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    "slug": "ennead-6",
    "name": "Ennead VI — Being, Number, the One"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 4,
    "slug": "4-on-the-integral-omnipresence-of-the",
    "title": "VI.4 — On the Integral Omnipresence of the Authentic Existent (1)",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 7300,
    "text": "## FOURTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### FOURTH TRACTATE.\n\nON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE\n\nAUTHENTIC EXISTENT (1).\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. How are we to explain the omnipresence of the soul? Does it\ndepend upon the definite magnitude of the material universe coupled\nwith some native tendency in soul to distribute itself over material\nmass, or is it a characteristic of soul apart from body?\n\nIn the latter case, soul will not appear just where body\nmay bring\nit; body will meet soul awaiting it everywhere; wheresoever\nbody finds\nplace, there soul lay before ever body was; the entire material mass\nof the universe has been set into an existent soul.\n\nBut if soul spread thus wide before material extension existed,\nthen as covering all space it would seem to be of itself a thing of\nmagnitude, and in what mode could it exist in the All before the All\nwas in being, before there was any All? And who can accept a soul\ndescribed as partless and massless and yet, for all that absence of\nextension, extending over a universe? We may perhaps be told that,\nthough extended over the corporeal, it does not itself become so:\nbut thus to give it magnitude as an accidental attribute leaves the\nproblem still unsolved: precisely the same question must in\nall reason\narise: How can the soul take magnitude even in the move of accident?\n\nWe cannot think of soul being diffused as a quality is, say\nsweetness or colour, for while these are actual states of the masses\naffected so that they show that quality at every point, none of them\nhas an independent existence; they are attributes of body and known\nonly as in body; such quality is necessarily of a definite\nextension. Further, the colour at any point is independent of that\nat any other; no doubt the Form, White, is the same all over, but\nthere is not arithmetical identity; in soul there is; it is one soul\nin foot and in hand, as the facts of perception show. And yet in the\ncase of qualities the one is observably distributed part for part;\nin the soul the identity is undistributed; what we sometimes call\ndistribution is simply omnipresence.\n\nObviously, we must take hold of the question from the very\nbeginning in the hope of finding some clear and convincing theory as\nto how soul, immaterial and without magnitude, can be thus\nbroad-spread, whether before material masses exist or as enveloping\nthem. Of course, should it appear that this omnipresence may occur\napart from material things, there is no difficulty in accepting its\noccurrence within the material.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Side by side exist the Authentic All and its counterpart, the\nvisible universe. The Authentic is contained in nothing,\nsince nothing\nexisted before it; of necessity anything coming after it must, as a\nfirst condition of existence, be contained by this All, especially\nsince it depends upon the Authentic and without that could have\nneither stability nor movement.\n\nWe may be reminded that the universe cannot be contained in the\nAuthentic as in a place, where place would mean the\nboundaries of some\nsurrounding extension considered as an envelope, or some space\nformerly a part of the Void and still remaining unoccupied even\nafter the emergence of the universe, that it can only support\nitself, as it were, upon the Authentic and rest in the embrace of\nits omnipresence; but this objection is merely verbal and will\ndisappear if our meaning is grasped; we mention it for another\npurpose; it goes to enforce our real assertion that the\nAuthentic All,\nat once primal and veritable, needs no place and is in no way\ncontained. The All, as being an integral, cannot fall short\nof itself;\nit must ever have fulfilled its own totality, ever reached to its\nown equivalence; as far as the sum of entities extends,\nthere this is;\nfor this is the All.\n\nInevitably, also, anything other than this All that may be\nstationed therein must have part in the All, merge into it, and hold\nby its strength; it is not that the thing detaches a portion of the\nAll but that within itself it finds the All which has entered into\nit while still unbrokenly self-abiding, since Being cannot lodge in\nnon-Being, but, if anything, non-Being within Being.\n\nBeing, then, is present to all Being; an identity cannot tear\nitself asunder; the omnipresence asserted of it must be presence\nwithin the realm of Being; that is, it must be a\nself-presence. And it\nis in no way strange that the omnipresence should be at once\nself-abiding and universal; this is merely saying omnipresence\nwithin a unity.\n\nIt is our way to limit Being to the sense-known and therefore to\nthink of omnipresence in terms of the concrete; in our\noverestimate of\nthe sensible, we question how that other Nature can reach over such\nvastness; but our great is small, and this, small to us, is great;\nit reaches integrally to every point of our universe- or, better,\nour universe, moving from every side and in all its members towards\nthis, meets it everywhere as the omnipresent All ever stretching\nbeyond.