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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-5",
    "name": "Ennead V — On the Intellectual-Principle"
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      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 5,
    "slug": "5-that-the-intellectual-beings-are-not-outside",
    "title": "V.5 — That the Intellectual Beings Are Not Outside the Intellect; and on the Good",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 6185,
    "text": "## FIFTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### FIFTH TRACTATE.\n\nTHAT THE INTELLECTUAL BEINGS ARE NOT OUTSIDE\n\nTHE INTELLECTUAL-PRINCIPLE: AND ON\n\nTHE NATURE OF THE GOOD.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. The Intellectual-Principle, the veritably and essentially\nintellective, can this be conceived as ever falling into error, ever\nfailing to think reality?\n\nAssuredly no: it would no longer be intelligent and therefore no\nlonger Intellectual-Principle: it must know unceasingly- and never\nforget; and its knowledge can be no guesswork, no hesitating assent,\nno acceptance of an alien report. Nor can it call on\ndemonstration or,\nwe are told it may at times act by this or, I method, at least there\nmust be something patent to it in virtue of its own nature. In\nactual fact reason tells us that all its knowledge is thus\ninherent to\nit, for there is no means by which to distinguish between the\nspontaneous knowledge and the other. But, in any case, some\nknowledge,\nit is conceded, is inherent to it. Whence are we to understand the\ncertainty of this knowledge to come to it or how do its objects\ncarry the conviction of their reality?\n\nConsider sense-knowledge: its objects seem most patently\ncertified, yet the doubt returns whether the apparent reality may\nnot lie in the states of the percipient rather than in the material\nbefore him; the decision demands intelligence or reasoning. Besides,\neven granting that what the senses grasp is really contained in the\nobjects, none the less what is thus known by the senses is an image:\nsense can never grasp the thing itself; this remains for\never outside.\n\nNow, if the Intellectual-Principle in its act- that is in\nknowing the intellectual- is to know these its objects as alien, we\nhave to explain how it makes contact with them: obviously it might\nnever come upon them, and so might never know them; or it might know\nthem only upon the meeting: its knowing, at that, would not be an\nenduring condition. If we are told that the\nIntellectual-Principle and\nthe Intellectual Objects are linked in a standing unity, we\ndemand the\ndescription of this unity.\n\nNext, the intellections would be impressions, that is to say not\nnative act but violence from without: now how is such impressing\npossible and what shape could the impressions bear?\n\nIntellection, again, becomes at this a mere handling of the\nexternal, exactly like sense-perception. What then distinguishes it\nunless that it deals with objects of less extension? And what\ncertitude can it have that its knowledge is true? Or what enables it\nto pronounce that the object is good, beautiful, or just,\nwhen each of\nthese ideas is to stand apart from itself? The very principles of\njudgement, by which it must be guided, would be [as Ideas] excluded:\nwith objects and canons alike outside it, so is truth.\n\nAgain; either the objects of the Intellectual-Principle are\nsenseless and devoid of life and intellect or they are in possession\nof Intellect.\n\nNow, if they are in possession of Intellect, that realm\nis a union\nof both and is Truth. This combined Intellectual realm will be the\nPrimal Intellect: we have only then to examine how this reality,\nconjoint of Intellectual-Principle and its object, is to be\nunderstood, whether as combining self-united identity with\nyet duality\nand difference, or what other relation holds between them.\n\nIf on the contrary the objects of Intellectual-Principle are\nwithout intelligence and life, what are they? They cannot be\npremises,\naxioms or predicates: as predicates they would not have real\nexistence; they would be affirmations linking separate entities, as\nwhen we affirm that justice is good though justice and good are\ndistinct realities.\n\nIf we are told that they are self-standing entities- the\ndistinct beings Justice and Good- then [supposing them to be\noutside] the Intellectual Realm will not be a unity nor be\nincluded in\nany unity: all is sundered individuality. Where, then, are they and\nwhat spatial distinction keeps them apart? How does the\nIntellectual-Principle come to meet with them as it travels round;\nwhat keeps each true to its character; what gives them enduring\nidentity; what conceivable shape or character can they have? They\nare being presented to us as some collection of figures, in gold or\nsome other material substance, the work of some unknown sculptor or\ngraver: but at once the Intellectual-Principle which\ncontemplates them\nbecomes sense-perception; and there still remains the\nquestion how one\nof them comes to be Justice and another something else.