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  "work": {
    "slug": "ennead-6",
    "name": "Ennead VI — Being, Number, the One"
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      "name": "Enneads",
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 7,
    "slug": "7-how-the-multiplicity-of-the-ideal-forms-came-into-being",
    "title": "VI.7 — How the Multiplicity of the Ideal-Forms Came Into Being; and Upon the Good",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 18784,
    "text": "## SEVENTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### SEVENTH TRACTATE.\n\nHOW THE MULTIPLICITY OF THE IDEAL-FORMS CAME INTO BEING:\n\nAND UPON THE GOOD.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. God, or some one of the gods, in sending the souls to their\nbirth, placed eyes in the face to catch the light and\nallotted to each\nsense the appropriate organ, providing thus for the safety\nwhich comes\nby seeing and hearing in time and, seeking or avoiding under\nguidance of touch.\n\nBut what led to this provision?\n\nIt cannot be that other forms of being were produced first and\nthat, these perishing in the absence of the senses, the maker at\nlast supplied the means by which men and other living beings might\navert disaster.\n\nWe may be told that it lay within the divine knowledge\nthat animal\nlife would be exposed to heat and cold and other such experiences\nincident to body and that in this knowledge he provided the\nsenses and\nthe organs apt to their activity in order that the living total\nmight not fall an easy prey.\n\nNow, either he gave these organs to souls already possessing the\nsensitive powers or he gave senses and organs alike.\n\nBut if the souls were given the powers as well as the organs,\nthen, souls though they were, they had no sensation before that\ngiving. If they possessed these powers from the moment of being\nsouls and became souls in order to their entry into process, then it\nis of their very nature to belong to process, unnatural to them to\nbe outside of process and within the Intellectual: they were made in\nthe intent that they should belong to the alien and have their being\namid evil; the divine provision would consist in holding\nthem to their\ndisaster; this is God's reasoned purpose, this the plan entire.\n\nNow what is the foundation of reasoned plan?\n\nPrecedent planning, it may be; but still we are forced back to\nsome thing or things determining it. What would these be here?\n\nEither sense-perception or intellect. But sense-perception it\ncannot in this case be: intellect is left; yet, starting from\nintellect, the conclusion will be knowledge, not therefore the\nhandling of the sensible; what begins with the intellectual and\nproceeds to the intellectual can certainly not end in dealings with\nthe sensible. Providence, then, whether over living beings\nor over any\npart of the universe was never the outcome of plan.\n\nThere is in fact no planning There; we speak of reasoned purpose\nin the world of things only to convey that the universe is of the\ncharacter which in the later order would point to a wise purposing;\nProvidence implies that things are as, in the later order, a\ncompetent\nforeplanning would produce them. Reasoning serves, in beings not of\nthe order above that need, to supply for the higher power; foresight\nis necessary in the lack of power which could dispense with it; it\nlabours towards some one occurrence in preference to another and it\ngoes in a sort of dread of the unfitting; where only the fitting can\noccur, there is no foreseeing. So with planning; where one\nonly of two\nthings can be, what place is there for plan? The alone and one and\nutterly simplex cannot involve a \"this to avert that\": if the \"this\"\ncould not be, the \"that\" must; the serviceable thing appeared and at\nonce approved itself so.\n\nBut surely this is foreseeing, deliberating: are we not back at\nwhat was said at the beginning, that God did to this end\ngive both the\nsenses and the powers, however perplexing that giving be?\n\nNo: all turns on the necessary completeness of Act; we cannot\nthink anything belonging to God to be other than a whole and all and\ntherefore in anything of God's that all must be contained; God\ntherefore must take in the future, present beforehand.\nCertainly there\nis no later in the divine; what is There as present is future for\nelsewhere. If then the future is present, it must be present\nas having\nbeen foreconceived for later coming to be; at that divine stage\ntherefore it lacks nothing and therefore can never lack; all\nexisted, eternally and in such a way that at the later stage any\nparticular thing may be said to exist for this or that purpose; the\nAll, in its extension and so to speak unfolding, is able to present\nsuccession while yet it is simultaneous; this is because it contains\nthe cause of all as inherent to itself.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. Thus we have even here the means of knowing the nature of the\nIntellectual-Principle, though, seeing it more closely than anything\nelse, we still see it at less than its worth. We know that it exists\nbut its cause we do not see, or, if we do, we see that cause as\nsomething apart. We see a man- or an eye, if you like- but this is\nan image or part of an image; what is in that Principle is\nat once Man\nand the reason of his being; for There man- or eye- must be, itself,\nan intellective thing and a cause of its being; it could not exist\nat all unless it were that cause, whereas here, everything partial\nis separate and so is the cause of each. In the Intellectual, all is\nat one so that the thing is identical with the cause.\n\nEven here the thing and its cause are often identical- an\neclipse furnishes an example- what then is there to prevent other\nthings too being identical with their cause and this cause being the\nessence of the thing? It must be so; and by this search after the\ncause the thing's essence is reached, for the essence of a thing is\nits cause. I am not here saying that the informing Idea is the cause\nof the thing- though this is true- but that the Idea itself,\nunfolded,\nreveals the cause inherent in it.\n\nA thing of inactivity, even though alive, cannot include its own\ncause; but where could a Forming-Idea, a member of the\nIntellectual-Principle, turn in quest of its cause? We may\nbe answered\n\"In the Intellectual-Principle\"; but the two are not distinct; the\nIdea is the Intellectual-Principle; and if that Principle\nmust contain\nthe Ideas complete, their cause must be contained in them. The\nIntellectual-Principle itself contains every cause of the things of\nits content; but these of its content are identically\nIntellectual-Principle, each of them Intellectual-Principle; none of\nthem, thus, can lack its own cause; each springs into being carrying\nwith it the reason of its being. No result of chance, each must rise\ncomplete with its cause; it is an integral and so includes the\nexcellence bound up with the cause. This is how all participants in\nthe Idea are put into possession of their cause.\n\nIn our universe, a coherent total of multiplicity, the several\nitems are linked each to the other, and by the fact that it is an\nall every cause is included in it: even in the particular thing the\npart is discernibly related to the whole, for the parts do not come\ninto being separately and successively but are mutually cause and\ncaused at one and the same moment. Much more in the higher realm\nmust all the singles exist for the whole and each for itself: if\nthen that world is the conjoint reality of all, of an all not\nchance-ruled and not sectional, the cause There must include the\ncauses: every item must hold, in its very nature, the uncaused\npossession of its cause; uncaused, independent and standing\napart from\ncause, they must be self-contained, cause and all.\n\nFurther, since nothing There is chance-sprung, and the\nmultiplicity in each comprehends the entire content, then\nthe cause of\nevery member can be named; the cause was present from the beginning,\ninherent, not a cause but a fact of the being; or, rather, cause and\nmanner of being were one. What could an Idea have, as cause, over\nand above the Intellectual-Principle? It is a thought of that\nPrinciple and cannot, at that, be considered as anything but\na perfect\nproduct. If it is thus perfect we cannot speak of anything\nin which it\nis lacking nor cite any reason for such lack. That thing must be\npresent, and we can say why. The why is inherent, therefore, in the\nentity, that is to say in every thought and activity of the\nIntellectual-Principle. Take for example the Idea of Man; Man entire\nis found to contribute to it; he is in that Idea in all his fulness\nincluding everything that from the beginning belonged to Man. If Man\nwere not complete There, so that there were something to be added to\nthe Idea, that additional must belong to a derivative; but Man\nexists from eternity and must therefore be complete; the man born is\nthe derivative.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. What then is there to prevent man having been the object of\nplanning There?\n\nNo: all stands in that likeness, nothing to be added or taken\naway; this planning and reasoning is based only on an assumption;\nthings are taken to be in process and this suggests planning and\nreasoning; insist on the eternity of the process and\nplanning falls to\nthe ground. There can be no planning over the eternal; that would\nimply forgetfulness of a first state; further, if the second state\nwere better, things stood ill at first; if they stood well, so they\nmust remain.\n\nOnly in conjunction with their causes are things good; even in\nthis sphere a thing is good in virtue of being complete; form means\nthat the thing is complete, the Matter duly controlled; this control\nmeans that nothing has been left crude; but something is so left if\nanything belonging to the shape be missing-eye, or other\npart. Thus to\nstate cause is to state the thing complete. Why eyes or eyebrows?\nFor completion: if you say \"For preservation,\" you affirm an\nindwelling safeguard of the essence, something contributory to the\nbeing: the essence, then, preceded the safeguard and the cause was\ninbound with the essence; distinct, this cause is in its\nnature a part\nof the essence.\n\nAll parts, thus, exist in regard to each other: the essence is\nall-embracing, complete, entire; the excellency is inbound with the\ncause and embraced by it; the being, the essence, the cause, all are\none.\n\nBut, at this, sense-perception- even in its particular modes- is\ninvolved in the Idea by eternal necessity, in virtue of the\ncompleteness of the Idea; Intellectual-Principle, as all-inclusive,\ncontains in itself all by which we are brought, later, to recognise\nthis perfection in its nature; the cause, There, was one total,\nall-inclusive; thus Man in the Intellectual was not purely\nintellect, sense-perception being an addition made upon his\nentry into\nbirth: all this would seem to imply a tendance in that great\nPrinciple\ntowards the lower, towards this sphere.\n\nBut how could that Principle have such perception, be aware of\nthings of sense? Surely it is untenable on the one hand that\nsense-perception should exist There, from eternity, and on the other\nthat only upon the debasement of the soul should there be\nsense-perception here and the accomplishment in this realm of the\nAct of what was always a power in that?\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. To meet the difficulty we must make a close examination of\nthe nature of Man in the Intellectual; perhaps, though, it is better\nto begin with the man of this plane lest we be reasoning to Man\nThere from a misconception of Man here. There may even be some who\ndeny the difference.\n\nWe ask first whether man as here is a Reason-Principle different\nto that soul which produces him as here and gives him life and\nthought; or is he that very soul or, again, the [yet lower]\nsoul using\nthe human body?\n\nNow if man is a reasonable living being and by \"living being\" is\nmeant a conjoint of soul and body, the Reason-Principle of man is\nnot identical with soul. But if the conjoint of soul and body is the\nreason-principle of man, how can man be an eternal reality, seeing\nthat it is only when soul and body have come together that the\nReason-Principle so constituted appears?\n\nThe Reason-Principle will be the foreteller of the man to be,\nnot the Man Absolute with which we are dealing but more like his\ndefinition, and not at that indicating his nature since what is\nindicated is not the Idea that is to enter Matter but only\nthat of the\nknown thing, the conjoint. We have not yet found the Man we are\nseeking, the equivalent of the Reason-Principle.\n\nBut- it may be said- the Reason-Principle of such beings must be\nsome conjoint, one element in another.\n\nThis does not define the principle of either. If we are to state\nwith entire accuracy the Reason-Principles of the Forms in Matter\nand associated with Matter, we cannot pass over the generative\nReason-Principle, in this case that of Man, especially since we hold\nthat a complete definition must cover the essential manner of being.