\n\nThe universe in all its reach can attain nothing further- that\nwould mean overpassing the total of Being- and therefore is\ncontent to\ncircle about it; not able to encompass or even to fill the All, it\nis content to accept place and subordination, for thus it preserves\nitself in neighbouring the higher present to it- present and yet\nabsent; self-holding, whatever may seek its presence.\n\nWherever the body of the universe may touch, there it finds this\nAll; it strives for no further advance, willing to revolve\nin that one\ncircle, since to it that is the All and in that movement its every\npart embraces the All.\n\nIf that higher were itself in place there would be the need of\nseeking that precise place by a certain right path; part of seeker\nmust touch part of sought, and there would be far and near. But\nsince there is no far and near there must be, if presence at all,\npresence entire. And presence there indubitably is; this highest is\npresent to every being of those that, free of far and near, are of\npower to receive.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. But are we to think of this Authentic Being as, itself,\npresent, or does it remain detached, omnipresent in the sense only\nthat powers from it enter everywhere?\n\nUnder the theory of presence by powers, souls are described as\nrays; the source remains self-locked and these are flung forth to\nimpinge upon particular living things.\n\nNow, in beings whose unity does not reproduce the entire\nnature of\nthat principle, any presence is presence of an emanant power: even\nthis, however, does not mean that the principle is less than\nintegrally present; it is not sundered from the power which it has\nuttered; all is offered, but the recipient is able to take only so\nmuch. But in Beings in which the plenitude of these powers is\nmanifested, there clearly the Authentic itself is present, though\nstill as remaining distinct; it is distinct in that, becoming the\ninforming principle of some definite thing, it would\nabdicate from its\nstanding as the total and from its uttermost self-abiding and would\nbelong, in some mode of accident, to another thing as well. Still it\nis not the property of what may seek to join with it; it\nchooses where\nit will and enters as the participant's power may allow, but it does\nnot become a chattel; it remains the quested and so in another sense\nnever passes over. There is nothing disquieting in omnipresence\nafter this mode where there is no appropriation: in the same\naccidental way, we may reasonably put it, soul concurs with body,\nbut it is soul self-holding, not inbound with Matter, free\neven of the\nbody which it has illuminated through and through.\n\nNor does the placelessness of Being make it surprising that it\nbe present universally to things of place; on the contrary,\nthe wonder\nwould be- the more than wonder, the impossibility- if from a place\nof its own it were present to other things in their place, or if\nhaving place it were present at all- and, especially present, as we\nassert, integrally.\n\nBut set it outside of place, and reason tells us that it will be\npresent entire where it is present at all and that, present to the\ntotal, it must be present in the same completeness to every several\nunity; otherwise something of it is here and something there, and at\nonce it is fragmentary, it is body.\n\nHow can we so dispart Being? We cannot break Life into parts; if\nthe total was Life, the fragment is not. But we do not thus sunder\nIntelligence, one intelligence in this man, another in that? No;\nsuch a fragment would not be Intelligence. But the Being of the\nindividual? Once more, if the total thing is Being, then a fragment\ncould not be. Are we told that in a body, a total of parts, every\nmember is also a body? But here we are dividing not body but a\nparticular quantity of body, each of those divisions being described\nas body in virtue of possessing the Form or Idea that constitutes\nbody; and this Idea has no magnitude, is incapable of magnitude.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. But how explain beings by the side of Being, and the\nvariety of\nintelligences and of souls, when Being has the unity of omnipresent\nidentity and not merely that of a species, and when\nintellect and soul\nare likewise numerically one? We certainly distinguish between the\nsoul of the All and the particular souls.\n\nThis seems to conflict with our view which, moreover, for all\nits logical necessity, scarcely carries conviction against our\nmental reluctance to the notion of unity identically omnipresent. It\nwould appear more plausible to suppose a partition of the All-the\noriginal remaining undiminished- or, in a more legitimate phrase, an\nengendering from the All.\n\nThus the Authentic would be left self-gathered, while what we\nthink of as the parts- the separate souls- would come into being to\nproduce the multiple total of the universe.