself and one having for function and\nessence to be\npurely and solely Intellectual-Principle. This is no doer; the doer,\nnot self-intent but looking outward, will have knowledge, in some\nkind, of the external, but, if wholly of this practical order, need\nhave no self-knowledge; where, on the contrary, there is no action-\nand of course the pure Intellectual-Principle cannot be straining\nafter any absent good- the intention can be only towards the self;\nat once self-knowing becomes not merely plausible but\ninevitable; what\nelse could living signify in a being immune from action and existing\nin Intellect?\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. The contemplating of God, we might answer.\n\nBut to admit its knowing God is to be compelled to admit its\nself-knowing. It will know what it holds from God, what God has\ngiven forth or may; with this knowledge, it knows itself at the\nstroke, for it is itself one of those given things- in fact is all\nof them. Knowing God and His power, then, it knows itself, since it\ncomes from Him and carries His power upon it; if, because\nhere the act\nof vision is identical with the object, it is unable to see God\nclearly, then all the more, by the equation of seeing and\nseen, we are\ndriven back upon that self-seeing and self-knowing in which\nseeing and\nthing seen are undistinguishably one thing.\n\nAnd what else is there to attribute to it?\n\nRepose, no doubt; but, to an Intellectual-Principle,\nRepose is not\nan abdication from intellect; its Repose is an Act, the act of\nabstention from the alien: in all forms of existence repose from the\nalien leaves the characteristic activity intact, especially where\nthe Being is not merely potential but fully realized.\n\nIn the Intellectual-Principle, the Being is an Act and in the\nabsence of any other object it must be self-directed; by this\nself-intellection it holds its Act within itself and upon itself;\nall that can emanate from it is produced by this self-centering and\nself-intention; first- self-gathered, it then gives itself or gives\nsomething in its likeness; fire must first be self-centred and be\nfire, true to fire's natural Act; then it may reproduce itself\nelsewhere.\n\nOnce more, then; the Intellectual-Principle is a self-intent\nactivity, but soul has the double phase, one inner, intent upon the\nIntellectual-Principle, the other outside it and facing to the\nexternal; by the one it holds the likeness to its source; by the\nother, even in its unlikeness, it still comes to likeness in this\nsphere, too, by virtue of action and production; in its action it\nstill contemplates, and its production produces Ideal-forms- divine\nintellections perfectly wrought out- so that all its creations are\nrepresentations of the divine Intellection and of the divine\nIntellect, moulded upon the archetype, of which all are\nemanations and\nimages, the nearer more true, the very latest preserving some faint\nlikeness of the source.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. Now comes the question what sort of thing does the\nIntellectual-Principle see in seeing the Intellectual Realm and what\nin seeing itself?\n\nWe are not to look for an Intellectual realm reminding us of the\ncolour or shape to be seen on material objects: the intellectual\nantedates all such things; and even in our sphere the production is\nvery different from the Reason-Principle in the seeds from\nwhich it is\nproduced. The seed principles are invisible and the beings of the\nIntellectual still more characteristically so; the Intellectuals are\nof one same nature with the Intellectual Realm which contains them,\njust as the Reason-Principle in the seed is identical with the soul,\nor life-principle, containing it.\n\nBut the Soul (considered as apart from the\nIntellectual-Principle)\nhas no vision of what it thus contains, for it is not the producer\nbut, like the Reason-Principles also, an image of its source: that\nsource is the brilliant, the authentic, the primarily existent, the\nthing self-sprung and self-intent; but its image, soul, is a thing\nwhich can have no permanence except by attachment, by living in that\nother; the very nature of an image is that, as a secondary, it shall\nhave its being in something else, if at all it exist apart from its\noriginal. Hence this image (soul) has not vision, for it has not the\nnecessary light, and, if it should see, then, as finding its\ncompletion elsewhere, it sees another, not itself.\n\nIn the pure Intellectual there is nothing of this: the vision\nand the envisioned are a unity; the seen is as the seeing and seeing\nas seen.\n\nWhat, then, is there that can pronounce upon the nature of this\nall-unity?