\n\nWhat, then, is this essential of Man? What is the indwelling,\ninseparable something which constitutes Man as here? Is the\nReason-Principle itself a reasoning living being or merely a maker\nof that reasoning life-form? and what is it apart from that act of\nmaking?\n\nThe living being corresponds to a reasoning life in the\nReason-Principle; man therefore is a reasoning life: but there is no\nlife without soul; either, then, the soul supplies the\nreasoning life-\nand man therefore is not an essence but simply an activity of the\nsoul- or the soul is the man.\n\nBut if reasoning soul is the man, why does it not constitute man\nupon its entry into some other animal form?\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. Man, thus, must be some Reason-Principle other than soul. But\nwhy should he not be some conjoint- a soul in a certain\nReason-Principle- the Reason-Principle being, as it were, a definite\nactivity which however could not exist without that which acts?\n\nThis is the case with the Reason-Principles in seed which are\nneither soulless nor entirely soul. For these productive principles\ncannot be devoid of soul and there is nothing surprising in such\nessences being Reason-Principles.\n\nBut these principles producing other forms than man, of\nwhat phase\nof soul are they activities? Of the vegetal soul? Rather of\nthat which\nproduces animal life, a brighter soul and therefore one more\nintensely\nliving.\n\nThe soul of that order, the soul that has entered into Matter of\nthat order, is man by having, apart from body, a certain\ndisposition; within body it shapes all to its own fashion, producing\nanother form of Man, man reduced to what body admits, just as an\nartist may make a reduced image of that again.\n\nIt is soul, then, that holds the pattern and Reason-Principles\nof Man, the natural tendencies, the dispositions and powers- all\nfeeble since this is not the Primal Man- and it contains also the\nIdeal-Forms of other senses, Forms which themselves are\nsenses, bright\nto all seeming but images, and dim in comparison with those of the\nearlier order.\n\nThe higher Man, above this sphere, rises from the more godlike\nsoul, a soul possessed of a nobler humanity and brighter\nperceptions. This must be the Man of Plato's definition [\"Man is\nSoul\"], where the addition \"Soul as using body\" marks the\ndistinction between the soul which uses body directly and the soul,\npoised above, which touches body only through that intermediary.\n\nThe Man of the realm of birth has sense-perception: the higher\nsoul enters to bestow a brighter life, or rather does not so much\nenter as simply impart itself; for soul does not leave the\nIntellectual but, maintaining that contact, holds the lower life as\npendant from it, blending with it by the natural link of\nReason-Principle to Reason-Principle: and man, the dimmer, brightens\nunder that illumination.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. But how can that higher soul have sense-perception?\n\nIt is the perception of what falls under perception There,\nsensation in the mode of that realm: it is the source of the soul's\nperception of the sense-realm in its correspondence with the\nIntellectual. Man as sense-percipient becomes aware of that\ncorrespondence and accommodates the sense-realm to the lowest\nextremity of its counterpart There, proceeding from the fire\nIntellectual to the fire here which becomes perceptible by\nits analogy\nwith that of the higher sphere. If material things existed There,\nthe soul would perceive them; Man in the Intellectual, Man as\nIntellectual soul, would be aware of the terrestrial. This is how\nthe secondary Man, copy of Man in the Intellectual, contains the\nReason-Principles in copy; and Man in the Intellectual-Principle\ncontained the Man that existed before any man. The diviner shines\nout upon the secondary and the secondary upon the tertiary; and even\nthe latest possesses them all- not in the sense of actually living\nby them all but as standing in under-parallel to them. Some of us\nact by this lowest; in another rank there is a double activity, a\ntrace of the higher being included; in yet another there is\na blending\nof the third grade with the others: each is that Man by which he\nacts while each too contains all the grades, though in some sense\nnot so. On the separation of the third life and third Man from the\nbody, then if the second also departs- of course not losing hold on\nthe Above- the two, as we are told, will occupy the same place. No\ndoubt it seems strange that a soul which has been the\nReason-Principle\nof a man should come to occupy the body of an animal: but\nthe soul has\nalways been all, and will at different times be this and that.\n\nPure, not yet fallen to evil, the soul chooses man and\nis man, for\nthis is the higher, and it produces the higher. It produces also the\nstill loftier beings, the Celestials [Daimons], who are of one Form\nwith the soul that makes Man: higher still stands that Man more\nentirely of the Celestial rank, almost a god, reproducing God, a\nCelestial closely bound to God as a man is to Man. For that\nBeing into\nwhich man develops is not to be called a god; there remains the\ndifference which distinguishes souls, all of the same race\nthough they\nbe. This is taking \"Celestial\" [\"Daimon\"] in the sense of Plato.\n\nWhen a soul which in the human state has been thus attached\nchooses animal nature and descends to that, it is giving forth the\nReason-Principle- necessarily in it- of that particular animal: this\nlower it contained and the activity has been to the lower.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. But if it is by becoming evil and inferior that the soul\nproduces the animal nature, the making of ox or horse was not at the\noutset in its character; the reason-principle of the animal, and the\nanimal itself, must lie outside of the natural plan?\n\nInferior, yes; but outside of nature, no. The thing\nThere [Soul in\nthe Intellectual] was in some sense horse and dog from the\nbeginning; given the condition, it produces the higher kind; let the\ncondition fail, then, since produce it must, it produces what it\nmay: it is like a skillful craftsman competent to create all kinds\nof works of art but reduced to making what is ordered and what the\naptitude of his material indicates.\n\nThe power of the All-Soul, as Reason-Principle of the universe,\nmay be considered as laying down a pattern before the effective\nseparate powers go forth from it: this plan would be something like\na tentative illumining of Matter; the elaborating soul would give\nminute articulation to these representations of itself;\nevery separate\neffective soul would become that towards which it tended, assuming\nthat particular form as the choral dancer adapts himself to\nthe action\nset down for him.\n\nBut this is to anticipate: our enquiry was How there can be\nsense-perception in man without the implication that the Divine\naddresses itself to the realm of process. We maintained, and proved,\nthat the Divine does not look to this realm but that things here are\ndependent upon those and represent them and that man here,\nholding his\npowers from Thence, is directed Thither, so that, while sense makes\nthe environment of what is of sense in him, the Intellectual\nin him is\nlinked to the Intellectual.\n\nWhat we have called the perceptibles of that realm enter into\ncognisance in a way of their own, since they are not material, while\nthe sensible sense here- so distinguished as dealing with corporeal\nobjects- is fainter than the perception belonging to that higher\nworld; the man of this sphere has sense-perception because\nexisting in\na less true degree and taking only enfeebled images of things There-\nperceptions here are Intellections of the dimmer order, and the\nIntellections There are vivid perceptions.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. So much for the thing of sense; but it would appear that the\nprototype There of the living form, the universal horse, must look\ndeliberately towards this sphere; and, that being so, the idea of\nhorse must have been worked out in order there be a horse here?\n\nYet what was that there to present the idea of the horse it was\ndesired to produce? Obviously the idea of horse must exist before\nthere was any planning to make a horse; it could not be thought of\nin order to be made; there must have been horse unproduced\nbefore that\nwhich was later to come into being. If, then, the thing\nexisted before\nit was produced- if it cannot have been thought of in order to its\nproduction- the Being that held the horse as There held it\nin presence\nwithout any looking to this sphere; it was not with intent to set\nhorse and the rest in being here that they were contained\nThere; it is\nthat, the universal existing, the reproduction followed of necessity\nsince the total of things was not to halt at the\nIntellectual. Who was\nthere to call a halt to a power capable at once of\nself-concentration and of outflow?\n\nBut how come these animals of earth to be There? What\nhave they to\ndo within God? Reasoning beings, all very well; but this host of the\nunreasoning, what is there august in them? Surely the very contrary?\n\nThe answer is that obviously the unity of our universe must be\nthat of a manifold since it is subsequent to that unity-absolute;\notherwise it would be not next to that but the very same thing. As a\nnext it could not hold the higher rank of being more perfectly a\nunity; it must fall short: since the best is a unity,\ninevitably there\nmust be something more than unity, for deficiency involves plurality.\n\nBut why should it not be simply a dyad?\n\nBecause neither of the constituents could ever be a pure unity,\nbut at the very least a duality and so progressively [in an endless\ndualization]. Besides, in that first duality of the hypothesis there\nwould be also movement and rest, Intellect and the life included in\nIntellect, all-embracing Intellect and life complete. That means\nthat it could not be one Intellect; it must be Intellect agglomerate\nincluding all the particular intellects, a thing therefore\nas multiple\nas all the Intellects and more so; and the life in it would nat be\nthat of one soul but of all the souls with the further power of\nproducing the single souls: it would be the entire living universe\ncontaining much besides man; for if it contained only man, man would\nbe alone here.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. Admitted, then- it will be said- for the nobler forms of\nlife; but how can the divine contain the mean, the unreasoning? The\nmean is the unreasoning, since value depends upon reason and\nthe worth\nof the intellective implies worthlessness where intellection is\nlacking. Yet how can there be question of the unreasoning or\nunintellective when all particulars exist in the divine and\ncome forth\nfrom it?\n\nIn taking up the refutation of these objections, we must insist\nupon the consideration that neither man nor animals here can be\nthought of as identical with the counterparts in the higher realm;\nthose ideal forms must be taken in a larger way. And again the\nreasoning thing is not of that realm: here the reasoning, There the\npre-reasoning.\n\nWhy then does man alone reason here, the others remaining\nreasonless?\n\nDegrees of reasoning here correspond to degrees of\nIntellection in\nthat other sphere, as between man and the other living beings There;\nand those others do in some measure act by understanding.\n\nBut why are they not at man's level of reason: why also the\ndifference from man to man?\n\nWe must reflect that, since the many forms of lives are\nmovements-\nand so with the Intellections- they cannot be identical:\nthere must be\ndifferent lives, distinct intellections, degrees of lightsomeness\nand clarity: there must be firsts, seconds, thirds, determined by\nnearness to the Firsts. This is how some of the Intellections are\ngods, others of a secondary order having what is here known\nas reason,\nwhile others again belong to the so-called unreasoning: but what we\nknow here as unreasoning was There a Reason-Principle; the\nunintelligent was an Intellect; the Thinker of Horse was\nIntellect and\nthe Thought, Horse, was an Intellect.\n\nBut [it will be objected] if this were a matter of mere thinking\nwe might well admit that the intellectual concept, remaining\nconcept, should take in the unintellectual, but where concept is\nidentical with thing how can the one be an Intellection and the\nother without intelligence? Would not this be Intellect making\nitself unintelligent?\n\nNo: the thing is not unintelligent; it is Intelligence in a\nparticular mode, corresponding to a particular aspect of Life; and\njust as life in whatever form it may appear remains always life, so\nIntellect is not annulled by appearing in a certain mode.