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    "slug": "ennead-6",
    "name": "Ennead VI — Being, Number, the One"
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    "num": 5,
    "slug": "5-on-the-integral-omnipresence-of-the",
    "title": "VI.5 — On the Integral Omnipresence of the Authentic Existent (2)",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 4803,
    "text": "## FIFTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### FIFTH TRACTATE\n\nON THE INTEGRAL OMNIPRESENCE OF THE\n\nAUTHENTIC EXISTENT (2).\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. The integral omnipresence of a unity numerically identical is\nin fact universally received; for all men instinctively\naffirm the god\nin each of us to be one, the same in all. It would be taken\nas certain\nif no one asked How or sought to bring the conviction to the test of\nreasoning; with this effective in their thought, men would\nbe at rest,\nfinding their stay in that oneness and identity, so that\nnothing would\nwrench them from this unity. This principle, indeed, is the most\nsolidly established of all, proclaimed by our very souls; we do not\npiece it up item by item, but find it within beforehand; it precedes\neven the principle by which we affirm unquestionably that all things\nseek their good; for this universal quest of good depends on the\nfact that all aim at unity and possess unity and that universally\neffort is towards unity.\n\nNow this unity in going forth, so far as it may, towards\nthe Other\nOrder must become manifest as multiplicity and in some sense become\nmultiple; but the primal nature and the appetition of the good,\nwhich is appetition of unity, lead back to what is authentically\none; to this every form of Being is urged in a movement towards its\nown reality. For the good to every nature possessing unity is to be\nself-belonging, to be itself, and that means to be a unity.\n\nIn virtue of that unity the Good may be regarded as truly\ninherent. Hence the Good is not to be sought outside; it could not\nhave fallen outside of what is; it cannot possibly be found in\nnon-Being; within Being the Good must lie, since it is never a\nnon-Being.\n\nIf that Good has Being and is within the realm of Being, then it\nis present, self-contained, in everything: we, therefore, need not\nlook outside of Being; we are in it; yet that Good is not\nexclusively ours: therefore all beings are one.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Now the reasoning faculty which undertakes this problem is\nnot a unity but a thing of parts; it brings the bodily\nnature into the\nenquiry, borrowing its principles from the corporeal: thus it thinks\nof the Essential Existence as corporeal and as a thing of parts; it\nbaulks at the unity because it does not start from the appropriate\nprinciples. We, however, must be careful to bring the appropriately\nconvincing principles to the discussion of the Unity, of perfect\nBeing: we must hold to the Intellectual principles which alone apply\nto the Intellectual Order and to Real Being.\n\nOn the one hand there is the unstable, exposed to all sorts of\nchange, distributed in place, not so much Being as Becoming: on the\nother, there is that which exists eternally, not divided, subject to\nno change of state, neither coming into being nor falling\nfrom it, set\nin no region or place or support, emerging from nowhere,\nentering into\nnothing, fast within itself.\n\nIn dealing with that lower order we would reason from its own\nnature and the characteristics it exhibits; thus, on a plausible\nfoundation, we achieve plausible results by a plausible system of\ndeduction: similarly, in dealing with the Intellectual, the only way\nis to grasp the nature of the essence concerned and so lay the sure\nfoundations of the argument, not forgetfully straying over into that\nother order but basing our treatment on what is essential to the\nNature with which we deal.\n\nIn every entity the essential nature is the governing principle\nand, as we are told, a sound definition brings to light many even of\nthe concomitants: where the essential nature is the entire being, we\nmust be all the more careful to keep to that, to look to that, to\nrefer all to that.