\n\nBut the great argument is that if we are to allow that these\nobjects of Intellection are in the strict sense outside the\nIntellectual-Principle, which, therefore, must see them as external,\nthen inevitably it cannot possess the truth of them.\n\nIn all it looks upon, it sees falsely; for those objects must be\nthe authentic things; yet it looks upon them without containing them\nand in such knowledge holds only their images; that is to say, not\ncontaining the authentic, adopting phantasms of the true, it\nholds the\nfalse; it never possesses reality. If it knows that it possesses the\nfalse, it must confess itself excluded from the truth; if it fails\nof this knowledge also, imagining itself to possess the truth which\nhas eluded it, then the doubled falsity puts it the deeper\ninto error.\n\nIt is thus, I suppose, that in sense-perception we have belief\ninstead of truth; belief is our lief; we satisfy ourselves with\nsomething very different from the original which is the occasion of\nperception.\n\nIn fine, there would be on the hypothesis no truth in the\nIntellectual-Principle. But such an Intellectual-Principle would not\nbe truth, nor truly an Intellectual-Principle. There would be no\nIntellectual-Principle at all [no Divine Mind]: yet elsewhere truth\ncannot be.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Thus we may not look for the Intellectual objects [the Ideas]\noutside of the Intellectual-Principle, treating them as\nimpressions of\nreality upon it: we cannot strip it of truth and so make its objects\nunknowable and non-existent and in the end annul the\nIntellectual-Principle itself. We must provide for knowledge and for\ntruth; we must secure reality; being must become knowable\nessentially and not merely in that knowledge of quality which could\ngive us a mere image or vestige of the reality in lieu of\npossession, intimate association, absorption.\n\nThe only way to this is to leave nothing out side of the\nveritable\nIntellectual-Principle which thus has knowledge in the true knowing\n[that of identification with the object], cannot forget, need not go\nwandering in search. At once truth is there, this is the seat of the\nauthentic Existents, it becomes living and intellective:\nthese are the\nessentials of that most lofty Principle; and, failing them, where is\nits worth, its grandeur?\n\nOnly thus [by this inherence of the Ideas] is it dispensed from\ndemonstration and from acts of faith in the truth of its\nknowledge: it\nis its entire self, self-perspicuous: it knows a prior by\nrecognising its own source; it knows a sequent to that prior by its\nself-identity; of the reality of this sequent, of the fact that it\nis present and has authentic existence, no outer entity can bring it\nsurer conviction.\n\nThus veritable truth is not accordance with an external; it is\nself-accordance; it affirms and is nothing other than itself and is\nnothing other; it is at once existence and self-affirmation. What\nexternal, then, can call it to the question, and from what source of\ntruth could the refutation be brought? Any counter affirmation [of\ntruth] must fall into identity with the truth which first uttered\nitself; brought forward as new, it has to appear before the\nPrinciple which made the earlier statement and to show itself\nidentical with that: for there is no finding anything truer than the\ntrue.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. Thus we have here one identical Principle, the\nIntellect, which\nis the universe of authentic beings, the Truth: as such it is a\ngreat god or, better, not a god among gods but the Godhead entire.\nIt is a god, a secondary god manifesting before there is any\nvision of\nthat other, the Supreme which rests over all, enthroned in\ntranscendence upon that splendid pediment, the Nature following\nclose upon it.\n\nThe Supreme in its progress could never be borne forward\nupon some\nsoulless vehicle nor even directly upon the soul: it will be\nheralded by some ineffable beauty: before the great King in his\nprogress there comes first the minor train, then rank by rank the\ngreater and more exalted, closer to the King the kinglier; next his\nown honoured company until, last among all these grandeurs, suddenly\nappears the Supreme Monarch himself, and all- unless indeed for\nthose who have contented themselves with the spectacle before his\ncoming and gone away- prostrate themselves and hail him.\n\nIn that royal progress the King is of another order from those\nthat go before him, but the King in the Supreme is no ruler over\nexterns; he holds that most just of governances, rooted in\nnature, the\nveritable kingship, for he is King of Truth, holding sway by all\nreason over a dense offspring his own, a host that shares his\ndivinity, King over a king and over kings and even more justly\ncalled father of Gods.\n\n[Interpolation: Zeus (Universal Soul) is in this a symbol of\nhim, Zeus who is not content with the contemplation of his father\n(Kronos, divine Intellect) but looks to that father's father (to\nOuranos, the Transcendent) as what may be called the divine energy\nworking to the establishment of a real being.]