\nIntellectual-Principle adapted to some particular living being does\nnot cease to be the Intellectual-Principle of all, including\nman: take\nit where you will, every manifestation is the whole, though in some\nspecial mode; the particular is produced but the possibility is of\nall. In the particular we see the Intellectual-Principle in\nrealization; the realized is its latest phase; in one case the last\naspect is \"horse\"; at \"horse\" ended the progressive outgoing towards\nthe lesser forms of life, as in another case it will end at\nsomething lower still. The unfolding of the powers of this Principle\nis always attended by some abandonment in regard to the highest; the\noutgoing is by loss, and by this loss the powers become one thing or\nanother according to the deficiency of the life-form produced by the\nfailing principle; it is then that they find the means of adding\nvarious requisites; the safeguards of the life becoming inadequate\nthere appear nail, talon, fang, horn. Thus the\nIntellectual-Principle by its very descent is directed towards the\nperfect sufficiency of the natural constitution, finding there\nwithin itself the remedy of the failure.\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. But failure There? What can defensive horns serve to\nThere? To\nsufficiency as living form, to completeness. That principle must be\ncomplete as living form, complete as Intellect, complete as life, so\nthat if it is not to be one thing it may be another. Its\ncharacteristic difference is in this power of being now this, now\nthat, so that, summing all, it may be the completest life-form,\nIntelligence complete, life in greatest fulness with each of the\nparticulars complete in its degree while yet, over all that\nmultiplicity, unity reigns.\n\nIf all were one identity, the total could not contain\nthis variety\nof forms; there would be nothing but a self-sufficing unity. Like\nevery compound it must consist of things progressively differing in\nform and safeguarded in that form. This is in the very\nnature of shape\nand Reason-Principle; a shape, that of man let us suppose, must\ninclude a certain number of differences of part but all\ndominated by a\nunity; there will be the noble and the inferior, eye and finger, but\nall within a unity; the part will be inferior in comparison with the\ntotal but best in its place. The Reason-Principle, too, is\nat once the\nliving form and something else, something distinct from the being of\nthat form. It is so with virtue also; it contains at once the\nuniversal and the particular; and the total is good because the\nuniversal is not differentiated.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. The very heavens, patently multiple, cannot be thought to\ndisdain any form of life since this universe holds\neverything. Now how\ndo these things come to be here? Does the higher realm contain all\nof the lower?\n\nAll that has been shaped by Reason-Principle and\nconforms to Idea.\n\nBut, having fire [warmth] and water, it will certainly have\nvegetation; how does vegetation exist There? Earth, too? either\nthese are alive or they are There as dead things and then not\neverything There has life. How in sum can the things of this realm\nbe also There?\n\nVegetal life we can well admit, for the plant is a\nReason-Principle established in life. If in the plant the\nReason-Principle, entering Matter and constituting the plant, is a\ncertain form of life, a definite soul, then, since every\nReason-Principle is a unity, then either this of plant-life is the\nprimal or before it there is a primal plant, source of its\nbeing: that\nfirst plant would be a unity; those here, being multiple, must\nderive from a unity. This being so, that primal must have much the\ntruer life and be the veritable plant, the plants here deriving from\nit in the secondary and tertiary degree and living by a\nvestige of its\nlife.\n\nBut earth; how is there earth There: what is the being of earth\nand how are we to represent to ourselves the living earth of that\nrealm?\n\nFirst, what is it, what the mode of its being?\n\nEarth, here and There alike, must possess shape and a\nReason-Principle. Now in the case of the vegetal, the\nReason-Principle\nof the plant here was found to be living in that higher realm: is\nthere such a Reason-Principle in our earth?\n\nTake the most earthy of things found shaped in earth and they\nexhibit, even they, the indwelling earth-principle. The growing and\nshaping of stones, the internal moulding of mountains as they rise,\nreveal the working of an ensouled Reason-Principle fashioning them\nfrom within and bringing them to that shape: this, we must\ntake it, is\nthe creative earth-principle corresponding to what we call the\nspecific principle of a tree; what we know as earth is like the wood\nof the tree; to cut out a stone is like lopping a twig from a tree,\nexcept of course that there is no hurt done, the stone remaining a\nmember of the earth as the twig, uncut, of the tree.\n\nRealizing thus that the creative force inherent in our earth is\nlife within a Reason-Principle, we are easily convinced that\nthe earth\nThere is much more primally alive, that it is a reasoned\nEarth-Livingness, the earth of Real-Being, earth primally, the\nsource of ours.\n\nFire, similarly, with other such things, must be a\nReason-Principle established in Matter: fire certainly does not\noriginate in the friction to which it may be traced; the friction\nmerely brings out a fire already existent in the scheme and\ncontained in the materials rubbed together. Matter does not\nin its own\ncharacter possess this fire-power: the true cause is something\ninforming the Matter, that is to say, a Reason-Principle, obviously\ntherefore a soul having the power of bringing fire into being; that\nis, a life and a Reason-Principle in one.\n\nIt is with this in mind that Plato says there is soul in\neverything of this sphere. That soul is the cause of the fire of the\nsense-world; the cause of fire here is a certain Life of fiery\ncharacter, the more authentic fire. That transcendent fire being\nmore truly fire will be more veritably alive; the fire absolute\npossesses life. And the same principles apply to the other elements,\nwater and air.\n\nWhy, then, are water and air not ensouled as earth is?\n\nNow, it is quite certain that these are equally within the\nliving total, parts of the living all; life does not appear\nvisibly in\nthem; but neither does it in the case of the earth where its\npresence is inferred by what earth produces: but there are living\nthings in fire and still more manifestly in water and there are\nsystems of life in the air. The particular fire, rising only to be\nquenched, eludes the soul animating the universe; it slips away from\nthe magnitude which would manifest the soul within it; so\nwith air and\nwater. If these Kinds could somehow be fastened down to\nmagnitude they\nwould exhibit the soul within them, now concealed by the fact that\ntheir function requires them to be loose or flowing. It is much as\nin the case of the fluids within ourselves; the flesh and all that\nis formed out of the blood into flesh show the soul within, but the\nblood itself, not bringing us any sensation, seems not to have soul;\nyet it must; the blood is not subject to blind force; its nature\nobliges it to abstain from the soul which nonetheless is\nindwelling in\nit. This must be the case with the three elements; it is the\nfact that\nthe living beings formed from the close conglomeration of air [the\nstars] are not susceptible to suffering. But just as air, so long as\nit remains itself, eludes the light which is and remains unyielding,\nso too, by the effect of its circular movement, it eludes soul- and,\nin another sense, does not. And so with fire and water.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. Or take it another way: Since in our view this\nuniverse stands\nto that as copy to original, the living total must exist There\nbeforehand; that is the realm of complete Being and everything must\nexist There.\n\nThe sky There must be living and therefore not bare of\nstars, here\nknown as the heavens- for stars are included in the very meaning of\nthe word. Earth too will be There, and not void but even more\nintensely living and containing all that lives and moves upon our\nearth and the plants obviously rooted in life; sea will be There and\nall waters with the movement of their unending life and all\nthe living\nthings of the water; air too must be a member of that universe with\nthe living things of air as here.\n\nThe content of that living thing must surely be alive- as in\nthis sphere- and all that lives must of necessity be There.\nThe nature\nof the major parts determines that of the living forms they\ncomprise; by the being and content of the heaven There are\ndetermined all the heavenly forms of life; if those lesser forms\nwere not There, that heaven itself would not be.\n\nTo ask how those forms of life come to be There is simply asking\nhow that heaven came to be; it is asking whence comes life,\nwhence the\nAll-Life, whence the All-Soul, whence collective Intellect: and the\nanswer is that There no indigence or impotence can exist but all\nmust be teeming, seething, with life. All flows, so to\nspeak, from one\nfount not to be thought of as one breath or warmth but rather as one\nquality englobing and safeguarding all qualities- sweetness with\nfragrance, wine- quality and the savours of everything that may be\ntasted, all colours seen, everything known to touch, all that ear\nmay hear, all melodies, every rhythm.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. For Intellectual-Principle is not a simplex, nor is the soul\nthat proceeds from it: on the contrary things include variety in the\ndegree of their simplicity, that is to say in so far as they are not\ncompounds but Principles and Activities;- the activity of the lowest\nis simple in the sense of being a fading-out, that of the\nFirst as the\ntotal of all activity. Intellectual-Principle is moved in a movement\nunfailingly true to one course, but its unity and identity are not\nthose of the partial; they are those of its universality; and indeed\nthe partial itself is not a unity but divides to infinity.\n\nWe know that Intellectual-Principle has a source and advances to\nsome term as its ultimate; now, is the intermediate between\nsource and\nterm to thought of as a line or as some distinct kind of body\nuniform and unvaried?\n\nWhere at that would be its worth? it had no change, if no\ndifferentiation woke it into life, it would not be a Force; that\ncondition would in no way differ from mere absence of power and,\neven calling it movement, it would still be the movement of\na life not\nall-varied but indiscriminate; now it is of necessity that life be\nall-embracing, covering all the realms, and that nothing\nfail of life.\nIntellectual-Principle, therefore, must move in every direction upon\nall, or more precisely must ever have so moved.\n\nA simplex moving retains its character; either there is\nno change,\nmovement has been null, or if there has been advance it still\nremains a simplex and at once there is a permanent duality:\nif the one\nmember of this duality is identical with the other, then it is still\nas it was, there has been no advance; if one member differs from the\nother, it has advanced with differentiation, and, out of a certain\nidentity and difference, it has produced a third unity. This\nproduction, based on Identity and Difference, must be in its nature\nidentical and different; it will be not some particular different\nthing but Collective Difference, as its Identity is Collective\nIdentity.\n\nBeing, thus, at once Collective Identity and Collective\nDifference, Intellectual-Principle must reach over all different\nthings; its very nature then is to modify into a universe. If the\nrealm of different things existed before it, these different things\nmust have modified it from the beginning; if they did not, this\nIntellectual-Principle produced all, or, rather, was all.\n\nBeings could not exist save by the activity of\nIntellectual-Principle; wandering down every way it produces thing\nafter thing, but wandering always within itself in such self-bound\nwandering as authentic Intellect may know; this wandering\npermitted to\nits nature is among real beings which keep pace with its\nmovement; but\nit is always itself; this is a stationary wandering, a wandering\nwithin the Meadow of Truth from which it does not stray.\n\nIt holds and covers the universe which it has made the space, so\nto speak, of its movement, itself being also that universe which is\nspace to it. And this Meadow of Truth is varied so that movement\nthrough it may be possible; suppose it not always and everywhere\nvaried, the failing of diversity is a failure of movement; failure\nin movement would mean a failing of the Intellectual Act; halting,\nit has ceased to exercise its Intellectual Act; this ceasing, it\nceases to be.\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle is the Intellectual Act; its movement\nis complete, filling Being complete; And the entire of Being is the\nIntellectual Act entire, comprehending all life and the unfailing\nsuccession of things. Because this Principle contains Identity and\nDifference its division is ceaselessly bringing the different things\nto light. Its entire movement is through life and among\nliving things.\nTo a traveller over land, all is earth but earth abounding in\ndifference: so in this journey the life through which\nIntellectual-Principle passes is one life but, in its ceaseless\nchanging, a varied life.