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. If this principle is the Authentic Existent and holds\nunchanging identity, does not go forth from itself, is untouched by\nany process of becoming or, as we have said, by any situation in\nplace, then it must be always self-gathered, never in separation,\nnot partly here and partly there, not giving forth from itself: any\nsuch instability would set it in thing after thing or at least in\nsomething other than itself: then it would no longer be\nself-gathered;\nnor would it be immune, for anything within which it were\nlodged would\naffect it; immune, it is not in anything. If, then, not standing\naway from itself, not distributed by part, not taking the slightest\nchange, it is to be in many things while remaining a\nself-concentrated\nentire, there is some way in which it has multipresence; it\nis at once\nself-enclosed and not so: the only way is to recognise that\nwhile this\nprinciple itself is not lodged in anything, all other things\nparticipate in it- all that are apt and in the measure of their\naptitude.\n\nThus, we either cancel all that we have affirmed and the\nprinciples laid down, and deny the existence of any such Nature, or,\nthat being impossible, we return to our first position:\n\nThe One, numerically identical, undistributed, an\nunbroken entire,\nyet stands remote from nothing that exists by its side; but it does\nnot, for that, need to pour itself forth: there is no\nnecessity either\nthat certain portions of it enter into things or again that, while\nit remains self-abiding, something produced and projected from it\nenter at various points into that other order. Either would imply\nsomething of it remaining there while the emanant is elsewhere: thus\nseparated from what has gone forth, it would experience local\ndivision. And would those emanants be, each in itself, whole or\npart? If part, the One has lost its nature, that of an entire, as we\nhave already indicated; if whole, then either the whole is broken up\nto coincide point for point with that in which it is become\npresent or\nwe are admitting that an unbroken identity can be omnipresent.\n\nThis is a reasoning, surely, founded on the thing itself and its\nessential nature, not introducing anything foreign, anything\nbelonging\nto the Other Order.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. Then consider this god [in man] whom we cannot think to be\nabsent at some point and present at another. All that have insight\ninto the nature of the divine beings hold the omnipresence\nof this god\nand of all the gods, and reason assures us that so it must be.\n\nNow all-pervasion is inconsistent with partition; that would\nmean no longer the god throughout but part of the god at one\npoint and\npart at another; the god ceases to be one god, just as a mass cut up\nceases to be a mass, the parts no longer giving the first total.\nFurther, the god becomes corporeal.\n\nIf all this is impossible, the disputed doctrine presents itself\nagain; holding the god to pervade the Being of man, we hold the\nomnipresence of an integral identity.\n\nAgain, if we think of the divine nature as infinite- and\ncertainly\nit is confined by no bounds- this must mean that it nowhere\nfails; its\npresence must reach to everything; at the point to which it does not\nreach, there it has failed; something exists in which it is not.\n\nNow, admitting any sequent to the absolute unity, that sequent\nmust be bound up with the absolute; any third will be about that\nsecond and move towards it, linked to it as its offspring.\nIn this way\nall participants in the Later will have share in the First.\nThe Beings\nof the Intellectual are thus a plurality of firsts and seconds and\nthirds attached like one sphere to one centre, not separated by\ninterval but mutually present; where, therefore, the Intellectual\ntertiaries are present, the secondaries and firsts are present too.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. Often for the purpose of exposition- as a help towards\nstating the nature of the produced multiplicity- we use the\nexample of\nmany lines radiating from one centre; but, while we provide for\nindividualization, we must carefully preserve mutual\npresence. Even in\nthe case of our circle we need not think of separated radii; all may\nbe taken as forming one surface: where there is no distinction even\nupon the one surface but all is power and reality undifferentiated,\nall the beings may be thought of as centres uniting at one central\ncentre: we ignore the radial lines and think of their terminals at\nthat centre, where they are at one. Restore the radii; once more we\nhave lines, each touching a generating centre of its own, but that\ncentre remains coincident with the one first centre; the centres all\nunite in that first centre and yet remain what they were, so\nthat they\nare as many as are the lines to which they serve as terminals; the\ncentres themselves appear as numerous as the lines starting from gem\nand yet all those centres constitute a unity.