\n\nThat which sees: and to see is the function of the\nIntellectual-Principle. Even in our own sphere [we have a parallel\nto this self-vision of a unity], our vision is light or\nrather becomes\none with light, and it sees light for it sees colours. In the\nintellectual, the vision sees not through some medium but by and\nthrough itself alone, for its object is not external: by one light\nit sees another not through any intermediate agency; a light sees a\nlight, that is to say a thing sees itself. This light shining within\nthe soul enlightens it; that is, it makes the soul intellective,\nworking it into likeness with itself, the light above.\n\nThink of the traces of this light upon the soul, then say to\nyourself that such, and more beautiful and broader and more radiant,\nis the light itself; thus you will approach to the nature of the\nIntellectual-Principle and the Intellectual Realm, for it is this\nlight, itself lit from above, which gives the soul its brighter life.\n\nIt is not the source of the generative life of the soul which,\non the contrary, it draws inward, preserving it from such diffusion,\nholding it to the love of the splendour of its Prior.\n\nNor does it give the life of perception and sensation, for that\nlooks to the external and to what acts most vigorously upon\nthe senses\nwhereas one accepting that light of truth may be said no\nlonger to see\nthe visible, but the very contrary.\n\nThis means in sum that the life the soul takes thence is an\nintellective life, a trace of the life in the [divine] Intellect, in\nwhich alone the authentic exists.\n\nThe life in the Divine Intellect is also an Act: it is the\nprimal light outlamping to itself primarily, its own torch;\nlight-giver and lit at once; the authentic intellectual object,\nknowing at once and known, seen to itself and needing no other than\nitself to see by, self-sufficing to the vision, since what it sees\nit is; known to us by that very same light, our knowledge of it\nattained through itself, for from nowhere else could we find\nthe means\nof telling of it. By its nature, its self-vision is the clearer but,\nusing it as our medium, we too may come to see by it.\n\nIn the strength of such considerations we lead up our own soul\nto the Divine, so that it poses itself as an image of that Being,\nits life becoming an imprint and a likeness of the Highest, its\nevery act of thought making it over into the Divine and the\nIntellectual.\n\nIf the soul is questioned as to the nature of that\nIntellectual-Principle- the perfect and all-embracing, the primal\nself-knower- it has but to enter into that Principle, or to sink all\nits activity into that, and at once it shows itself to be in\neffective\npossession of those priors whose memory it never lost: thus, as an\nimage of the Intellectual-Principle, it can make itself the medium\nby which to attain some vision of it; it draws upon that\nwithin itself\nwhich is most closely resemblant, as far as resemblance is possible\nbetween divine Intellect and any phase of soul.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. In order, then, to know what the Divine Mind is, we must\nobserve soul and especially its most God-like phase.\n\nOne certain way to this knowledge is to separate first, the man\nfrom the body- yourself, that is, from your body- next to put aside\nthat soul which moulded the body, and, very earnestly, the system of\nsense with desires and impulses and every such futility, all setting\ndefinitely towards the mortal: what is left is the phase of the soul\nwhich we have declared to be an image of the Divine Intellect,\nretaining some light from that sun, while it pours downward upon the\nsphere of magnitudes [that is, of Matter] the light playing about\nitself which is generated from its own nature.\n\nOf course we do not pretend that the sun's light [as the analogy\nmight imply] remains a self-gathered and sun-centred thing: it is at\nonce outrushing and indwelling; it strikes outward continuously, lap\nafter lap, until it reaches us upon our earth: we must take it that\nall the light, including that which plays about the sun's orb, has\ntravelled; otherwise we would have a void expanse, that of the\nspace- which is material- next to the sun's orb. The Soul, on the\ncontrary- a light springing from the Divine Mind and shining\nabout it-\nis in closest touch with that source; it is not in transit\nbut remains\ncentred there, and, in likeness to that principle, it has no place:\nthe light of the sun is actually in the air, but the soul is clean\nof all such contact so that its immunity is patent to itself and to\nany other of the same order.