\n\nThroughout this endless variation it maintains the one course\nbecause it is not, itself, subject to change but on the contrary is\npresent as identical and unvarying Being to the rest of\nthings. For if\nthere be no such principle of unchanging identity to things, all is\ndead, activity and actuality exist nowhere. These \"other things\"\nthrough which it passes are also Intellectual-Principle itself;\notherwise it is not the all-comprehending principle: if it is to be\nitself, it must be all-embracing; failing that, it is not itself. If\nit is complete in itself, complete because all-embracing,\nand there is\nnothing which does not find place in this total, then there can be\nnothing belonging to it which is not different; only by\ndifference can\nthere be such co-operation towards a total. If it knew no otherness\nbut was pure identity its essential Being would be the less for that\nfailure to fulfil the specific nature which its completion requires.\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. On the nature of the Intellectual-Principle we get light\nfrom its manifestations; they show that it demands such diversity as\nis compatible with its being a monad. Take what principle you will,\nthat of plant or animal: if this principle were a pure unity\nand not a\nspecifically varied thing, it could not so serve as principle; its\nproduct would be Matter, the principle not having taken all those\nforms necessary if Matter is to be permeated and utterly\ntransformed. A face is not one mass; there are nose and eyes; and\nthe nose is not a unity but has the differences which make it a\nnose; as bare unity it would be mere mass.\n\nThere is infinity in Intellectual-Principle since, of its very\nnature, it is a multiple unity, not with the unity of a\nhouse but with\nthat of a Reason-Principle, multiple in itself: in the one\nIntellectual design it includes within itself, as it were in\noutline, all the outlines, all the patterns. All is within\nit, all the\npowers and intellections; the division is not determined by\na boundary\nbut goes ever inward; this content is held as the living universe\nholds the natural forms of the living creatures in it from the\ngreatest to the least, down even to the minutest powers\nwhere there is\na halt at the individual form. The discrimination is not of items\nhuddled within a sort of unity; this is what is known as the\nUniversal\nSympathy, not of course the sympathy known here which is a copy and\nprevails amongst things in separation; that authentic Sympathy\nconsists in all being a unity and never discriminate.\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. That Life, the various, the all-including, the\nprimal and one,\nwho can consider it without longing to be of it, disdaining all the\nother?\n\nAll other life is darkness, petty and dim and poor; it is\nunclean and polluting the clean for if you do but look upon it you\nno longer see nor live this life which includes all living, in which\nthere is nothing that does not live and live in a life of purity\nvoid of all that is ill. For evil is here where life is in copy and\nIntellect in copy; There is the archetype, that which is good in the\nvery Idea- we read- as holding The Good in the pure Idea. That\nArchetype is good; Intellectual-Principle is good as holding its\nlife by contemplation of the archetype; and it sees also as good the\nobjects of its contemplation because it holds them in its act of\ncontemplating the Principle of Good. But these objects come to it\nnot as they are There but in accord with its own condition, for it\nis their source; they spring thence to be here, and\nIntellectual-Principle it is that has produced them by its vision\nThere. In the very law, never, looking to That, could it fail of\nIntellectual Act; never, on the other hand, could it produce what is\nThere; of itself it could not produce; Thence it must draw its power\nto bring forth, to teem with offspring of itself; from the Good it\ntakes what itself did not possess. From that Unity came multiplicity\nto Intellectual-Principle; it could not sustain the power poured\nupon it and therefore broke it up; it turned that one power into\nvariety so as to carry it piecemeal.\n\nAll its production, effected in the power of The Good, contains\ngoodness; it is good, itself, since it is constituted by these\nthings of good; it is Good made diverse. It might be likened to a\nliving sphere teeming with variety, to a globe of faces radiant with\nfaces all living, to a unity of souls, all the pure souls, not\nfaulty but the perfect, with Intellect enthroned over all so that\nthe place entire glows with Intellectual splendour.\n\nBut this would be to see it from without, one thing seeing\nanother; the true way is to become Intellectual-Principle and be,\nour very selves, what we are to see.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. But even there we are not to remain always, in that beauty\nof the multiple; we must make haste yet higher, above this heaven of\nours and even that; leaving all else aside we ask in awe\n\"Who produced\nthat realm and how?\" Everything There is a single Idea in an\nindividual impression and, informed by The Good, possesses the\nuniversal good transcendent over all. Each possessing that Being\nabove, possesses also the total Living-Form in virtue of that\ntranscendent life, possesses, no doubt, much else as well.\n\nBut what is the Nature of this Transcendent in view of which and\nby way of which the Ideas are good?\n\nThe best way of putting the question is to ask whether, when\nIntellectual-Principle looked towards The Good, it had\nIntellection of\nthat unity as a multiplicity and, itself a unity, plied its Act by\nbreaking into parts what it was too feeble to know as a whole.\n\nNo: that would not be Intellection looking upon the\nGood; it would\nbe a looking void of Intellection. We must think of it not as\nlooking but as living; dependent upon That, it kept itself turned\nThither; all the tendance taking place There and upon That must be a\nmovement teeming with life and must so fill the looking Principle;\nthere is no longer bare Act, there is a filling to saturation.\nForthwith Intellectual-Principle becomes all things, knows that fact\nin virtue of its self-knowing and at once becomes\nIntellectual-Principle, filled so as to hold within itself\nthat object\nof its vision, seeing all by the light from the Giver and bearing\nthat Giver with it.\n\nIn this way the Supreme may be understood to be the cause at\nonce of essential reality and of the knowing of reality. The sun,\ncause of the existence of sense-things and of their being seen, is\nindirectly the cause of sight, without being either the\nfaculty or the\nobject: similarly this Principle, The Good, cause of Being and\nIntellectual-Principle, is a light appropriate to what is to be seen\nThere and to their seer; neither the Beings nor the\nIntellectual-Principle, it is their source and by the light it sheds\nupon both makes them objects of Intellection. This filling procures\nthe existence; after the filling, the being; the existence achieved,\nthe seeing followed: the beginning is that state of not yet having\nbeen filled, though there is, also, the beginning which\nmeans that the\nFilling Principle was outside and by that act of filling\ngave shape to\nthe filled.\n\n\n## Section 17\n\n\n##### Section 17\n\n17. But in what mode are these secondaries, and\nIntellectual-Principle itself, within the First? They are not in the\nFilling Principle; they are not in the filled since before\nthat moment\nit did not contain them.\n\nGiving need not comport possessing; in this order we are to\nthink of a giver as a greater and of a gift as a lower; this is the\nmeaning of origin among real Beings. First there must be an\nactualized\nthing; its laters must be potentially their own priors; a first must\ntranscend its derivatives; the giver transcends the given, as a\nsuperior. If therefore there is a prior to actuality, that prior\ntranscends Activity and so transcends Life. Our sphere containing\nlife, there is a Giver of Life, a principle of greater good, of\ngreater worth than Life; this possessed Life and had no need to look\nfor it to any giver in possession of Life's variety.\n\nBut the Life was a vestige of that Primal not a life lived by\nit; Life, then, as it looked towards That was undetermined; having\nlooked it had determination though That had none. Life looks to\nunity and is determined by it, taking bound, limit, form. But this\nform is in the shaped, the shaper had none; the limit was\nnot external\nas something drawn about a magnitude; the limit was that of the\nmultiplicity of the Life There, limitless itself as radiated from\nits great Prior; the Life itself was not that of some determined\nbeing, or it would be no more than the life of an individual. Yet it\nis defined; it must then have been defined as the Life of a unity\nincluding multiplicity; certainly too each item of the\nmultiplicity is\ndetermined, determined as multiple by the multiplicity of Life but\nas a unity by the fact of limit.\n\nAs what, then, is its unity determined?\n\nAs Intellectual-Principle: determined Life is\nIntellectual-Principle. And the multiplicity?\n\nAs the multiplicity of Intellectual-Principles: all its\nmultiplicity resolves itself into Intellectual-Principles- on the\none hand the collective Principle, on the other the particular\nPrinciples.\n\nBut does this collective Intellectual-Principle include each of\nthe particular Principles as identical with itself?\n\nNo: it would be thus the container of only the one thing; since\nthere are many Intellectual-Principles within the collective, there\nmust be differentiation.\n\nOnce more, how does the particular Intellect come to this\ndifferentiation?\n\nIt takes its characteristic difference by becoming entirely a\nunity within the collective whose totality could not be\nidentical with\nany particular.\n\nThus the Life in the Supreme was the collectivity of power; the\nvision taking place There was the potentiality of all;\nIntellectual-Principle, thus arising, is manifested as this universe\nof Being. It stands over the Beings not as itself requiring base but\nthat it may serve as base to the Form of the Firsts, the Formless\nForm. And it takes position towards the soul, becoming a light to\nthe soul as itself finds its light in the First; whenever\nIntellectual-Principle becomes the determinant of soul it shapes it\ninto Reasoning Soul, by communicating a trace of what itself has\ncome to possess.\n\nThus Intellectual-Principle is a vestige of the Supreme;\nbut since\nthe vestige is a Form going out into extension, into plurality, that\nPrior, as the source of Form, must be itself without shape and Form:\nif the Prior were a Form, the Intellectual-Principle itself could be\nonly a Reason-Principle. It was necessary that The First be utterly\nwithout multiplicity, for otherwise it must be again referred to a\nprior.\n\n\n## Section 18\n\n\n##### Section 18\n\n18. But in what way is the content of Intellectual-Principle\nparticipant in good? Is it because each member of it is an Idea or\nbecause of their beauty or how?\n\nAnything coming from The Good carries the image and type\nbelonging\nto that original or deriving from it, as anything going back\nto warmth\nor sweetness carries the memory of those originals: Life entered\ninto Intellectual-Principle from The Supreme, for its origin\nis in the\nActivity streaming Thence; Intellectual-Principle springs from the\nSupreme, and with it the beauty of the Ideas; at once all\nthese, Life,\nIntellectual-Principle, Idea, must inevitably have goodness.\n\nBut what is the common element in them? Derivation from the\nFirst is not enough to procure identical quality; there must be some\nelement held in common by the things derived: one source may produce\nmany differing things as also one outgoing thing may take difference\nin various recipients: what enters into the First Act is different\nfrom what that Act transmits and there is difference, again, in the\neffect here. Nonetheless every item may be good in a degree of its\nown. To what, then, is the highest degree due?\n\nBut first we must ask whether Life is a good, bare Life, or only\nthe Life streaming Thence, very different from the Life known here?\nOnce more, then, what constitutes the goodness of Life?\n\nThe Life of The Good, or rather not its Life but that given\nforth from it.\n\nBut if in that higher Life there must be something from That,\nsomething which is the Authentic Life, we must admit that since\nnothing worthless can come Thence Life in itself is good; so too we\nmust admit, in the case of Authentic Intellectual-Principle, that\nits Life because good derives from that First; thus it becomes clear\nthat every Idea is good and informed by the Good. The Ideas must\nhave something of good, whether as a common property or as a\ndistinct attribution or as held in some distinct measure.\n\nThus it is established that the particular Idea contains in its\nessence something of good and thereby becomes a good thing; for Life\nwe found to be good not in the bare being but in its derivation from\nthe Authentic, the Supreme whence it sprung: and the same is true of\nIntellectual-Principle: we are forced therefore admit a certain\nidentity.