\n\nThus we may liken the Intellectual Beings in their diversity to\nmany centres coinciding with the one centre and themselves at one in\nit but appearing multiple on account of the radial lines- lines\nwhich do not generate the centres but merely lead to them. The\nradii, thus, afford a serviceable illustration for the mode\nof contact\nby which the Intellectual Unity manifests itself as multiple and\nmultipresent.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. The Intellectual Beings, thus, are multiple and one; in\nvirtue of their infinite nature their unity is a\nmultiplicity, many in\none and one over many, a unit-plurality. They act as entire upon\nentire; even upon the partial thing they act as entire; but there is\nthe difference that at first the partial accepts this working only\npartially though the entire enters later. Thus, when Man enters into\nhuman form there exists a particular man who, however, is still Man.\nFrom the one thing Man- man in the Idea- material man has come to\nconstitute many individual men: the one identical thing is present\nin multiplicity, in multi-impression, so to speak, from the one seal.\n\nThis does not mean that Man Absolute, or any Absolute, or the\nUniverse in the sense of a Whole, is absorbed by multiplicity; on\nthe contrary, the multiplicity is absorbed by the Absolute, or\nrather is bound up with it. There is a difference between the mode\nin which a colour may be absorbed by a substance entire and that in\nwhich the soul of the individual is identically present in every\npart of the body: it is in this latter mode that Being is\nomnipresent.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. To Real Being we go back, all that we have and are; to that\nwe return as from that we came. Of what is There we have direct\nknowledge, not images or even impressions; and to know without image\nis to be; by our part in true knowledge we are those Beings;\nwe do not\nneed to bring them down into ourselves, for we are There among them.\nSince not only ourselves but all other things also are those Beings,\nwe all are they; we are they while we are also one with all:\ntherefore\nwe and all things are one.\n\nWhen we look outside of that on which we depend we ignore our\nunity; looking outward we see many faces; look inward and all is the\none head. If man could but be turned about by his own motion\nor by the\nhappy pull of Athene- he would see at once God and himself and the\nAll. At first no doubt all will not be seen as one whole, but when\nwe find no stop at which to declare a limit to our being we cease to\nrule ourselves out from the total of reality; we reach to\nthe All as a\nunity- and this not by any stepping forward, but by the fact of\nbeing and abiding there where the All has its being.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. For my part I am satisfied that anyone considering the mode\nin which Matter participates in the Ideas will be ready enough to\naccept this tenet of omnipresence in identity, no longer rejecting\nit as incredible or even difficult. This because it seems reasonable\nand imperative to dismiss any notion of the Ideas lying apart with\nMatter illumined from them as from somewhere above- a meaningless\nconception, for what have distance and separation to do here?\n\nThis participation cannot be thought of as elusive or very\nperplexing; on the contrary, it is obvious, accessible in many\nexamples.\n\nNote, however, that when we sometimes speak of the Ideas\nilluminating Matter this is not to suggest the mode in which\nmaterial light pours down on a material object; we use the phrase in\nthe sense only that, the material being image while the Ideas are\narchetypes, the two orders are distinguished somewhat in the\nmanner of\nilluminant and illuminated. But it is time to be more exact.\n\nWe do not mean that the Idea, locally separate, shows itself in\nMatter like a reflection in water; the Matter touches the Idea at\nevery point, though not in a physical contact, and, by dint of\nneighbourhood- nothing to keep them apart- is able to absorb thence\nall that lies within its capacity, the Idea itself not penetrating,\nnot approaching, the Matter, but remaining self-locked.