\n\nAnd by its own characteristic act, though not without reasoning\nprocess, it knows the nature of the Intellectual-Principle which, on\nits side, knows itself without need of reasoning, for it is ever\nself-present whereas we become so by directing our soul towards it;\nour life is broken and there are many lives, but that principle\nneeds no changings of life or of things; the lives it brings to\nbeing are for others not for itself: it cannot need the inferior;\nnor does it for itself produce the less when it possesses or is the\nall, nor the images when it possesses or is the prototype.\n\nAnyone not of the strength to lay hold of the first soul, that\npossessing pure intellection, must grasp that which has to\ndo with our\nordinary thinking and thence ascend: if even this prove too hard,\nlet him turn to account the sensitive phase which carries the ideal\nforms of the less fine degree, that phase which, too, with\nits powers,\nis immaterial and lies just within the realm of Ideal-principles.\n\nOne may even, if it seem necessary, begin as low as the\nreproductive soul and its very production and thence make the\nascent, mounting from those ultimate ideal principles to the\nultimates\nin the higher sense, that is to the primals.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. This matter need not be elaborated at present: it suffices\nto say that if the created were all, these ultimates [the\nhigher] need\nnot exist: but the Supreme does include primals, the primals because\nthe producers. In other words, there must be, with the made, the\nmaking source; and, unless these are to be identical, there will be\nneed of some link between them. Similarly, this link which is the\nIntellectual-Principle demands yet a Transcendent. If we are\nasked why\nthis Transcendent also should not have self-vision, our\nanswer is that\nit has no need of vision; but this we will discuss later: for the\nmoment we go back, since the question at issue is gravely important.\n\nWe repeat that the Intellectual-Principle must have,\nactually has,\nself-vision, firstly because it has multiplicity, next because it\nexists for the external and therefore must be a seeing power, one\nseeing that external; in fact its very essence is vision. Given some\nexternal, there must be vision; and if there be nothing external the\nIntellectual-Principle [Divine Mind] exists in vain. Unless there is\nsomething beyond bare unity, there can be no vision: vision must\nconverge with a visible object. And this which the seer is to see\ncan be only a multiple, no undistinguishable unity; nor could a\nuniversal unity find anything upon which to exercise any\nact; all, one\nand desolate, would be utter stagnation; in so far as there\nis action,\nthere is diversity. If there be no distinctions, what is there to\ndo, what direction in which to move? An agent must either\nact upon the\nextern or be a multiple and so able to act upon itself: making no\nadvance towards anything other than itself, it is motionless\nand where\nit could know only blank fixity it can know nothing.\n\nThe intellective power, therefore, when occupied with the\nintellectual act, must be in a state of duality, whether one of the\ntwo elements stand actually outside or both lie within: the\nintellectual act will always comport diversity as well as the\nnecessary identity, and in the same way its characteristic objects\n[the Ideas] must stand to the Intellectual-Principle as at once\ndistinct and identical. This applies equally to the single object;\nthere can be no intellection except of something containing\nseparable detail and, since the object is a Reason-principle [a\ndiscriminated Idea] it has the necessary element of multiplicity.\nThe Intellectual-Principle, thus, is informed of itself by\nthe fact of\nbeing a multiple organ of vision, an eye receptive of many\nilluminated\nobjects. If it had to direct itself to a memberless unity,\nit would be\ndereasoned: what could it say or know of such an object? The\nself-affirmation of [even] a memberless unity implies the\nrepudiation of all that does not enter into the character: in other\nwords, it must be multiple as a preliminary to being itself.\n\nThen, again, in the assertion \"I am this particular\nthing,\" either\nthe \"particular thing\" is distinct from the assertor- and there is a\nfalse statement- or it is included within it, and, at once,\nmultiplicity is asserted: otherwise the assertion is \"I am\nwhat I am,\"\nor \"I am I.\"\n\nIf it be no more than a simple duality able to say \"I and that\nother phase,\" there is already multiplicity, for there is\ndistinction and ground of distinction, there is number with all its\ntrain of separate things.