\n\nWhen, with all their differences, things may be affirmed\nto have a\nmeasure of identity, the matter of the identity may very well be\nestablished in their very essence and yet be mentally\nabstracted; thus\nlife in man or horse yields the notion of animal; from water or fire\nwe may get that of warmth; the first case is a definition of\nKind, the\nother two cite qualities, primary and secondary respectively. Both\nor one part of Intellect, then, would be called by the one term good.\n\nIs The Good, then, inherent in the Ideas essentially?\nEach of them\nis good but the goodness is not that of the Unity-Good. How, then,\nis it present?\n\nBy the mode of parts.\n\nBut The Good is without parts?\n\nNo doubt The Good is a unity; but here it has become\nparticularized. The First Activity is good and anything determined\nin accord with it is good as also is any resultant. There is the\ngood that is good by origin in The First, the good that is in an\nordered system derived from that earlier, and the good that is in\nthe actualization [in the thing participant]. Derived, then, not\nidentical- like the speech and walk and other characteristics of one\nman, each playing its due part.\n\nHere, it is obvious, goodness depends upon order,\nrhythm, but what\nequivalent exists There?\n\nWe might answer that in the case of the sense-order,\ntoo, the good\nis imposed since the ordering is of things different from the\nOrderer but that There the very things are good.\n\nBut why are they thus good in themselves? We cannot be content\nwith the conviction of their goodness on the ground of their\norigin in\nthat realm: we do not deny that things deriving Thence are good, but\nour subject demands that we discover the mode by which they come to\npossess that goodness.\n\n\n## Section 19\n\n\n##### Section 19\n\n19. Are we to rest all on pursuit and on the soul? Is it\nenough to\nput faith in the soul's choice and call that good which the soul\npursues, never asking ourselves the motive of its choice? We marshal\ndemonstration as to the nature of everything else; is the good to be\ndismissed as choice?\n\nSeveral absurdities would be entailed. The good becomes a mere\nattribute of things; objects of pursuit are many and\ndifferent so that\nmere choice gives no assurance that the thing chosen is the best; in\nfact, we cannot know the best until we know the good.\n\nAre we to determine the good by the respective values of things?\n\nThis is to make Idea and Reason-Principle the test: all\nvery well;\nbut arrived at these, what explanation have we to give as to why\nIdea and Reason-Principle themselves are good? In the lower, we\nrecognise goodness- in its less perfect form- by comparison with\nwhat is poorer still; we are without a standard There where no evil\nexists, the Bests holding the field alone. Reason demands to\nknow what\nconstitutes goodness; those principles are good in their own nature\nand we are left in perplexity because cause and fact are identical:\nand even though we should state a cause, the doubt still\nremains until\nour reason claims its rights There. But we need not abandon the\nsearch; another path may lead to the light.\n\n\n## Section 20\n\n\n##### Section 20\n\n20. Since we are not entitled to make desire the test by which\nto decide on the nature and quality of the good, we may perhaps have\nrecourse to judgement.\n\nWe would apply the opposition of things- order, disorder;\nsymmetry, irregularity; health, illness; form, shapelessness;\nreal-being, decay: in a word continuity against dissolution.\nThe first\nin each pair, no one could doubt, belong to the concept of good and\ntherefore whatever tends to produce them must be ranged on the good\nside.\n\nThus virtue and Intellectual-Principle and life and soul-\nreasoning soul, at least- belong to the idea of good and so\ntherefore does all that a reasoned life aims at.\n\nWhy not halt, then- it will be asked- at Intellectual-Principle\nand make that The Good? Soul and life are traces of\nIntellectual-Principle; that principle is the Term of Soul which on\njudgement sets itself towards Intellectual-Principle, pronouncing\nright preferable to wrong and virtue in every form to vice, and thus\nranking by its choosing.\n\nThe soul aiming only at that Principle would need a further\nlessoning; it must be taught that Intellectual-Principle is not the\nultimate, that not all things look to that while all do look to the\ngood. Not all that is outside of Intellectual-Principle seeks to\nattain it; what has attained it does not halt there but looks still\ntowards good. Besides, Intellectual-Principle is sought upon motives\nof reasoning, the good before all reason. And in any striving\ntowards life and continuity of existence and activity, the object is\naimed at not as Intellectual-Principle but as good, as rising from\ngood and leading to it: life itself is desirable only in\nview of good.\n\n\n## Section 21\n\n\n##### Section 21\n\n21. Now what in all these objects of desire is the fundamental\nmaking them good?\n\nWe must be bold:\n\nIntellectual-Principle and that life are of the order of good\nand hold their desirability, even they, in virtue of\nbelonging to that\norder; they have their goodness, I mean, because Life is an Activity\nin The Good,- Or rather, streaming from The Good- while\nIntellectual-Principle is an Activity already defined Therein; both\nare of radiant beauty and, because they come Thence and lead\nThither, they are sought after by the soul-sought, that is, as\nthings congenial though not veritably good while yet, as belonging\nto that order not to be rejected; the related, if not good,\nis shunned\nin spite of that relationship, and even remote and ignobler\nthings may\nat times prove attractive.\n\nThe intense love called forth by Life and Intellectual-Principle\nis due not to what they are but to the consideration of their nature\nas something apart, received from above themselves.\n\nMaterial forms, containing light incorporated in them, need\nstill a light apart from them that their own light may be manifest;\njust so the Beings of that sphere, all lightsome, need another and a\nlordlier light or even they would not be visible to themselves and\nbeyond.\n\n\n## Section 22\n\n\n##### Section 22\n\n22. That light known, then indeed we are stirred towards those\nBeings in longing and rejoicing over the radiance about them, just\nas earthly love is not for the material form but for the Beauty\nmanifested upon it. Every one of those Beings exists for itself but\nbecomes an object of desire by the colour cast upon it from The\nGood, source of those graces and of the love they evoke. The soul\ntaking that outflow from the divine is stirred; seized with a\nBacchic passion, goaded by these goads, it becomes Love. Before\nthat, even Intellectual-Principle with all its loveliness\ndid not stir\nthe soul; for that beauty is dead until it take the light of\nThe Good,\nand the soul lies supine, cold to all, unquickened even to\nIntellectual-Principle there before it. But when there enters into\nit a glow from the divine, it gathers strength, awakens, spreads\ntrue wings, and however urged by its nearer environing, speeds its\nbuoyant way elsewhere, to something greater to its memory: so long\nas there exists anything loftier than the near, its very nature\nbears it upwards, lifted by the giver of that love. Beyond\nIntellectual-Principle it passes but beyond The Good it cannot, for\nnothing stands above That. Let it remain in\nIntellectual-Principle and\nit sees the lovely and august, but it is not there possessed\nof all it\nsought; the face it sees is beautiful no doubt but not of power to\nhold its gaze because lacking in the radiant grace which is the\nbloom upon beauty.\n\nEven here we have to recognise that beauty is that which\nirradiates symmetry rather than symmetry itself and is that which\ntruly calls out our love.\n\nWhy else is there more of the glory of beauty upon the living\nand only some faint trace of it upon the dead, though the face yet\nretains all its fulness and symmetry? Why are the most living\nportraits the most beautiful, even though the others happen\nto be more\nsymmetric? Why is the living ugly more attractive than the\nsculptured handsome? It is that the one is more nearly what we are\nlooking for, and this because there is soul there, because there is\nmore of the Idea of The Good, because there is some glow of the\nlight of The Good and this illumination awakens and lifts\nthe soul and\nall that goes with it so that the whole man is won over to goodness,\nand in the fullest measure stirred to life.\n\n\n## Section 23\n\n\n##### Section 23\n\n23. That which soul must quest, that which sheds its light upon\nIntellectual-Principle, leaving its mark wherever it falls, surely\nwe need not wonder that it be of power to draw to itself,\ncalling back\nfrom every wandering to rest before it. From it came all,\nand so there\nis nothing mightier; all is feeble before it. Of all things the\nbest, must it not be The Good? If by The Good we mean the principle\nmost wholly self-sufficing, utterly without need of any other, what\ncan it be but this? Before all the rest, it was what it was,\nwhen evil\nhad yet no place in things.\n\nIf evil is a Later, there found where there is no trace of This-\namong the very ultimates, so that on the downward side evil has no\nbeyond- then to This evil stands full contrary with no linking\nintermediate: This therefore is The Good: either good there is none,\nor if there must be, This and no other is it.\n\nAnd to deny the good would be to deny evil also; there\ncan then be\nno difference in objects coming up for choice: but that is untenable.\n\nTo This looks all else that passes for good; This, to nothing.\n\nWhat then does it effect out of its greatness?\n\nIt has produced Intellectual-Principle, it has produced Life,\nthe souls which Intellectual-Principle sends forth and\neverything else\nthat partakes of Reason, of Intellectual-Principle or of Life.\nSource and spring of so much, how describe its goodness and\ngreatness?\n\nBut what does it effect now?\n\nEven now it is preserver of what it produced; by it the\nIntellectual Beings have their Intellection and the living\ntheir life;\nit breathes Intellect in breathes Life in and, where life is\nimpossible, existence.\n\n\n## Section 24\n\n\n##### Section 24\n\n24. But ourselves- how does it touch us?\n\nWe may recall what we have said of the nature of the\nlight shining\nfrom it into Intellectual-Principle and so by participation into the\nsoul. But for the moment let us leave that aside and put another\nquestion:\n\nDoes The Good hold that nature and name because some\noutside thing\nfinds it desirable? May we put it that a thing desirable to one is\ngood to that one and that what is desirable to all is to be\nrecognised\nas The Good?\n\nNo doubt this universal questing would make the goodness evident\nbut still there must be in the nature something to earn that name.\n\nFurther, is the questing determined by the hope of some\nacquisition or by sheer delight? If there is acquisition, what is\nit? If it is a matter of delight, why here rather than in something\nelse?\n\nThe question comes to this: Is goodness in the appropriate or in\nsomething apart, and is The Good good as regards itself also or good\nonly as possessed?\n\nAny good is such, necessarily, not for itself but for something\noutside.\n\nBut to what nature is This good? There is a nature to which\nnothing is good.\n\nAnd we must not overlook what some surly critic will surely\nbring up against us:\n\nWhat's all this: you scatter praises here, there and everywhere:\nLife is good, Intellectual-Principle is good: and yet The Good is\nabove them; how then can Intellectual-Principle itself be good? Or\nwhat do we gain by seeing the Ideas themselves if we see only a\nparticular Idea and nothing else [nothing \"substantial\"]? If we are\nhappy here we may be deceived into thinking life a good when it is\nmerely pleasant; but suppose our lot unhappy, why should we speak of\ngood? Is mere personal existence good? What profit is there in it?\nWhat is the advantage in existence over utter non-existence- unless\ngoodness is to be founded upon our love of self? It is the deception\nrooted in the nature of things and our dread of dissolution that\nlead to all the \"goods\" of your positing.\n\n\n## Section 25\n\n\n##### Section 25\n\n25. It is in view, probably, of this difficulty that\nPlato, in the\nPhilebus, makes pleasure an element in the Term; the good is not\ndefined as a simplex or set in Intellectual-Principle alone; while\nhe rightly refrains from identifying the good with the pleasant, yet\nhe does not allow Intellectual-Principle, foreign to pleasure, to be\nThe Good, since he sees no attractive power in it. He may also have\nhad in mind that the good, to answer to its name, must be a thing of\ndelight and that an object of pursuit must at least hold\nsome pleasure\nfor those that acquire and possess it, so that where there is no joy\nthe good too is absent, further that pleasure, implying pursuit,\ncannot pertain to the First and that therefore good cannot.