\n\nWe take it, then, that the Idea, say of Fire- for we had\nbest deal\nwith Matter as underlying the elements- is not in the Matter. The\nIdeal Fire, then, remaining apart, produces the form of fire\nthroughout the entire enfired mass. Now let us suppose- and the same\nmethod will apply to all the so-called elements- that this\nFire in its\nfirst material manifestation is a multiple mass. That single Fire is\nseen producing an image of itself in all the sensible fires;\nyet it is\nnot spatially separate; it does not, then, produce that image in the\nmanner of our visible light; for in that case all this sensible\nfire, supposing that it were a whole of parts [as the analogy would\nnecessitate], must have generated spatial positions out of itself,\nsince the Idea or Form remains in a non-spatial world; for a\nprinciple\nthus pluralized must first have departed from its own character in\norder to be present in that many and participate many times\nin the one\nsame Form.\n\nThe Idea, impartible, gives nothing of itself to the Matter; its\nunbreaking unity, however, does not prevent it shaping that multiple\nby its own unity and being present to the entirety of the multiple,\nbringing it to pattern not by acting part upon part but by presence\nentire to the object entire. It would be absurd to introduce a\nmultitude of Ideas of Fire, each several fire being shaped by a\nparticular idea; the Ideas of fire would be infinite. Besides, how\nwould these resultant fires be distinct, when fire is a continuous\nunity? and if we apply yet another fire to certain matter and\nproduce a greater fire, then the same Idea must be allowed to have\nfunctioned in the same way in the new matter as in the old;\nobviously there is no other Idea.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. The elements in their totality, as they stand produced, may\nbe thought of as one spheric figure; this cannot be the piecemeal\nproduct of many makers each working from some one point on some one\nportion. There must be one cause; and this must operate as an\nentire, not by part executing part; otherwise we are brought\nback to a\nplurality of makers. The making must be referred to a partless\nunity, or, more precisely, the making principle must be a partless\nunity not permeating the sphere but holding it as one\ndependent thing.\nIn this way the sphere is enveloped by one identical life in which\nit is inset; its entire content looks to the one life: thus all the\nsouls are one, a one, however, which yet is infinite.\n\nIt is in this understanding that the soul has been taken to be a\nnumerical principle, while others think of it as in its nature a\nself-increasing number; this latter notion is probably designed to\nmeet the consideration that the soul at no point fails but,\nretaining its distinctive character, is ample for all, so\nmuch so that\nwere the kosmos vaster yet the virtue of soul would still compass\nit- or rather the kosmos still be sunk in soul entire.\n\nOf course, we must understand this adding of extension not as a\nliteral increase but in the sense that the soul, essentially a\nunity, becomes adequate to omnipresence; its unity sets it outside\nof quantitative measurement, the characteristic of that other order\nwhich has but a counterfeit unity, an appearance by participation.\n\nThe essential unity is no aggregate to be annulled upon the loss\nof some one of the constituents; nor is it held within any allotted\nlimits, for so it would be the less for a set of things, more\nextensive than itself, outside its scope; or it must wrench itself\nasunder in the effort to reach to all; besides, its presence\nto things\nwould be no longer as whole to all but by part to part; in vulgar\nphrase, it does not know where it stands; dismembered, it no longer\nperforms any one single function.\n\nNow if this principle is to be a true unity- where the\nunity is of\nthe essence- it must in some way be able to manifest itself as\nincluding the contrary nature, that of potential multiplicity, while\nby the fact that this multiplicity belongs to it not as from without\nbut as from and by itself, it remains authentically one, possessing\nboundlessness and multiplicity within that unity; its nature must be\nsuch that it can appear as a whole at every point; this, as\nencircled by a single self-embracing Reason-Principle, which holds\nfast about that unity, never breaking with itself but over all the\nuniverse remaining what it must be.\n\nThe unity is in this way saved from the local division of the\nthings in which it appears; and, of course, existing before all that\nis in place, it could never be founded upon anything\nbelonging to that\norder of which, on the contrary, it is the foundation; yet, for all\nthat they are based upon it, it does not cease to be wholly\nself-gathered; if its fixed seat were shaken, all the rest would\nfall with the fall of their foundation and stay; nor could it be so\nunintelligent as to tear itself apart by such a movement and, secure\nwithin its own being, trust itself to the insecurity of place which,\nprecisely, looks to it for safety.