\n\nBut if the Authentic Being is to be kept unattached in order to\nremove the difficulty of integral omnipresence, the same\nconsiderations must apply equally to the souls; we would\nhave to admit\nthat they cannot be integrally omnipresent in the bodies they are\ndescribed as occupying; either, soul must be distributed, part to\nbody's part, or it is lodged entire at some one point in the body\ngiving forth some of its powers to the other points; and these very\npowers, again, present the same difficulty.\n\nA further objection is that some one spot in the body will hold\nthe soul, the others no more than a power from it.\n\nStill, how account for the many souls, many intelligences, the\nbeings by the side of the Being?\n\nNo doubt the beings proceed from the Priors in the mode only of\nnumerical distinction and not as concrete masses, but the difficulty\nremains as to how they come to constitute the plenitude of the\nmaterial universe.\n\nThis explanation by progression does not clear the problem.\n\nWe are agreed that diversity within the Authentic\ndepends not upon\nspatial separation but sheerly upon differentiation; all Being,\ndespite this plurality, is a unity still; \"Being neighbours Being\";\nall holds together; and thus the Intellectual-Principle [which is\nBeing and the Beings] remains an integral, multiple by\ndifferentiation, not by spatial distinction.\n\nSoul too? Souls too. That principle distributed over material\nmasses we hold to be in its own nature incapable of distribution;\nthe magnitude belongs to the masses; when this soul-principle enters\ninto them- or rather they into it- it is thought of as distributable\nonly because, within the discrimination of the corporeal, the\nanimating force is to be recognised at any and every point. For soul\nis not articulated, section of soul to section of body; there is\nintegral omnipresence manifesting the unity of that principle, its\nveritable partlessness.\n\nNow as in soul unity does not debar variety, so with\nBeing and the\nBeings; in that order multiplicity does not conflict with unity.\nMultiplicity. This is not due to the need of flooding the universe\nwith life; nor is the extension of the corporeal the cause of the\nmultiplicity of souls; before body existed, soul was one and\nmany; the\nmany souls fore-existed in the All not potentially but each\neffectively; that one collective soul is no bar to the variety; the\nvariety does not abrogate the unity; the souls are apart without\npartition, present each to all as never having been set in\nopposition;\nthey are no more hedged off by boundaries than are the multiple\nitems of knowledge in one mind; the one soul so exists as to include\nall souls; the nature of such a principle must be utterly free of\nboundary.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. Herein lies its greatness, not in mass; mass is\nlimited and may\nbe whittled down to nothingness; in that order no such paring off is\npossible- nor, if it were, could there be any falling short. Where\nlimitation is unthinkable, what fear can there be of absence at any\npoint? Nowhere can that principle fail which is the unfailing, the\neverlasting, the undwindling; suppose it in flux and it must at some\ntime flow to its end; since it is not in flux- and, besides [as the\nAll], it has nowhere to flow to- it lies spread over the universe; in\nfact it is the universe, too great to be held by body, giving,\ntherefore, to the material universe but little of itself, the little\nwhich that participant can take.\n\nWe may not make this principle the lesser, or if in the sense of\nmass we do, we must not begin to mistrust the power of that less to\nstretch to the greater. Of course, we have in fact no right to\naffirm it less or to measure the thing of magnitude against\nthat which\nhas none; as well talk of a doctor's skill being smaller than his\nbody. This greatness is not to be thought of in terms of\nquantity; the\ngreater and less of body have nothing to do with soul.\n\nThe nature of the greatness of soul is indicated by the fact\nthat as the body grows, the larger mass is held by the same soul\nthat sufficed to the smaller; it would be in many ways absurd to\nsuppose a corresponding enlargement in the soul.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. But why does not one same soul enter more than one body?\n\nBecause any second body must approach, if it might; but the\nfirst has approached and received and keeps.\n\nAre we to think that this second body, in keeping its soul with\na like care, is keeping the same soul as the first?\n\nWhy not: what difference is there? Merely some additions\n[from the\nexperiences of life, none in the soul itself].\n\nWe ask further why one soul in foot and hand and not one soul in\nthe distinct members of the universe.\n\nSensations no doubt differ from soul to soul but only as do the\nconditions and experiences; this is difference not in the judging\nprinciple but in the matters coming to judgement; the judge\nis one and\nthe same soul pronouncing upon various events, and these not its own\nbut belonging to a particular body; it is only as a man pronounces\nsimultaneously upon a pleasant sensation in his finger and a pain in\nhis head.\n\nBut why is not the soul in one man aware, then, of the judgement\npassed by another?