\n\nAll this was very well; there the enquiry was not as to\nthe Primal\nGood but as to ours; the good dealt with in that passage pertains to\nvery different beings and therefore is a different good; it is a\ngood falling short of that higher; it is a mingled thing; we are to\nunderstand that good does not hold place in the One and Alone whose\nbeing is too great and different for that.\n\nThe good must, no doubt, be a thing pursued, not, however, good\nbecause it is pursued but pursued because it is good.\n\nThe solution, it would seem, lies in priority:\n\nTo the lowest of things the good is its immediate higher; each\nstep represents the good to what stands lower so long as the\nmovement does not tend awry but advances continuously towards the\nsuperior: thus there is a halt at the Ultimate, beyond which\nno ascent\nis possible: that is the First Good, the authentic, the supremely\nsovereign, the source of good to the rest of things.\n\nMatter would have Forming-Idea for its good, since, were it\nconscious, it would welcome that; body would look to soul, without\nwhich it could not be or endure; soul must look to virtue; still\nhigher stands Intellectual-Principle; above that again is the\nprinciple we call the Primal. Each of these progressive priors must\nhave act upon those minors to which they are, respectively, the\ngood: some will confer order and place, others life, others\nwisdom and\nthe good life: Intellectual-Principle will draw upon the Authentic\nGood which we hold to be coterminous with it, both as being an\nActivity put forth from it and as even now taking light from it.\nThis good we will define later.\n\n\n## Section 26\n\n\n##### Section 26\n\n26. Any conscious being, if the good come to him, will know the\ngood and affirm his possession of it.\n\nBut what if one be deceived?\n\nIn that case there must be some resemblance to account for the\nerror: the good will be the original which the delusion\ncounterfeited and whenever the true presents itself we turn from the\nspurious.\n\nAll the striving, all the pain, show that to everything\nsomething is a good: the lifeless finds its share in\nsomething outside\nitself; where there is life the longing for good sets up pursuit;\nthe very dead are cared for and mourned for by the living; the\nliving plan for their own good. The witness of attainment is\nbetterment, cleaving to state, satisfaction, settlement,\nsuspension of\npursuit. Here pleasure shows itself inadequate; its choice does not\nhold; repeated, it is no longer the same; it demands endless\nnovelty. The good, worthy of the name, can be no such tasting of the\ncasual; anyone that takes this kind of thing for the good goes\nempty, carrying away nothing but an emotion which the good might\nhave produced. No one could be content to take his pleasure\nthus in an\nemotion over a thing not possessed any more than over a child not\nthere; I cannot think that those setting their good in bodily\nsatisfactions find table-pleasure without the meal, or love-pleasure\nwithout intercourse with their chosen, or any pleasure where nothing\nis done.\n\n\n## Section 27\n\n\n##### Section 27\n\n27. But what is that whose entry supplies every such need?\n\nSome Idea, we maintain. There is a Form to which Matter aspires:\nto soul, moral excellence is this Form.\n\nBut is this Form a good to the thing as being apt to it, does\nthe striving aim at the apt?\n\nNo: the aptest would be the most resemblant to the thing\nitself, but that, however sought and welcomed, does not suffice for\nthe good: the good must be something more: to be a good to another a\nthing must have something beyond aptness; that only can be adopted\nas the good which represents the apt in its better form and\nis best to\nwhat is best in the quester's self, to that which the quester tends\npotentially to be.\n\nA thing is potentially that to which its nature looks; this,\nobviously, it lacks; what it lacks, of its better, is its\ngood. Matter\nis of all that most in need; its next is the lowest Form; Form at\nlowest is just one grade higher than Matter. If a thing is a good to\nitself, much more must its perfection, its Form, its better,\nbe a good\nto it; this better, good in its own nature, must be good also to the\nquester whose good it procures.\n\nBut why should the Form which makes a thing good be a\ngood to that\nthing? As being most appropriate?\n\nNo: but because it is, itself, a portion of the Good. This is\nwhy the least alloyed and nearest to the good are most at\npeace within\nthemselves.\n\nIt is surely out of place to ask why a thing good in its own\nnature should be a good; we can hardly suppose it dissatisfied with\nits own goodness so that it must strain outside its essential\nquality to the good which it effectually is.\n\nThere remains the question with regard to the Simplex:\nwhere there\nis utter absence of distinction does this self-aptness constitute\nthe good to that Simplex?\n\nIf thus far we have been right, the striving of the lower\npossesses itself of the good as of a thing resident in a\ncertain Kind,\nand it is not the striving that constitutes the good but the\ngood that\ncalls out the striving: where the good is attained something is\nacquired and on this acquisition there follows pleasure. But\nthe thing\nmust be chosen even though no pleasure ensued; it must be desirable\nfor its own sake.\n\n\n## Section 28\n\n\n##### Section 28\n\n28. Now to see what all this reasoning has established:\n\nUniversally, what approaches as a good is a Form; Matter itself\ncontains this good which is Form: are we to conclude that, if Matter\nhad will, it would desire to be Form unalloyed?\n\nNo: that would be desiring its own destruction, for the\ngood seeks\nto subject everything to itself. But perhaps Matter would not wish\nto remain at its own level but would prefer to attain Being and,\nthis acquired, to lay aside its evil.\n\nIf we are asked how the evil thing can have tendency towards the\ngood, we answer that we have not attributed tendency to Matter; our\nargument needed the hypothesis of sensation in Matter- in so far as\npossible consistently with retention of its character- and\nwe asserted\nthat the entry of Form, that dream of the Good, must raise it to a\nnobler order. If then Matter is Evil, there is no more to be said;\nif it is something else- a wrong thing, let us say- then in the\nhypothesis that its essence acquire sensation would not the\nappropriate upon the next or higher plane be its good, as in\nthe other\ncases? But not what is evil in Matter would be the quester\nof good but\nthat element in it [lowest Form] which in it is associated with evil.\n\nBut if Matter by very essence is evil how could it choose the\ngood?\n\nThis question implies that if Evil were self-conscious it would\nadmire itself: but how can the unadmirable be admired; and did we\nnot discover that the good must be apt to the nature?\n\nThere that question may rest. But if universally the good is\nForm and the higher the ascent the more there is of Form-Soul more\ntruly Form than body is and phases of soul progressively of higher\nForm and Intellectual-Principle standing as Form to soul\ncollectively-\nthen the Good advances by the opposite of Matter and, therefore, by\na cleansing and casting away to the utmost possible at each\nstage: and\nthe greatest good must be there where all that is of Matter has\ndisappeared. The Principle of Good rejecting Matter entirely- or\nrather never having come near it at any point or in any way-\nmust hold\nitself aloft with that Formless in which Primal Form takes\nits origin.\nBut we will return to this.\n\n\n## Section 29\n\n\n##### Section 29\n\n29. Suppose, however, that pleasure did not result from the good\nbut there were something preceding pleasure and accounting for it,\nwould not this be a thing to be embraced?\n\nBut when we say \"to be embraced\" we say \"pleasure.\"\n\nBut what if accepting its existence, we think of that\nexistence as\nleaving still the possibility that it were not a thing to be\nembraced?\n\nThis would mean the good being present and the sentient\npossessor failing, nonetheless, to perceive it.\n\nIt would seem possible, however, to perceive and yet be\nunmoved by\nthe possession; this is quite likely in the case of the wiser and\nleast dependent- and indeed it is so with the First, immune\nnot merely\nbecause simplex, but because pleasure by acquisition implies lack.\n\nBut all this will become clear on the solution of our remaining\ndifficulties and the rebuttal of the argument brought up against us.\nThis takes the form of the question: \"What gain is there in the Good\nto one who, fully conscious, feels nothing when he hears of these\nthings, whether because he has no grasp of them but takes merely the\nwords or because he holds to false values, perhaps being all\nin search\nof sense, finding his good in money or such things?\"\n\nThe answer is that even in his disregard of the good proposed he\nis with us in setting a good before him but fails to see how the\ngood we define fits into his own conception. It is impossible to say\n\"Not that\" if one is utterly without experience or conception of the\n\"That\"; there will generally have been, even, some inkling\nof the good\nbeyond Intellection. Besides, one attaining or approaching the good,\nbut not recognising it, may assure himself in the light of its\ncontraries; otherwise he will not even hold ignorance an evil though\neveryone prefers to know and is proud of knowing so that our very\nsensations seek to ripen into knowledge.\n\nIf the knowing principle- and specially primal\nIntellectual-Principle- is valuable and beautiful, what must be\npresent to those of power to see the Author and Father of Intellect?\nAnyone thinking slightingly of this principle of Life and\nBeing brings\nevidence against himself and all his state: of course, distaste for\nthe life that is mingled with death does not touch that Life\nAuthentic.\n\n\n## Section 30\n\n\n##### Section 30\n\n30. Whether pleasure must enter into the good, so that\nlife in the\ncontemplation of the divine things and especially of their source\nremains still imperfect, is a question not to be ignored in any\nenquiry into the nature of the good.\n\nNow to found the good upon the Intellect and upon that state of\nsoul or mind which springs from wisdom does not imply that the end\nor the absolute good is the conjunction [of Intellect and state]: it\nwould follow merely that Intellect is the good and that we feel\nhappy in possession of that good. That is one theory; another\nassociates pleasure with Intellect in the sense that the\nGood is taken\nto be some one thing founded upon both but depending upon our\nattaining or at least contemplating an Intellect so modified; this\ntheory would maintain that the isolated and unrelated could be the\ngood, could be an object of desire.\n\nBut how could Intellect and pleasure combine into one mutually\ncomplementary nature?\n\nBodily pleasure no one, certainly, would think capable\nof blending\nin with Intellect; the unreasoning satisfactions of soul [or lower\nmind] are equally incompatible with it.\n\nEvery activity, state, and life, will be followed and as it were\nescorted by the over-dwelling consciousness; sometimes as these take\ntheir natural course they will be met by hindrance and by\nintrusion of\nthe conflicting so that the life is the less self-guided; sometimes\nthe natural activity is unmixed, wholly free, and then the life\ngoes brilliantly; this last state is judged the pleasantest, the\nmost to be chosen; so, for lack of an accurate expression, we hear\nof \"Intellect in conjunction with pleasure.\" But this is no more\nthan metaphor, like a hundred others drawn by the poets from our\nnatural likings- \"Drunk with nectar,\" \"To banquet and feast,\" \"The\nFather smiled.\" No: the veritably pleasant lies away in that other\nrealm, the most to be loved and sought for, not something brought\nabout and changing but the very principle of all the colour and\nradiance and brightness found here. This is why we read of \"Truth\nintroduced into the Mixture\" and of the \"measuring standard\nas a prior\ncondition\" and are told that the symmetry and beauty necessary to\nthe Mixture come Thence into whatever has beauty; it is in this way\nthat we have our share in Beauty; but in another way, also,\nwe achieve\nthe truly desirable, that is by leading our selves up to what is\nbest within us; this best is what is symmetry, beauty, collective\nIdea, life clear, Intellective and good.