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. It remains, then, poised in wisdom within itself; it\ncould not\nenter into any other; those others look to it and in their longing\nfind it where it is. This is that \"Love Waiting at the Door,\" ever\ncoming up from without, striving towards the beautiful, happy when\nto the utmost of its power it attains. Even here the lover\ndoes not so\nmuch possess himself of the beauty he has loved as wait before it;\nthat Beauty is abidingly self-enfolded but its lovers, the Many,\nloving it as an entire, possess it as an entire when they attain,\nfor it was an entire that they loved. This seclusion does not\nprevent its sufficing to all, but is the very reason for its\nadequacy;\nbecause it is thus entire for all it can be The Good to all.\n\nSimilarly wisdom is entire to all; it is one thing; it is not\ndistributed parcelwise; it cannot be fixed to place; it is not\nspread about like a colouring, for it is not corporeal; in any true\nparticipation in wisdom there must be one thing acting as unit upon\nunit. So must it be in our participation in the One; we\nshall not take\nour several portions of it, nor you some separate entire and I\nanother. Think of what happens in Assemblies and all kinds of\nmeetings; the road to sense is the road to unity; singly the members\nare far from wise; as they begin to grow together, each, in that\ntrue growth, generates wisdom while he recognizes it. There\nis nothing\nto prevent our intelligences meeting at one centre from their\nseveral positions; all one, they seem apart to us as when without\nlooking we touch one object or sound one string with\ndifferent fingers\nand think we feel several. Or take our souls in their possession of\ngood; it is not one good for me and another for you; it is the same\nfor both and not in the sense merely of distinct products of an\nidentical source, the good somewhere above with something streaming\nfrom it into us; in any real receiving of good, giver is in contact\nwith taker and gives not as to a recipient outside but to one in\nintimate contact.\n\nThe Intellectual giving is not an act of transmission;\neven in the\ncase of corporeal objects, with their local separation, the mutual\ngiving [and taking] is of things of one order and their\ncommunication,\nevery effect they produce, is upon their like; what is corporeal in\nthe All acts and is acted upon within itself, nothing external\nimpinging upon it. Now if in body, whose very nature is partition,\nthere is no incursion of the alien, how can there be any in the\norder in which no partition exists?\n\nIt is therefore by identification that we see the good and touch\nit, brought to it by becoming identical with what is of the\nIntellectual within ourselves. In that realm exists what is far more\ntruly a kosmos of unity; otherwise there will be two sensible\nuniverses, divided into correspondent parts; the Intellectual\nsphere, if a unity only as this sphere is, will be undistinguishable\nfrom it- except, indeed, that it will be less worthy of respect\nsince in the nature of things extension is appropriate in the lower\nwhile the Intellectual will have wrought out its own\nextension with no\nmotive, in a departure from its very character.\n\nAnd what is there to hinder this unification? There is\nno question\nof one member pushing another out as occupying too much space, any\nmore than happens in our own minds where we take in the entire fruit\nof our study and observation, all uncrowded.\n\nWe may be told that this unification is not possible in Real\nBeings; it certainly would not be possible, if the Reals had\nextension.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. But how can the unextended reach over the defined\nextension of\nthe corporeal? How can it, so, maintain itself as a unity, an\nidentity?\n\nThis is a problem often raised and reason calls vehemently for a\nsolution of the difficulties involved. The fact stands abundantly\nevident, but there is still the need of intellectual satisfaction.\n\nWe have, of course, no slight aid to conviction, indeed the very\nstrongest, in the exposition of the character of that\nprinciple. It is\nnot like a stone, some vast block lying where it lies, covering the\nspace of its own extension, held within its own limits,\nhaving a fixed\nquantity of mass and of assigned stone-power. It is a First\nPrinciple,\nmeasureless, not bounded within determined size- such measurement\nbelongs to another order- and therefore it is all-power,\nnowhere under\nlimit. Being so, it is outside of Time.