\n\nBecause it is a judgement made, not a state set up; besides, the\nsoul that has passed the judgement does not pronounce but simply\njudges: similarly a man's sight does not report to his\nhearing, though\nboth have passed judgement; it is the reason above both that\nreports, and this is a principle distinct from either. Often, as it\nhappens, reason does become aware of a verdict formed in another\nreason and takes to itself an alien experience: but this has been\ndealt with elsewhere.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. Let us consider once more how it is possible for an\nidentity to\nextend over a universe. This comes to the question how each\nvariously placed entity in the multiplicity of the sense order can\nhave its share in one identical Principle.\n\nThe solution is in the reasons given for refusing to distribute\nthat principle; we are not to parcel it out among the entities of\nthe multiple; on the contrary, we bring the distributed multiples to\nthe unity. The unity has not gone forth to them: from their\ndispersion\nwe are led to think of it as broken up to meet them, but this is to\ndistribute the controller and container equally over the material\nhandled.\n\nA hand may very well control an entire mass, a long plank, or\nanything of that sort; the control is effective throughout and yet\nis not distributed, unit for unit, over the object of control: the\npower is felt to reach over the whole area, though the hand is only\nhand-long, not taking the extension of the mass it wields; lengthen\nthe object and, provided that the total is within the strength, the\npower handles the new load with no need of distributing itself over\nthe increased area. Now let us eliminate the corporeal mass of the\nhand, retaining the power it exerted: is not that power, the\nimpartible, present integrally over the entire area of control?\n\nOr imagine a small luminous mass serving as centre to a\ntransparent sphere, so that the light from within shows upon the\nentire outer surface, otherwise unlit: we surely agree that the\ninner core of light, intact and immobile, reaches over the entire\nouter extension; the single light of that small centre\nilluminates the\nwhole field. The diffused light is not due to any bodily magnitude\nof that central point which illuminates not as body but as body lit,\nthat is by another kind of power than corporeal quality: let us then\nabstract the corporeal mass, retaining the light as power: we can no\nlonger speak of the light in any particular spot; it is equally\ndiffused within and throughout the entire sphere. We can no longer\neven name the spot it occupied so as to say whence it came or how it\nis present; we can but seek and wonder as the search shows us the\nlight simultaneously present at each and every point in the\nsphere. So\nwith the sunlight: looking to the corporeal mass you are able to\nname the source of the light shining through all the air,\nbut what you\nsee is one identical light in integral omnipresence. Consider too\nthe refraction of light by which it is thrown away from the line of\nincidence; yet, direct or refracted, it is one and the same\nlight. And\nsupposing, as before, that the sun were simply an unembodied\nilluminant, the light would no longer be fixed to any one definite\nspot: having no starting point, no centre of origin, it would be an\nintegral unity omnipresent.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. The light of our world can be allocated because it\nsprings from\na corporeal mass of known position, but conceive an\nimmaterial entity,\nindependent of body as being of earlier nature than all\nbody, a nature\nfirmly self-based or, better, without need of base: such a\nprinciple, incorporeal, autonomous, having no source for its rising,\ncoming from no place, attached to no material mass, this cannot be\nallotted part here and part there: that would be to give it both a\nprevious position and a present attachment. Finally, anything\nparticipating in such a principle can participate only as entirety\nwith entirety; there can be no allotment and no partition.\n\nA principle attached to body might be exposed, at least by way\nof accident, to such partition and so be definable as passive and\npartible in view of its close relationship with the body of which it\nis so to speak a state or a Form; but that which is not inbound with\nbody, which on the contrary body must seek, will of necessity go\nutterly free of every bodily modification and especially of the very\npossibility of partition which is entirely a phenomenon of body,\nbelonging to its very essence. As partibility goes with body, so\nimpartibility with the bodiless: what partition is possible where\nthere is no magnitude? If a thing of magnitude participates to any\ndegree in what has no magnitude, it must be by a\nparticipation without\ndivision; divisibility implies magnitude.\n\nWhen we affirm unity in multiplicity, we do not mean that the\nunity has become the multiples; we link the variety in the multiples\nwith the unity which we discern, undivided, in them; and the unity\nmust be understood as for ever distinct from them, from separate\nitem and from total; that unity remains true to itself, remains\nitself, and so long as it remains itself cannot fail within its own\nscope [and therefore does reach over the multiple], yet it is not to\nbe thought of as coextensive with the material universe or with any\nmember of the All; utterly outside of the quantitative, it cannot be\ncoextensive with anything.