\n\n\n## Section 31\n\n\n##### Section 31\n\n31. But since Thence come the beauty and light in all, it is\nThence that Intellectual-Principle took the brilliance of the\nIntellectual Energy which flashed Nature into being; Thence soul\ntook power towards life, in virtue of that fuller life streaming\ninto it. Intellectual-Principle was raised thus to that Supreme and\nremains with it, happy in that presence. Soul too, that soul which\nas possessing knowledge and vision was capable, clung to what it\nsaw; and as its vision so its rapture; it saw and was stricken; but\nhaving in itself something of that principle it felt its kinship and\nwas moved to longing like those stirred by the image of the\nbeloved to\ndesire of the veritable presence. Lovers here mould themselves to\nthe beloved; they seek to increase their attraction of person and\ntheir likeness of mind; they are unwilling to fall short in moral\nquality or in other graces lest they be distasteful to those\npossessing such merit- and only among such can true love be. In the\nsame way the soul loves the Supreme Good, from its very beginnings\nstirred by it to love. The soul which has never strayed from\nthis love\nwaits for no reminding from the beauty of our world: holding that\nlove- perhaps unawares- it is ever in quest, and, in its\nlonging to be\nborne Thither, passes over what is lovely here and with one glance\nat the beauty of the universe dismisses all; for it sees that all is\nput together of flesh and Matter, befouled by its housing, made\nfragmentary by corporal extension, not the Authentic Beauty which\ncould never venture into the mud of body to be soiled, annulled.\n\nBy only noting the flux of things it knows at once that from\nelsewhere comes the beauty that floats upon them and so it is urged\nThither, passionate in pursuit of what it loves: never-\nunless someone\nrobs it of that love- never giving up till it attain.\n\nThere indeed all it saw was beautiful and veritable; it grew in\nstrength by being thus filled with the life of the True; itself\nbecoming veritable Being and attaining veritable knowledge, it\nenters by that neighbouring into conscious possession of what it has\nlong been seeking.\n\n\n## Section 32\n\n\n##### Section 32\n\n32. Where, then? where exists the author of this beauty and\nlife, the begetter of the veritable?\n\nYou see the splendour over the things of the universe\nwith all the\nvariety begotten of the Ideas; well might we linger here:\nbut amid all\nthese things of beauty we cannot but ask whence they come and whence\nthe beauty. This source can be none of the beautiful objects; were\nit so, it too would be a thing of parts. It can be no shape,\nno power,\nnor the total of powers and shapes that have had the\nbecoming that has\nset them here; it must stand above all the powers, all the patterns.\nThe origin of all this must be the formless- formless not as lacking\nshape but as the very source of even shape Intellectual.\n\nIn the realm of process anything coming to be must come to be\nsomething; to every thing its distinctive shape: but what shape can\nthat have which no one has shaped? It can be none of existing\nthings; yet it is all: none, in that beings are later; all, as the\nwellspring from which they flow. That which can make all can have,\nitself, no extension; it must be limitless and so without magnitude;\nmagnitude itself is of the Later and cannot be an element in that\nwhich is to bring it into being. The greatness of the\nAuthentic cannot\nbe a greatness of quantity; all extension must belong to the\nsubsequent: the Supreme is great in the sense only that there can be\nnothing mightier, nothing to equal it, nothing with anything\nin common\nwith it: how then could anything be equal to any part of its\ncontent? Its eternity and universal reach entail neither measure nor\nmeasurelessness; given either, how could it be the measure of\nthings? So with shape: granted beauty, the absence of shape\nor form to\nbe grasped is but enhancement of desire and love; the love will be\nlimitless as the object is, an infinite love.\n\nIts beauty, too, will be unique, a beauty above beauty: it\ncannot be beauty since it is not a thing among things. It is lovable\nand the author of beauty; as the power to all beautiful\nshape, it will\nbe the ultimate of beauty, that which brings all loveliness to be;\nit begets beauty and makes it yet more beautiful by the excess of\nbeauty streaming from itself, the source and height of beauty. As\nthe source of beauty it makes beautiful whatsoever springs from it.\nAnd this conferred beauty is not itself in shape; the thing\nthat comes\nto be is without shape, though in another sense shaped; what is\ndenoted by shape is, in itself, an attribute of something else,\nshapeless at first. Not the beauty but its participant takes the\nshape.\n\n\n## Section 33\n\n\n##### Section 33\n\n33. When therefore we name beauty, all such shape must be\ndismissed; nothing visible is to be conceived, or at once we descend\nfrom beauty to what but bears the name in virtue of some faint\nparticipation. This formless Form is beautiful as Form, beautiful in\nproportion as we strip away all shape even that given in thought to\nmark difference, as for instance the difference between Justice and\nSophrosyne, beautiful in their difference.\n\nThe Intellectual-Principle is the less for seeing things as\ndistinct even in its act of grasping in unity the multiple content\nof its Intellectual realm; in its knowing of the particular it\npossesses itself of one Intellectual shape; but, even thus, in this\ndealing with variety as unity, it leaves us still with the question\nhow we are to envisage that which stands beyond this all-lovely,\nbeyond this principle at once multiple and above multiplicity, the\nSupreme for which the soul hungers though unable to tell why such a\nbeing should stir its longing-reason, however, urging that This at\nlast is the Authentic Term because the Nature best and most to be\nloved may be found there only where there is no least touch of Form.\nBring something under Form and present it so before the mind;\nimmediately we ask what Beyond imposed that shape; reason\nanswers that\nwhile there exists the giver having shape to give- a giver that is\nshape, idea, an entirely measured thing- yet this is not\nalone, is not\nadequate in itself, is not beautiful in its own right but is\na mingled\nthing. Shape and idea and measure will always be beautiful, but the\nAuthentic Beauty and the Beyond-Beauty cannot be under measure and\ntherefore cannot have admitted shape or be Idea: the primal\nexistent, The First, must be without Form; the beauty in it must be,\nsimply, the Nature of the Intellectual Good.\n\nTake an example from love: so long as the attention is upon the\nvisible form, love has not entered: when from that outward form the\nlover elaborates within himself, in his own partless soul, an\nimmaterial image, then it is that love is born, then the lover longs\nfor the sight of the beloved to make that fading image live again.\nIf he could but learn to look elsewhere, to the more nearly\nformless, his longing would be for that: his first experience was\nloving a great luminary by way of some thin gleam from it.\n\nShape is an impress from the unshaped; it is the unshaped that\nproduces shape, not shape the unshaped; and Matter is needed for the\nproducing; Matter, in the nature of things, is the furthest away,\nsince of itself it has not even the lowest degree of shape. Thus\nlovableness does not belong to Matter but to that which draws upon\nForm: the Form upon Matter comes by way of soul; soul is more nearly\nForm and therefore more lovable; Intellectual-Principle,\nnearer still,\nis even more to be loved: by these steps we are led to know that the\nFirst Principle, principle of Beauty, must be formless.\n\n\n## Section 34\n\n\n##### Section 34\n\n34. No longer can we wonder that the principle evoking such\nlonging should be utterly free from shape. The very soul, once it\nhas conceived the straining love towards this, lays aside all the\nshape it has taken, even to the Intellectual shape that has informed\nit. There is no vision, no union, for those handling or acting by\nany thing other; the soul must see before it neither evil\nnor good nor\nanything else, that alone it may receive the Alone.\n\nSuppose the soul to have attained: the highest has come\nto her, or\nrather has revealed its presence; she has turned away from all about\nher and made herself apt, beautiful to the utmost, brought into\nlikeness with the divine by those preparings and adornings which\ncome unbidden to those growing ready for the vision- she has\nseen that\npresence suddenly manifesting within her, for there is nothing\nbetween: here is no longer a duality but a two in one; for,\nso long as\nthe presence holds, all distinction fades: it is as lover and\nbeloved here, in a copy of that union, long to blend; the\nsoul has now\nno further awareness of being in body and will give herself\nno foreign\nname, not \"man,\" not \"living being,\" not \"being,\" not \"all\"; any\nobservation of such things falls away; the soul has neither time nor\ntaste for them; This she sought and This she has found and\non This she\nlooks and not upon herself; and who she is that looks she has not\nleisure to know. Once There she will barter for This nothing the\nuniverse holds; not though one would make over the heavens entire to\nher; than This there is nothing higher, nothing of more good; above\nThis there is no passing; all the rest, however lofty, lies on the\ndowngoing path: she is of perfect judgement and knows that This was\nher quest, that nothing higher is. Here can be no deceit; where\ncould she come upon truer than the truth? and the truth she affirms,\nthat she is, herself; but all the affirmation is later and is\nsilent. In this happiness she knows beyond delusion that she\nis happy;\nfor this is no affirmation of an excited body but of a soul become\nagain what she was in the time of her early joy. All that she had\nwelcomed of old-office, power, wealth, beauty, knowledge of all she\ntells her scorn as she never could had she not found their better;\nlinked to This she can fear no disaster nor even know it; let all\nabout her fall to pieces, so she would have it that she may be\nwholly with This, so huge the happiness she has won to.\n\n\n## Section 35\n\n\n##### Section 35\n\n35. Such in this union is the soul's temper that even the act of\nIntellect, once so intimately loved, she now dismisses; Intellection\nis movement and she has no wish to move; she has nothing to say of\nthis very Intellectual-Principle by means of which she has attained\nthe vision, herself made over into Intellectual-Principle\nand becoming\nthat principle so as to be able to take stand in that Intellectual\nspace. Entered there and making herself over to that, she at first\ncontemplates that realm, but once she sees that higher still she\nleaves all else aside. Thus when a man enters a house rich in beauty\nhe might gaze about and admire the varied splendour before the\nmaster appears; but, face to face with that great person- no thing\nof ornament but calling for the truest attention- he would ignore\neverything else and look only to the master. In this state\nof absorbed\ncontemplation there is no longer question of holding an object: the\nvision is continuous so that seeing and seen are one thing;\nobject and\nact of vision have become identical; of all that until then\nfilled the\neye no memory remains. And our comparison would be closer if instead\nof a man appearing to the visitor who had been admiring the house it\nwere a god, and not a god manifesting to the eyes but one filling\nthe soul.\n\nIntellectual-Principle, thus, has two powers, first that of\ngrasping intellectively its own content, the second that of an\nadvancing and receiving whereby to know its transcendent; at first\nit sees, later by that seeing it takes possession of\nIntellectual-Principle, becoming one only thing with that: the first\nseeing is that of Intellect knowing, the second that of Intellect\nloving; stripped of its wisdom in the intoxication of the nectar, it\ncomes to love; by this excess it is made simplex and is happy; and\nto be drunken is better for it than to be too staid for these revels.\n\nBut is its vision parcelwise, thing here and thing there?\n\nNo: reason unravelling gives process; Intellectual-Principle has\nunbroken knowledge and has, moreover, an Act unattended by knowing,\na vision by another approach. In this seeing of the Supreme\nit becomes\npregnant and at once knows what has come to be within it; its\nknowledge of its content is what is designated by its Intellection;\nits knowing of the Supreme is the virtue of that power within it by\nwhich, in a later [lower] stage it is to become \"Intellective.\"\n\nAs for soul, it attains that vision by- so to speak- confounding\nand annulling the Intellectual-Principle within it; or rather that\nPrinciple immanent in soul sees first and thence the vision\npenetrates\nto soul and the two visions become one.\n\nThe Good spreading out above them and adapting itself to that\nunion which it hastens to confirm is present to them as giver of a\nblessed sense and sight; so high it lifts them that they are\nno longer\nin space or in that realm of difference where everything is\nroot,ed in\nsome other thing; for The Good is not in place but is the\ncontainer of\nthe Intellectual place; The Good is in nothing but itself.\n\nThe soul now knows no movement since the Supreme knows\nnone; it is\nnow not even soul since the Supreme is not in life but above life;\nit is no longer Intellectual-Principle, for the Supreme has not\nIntellection and the likeness must be perfect; this grasping is not\neven by Intellection, for the Supreme is not known Intellectively.\n\n\n## Section 36\n\n\n##### Section 36\n\n36. We need not carry this matter further; we turn to a question\nalready touched but demanding still some brief consideration.