\n\nIn sum, then, a knowing principle must handle distinct items:\nits object must, at the moment of cognition, contain diversity;\notherwise the thing remains unknown; there is mere\nconjunction, such a\ncontact, without affirmation or comprehension, as would precede\nknowledge, the intellect not yet in being, the impinging agent not\npercipient.\n\nSimilarly the knowing principle itself cannot remain simplex,\nespecially in the act of self-knowing: all silent though its\nself-perception be, it is dual to itself. Of course it has no need\nof minute self-handling since it has nothing to learn by its\nintellective act; before it is [effectively] Intellect, it holds\nknowledge of its own content. Knowledge implies desire, for it is,\nso to speak, discovery crowning a search; the utterly\nundifferentiated\nremains self-centred and makes no enquiry about that self: anything\ncapable of analysing its content, must be a manifold.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. Thus the Intellectual-Principle, in the act of knowing the\nTranscendent, is a manifold. It knows the Transcendent in\nvery essence\nbut, with all its effort to grasp that prior as a pure unity, it\ngoes forth amassing successive impressions, so that, to it,\nthe object\nbecomes multiple: thus in its outgoing to its object it is not\n[fully realised] Intellectual-Principle; it is an eye that\nhas not yet\nseen; in its return it is an eye possessed of the multiplicity which\nit has itself conferred: it sought something of which it found the\nvague presentment within itself; it returned with something else,\nthe manifold quality with which it has of its own act invested the\nsimplex.\n\nIf it had not possessed a previous impression of the\nTranscendent,\nit could never have grasped it, but this impression, originally of\nunity, becomes an impression of multiplicity; and the\nIntellectual-Principle, in taking cognisance of that multiplicity,\nknows the Transcendent and so is realized as an eye possessed of its\nvision.\n\nIt is now Intellectual-Principle since it actually holds its\nobject, and holds it by the act of intellection: before, it was no\nmore than a tendance, an eye blank of impression: it was in motion\ntowards the transcendental; now that it has attained, it has become\nIntellectual-Principle henceforth absorbed; in virtue of this\nintellection it holds the character of Intellectual-Principle, of\nEssential Existence and of Intellectual Act where, previously, not\npossessing the Intellectual Object, it was not Intellectual\nPerception, and, not yet having exercised the Intellectual\nAct, it was\nnot Intellectual-Principle.\n\nThe Principle before all these principles is no doubt the first\nprinciple of the universe, but not as immanent: immanence is not for\nprimal sources but for engendering secondaries; that which stands as\nprimal source of everything is not a thing but is distinct from all\nthings: it is not, then, a member of the total but earlier than all,\nearlier, thus, than the Intellectual-Principle- which in\nfact envelops\nthe entire train of things.\n\nThus we come, once more, to a Being above the\nIntellectual-Principle and, since the sequent amounts to no less\nthan the All, we recognise, again, a Being above the All. This\nassuredly cannot be one of the things to which it is prior.\nWe may not\ncall it \"Intellect\"; therefore, too, we may not call it \"the\nGood,\" if\n\"the Good\" is to be taken in the sense of some one member of the\nuniverse; if we mean that which precedes the universe of things, the\nname may be allowed.\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle is established in multiplicity; its\nintellection, self-sprung though it be, is in the nature of\nsomething added to it [some accidental dualism] and makes it\nmultiple:\nthe utterly simplex, and therefore first of all beings, must, then,\ntranscend the Intellectual-Principle; and, obviously, if this had\nintellection it would no longer transcend the Intellectual-Principle\nbut be it, and at once be a multiple.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. But why, after all, should it not be such a manifold as long\nas it remains one substantial existence, having the multiplicity not\nof a compound being but of a unity with a variety of activities?\n\nNow, no doubt, if these various activities are not themselves\nsubstantial existences- but merely manifestations of latent\npotentiality- there is no compound; but, on the other hand,\nit remains\nincomplete until its substantial existence be expressed in\nact. If its\nsubstantial existence consists in its Act, and this Act constitutes\nmultiplicity, then its substantial existence will be strictly\nproportioned to the extent of the multiplicity.