\n\nExtension is of body; what is not of body, but of the opposed\norder, must be kept free of extension; but where there is no\nextension\nthere is no spatial distinction, nothing of the here and there which\nwould end its freedom of presence. Since, then, partition goes with\nplace- each part occupying a place of its own- how can the placeless\nbe parted? The unity must remain self-concentrated, immune from\npart, however much the multiple aspire or attain to contact with it.\nThis means that any movement towards it is movement towards its\nentirety, and any participation attained is participation in its\nentirety. Its participants, then, link with it as with something\nunparticipated, something never appropriated: thus only can it\nremain intact within itself and within the multiples in which it is\nmanifested. And if it did not remain thus intact, it would\ncease to be\nitself; any participation, then, would not be in the object of quest\nbut in something never quested.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. If in such a partition of the unity, that which entered into\neach participant were an entire- always identical with the first-\nthen, in the progressive severance, the firsts would become\nnumerous, each particular becoming a first: and then what prevents\nthese many firsts from reconstituting the collective unity?\nCertainly not the bodies they have entered, for those firsts\ncannot be\npresent in the material masses as their Forms if they are to remain\nidentical with the First from which they come. On the other hand,\ntaking the part conceived as present in the multiple to be simply a\npower [emanating from the First], at once such a part ceases\nto be the\nunity; we have then to ask how these powers come to be cut off, to\nhave abandoned their origin; they certainly have not moved away with\nno purpose in their movement.\n\nAgain, are those powers, entering the universe of sense, still\nwithin the First or not?\n\nIf they are not, we have the absurdity that the First has been\nlessened, disempowered, stripped of power originally possessed.\nBesides, how could powers thus cut off subsist apart from the\nfoundations of their being? Suppose these powers to be at once\nwithin the First and elsewhere; then the universe of sense contains\neither the entire powers or parts of them; if parts of powers, the\nother parts are There; if entires, then either the powers There are\npresent here also undivided- and this brings us back to an identity\nomnipresent in integral identity- or they are each an entire\nwhich has\ntaken division into a multiplicity of similars so that attached to\nevery essence there is one power only- that particularly\nappropriated to it- the other powers remaining powers unattached:\nyet power apart from Being is as impossible as Being apart\nfrom power;\nfor There power is Being or something greater than Being.\n\nOr, again, suppose the powers coming Thence are other than their\nsource- lesser, fainter, as a bright light dwindles to a\ndim- but each\nattached to its essence as a power must always be: such secondary\npowers would be perfectly uniform and at once we are forced to admit\nthe omnipresence of the one same power or at the least the presence-\nas in one and the same body- of some undivided identity integral at\nevery point.\n\nAnd if this is the case with a particular body, why not with the\nentire universe?\n\nIf we think of the single power as being endlessly divided, it\nis no longer a power entire; partition means lessening of power;\nand, with part of power for part of body, the conditions of\nconsciousness cease.\n\nFurther, a vestigial cut off from its source disappears- for\nexample, a reflected light- and in general an emanant loses its\nquality once it is severed from the original which it\nreproduces: just\nso the powers derived from that source must vanish if they do not\nremain attached to it.\n\nThis being so, where these powers appear, their source must be\npresent with them; thus, once more, that source must itself be\nomnipresent as an undivided whole.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. We may be told that an image need not be thus\nclosely attached\nto its archetype, that we know images holding in the absence of\ntheir archetype and that a warmed object may retain its heat when\nthe fire is withdrawn.\n\nTo begin with the image and archetype: If we are reminded of an\nartist's picture we observe that here the image was produced by the\nartist, not by his subject; even in the case of a self-portrait, the\npicture is no \"image of archetype,\" since it is not produced by the\npainter's body, the original represented: the reproduction is due to\nthe effective laying on of the colours.\n\nNor is there strictly any such making of image as we see in\nwater or in mirrors or in a shadow; in these cases the\noriginal is the\ncause of the image which, at once, springs from it and cannot exist\napart from it. Now, it is in this sense that we are to understand\nthe weaker powers to be images of the Priors. As for the\nillustration from the fire and the warmed object, the warmth\ncannot be\ncalled an image of the fire unless we think of warmth as containing\nfire so that the two are separate things. Besides, the fire removed,\nthe warmth does sooner or later disappear, leaving the object cold.