\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. We have said that all must be brought back to a unity: this\nmust be an authentic unity, not belonging to the order in which\nmultiplicity is unified by participation in what is truly a One; we\nneed a unity independent of participation, not a combination in\nwhich multiplicity holds an equal place: we have exhibited, also,\nthe Intellectual Realm and the Intellectual-Principle as more\nclosely a unity than the rest of things, so that there is nothing\ncloser to The One. Yet even this is not The purely One.\n\nThis purely One, essentially a unity untouched by the multiple,\nthis we now desire to penetrate if in any way we may.\n\nOnly by a leap can we reach to this One which is to be\npure of all\nelse, halting sharp in fear of slipping ever so little aside and\nimpinging on the dual: for if we fail of the centre, we are in a\nduality which does not even include The authentic One but belongs on\nboth sides, to the later order. The One does not bear to be numbered\nin with anything else, with a one or a two or any such quantity; it\nrefuses to take number because it is measure and not the measured;\nit is no peer of other entities to be found among them; for thus, it\nand they alike would be included in some container and this would be\nits prior, the prior it cannot have. Not even essential [ideal or\nabstract] number can belong to The One and certainly not the still\nlater number applying to quantities; for essential number first\nappears as providing duration to the divine Intellection, while\nquantitative number is that [still later and lower] which furnishes\nthe Quantity found in conjunction with other things or which\nprovides for Quantity independent of things, if this is to be\nthought of as number at all. The Principle which in objects having\nquantitative number looks to the unity from which they spring is a\ncopy [or lower phase] of the Principle which in the earlier order of\nnumber [in essential or ideal number] looks to the veritable One;\nand it attains its existence without in the least degree dissipating\nor shattering that prior unity: the dyad has come into being, but\nthe precedent monad still stands; and this monad is quite distinct\nwithin the dyad from either of the two constituent unities, since\nthere is nothing to make it one rather than the other: being\nneither, but simply that thing apart, it is present without being\ninherent.\n\nBut how are the two unities distinct and how is the dyad a\nunity, and is this unity the same as the unity by which each of the\nconstituents is one thing?\n\nOur answer must be that the unity is that of a participation in\nthe primal unity with the participants remaining distinct\nfrom that in\nwhich they partake; the dyad, in so far as it is one thing, has this\nparticipation, but in a certain degree only; the unity of an army is\nnot that of a single building; the dyad, as a thing of extension, is\nnot strictly a unit either quantitatively or in manner of being.\n\nAre we then to take it that the monads in the pentad and decad\ndiffer while the unity in the pentad is the same as that in the\ndecad?\n\nYes, in the sense in which, big and little, ship is one\nwith ship,\narmy with army, city with city; otherwise, no. But certain\ndifficulties in this matter will be dealt with later.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. We return to our statement that The First remains intact even\nwhen other entities spring from it.\n\nIn the case of numbers, the unit remains intact while something\nelse produces, and thus number arises in dependence on the unit:\nmuch more then does the unit, The One, remain intact in the\nprinciple which is before all beings; especially since the entities\nproduced in its likeness, while it thus remains intact, owe their\nexistence to no other, but to its own all-sufficient power.\n\nAnd just as there is, primarily or secondarily, some form or\nidea from the monad in each of the successive numbers- the\nlater still\nparticipating, though unequally, in the unit- so the series of\nBeings following upon The First bear, each, some form or idea\nderived from that source. In Number the participation establishes\nQuantity; in the realm of Being, the trace of The One establishes\nreality: existence is a trace of The One- our word for entity may\nprobably be connected with that for unity.\n\nWhat we know as Being, the first sequent upon The One, advanced\na little outward, so to speak, then chose to go no further, turned\ninward again and comes to rest and is now the reality and hearth\n[ousia and hestia] of the universe. Pressing [with the rough\nbreathing] on the word for Being [on] we have the word \"hen\"\n[one], an\nindication that in our very form of speech we tell, as far as may\nbe, that Being [the weaker] is that which proceeds from [the\nstronger]\nThe One. Thus both the thing that comes to be and Being itself are\ncarriers of a copy, since they are outflows from the power of The\nprimal One: this power sees and in its emotion tries to\nrepresent what\nit sees and breaks into speech \"On\"; \"einai\"; \"ousia,\" \"hestia\"\n[Existent: Existence: Essence: Hestia or Hearth], sounds which\nlabour to express the essential nature of the universe\nproduced by the\ntravail of the utterer and so to represent, as far as sounds may,\nthe origin of reality.