\n\nWe allow this to be true for the Intellectual-Principle to which\nwe have allotted [the multiplicity of] self-knowing; but for\nthe first\nprinciple of all, never. Before the manifold, there must be The One,\nthat from which the manifold rises: in all numerical series, the\nunit is the first.\n\nBut- we will be answered- for number, well and good, since the\nsuite makes a compound; but in the real beings why must there be a\nunit from which the multiplicity of entities shall proceed?\n\nBecause [failing such a unity] the multiplicity would consist of\ndisjointed items, each starting at its own distinct place and moving\naccidentally to serve to a total.\n\nBut, they will tell us, the Activities in question do\nproceed from\na unity, from the Intellectual-Principle, a simplex.\n\nBy that they admit the existence of a simplex prior to the\nActivities; and they make the Activities perdurable and class them\nas substantial existences [hypostases]; but as Hypostases\nthey will be\ndistinct from their source, which will remain simplex; while its\nproduct will in its own nature be manifold and dependent upon it.\n\nNow if these activities arise from some unexplained\nfirst activity\nin that principle, then it too contains the manifold: if, on the\ncontrary, they are the very earliest activities and the source and\ncause of any multiple product and the means by which that\nPrinciple is\nable, before any activity occurs, to remain self-centred, then they\nare allocated to the product of which they are the cause; for this\nprinciple is one thing, the activities going forth from it are\nanother, since it is not, itself, in act. If this be not so,\nthe first\nact cannot be the Intellectual-Principle: the One does not\nprovide for\nthe existence of an Intellectual-Principle which thereupon appears;\nthat provision would be something [an Hypostasis] intervening\nbetween the One and the Intellectual-Principle, its offspring. There\ncould, in fact, be no such providing in The One, for it was never\nincomplete; and such provision could name nothing that ought to be\nprovided. It cannot be thought to possess only some part of its\ncontent, and not the whole; nor did anything exist to which it could\nturn in desire. Clearly anything that comes into being after it,\narises without shaking to its permanence in its own habit. It is\nessential to the existence of any new entity that the First remain\nin self-gathered repose throughout: otherwise, it moved before there\nwas motion and had intellectual act before any intellection- unless,\nindeed, that first act [as motionless and without intelligence] was\nincomplete, nothing more than a tendency. And what can we imagine it\nlights upon to become the object of such a tendency?\n\nThe only reasonable explanation of act flowing from it\nlies in the\nanalogy of light from a sun. The entire intellectual order may be\nfigured as a kind of light with the One in repose at its\nsummit as its\nKing: but this manifestation is not cast out from it: we may think,\nrather, of the One as a light before the light, an eternal\nirradiation\nresting upon the Intellectual Realm; this, not identical with its\nsource, is yet not severed from it nor of so remote a nature as to\nbe less than Real-Being; it is no blind thing, but is seeing and\nknowing, the primal knower.\n\nThe One, as transcending Intellect, transcends knowing: above\nall need, it is above the need of the knowing which pertains\nsolely to\nthe Secondary Nature. Knowing is a unitary thing, but defined: the\nfirst is One, but undefined: a defined One would not be the\nOne-absolute: the absolute is prior to the definite.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. Thus The One is in truth beyond all statement: any\naffirmation\nis of a thing; but the all-transcending, resting above even the most\naugust divine Mind, possesses alone of all true being, and is not a\nthing among things; we can give it no name because that would imply\npredication: we can but try to indicate, in our own feeble way,\nsomething concerning it: when in our perplexity we object,\n\"Then it is\nwithout self-perception, without self-consciousness, ignorant of\nitself\"; we must remember that we have been considering it\nonly in its\nopposites.\n\nIf we make it knowable, an object of affirmation, we make it a\nmanifold; and if we allow intellection in it we make it at that\npoint indigent: supposing that in fact intellection accompanies it,\nintellection by it must be superfluous.