\n\nIf we are told that these powers fade out similarly, we are left\nwith only one imperishable: the souls, the Intellectual-Principle,\nbecome perishable; then since Being [identical with the\nIntellectual-Principle] becomes transitory, so also must the Beings,\nits productions. Yet the sun, so long as it holds its station in the\nuniverse, will pour the same light upon the same places; to think\nits light may be lessened is to hold its mass perishable. But it has\nbeen abundantly stated that the emanants of the First are not\nperishable, that the souls, and the Intellectual-Principle with all\nits content, cannot perish.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. Still, this integral omnipresence admitted, why do not all\nthings participate in the Intellectual Order in its entirety? Why\nhas it a first participant, a second, and so on?\n\nWe can but see that presence is determined by the fitness of the\nparticipant so that, while Being is omnipresent to the realm\nof Being,\nnever falling short of itself, yet only the competent possess\nthemselves of that presence which depends not upon situation but\nupon adequacy; the transparent object and the opaque answer very\ndifferently to the light. These firsts, seconds, thirds, of\nparticipance are determined by rank, by power, not by place but by\ndifferentiation; and difference is no bar to coexistence,\nwitness soul\nand Intellectual-Principle: similarly our own knowledge, the trivial\nnext the gravest; one and the same object yields colour to our\nsight, fragrance to smell, to every sense a particular\nexperience, all\npresented simultaneously.\n\nBut would not this indicate that the Authentic is diverse,\nmultiple?\n\nThat diversity is simplex still; that multiple is one;\nfor it is a\nReason-Principle, which is to say a unity in variety: all Being is\none; the differing being is still included in Being; the\ndifferentiation is within Being, obviously not within\nnon-Being. Being\nis bound up with the unity which is never apart from it; wheresoever\nBeing appears, there appears its unity; and the unity of Being is\nself-standing, for presence in the sensible does not abrogate\nindependence: things of sense are present to the Intellectual- where\nthis occurs- otherwise than as the Intellectual is present within\nitself; so, too, body's presence to soul differs from that of\nknowledge to soul; one item of knowledge is present in a\ndifferent way\nthan another; a body's presence to body is, again, another form of\nrelation.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. Think of a sound passing through the air and carrying a\nword; an ear within range catches and comprehends; and the sound and\nword will strike upon any other ear you may imagine within the\nintervening void, upon any that attends; from a great distance many\neyes look to the one object and all take it fully; all this, because\neye and ear exist. In the same way, what is apt for soul will\npossess itself of soul, while from the one identical presence\nanother will derive something else.\n\nNow the sound was diffused throughout the air not in sections\nbut as one sound, entire at every point of that space. So with\nsight: if the air carries a shape impressed upon it this is one\nundivided whole; for, wherever there be an eye, there the shape will\nbe grasped; even to such as reject this particular theory of sight,\nthe facts of vision still stand as an example of participation\ndetermined by an identical unity.\n\nThe sound is the clearer illustration: the form conveyed is an\nentirety over all the air space, for unless the spoken word were\nentire at every point, for every ear to catch the whole alike, the\nsame effect could not be made upon every listener; the sound,\nevidently, is not strung along the air, section to section.\nWhy, then,\nneed we hesitate to think of soul as a thing not extended in broken\ncontact, part for part, but omnipresent within the range of its\npresence, indwelling in totality at every point throughout the All?\n\nEntered into such bodies as are apt to it, the soul is like the\nspoken sound present in the air, before that entry, like the speaker\nabout to speak- though even embodied it remains at once the speaker\nand the silent.\n\nNo doubt these illustrations are imperfect, but they carry a\nserviceable similitude: the soul belongs to that other Kind, and we\nmust not conceive a part of it embodied and a part intact; it is at\nonce a self-enclosed unity and a principle manifested in diversity.\n\nFurther, any newcoming entity achieving soul receives\nmysteriously\nthat same principle which was equally in the previously ensouled;\nfor it is not in the dispensation that a given part of soul\nsituate at\nsome given point should enter here and there; what is thought of as\nentering was always a self-enclosed entire and, for all the seeming\nentry, so remains; no real entry is conceivable. If, then, the soul\nnever entered and yet is now seen to be present- present without\nwaiting upon the participant- clearly it is present, here\ntoo, without\nbreach of its self-inclusion. This can mean only that the\nparticipant came to soul; it lay outside the veritable reality but\nadvanced towards it and so established itself in the kosmos of life.