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. All this, however, we may leave to individual judgement: to\nproceed:\n\nThis produced reality is an Ideal form- for certainly nothing\nspringing from the Supreme can be less- and it is not a particular\nform but the form of all, beside which there is no other; it follows\nthat The First must be without form, and, if without form, then it\nis no Being; Being must have some definition and therefore\nbe limited;\nbut the First cannot be thought of as having definition and\nlimit, for\nthus it would be not the Source but the particular item indicated by\nthe definition assigned to it. If all things belong to the produced,\nwhich of them can be thought of as the Supreme? Not included among\nthem, this can be described only as transcending them: but they are\nBeing and the Beings; it therefore transcends Being.\n\nNote that the phrase transcending Being assigns no character,\nmakes no assertion, allots no name, carries only the denial of\nparticular being; and in this there is no attempt to circumscribe\nit: to seek to throw a line about that illimitable Nature would be\nfolly, and anyone thinking to do so cuts himself off from any\nslightest and most momentary approach to its least vestige.\n\nAs one wishing to contemplate the Intellectual Nature will lay\naside all the representations of sense and so may see what\ntranscends the sense-realm, in the same way one wishing to\ncontemplate\nwhat transcends the Intellectual attains by putting away all that is\nof the intellect, taught by the intellect, no doubt, that the\nTranscendent exists but never seeking to define it.\n\nIts definition, in fact, could be only \"the indefinable\": what\nis not a thing is not some definite thing. We are in agony for a\ntrue expression; we are talking of the untellable; we name, only to\nindicate for our own use as best we may. And this name, The One,\ncontains really no more than the negation of plurality:\nunder the same\npressure the Pythagoreans found their indication in the symbol\n\"Apollo\" [a= not; pollon= of many] with its repudiation of the\nmultiple. If we are led to think positively of The One, name and\nthing, there would be more truth in silence: the designation, a mere\naid to enquiry, was never intended for more than a preliminary\naffirmation of absolute simplicity to be followed by the rejection\nof even that statement: it was the best that offered, but remains\ninadequate to express the Nature indicated. For this is a principle\nnot to be conveyed by any sound; it cannot be known on any hearing\nbut, if at all, by vision; and to hope in that vision to see\na form is\nto fail of even that.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. Consider the act of ocular vision:\n\nThere are two elements here; there is the form perceptible to\nthe sense and there is the medium by which the eye sees that form.\nThis medium is itself perceptible to the eye, distinct from the form\nto be seen, but the cause of the seeing; it is perceived at the one\nstroke in that form and on it and, hence, is not distinguished from\nit, the eye being held entirely by the illuminated object.\nWhen on the\ncontrary this medium presents itself alone it is seen\ndirectly- though\neven then actual sight demands some solid base; there must be\nsomething besides the medium which, unless embracing some object,\neludes perception; thus the light inherent to the sun would not be\nperceived but for the solidity of the mass. If it is\nobjected that the\nsun is light entire, this would only be a proof of our assertion: no\nother visible form will contain light which must, then, have no\nother property than that of visibility, and in fact all other\nvisible objects are something more than light alone.\n\nSo it is with the act of vision in the Intellectual Principle.\n\nThis vision sees, by another light, the objects\nilluminated by the\nFirst Principle: setting itself among them, it sees veritably;\ndeclining towards the lower Nature, that upon which the light from\nabove rests, it has less of that vision. Passing over the visible\nand looking to the medium by which it sees, then it holds the Light\nand the source of Light.\n\nBut since the Intellectual-Principle is not to see this light as\nsomething external we return to our analogy; the eye is not wholly\ndependent upon an outside and alien light; there is an earlier light\nwithin itself, a more brilliant, which it sees sometimes in a\nmomentary flash. At night in the darkness a gleam leaps from within\nthe eye: or again we make no effort to see anything; the eyelids\nclose; yet a light flashes before us; or we rub the eye and it sees\nthe light it contains. This is sight without the act, but it is the\ntruest seeing, for it sees light whereas its other objects were the\nlit not the light.