\n\nSelf-intellection- which is the truest- implies the entire\nperception of a total self formed from a variety converging into an\nintegral; but the Transcendent knows neither separation of part nor\nany such enquiry; if its intellectual act were directed upon\nsomething\noutside, then, the Transcendent would be deficient and the\nintellection faulty.\n\nThe wholly simplex and veritable self-sufficing can be lacking\nat no point: self-intellection begins in that principle which,\nsecondarily self-sufficing, yet needs itself and therefore needs to\nknow itself: this principle, by its self-presence, achieves its\nsufficiency in virtue of its entire content [it is the all]: it\nbecomes thus competent from the total of its being, in the act of\nliving towards itself and looking upon itself.\n\nConsciousness, as the very word indicates, is a conperception, an\nact exercised upon a manifold: and even intellection, earlier\n[nearer to the divine] though it is, implies that the agent\nturns back\nupon itself, upon a manifold, then. If that agent says no\nmore than \"I\nam a being,\" it speaks [by the implied dualism] as a\ndiscoverer of the\nextern; and rightly so, for being is a manifold; when it\nfaces towards\nthe unmanifold and says, \"I am that being,\" it misses both itself\nand the being [since the simplex cannot be thus divided into knower\nand known]: if it is [to utter] truth it cannot indicate by \"being\"\nsomething like a stone; in the one phrase multiplicity is asserted;\nfor the being thus affirmed- [even] the veritable, as distinguished\nfrom such a mere container of some trace of being as ought not to be\ncalled a being since it stands merely as image to archetype-\neven this\nmust possess multiplicity.\n\nBut will not each item in that multiplicity be an object of\nintellection to us?\n\nTaken bare and single, no: but Being itself is manifold within\nitself, and whatever else you may name has Being.\n\nThis accepted, it follows that anything that is to be thought of\nas the most utterly simplex of all cannot have self-intellection; to\nhave that would mean being multiple. The Transcendent, thus, neither\nknows itself nor is known in itself.\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. How, then, do we ourselves come to be speaking of it?\n\nNo doubt we deal with it, but we do not state it; we have\nneither knowledge nor intellection of it.\n\nBut in what sense do we even deal with it when we have no hold\nupon it?\n\nWe do not, it is true, grasp it by knowledge, but that does not\nmean that we are utterly void of it; we hold it not so as to\nstate it,\nbut so as to be able to speak about it. And we can and do state what\nit is not, while we are silent as to what it is: we are, in fact,\nspeaking of it in the light of its sequels; unable to state\nit, we may\nstill possess it.\n\nThose divinely possessed and inspired have at least the\nknowledge that they hold some greater thing within them though they\ncannot tell what it is; from the movements that stir them and the\nutterances that come from them they perceive the power, not\nthemselves, that moves them: in the same way, it must be, we stand\ntowards the Supreme when we hold the Intellectual-Principle pure; we\nknow the divine Mind within, that which gives Being and all else of\nthat order: but we know, too, that other, know that it is none of\nthese, but a nobler principle than any-thing we know as Being;\nfuller and greater; above reason, mind and feeling; conferring these\npowers, not to be confounded with them.\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. Conferring- but how? As itself possessing them or\nnot? How can\nit convey what it does not possess, and yet if it does possess how\nis it simplex? And if, again, it does not, how is it the\nsource of the\nmanifold?\n\nA single, unmanifold emanation we may very well allow- how even\nthat can come from a pure unity may be a problem, but we may always\nexplain it on the analogy of the irradiation from a luminary- but a\nmultitudinous production raises question.\n\nThe explanation is that what comes from the Supreme cannot be\nidentical with it and assuredly cannot be better than it- what could\nbe better than The One or the utterly transcendent? The emanation,\nthen, must be less good, that is to say, less\nself-sufficing: now what\nmust that be which is less self-sufficing than The One? Obviously\nthe Not-One, that is to say, multiplicity, but a\nmultiplicity striving\ntowards unity; that is to say, a One-that-is-many.