\nBut this kosmos of life is a self-gathered entire, not divisible\ninto constituent masses but prior to mass; in other words, the\nparticipation is of entire in entire. Any newcomer into that\nkosmos of\nlife will participate in it entire. Admitting, then, that this\nkosmos of life is present entire in the universe, it must be\nsimilarly\nentire in each several entity; an identity numerically one,\nit must be\nan undivided entire, omnipresent.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. But how account, at this, for its extension over all the\nheavens and all living beings?\n\nThere is no such extension. Sense-perception, by insistence upon\nwhich we doubt, tells of Here and There; but reason\ncertifies that the\nHere and There do not attach to that principle; the extended has\nparticipated in that kosmos of life which itself has no extension.\n\nClearly no participant can participate in itself;\nself-participation would be merely identity. Body, then, as\nparticipant does not participate in body; body it has; its\nparticipation must be in what is not body. So too magnitude does not\nparticipate in magnitude; it has it: not even in addition of\nquantity does the initial magnitude participate in magnitude: the\ntwo cubits do not themselves become three cubits; what occurs is\nthat an object totalling to a certain quantity now totals to\nanother: for magnitude to participate in magnitude the actual two\ncubits must themselves become the new three [which cannot occur].\n\nIf, then, the divided and quantitatively extended is to\nparticipate in another Kind, is to have any sort of participation,\nit can participate only in something undivided, unextended, wholly\noutside of quantity. Therefore, that which is to be introduced by\nthe participation must enter as itself an omnipresent indivisible.\n\nThis indivisibility must, of course, not be taken in any sense\nof littleness: littleness would be still divisible, could not cover\nthe extension of the participant and could not maintain integral\npresence against that expansion. Nor is it the indivisibility of a\ngeometric point: the participant mass is no single point but\nincludes an infinity of points; so that on the theory this principle\nmust be an infinity of points, not a simultaneous entire, and so,\nagain, will fail to cover the participant.\n\nIf, then, the participant mass in its entirety is to contain\nthat principle entire, the universe must hold that one soul\npresent at\nits every point.\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. But, admitting this one soul at every point, how is there a\nparticular soul of the individual and how the good soul and the bad?\n\nThe one soul reaches to the individual but nonetheless contains\nall souls and all intelligences; this, because it is at once a unity\nand an infinity; it holds all its content as one yet with each item\ndistinct, though not to the point of separation. Except by thus\nholding all its content as one-life entire, soul entire, all\nintelligence- it could not be infinite; since the individualities\nare not fenced off from each other, it remains still one\nthing. It was\nto hold life not single but infinite and yet one life, one in the\nsense not of an aggregate built up but of the retention of the unity\nin which all rose. Strictly, of course, it is a matter not of the\nrising of the individuals but of their being eternally what they\nare; in that order, as there is no beginning, so there is no\napportioning except as an interpretation by the recipient. What is\nof that realm is the ancient and primal; the relation to it of the\nthing of process must be that of approach and apparent merging with\nalways dependence.\n\nBut we ourselves, what are We?\n\nAre we that higher or the participant newcomer, the thing of\nbeginnings in time?\n\nBefore we had our becoming Here we existed There, men other than\nnow, some of us gods: we were pure souls, Intelligence inbound with\nthe entire of reality, members of the Intellectual, not fenced off,\nnot cut away, integral to that All. Even now, it is true, we are not\nput apart; but upon that primal Man there has intruded another, a\nman seeking to come into being and finding us there, for we were not\noutside of the universe. This other has wound himself about us,\nfoisting himself upon the Man that each of us was at first. Then it\nwas as if one voice sounded, one word was uttered, and from\nevery side\nan ear attended and received and there was an effective hearing,\npossessed through and through of what was present and active upon\nit: now we have lost that first simplicity; we are become the dual\nthing, sometimes indeed no more than that later foisting, with the\nprimal nature dormant and in a sense no longer present.\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. But how did this intruder find entrance?\n\nIt had a certain aptitude and it grasped at that to which it was\napt. In its nature it was capable of soul: but what is unfitted to\nreceive soul entire- present entire but not for it- takes what share\nit may; such are the members of the animal and vegetal order.\nSimilarly, of a significant sound, some forms of being take sound\nand significance together, others only the sound, the blank impact.