\n\nIt is certainly thus that the Intellectual-Principle, hiding\nitself from all the outer, withdrawing to the inmost, seeing\nnothing, must have its vision- not of some other light in some other\nthing but of the light within itself, unmingled, pure, suddenly\ngleaming before it;\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. So that we are left wondering whence it came, from within or\nwithout; and when it has gone, we say, \"It was here. Yet no; it was\nbeyond!\" But we ought not to question whence; there is no whence, no\ncoming or going in place; now it is seen and now not seen.\nWe must not\nrun after it, but fit ourselves for the vision and then wait\ntranquilly for its appearance, as the eye waits on the rising of the\nsun, which in its own time appears above the horizon- out of the\nocean, as the poets say- and gives itself to our sight.\n\nThis Principle, of which the sun is an image, where has it its\ndawning, what horizon does it surmount to appear?\n\nIt stands immediately above the contemplating Intellect which\nhas held itself at rest towards the vision, looking to nothing else\nthan the good and beautiful, setting its entire being to that in a\nperfect surrender, and now tranquilly filled with power and taking a\nnew beauty to itself, gleaming in the light of that presence.\n\nThis advent, still, is not by expectation: it is a coming\nwithout approach; the vision is not of something that must enter but\nof something present before all else, before the Intellect\nitself made\nany movement. Yet it is the Intellect that must move, to come and to\ngo- going because it has not known where it should stay and\nwhere that\npresence stays, the nowhere contained.\n\nAnd if the Intellect, too, could hold itself in that nowhere-\nnot that it is ever in place; it too is uncontained, utterly\nunplaced-\nit would remain for ever in the vision of its prior, or, indeed, not\nin vision but in identity, all duality annulled. But it is Intellect\n[having a sphere of its own] and, when it is to see, it must see by\nthat in it which is not Intellect [by its divinest power].\n\nNo doubt it is wonderful that The First should thus be present\nwithout any coming, and that, while it is nowhere, nowhere is it\nnot; but wonderful though this be in itself, the contrary would be\nmore wonderful to those who know. Of course neither this contrary\nnor the wonder at it can be entertained. But we must explain:\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. Everything brought into being under some principle not itself\nis contained either within its maker or, if there is any\nintermediate,\nwithin that: having a prior essential to its being, it needs that\nprior always, otherwise it would not be contained at all. It is the\norder of nature: The last in the immediately preceding lasts, things\nof the order of the Firsts within their prior-firsts, and so thing\nwithin thing up to the very pinnacle of source.\n\nThat Source, having no prior, cannot be contained: uncontained\nby any of those other forms of being, each held within the series of\npriors, it is orbed round all, but so as not to be pointed\noff to hold\nthem part for part; it possesses but is not possessed. Holding all-\nthough itself nowhere held- it is omnipresent, for where its\npresence failed something would elude its hold. At the same time, in\nthe sense that it is nowhere held, it is not present: thus it is\nboth present and not present; not present as not being circumscribed\nby anything; yet, as being utterly unattached, not inhibited from\npresence at any point. That inhibition would mean that the First was\ndetermined by some other being; the later series, then, would be\nwithout part in the Supreme; God has His limit and is no longer\nself-governed but mastered by inferiors.\n\nWhile the contained must be where its container is, what is\nuncontained by place is not debarred from any: for, imagine a place\nwhere it is not and evidently some other place retains it; at once\nit is contained and there is an end of its placelessness.\n\nBut if the \"nowhere\" is to stand and the ascription of a\n\"where,\" implying station in the extern, is to fall, then nothing\ncan be left void; and at once- nothing void, yet no point\ncontaining- God is sovereignly present through all. We\ncannot think of\nsomething of God here and something else there, nor of all God\ngathered at some one spot: there is an instantaneous presence\neverywhere, nothing containing and nothing left void, everything\ntherefore fully held by the divine.\n\nConsider our universe. There is none before it and\ntherefore it is\nnot, itself, in a universe or in any place- what place was there\nbefore the universe came to be?- its linked members form and occupy\nthe whole. But Soul is not in the universe, on the contrary the\nuniverse is in the Soul; bodily substance is not a place to the\nSoul; Soul is contained in Intellectual-Principle and is the\ncontainer\nof body. The Intellectual-Principle in turn is contained in\nsomething else; but that prior principle has nothing in which to be:\nthe First is therefore in nothing, and, therefore, nowhere. But all\nthe rest must be somewhere; and where but in the First?