\n\nAll that is not One is conserved by virtue of the One, and from\nthe One derives its characteristic nature: if it had not\nattained such\nunity as is consistent with being made up of multiplicity we\ncould not\naffirm its existence: if we are able to affirm the nature of single\nthings, this is in virtue of the unity, the identity even, which\neach of them possesses. But the all-transcendent, utterly void of\nmultiplicity, has no mere unity of participation but is unity's\nself, independent of all else, as being that from which, by whatever\nmeans, all the rest take their degree of unity in their\nstanding, near\nor far, towards it.\n\nIn virtue of the unity manifested in its variety it\nexhibits, side\nby side, both an all-embracing identity and the existence of the\nsecondary: all the variety lies in the midst of a sameness, and\nidentity cannot be separated from diversity since all stands as one;\neach item in that content, by the fact of participating in life, is\na One-many: for the item could not make itself manifest as a\nOne-and-all.\n\nOnly the Transcendent can be that; it is the great beginning,\nand the beginning must be a really existent One, wholly and\ntruly One,\nwhile its sequent, poured down in some way from the One, is all, a\ntotal which has participation in unity and whose every member is\nsimilarly all and one.\n\nWhat then is the All?\n\nThe total of which the Transcendent is the Source.\n\nBut in what way is it that source? In the sense, perhaps, of\nsustaining things as bestower of the unity of each single item?\n\nThat too; but also as having established them in being.\n\nBut how? As having, perhaps, contained them previously?\n\nWe have indicated that, thus, the First would be a manifold.\n\nMay we think, perhaps, that the First contained the\nuniverse as an\nindistinct total whose items are elaborated to distinct existence\nwithin the Second by the Reason-Principle there? That Second is\ncertainly an Activity; the Transcendent would contain only the\npotentiality of the universe to come.\n\nBut the nature of this contained potentiality would have to be\nexplained: it cannot be that of Matter, a receptivity, for thus the\nSource becomes passive- the very negation of production.\n\nHow then does it produce what it does not contain? Certainly not\nat haphazard and certainly not by selection. How then?\n\nWe have observed that anything that may spring from the One must\nbe different from it. Differing, it is not One, since then\nit would be\nthe Source. If unity has given place to duality, from that moment\nthere is multiplicity; for here is variety side by side with\nidentity,\nand this imports quality and all the rest.\n\nWe may take it as proved that the emanation of the Transcendent\nmust be a Not-One something other than pure unity, but that it is a\nmultiplicity, and especially that it is such a multiplicity as is\nexhibited in the sequent universe, this is a statement worthy of\ndeliberation: some further enquiry must be made, also, as to the\nnecessity of any sequel to the First.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. We have, of course, already seen that a secondary must\nfollow upon the First, and that this is a power immeasurably\nfruitful;\nand we indicated that this truth is confirmed by the entire order of\nthings since there is nothing, not even in the lowest ranks, void of\nthe power of generating. We have now to add that, since things\nengendered tend downwards and not upwards and, especially, move\ntowards multiplicity, the first principle of all must be less a\nmanifold than any.\n\nThat which engenders the world of sense cannot itself be a\nsense-world; it must be the Intellect and the Intellectual world;\nsimilarly, the prior which engenders the Intellectual-Principle and\nthe Intellectual world cannot be either, but must be\nsomething of less\nmultiplicity. The manifold does not rise from the manifold: the\nintellectual multiplicity has its source in what is not manifold; by\nthe mere fact of being manifold, the thing is not the first\nprinciple:\nwe must look to something earlier.\n\nAll must be grouped under a unity which, as standing outside of\nall multiplicity and outside of any ordinary simplicity, is the\nveritably and essentially simplex.\n\nStill, how can a Reason-Principle [the Intellectual],\ncharacteristically a manifold, a total, derive from what is\nobviously no Reason-Principle?\n\nBut how, failing such origin in the simplex, could we\nescape [what\ncannot be accepted] the derivation of a Reason-Principle from a\nReason-Principle?\n\nAnd how does the secondarily good [the imaged Good] derive from\nThe Good, the Absolute? What does it hold from the Absolute Good to\nentitle it to the name?\n\nSimilarity to the prior is not enough, it does not help towards\ngoodness; we demand similarity only to an actually existent Good:\nthe goodness must depend upon derivation from a Prior of\nsuch a nature\nthat the similarity is desirable because that Prior is good, just as\nthe similarity would be undesirable if the Prior were not good.