\n\nA living thing comes into existence containing soul,\npresent to it\nfrom the Authentic, and by soul is inbound with Reality entire; it\npossesses also a body; but this body is not a husk having no part in\nsoul, not a thing that earlier lay away in the soulless; the body\nhad its aptitude and by this draws near: now it is not body merely,\nbut living body. By this neighboring it is enhanced with some\nimpress of soul- not in the sense of a portion of soul entering into\nit, but that it is warmed and lit by soul entire: at once\nthere is the\nground of desire, pleasure, pain; the body of the living\nform that has\ncome to be was certainly no unrelated thing.\n\nThe soul, sprung from the divine, lay self-enclosed at\npeace, true\nto its own quality; but its neighbour, in uproar through weakness,\ninstable of its own nature and beaten upon from without, cries, at\nfirst to itself and afterwards upon the living total, spreading the\ndisorder at large. Thus, at an assembly the Elders may sit\nin tranquil\nmeditation, but an unruly populace, crying for food and casting up a\nhost of grievances, will bring the whole gathering into ugly\nturmoil; when this sort of people hold their peace so that a\nword from\na man of sense may reach them, some passable order is\nrestored and the\nbaser part ceases to prevail; otherwise the silence of the better\nallows the rabble to rule, the distracted assembly unable to take\nthe word from above.\n\nThis is the evil of state and of council: and this is the evil\nof man; man includes an inner rabble- pleasures, desires, fears- and\nthese become masters when the man, the manifold, gives them play.\n\nBut one that has reduced his rabble and gone back to the Man he\nwas, lives to that and is that Man again, so that what he allows to\nthe body is allowed as to something separate.\n\nThere is the man, too, that lives partly in the one\nallegiance and\npartly in the other; he is a blend of the good that is himself with\nthe evil that is alien.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. But if that Principle can never fall to evil and we\nhave given\na true account of the soul's entry or presence to body, what\nare we to\nsay of the periodic Descents and Returns, the punishments, the\nbanishment into animal forms? That teaching we have inherited from\nthose ancient philosophers who have best probed into soul and we\nmust try to show that our own doctrine is accordant with it, or at\nleast not conflicting.\n\nWe have seen that the participation of things here in that\nhigher means not that the soul has gone outside of itself to\nenter the\ncorporeal, but that the corporeal has approached soul and is now\nparticipant in it; the coming affirmed by the ancients can be only\nthat approach of the body to the higher by which it partakes of life\nand of soul; this has nothing to do with local entry but is some\nform of communion; by the descent and embodiment of current phrasing\nmust be understood not that soul becomes an appanage of body but\nthat it gives out to it something of itself; similarly, the soul's\ndeparture is the complete cessation of that communion.\n\nThe various rankings of the universe will determine various\ndegrees of the communion; soul, ultimate of the Intellectual, will\ngive forth freely to body as being more nearly of the one power and\nstanding closer, as distance holds in that order.\n\nThe soul's evil will be this association, its good the release.\nWhy? Because, even unmerged, a soul in any way to be described as\nattached to this universe is in some degree fallen from the\nAll into a\nstate of partition; essentially belonging to the All, it no longer\ndirects its act Thither: thus, a man's knowledge is one whole, but\nhe may guide himself by no more than some single item of it,\nwhere his\ngood would lie in living not by some such fragment but by\nthe total of\nhis knowing.\n\nThat One Soul- member of the Intellectual kosmos and\nthere merging\nwhat it has of partial into the total- has broken away, so to speak,\nfrom the All to the part and to that devotes itself becoming partial\nwith it: thus fire that might consume everything may be set\nto ply its\nall-power upon some trifle. So long as the soul remains utterly\nunattached it is soul not singled out; when it has accepted\nseparation- not that of place but that of act determining\nindividualities- it is a part, no longer the soul entire, or at\nleast not entire in the first sense; when, on the contrary, it\nexercises no such outward control it is perfectly the All-Soul, the\npartial in it latent.\n\nAs for the entry into the World of the Shades, if this means\ninto the unseen, that is its release; if into some lower place,\nthere is nothing strange in that, since even here the soul\nis taken to\nbe where the body is, in place with the body.\n\nBut on the dissolution of the body?\n\nSo long as the image-soul has not been discarded, clearly the\nhigher will be where that is; if, on the contrary, the\nhigher has been\ncompletely emancipated by philosophic discipline, the image-soul may\nvery well go alone to that lower place, the authentic passing\nuncontaminated into the Intellectual, separated from that image but\nnonetheless the soul entire.\n\nLet the image-offspring of the individuality- fare as it may,\nthe true soul when it turns its light upon itself, chooses the\nhigher and by that choice blends into the All, neither acting now\nnor extinct.\n\nBut it is time to return to our main theme:",
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