\n\nThis can mean only that the First is neither remote from things\nnor directly within them; there is nothing containing it; it\ncontains all. It is The Good to the universe if only in this\nway, that\ntowards it all things have their being, all dependent upon\nit, each in\nits mode, so that thing rises above thing in goodness\naccording to its\nfuller possession of authentic being.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. Still, do not, I urge you, look for The Good through any of\nthese other things; if you do, you will see not itself but its\ntrace: you must form the idea of that which is to be grasped cleanly\nstanding to itself not in any combination, the unheld in which all\nhave hold: for no other is such, yet one such there must be.\n\nNow it is clear that we cannot possess ourselves of the power of\nthis principle in its concentrated fulness: so to do one must be\nidentical with it: but some partial attainment is within our reach.\n\nYou who make the venture will throw forward all your\nbeing but you\nwill never tell it entire- for that, you must yourself be the divine\nIntellect in Act- and at your utmost success it will still pass from\nyou or, rather, you from it. In ordinary vision you may think to see\nthe object entire: in this intellective act, all, less or more, that\nyou can take to mind you may set down as The Good.\n\nIt is The Good since, being a power [being effective outwardly],\nit is the cause of the intelligent and intellective life as of life\nand intellect: for these grow from it as from the source of essence\nand of existence, the Source as being One, simplex and first because\nbefore it was nothing. All derives from this: it is the origin of\nthe primal movement which it does not possess and of the repose\nwhich is but its absence of need; for neither rest nor movement can\nbelong to that which has no place in which either could\noccur; centre,\nobject, ground, all are alike unknown to it, for it is\nbefore all. Yet\nits Being is not limited; what is there to set bounds to it? Nor, on\nthe other hand, is it infinite in the sense of magnitude; what place\ncan there be to which it must extend, or why should there be\nmovement where there is no lacking? All its infinitude resides in\nits power: it does not change and will not fail; and in it\nall that is\nunfailing finds duration.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. It is infinite also by right of being a pure unity with\nnothing towards which to direct any partial content. Absolutely One,\nit has never known measure and stands outside of number, and so is\nunder no limit either in regard to any extern or within itself; for\nany such determination would bring something of the dual into it.\nAnd having no constituent parts it accepts no pattern, forms\nno shape.\n\nReason recognising it as such a nature, you may not hope\nto see it\nwith mortal eyes, nor in any way that would be imagined by those who\nmake sense the test of reality and so annul the supremely real. For\nwhat passes for the most truly existent is most truly non-existent-\nthe thing of extension least real of all- while this unseen First is\nthe source and principle of Being and sovereign over Reality.\n\nYou must turn appearances about or you will be left void of God.\nYou will be like those at the festivals who in their gluttony cram\nthemselves with things which none going to the gods may touch; they\nhold these goods to be more real than the vision of the God who is\nto be honoured and they go away having had no share in the\nsanctities of the shrine.\n\nIn these celebrations of which we speak, the unseen god leaves\nthose in doubt of his existence who think nothing patent but what\nmay be known to the flesh: it happens as if a man slept a\nlife through\nand took the dream world in perfect trust; wake him, and he would\nrefuse belief to the report of his open eyes and settle down to\nsleep again.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. Knowing demands the organ fitted to the object; eyes for one\nkind, ears for another: similarly some things, we must\nbelieve, are to\nbe known by the Intellectual-Principle in us. We must not confuse\nintellection with hearing or seeing; this would be trying to\nlook with\nthe ears or denying sound because it is not seen. Certain people, we\nmust keep in mind, have forgotten that to which, from the beginning\nonwards, their longing and effort are pointed: for all that exists\ndesires and aspires towards the Supreme by a compulsion of nature,\nas if all had received the oracle that without it they cannot be.\n\nThe perception of Beauty and the awe and the stirring of passion\ntowards it are for those already in some degree knowing and\nawakened: but the Good, as possessed long since and setting up a\nnatural tendency, is inherently present to even those asleep and\nbrings them no wonder when some day they see it, since it is no\noccasional reminiscence but is always with them though in\ntheir drowse\nthey are not aware of it: the love of Beauty on the contrary sets up\npain when it appears, for those that have seen it must pursue. This\nlove of Beauty then is later than the love of Good and comes with a\nmore sophisticated understanding; hence we know that Beauty is a\nsecondary: the more primal appetition, not patent to sense, our\nmovement towards our good, gives witness that The Good is\nthe earlier,\nthe prior.