\n\nDoes the similarity with the Prior consist, then, in a voluntary\nresting upon it?\n\nIt is rather that, finding its condition satisfying, it seeks\nnothing: the similarity depends upon the all-sufficiency of what it\npossesses; its existence is agreeable because all is present to it,\nand present in such a way as not to be even different from it\n[Intellectual-Principle is Being].\n\nAll life belongs to it, life brilliant and perfect; thus\nall in it\nis at once life-principle and Intellectual-Principle, nothing in it\naloof from either life or intellect: it is therefore self-sufficing\nand seeks nothing: and if it seeks nothing this is because it has in\nitself what, lacking, it must seek. It has, therefore, its\nGood within\nitself, either by being of that order- in what we have\ncalled its life\nand intellect- or in some other quality or character going to\nproduce these.\n\nIf this [secondary principle] were The Good [The Absolute],\nnothing could transcend these things, life and intellect: but, given\nthe existence of something higher, this Intellectual-Principle must\npossess a life directed towards that Transcendent, dependent upon\nit, deriving its being from it, living towards it as towards its\nsource. The First, then, must transcend this principle of life and\nintellect which directs thither both the life in itself, a\ncopy of the\nReality of the First, and the intellect in itself which is again a\ncopy, though of what original there we cannot know.\n\n\n## Section 17\n\n\n##### Section 17\n\n17. But what can it be which is loftier than that existence- a\nlife compact of wisdom, untouched by struggle and error, or than\nthis Intellect which holds the Universe with all there is of life\nand intellect?\n\nIf we answer \"The Making Principle,\" there comes the question,\n\"making by what virtue?\" and unless we can indicate something higher\nthere than in the made, our reasoning has made no advance: we rest\nwhere we were.\n\nWe must go higher- if it were only for the reason that the maker\nof all must have a self-sufficing existence outside of all things-\nsince all the rest is patently indigent- and that everything has\nparticipated in The One and, as drawing on unity, is itself\nnot unity.\n\nWhat then is this in which each particular entity participates,\nthe author of being to the universe and to each item of the total?\n\nSince it is the author of all that exists, and since the\nmultiplicity in each thing is converted into a self-sufficing\nexistence by this presence of The One, so that even the particular\nitself becomes self-sufficing, then clearly this principle, author\nat once of Being and of self-sufficingness, is not itself a Being but\nis above Being and above even self-sufficing.\n\nMay we stop, content, with that? No: the Soul is yet, and even\nmore, in pain. Is she ripe, perhaps, to bring forth, now that in her\npangs she has come so close to what she seeks? No: we must call upon\nyet another spell if anywhere the assuagement is to be found.\nPerhaps in what has already been uttered, there lies the\ncharm if only\nwe tell it over often? No: we need a new, a further, incantation.\nAll our effort may well skim over every truth and through all the\nverities in which we have part, and yet the reality escape us when\nwe hope to affirm, to understand: for the understanding, in order to\nits affirmation must possess itself of item after item; only so does\nit traverse all the field: but how can there be any such\nperegrination\nof that in which there is no variety?\n\nAll the need is met by a contact purely intellective. At the\nmoment of touch there is no power whatever to make any affirmation;\nthere is no leisure; reasoning upon the vision is for afterwards. We\nmay know we have had the vision when the Soul has suddenly taken\nlight. This light is from the Supreme and is the Supreme; we may\nbelieve in the Presence when, like that other God on the call of a\ncertain man, He comes bringing light: the light is the proof of the\nadvent. Thus, the Soul unlit remains without that vision; lit, it\npossesses what it sought. And this is the true end set before the\nSoul, to take that light, to see the Supreme by the Supreme\nand not by\nthe light of any other principle- to see the Supreme which\nis also the\nmeans to the vision; for that which illumines the Soul is that which\nit is to see just as it is by the sun's own light that we\nsee the sun.\n\nBut how is this to be accomplished?\n\nCut away everything.",
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