\n\nTime in its ceaseless onward sliding produces parted interval;\nEternity stands in identity, pre-eminent, vaster by unending power\nthan Time with all the vastness of its seeming progress; Time is\nlike a radial line running out apparently to infinity but dependent\nupon that, its centre, which is the pivot of all its movement; as it\ngoes it tells of that centre, but the centre itself is the unmoving\nprinciple of all the movement.\n\nTime stands, thus, in analogy with the principle which holds\nfast in unchanging identity of essence: but that principle\nis infinite\nnot only in duration but also in power: this infinity of power must\nalso have its counterpart, a principle springing from that infinite\npower and dependent upon it; this counterpart will, after its own\nmode, run a course- corresponding to the course of Time- in keeping\nwith that stationary power which is its greater as being its source:\nand in this too the source is present throughout the full\nextension of\nits lower correspondent.\n\nThis secondary of Power, participating as far as it may in that\nhigher, must be identified.\n\nNow the higher power is present integrally but, in the\nweakness of\nthe recipient material, is not discerned as every point; it\nis present\nas an identity everywhere not in the mode of the material triangle-\nidentical though, in many representations, numerically multiple, but\nin the mode of the immaterial, ideal triangle which is the source of\nthe material figures. If we are asked why the omnipresence of the\nimmaterial triangle does not entail that of the material figure, we\nanswer that not all Matter enters into the participation necessary;\nMatter accepts various forms and not all Matter is apt for all form;\nthe First Matter, for example, does not lend itself to all but is\nfor the First Kinds first and for the others in due order, though\nthese, too, are omnipresent.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. To return: How is that Power present to the universe?\n\nAs a One Life.\n\nConsider the life in any living thing; it does not reach only to\nsome fixed point, unable to permeate the entire being; it is\nomnipresent. If on this again we are asked How, we appeal to the\ncharacter of this power, not subject to quantity but such that\nthough you divide it mentally for ever you still have the same\npower, infinite to the core; in it there is no Matter to make it\ngrow less and less according to the measured mass.\n\nConceive it as a power of an ever-fresh infinity, a principle\nunfailing, inexhaustible, at no point giving out, brimming over with\nits own vitality. If you look to some definite spot and seek\nto fasten\non some definite thing, you will not find it. The contrary is your\nonly way; you cannot pass on to where it is not; you will never halt\nat a dwindling point where it fails at last and can no longer give;\nyou will always be able to move with it- better, to be in its\nentirety- and so seek no further; denying it, you have\nstrayed away to\nsomething of another order and you fall; looking elsewhere you do\nnot see what stands there before you.\n\nBut supposing you do thus \"seek no further,\" how do you\nexperience\nit?\n\nIn that you have entered into the All, no longer content with\nthe part; you cease to think of yourself as under limit but, laying\nall such determination aside, you become an All. No doubt you were\nalways that, but there has been an addition and by that addition you\nare diminished; for the addition was not from the realm of Being-\nyou can add nothing to Being- but from non-Being. It is not by some\nadmixture of non-Being that one becomes an entire, but by putting\nnon-Being away. By the lessening of the alien in you, you increase.\nCast it aside and there is the All within you; engaged in the alien,\nyou will not find the All. Not that it has to come and so be present\nto you; it is you that have turned from it. And turn though you may,\nyou have not severed yourself; it is there; you are not in some far\nregion: still there before it, you have faced to its contrary.\n\nIt is so with the lesser gods; of many standing in their\npresence it is often one alone that sees them; that one alone was\nalone in the power to see. These are the gods who \"in many\nguises seek\nour cities\"; but there is That Other whom the cities seek,\nand all the\nearth and heaven, everywhere with God and in Him, possessing through\nHim their Being and the Real Beings about them, down to soul\nand life,\nall bound to Him and so moving to that unity which by its\nvery lack of\nextension is infinite.",
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