\n\nAgain; all that have possessed themselves of The Good feel it\nsufficient: they have attained the end: but Beauty not all have\nknown and those that have judge it to exist for itself and not for\nthem, as in the charm of this world the beauty belongs only to its\npossessor.\n\nThen, too, it is thought enough to appear loveable whether one\nis so or not: but no one wants his Good in semblance only. All are\nseeking The First as something ranking before aught else, but they\nstruggle venomously for beauty as something secondary like\nthemselves:\nthus some minor personage may perhaps challenge equal honour with\nthe King's right-hand man on pretext of similar dependence,\nforgetting\nthat, while both owe their standing to the monarch, the other holds\nthe higher rank.\n\nThe source of the error is that while both The Good and The\nBeautiful participate in the common source, The One precedes\nboth; and\nthat, in the Supreme also, The Good has no need of The Beautiful,\nwhile the Beautiful does need The Good.\n\nThe Good is gentle and friendly and tender, and we have\nit present\nwhen we but will. Beauty is all violence and stupefaction; its\npleasure is spoiled with pain, and it even draws the thoughtless\naway from The Good as some attraction will lure the child from the\nfather's side: these things tell of youth. The Good is the older-\nnot in time but by degree of reality- and it has the higher and\nearlier power, all power in fact, for the sequent holds only a power\nsubordinate and delegated of which the prior remains sovereign.\n\nNot that God has any need of His derivatives: He ignores all\nthat produced realm, never necessary to Him, and remains identically\nwhat He was before He brought it into being. So too, had the\nsecondary\nnever existed, He would have been unconcerned, exactly as He\nwould not\nhave grudged existence to any other universe that might spring into\nbeing from Him, were any such possible; of course no other such\ncould be since there is nothing that has not existence once the All\nexists.\n\nBut God never was the All; that would make Him dependent upon\nthe universe: transcending all, He was able at once to make\nall things\nand to leave them to their own being, He above.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. The Supreme, as the Absolute Good and not merely a good\nbeing or thing, can contain nothing, since there is nothing\nthat could\nbe its good.\n\nAnything it could contain must be either good to it or not good;\nbut in the supremely and primally Good there can be nothing not\ngood; nor can the Absolute Good be a container to the Good:\ncontaining, then, neither the good nor the not good it contains\nnothing and, containing nothing, it is alone: it is void of all but\nitself.\n\nIf the rest of being either is good- without being the absolute\ngood- or is not good, while on the other hand the Supreme contains\nneither what is good nor what is not good, then, containing nothing,\nit is The Good by that very absence of content.\n\nThus we rob it of its very being as The Absolute Good if we\nascribe anything to it, existence or intellect or goodness. The only\nway is to make every denial and no assertion, to feign no quality or\ncontent there but to permit only the \"It is\" in which we\npretend to no\naffirmation of non-existent attribute: there is an ignorant praise\nwhich, missing the true description, drags in qualities beneath the\nreal worth and so abases; philosophy must guard against attaching to\nthe Supreme what is later and lower: moving above all that order, it\nis the cause and source of all these, and is none of them.\n\nFor, once more, the nature of the Good is not such as to make it\nall things or a thing among all: that would range it under the same\nclassification with them all and it would differ, thus, only by its\nindividual quality, some specialty, some addition. At once it\nbecomes not a unity but a duality; there is one common element not\ngood and another element that is good; but a combination so\nmade up of\ngood and not good cannot be the purely good, the primarily good; the\nprimarily good must be that principle in which the better element\nhas more effectively participated and so attained its goodness. Any\ngood thing has become so by communion; but that in which it has\ncommunion is not a thing among the things of the all; therefore the\nGood is not a thing of the All.\n\nSince there is this Good in any good thing- the specific\ndifference by which the combination becomes good- it must enter from\nelsewhere than the world of things: that source must be a Good\nabsolute and isolated.\n\nThus is revealed to us the Primarily existent, the Good,\nabove all\nthat has being, good unalloyed, containing nothing in itself,\nutterly unmingling, all-transcending, cause of all.\n\nCertainly neither Being nor Beauty springs from evil or from the\nneutral; the maker, as the more consummate, must surpass the made.",
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