\n\nKnowledge of The Good or contact with it, is the all-important:\nthis- we read- is the grand learning, the learning we are to\nunderstand, not of looking towards it but attaining, first, some\nknowledge of it. We come to this learning by analogies, by\nabstractions, by our understanding of its subsequents, of all that\nis derived from The Good, by the upward steps towards it.\nPurification\nhas The Good for goal; so the virtues, all right ordering, ascent\nwithin the Intellectual, settlement therein, banqueting upon the\ndivine- by these methods one becomes, to self and to all\nelse, at once\nseen and seer; identical with Being and Intellectual-Principle\nand the\nentire living all, we no longer see the Supreme as an\nexternal; we are\nnear now, the next is That and it is close at hand, radiant above\nthe Intellectual.\n\nHere, we put aside all the learning; disciplined to this pitch,\nestablished in beauty, the quester holds knowledge still of\nthe ground\nhe rests on but, suddenly, swept beyond it all by the very crest of\nthe wave of Intellect surging beneath, he is lifted and sees, never\nknowing how; the vision floods the eyes with light, but it is not a\nlight showing some other object, the light is itself the vision. No\nlonger is there thing seen and light to show it, no longer Intellect\nand object of Intellection; this is the very radiance that brought\nboth Intellect and Intellectual object into being for the later use\nand allowed them to occupy the quester's mind. With This he himself\nbecomes identical, with that radiance whose Act is to engender\nIntellectual-Principle, not losing in that engendering but for ever\nunchanged, the engendered coming to be simply because that Supreme\nexists. If there were no such principle above change, no derivative\ncould rise.\n\n\n## Section 37\n\n\n##### Section 37\n\n37. Those ascribing Intellection to the First have not supposed\nhim to know the lesser, the emanant- though, indeed, some\nhave thought\nit impossible that he should not know everything. But those denying\nhis knowing of the lesser have still attributed self-knowing to him,\nbecause they find nothing nobler; we are to suppose that so he is\nthe more august, as if Intellection were something nobler than his\nown manner of being not something whose value derives from him.\n\nBut we ask in what must his grandeur lie, in his Intellection or\nin himself. If in the Intellection, he has no worth or the\nless worth;\nif in himself, he is perfect before the Intellection, not\nperfected by\nit. We may be told that he must have Intellection because he is an\nAct, not a potentiality. Now if this means that he is an essence\neternally intellective, he is represented as a duality- essence and\nIntellective Act- he ceases to be a simplex; an external has been\nadded: it is just as the eyes are not the same as their sight,\nthough the two are inseparable. If on the other hand by this\nactualization it is meant that he is Act and Intellection, then as\nbeing Intellection he does not exercise it, just as movement is not\nitself in motion.\n\nBut do not we ourselves assert that the Beings There are essence\nand Act?\n\nThe Beings, yes, but they are to us manifold and differentiated:\nthe First we make a simplex; to us Intellection begins with the\nemanant in its seeking of its essence, of itself, of its author;\nbent inward for this vision and having a present thing to know,\nthere is every reason why it should be a principle of Intellection;\nbut that which, never coming into being, has no prior but is\never what\nit is, how could that have motive to Intellection? As Plato rightly\nsays, it is above Intellect.\n\nAn Intelligence not exercising Intellection would be\nunintelligent; where the nature demands knowing, not to know is to\nfail of intelligence; but where there is no function, why import one\nand declare a defect because it is not performed? We might as well\ncomplain because the Supreme does not act as a physician. He has no\ntask, we hold, because nothing can present itself to him to be done;\nhe is sufficient; he need seek nothing beyond himself, he who is\nover all; to himself and to all he suffices by simply being what he\nis.\n\n\n## Section 38\n\n\n##### Section 38\n\n38. And yet this \"He Is\" does not truly apply: the Supreme has\nno need of Being: even \"He is good\" does not apply since it\nindicates Being: the \"is\" should not suggest something predicated of\nanother thing; it is to state identity. The word \"good\" used\nof him is\nnot a predicate asserting his possession of goodness; it conveys an\nidentification. It is not that we think it exact to call him either\ngood or The Good: it is that sheer negation does not indicate; we\nuse the term The Good to assert identity without the affirmation of\nBeing.\n\nBut how admit a Principle void of self-knowledge,\nself-awareness; surely the First must be able to say \"I possess\nBeing?\"\n\nBut he does not possess Being.\n\nThen, at least he must say \"I am good?\"\n\nNo: once more, that would be an affirmation of Being.\n\nBut surely he may affirm merely the goodness, adding nothing:\nthe goodness would be taken without the being and all\nduality avoided?\n\nNo: such self-awareness as good must inevitably carry the\naffirmation \"I am the Good\"; otherwise there would be merely the\nunattached conception of goodness with no recognition of\nidentity; any\nsuch intellection would inevitably include the affirmation \"I am.\"\n\nIf that intellection were the Good, then the intellection would\nnot be self-intellection but intellection of the Good; not\nthe Supreme\nbut that intellection would be the Good: if on the contrary that\nintellection of the Good is distinct from the Good, at once the Good\nexists before its knowing; all-sufficiently good in itself, it needs\nnone of that knowing of its own nature.\n\nThus the Supreme does not know itself as Good.\n\nAs what then?\n\nNo such foreign matter is present to it: it can have only an\nimmediate intuition self-directed.\n\n\n## Section 39\n\n\n##### Section 39\n\n39. Since the Supreme has no interval, no self-differentiation\nwhat can have this intuitional approach to it but itself?\nTherefore it\nquite naturally assumes difference at the point where\nIntellectual-Principle and Being are differentiated.\n\nIntellect, to act at all, must inevitably comport difference\nwith identity; otherwise it could not distinguish itself from its\nobject by standing apart from it, nor could it ever be aware of the\nrealm of things whose existence demands otherness, nor could there\nbe so much as a duality.\n\nAgain, if the Supreme is to have intellection it cannot know\nonly itself; that would not be intellection, for, if it did know\nitself, nothing could prevent it knowing all things; but this is\nimpossible. With self-intellection it would no longer be simplex;\nany intellection, even in the Supreme, must be aware of something\ndistinct; as we have been saying, the inability to see the self as\nexternal is the negation of intellection. That act requires a\nmanifold-agent, object, movement and all the other conditions of a\nthinking principle. Further we must remember what has been indicated\nelsewhere that, since every intellectual act in order to be what it\nmust be requires variety, every movement simple and the same\nthroughout, though it may comport some form of contact, is devoid of\nthe intellective.\n\nIt follows that the Supreme will know neither itself nor\nanything else but will hold an august repose. All the rest is later;\nbefore them all, This was what This was; any awareness of that other\nwould be acquired, the shifting knowledge of the instable. Even in\nknowing the stable he would be manifold, for it is not possible\nthat, while in the act of knowing the laters possess themselves of\ntheir object, the Supreme should know only in some unpossessing\nobservation.\n\nAs regards Providence, that is sufficiently saved by the\nfact that\nThis is the source from which all proceeds; the dependent he cannot\nknow when he has no knowledge of himself but keeps that\naugust repose.\nPlato dealing with essential Being allows it intellection\nbut not this\naugust repose: intellection then belongs to Essential Being; this\naugust repose to the Principle in which there is no intellection.\nRepose, of course, is used here for want of a fitter word; we are to\nunderstand that the most august, the truly so, is That which\ntranscends [the movement of] Intellection.\n\n\n## Section 40\n\n\n##### Section 40\n\n40. That there can be no intellection in the First will be\npatent to those that have had such contact; but some further\nconfirmation is desirable, if indeed words can carry the matter; we\nneed overwhelming persuasion.\n\nIt must be borne in mind that all intellection rises in some\nprinciple and takes cognisance of an object. But a distinction is to\nbe made:\n\nThere is the intellection that remains within its place\nof origin;\nit has that source as substratum but becomes a sort of addition to\nit in that it is an activity of that source perfecting the\npotentiality there, not by producing anything but as being a\ncompleting power to the principle in which it inheres. There is also\nthe intellection inbound with Being- Being's very author- and this\ncould not remain confined to the source since there it could produce\nnothing; it is a power to production; it produces therefore\nof its own\nmotion and its act is Real-Being and there it has its dwelling. In\nthis mode the intellection is identical with Being; even in its\nself-intellection no distinction is made save the logical\ndistinction of thinker and thought with, as we have often observed,\nthe implication of plurality.\n\nThis is a first activity and the substance it produces is\nEssential Being; it is an image, but of an original so great that\nthe very copy stands a reality. If instead of moving outward it\nremained with the First, it would be no more than some\nappurtenance of\nthat First, not a self-standing existent.\n\nAt the earliest activity and earliest intellection, it can be\npreceded by no act or intellection: if we pass beyond this being and\nthis intellection we come not to more being and more intellection\nbut to what overpasses both, to the wonderful which has neither,\nasking nothing of these products and standing its unaccompanied self.\n\nThat all-transcending cannot have had an activity by which to\nproduce this activity- acting before act existed- or have had\nthought in order to produce thinking- applying thought before\nthought exists- all intellection, even of the Good, is beneath it.\n\nIn sum, this intellection of the Good is impossible: I\ndo not mean\nthat it is impossible to have intellection of the Good- we may admit\nthe possibility but there can be no intellection by The Good itself,\nfor this would be to include the inferior with the Good.\n\nIf intellection is the lower, then it will be bound up\nwith Being;\nif intellection is the higher, its object is lower. Intellection,\nthen, does not exist in the Good; as a lesser, taking its worth\nthrough that Good, it must stand apart from it, leaving the Good\nunsoiled by it as by all else. Immune from intellection the Good\nremains incontaminably what it is, not impeded by the presence of\nthe intellectual act which would annul its purity and unity.\n\nAnyone making the Good at once Thinker and Thought identifies it\nwith Being and with the Intellection vested in Being so that it must\nperform that act of intellection: at once it becomes\nnecessary to find\nanother principle, one superior to that Good: for either this act,\nthis intellection, is a completing power of some such principle,\nserving as its ground, or it points, by that duality, to a prior\nprinciple having intellection as a characteristic. It is\nbecause there\nis something before it that it has an object of intellection; even\nin its self-intellection, it may be said to know its content by its\nvision of that prior.\n\nWhat has no prior and no external accompaniment could have no\nintellection, either of itself or of anything else. What could it\naim at, what desire? To essay its power of knowing? But this would\nmake the power something outside itself; there would be, I mean, the\npower it grasped and the power by which it grasped: if there is but\nthe one power, what is there to grasp at?\n\n\n## Section 41\n\n\n##### Section 41\n\n41. Intellection seems to have been given as an aid to\nthe diviner\nbut weaker beings, an eye to the blind. But the eye itself need not\nsee Being since it is itself the light; what must take the light\nthrough the eye needs the light because of its darkness. If, then,\nintellection is the light and light does not need the light, surely\nthat brilliance (The First) which does not need light can\nhave no need\nof intellection, will not add this to its nature.\n\nWhat could it do with intellection? What could even intellection\nneed and add to itself for the purpose of its act? It has no\nself-awareness; there is no need. It is no duality but, rather, a\nmanifold, consisting of itself, its intellective act, distinct from\nitself, and the inevitable third, the object of\nintellection. No doubt\nsince knower, knowing, and known, are identical, all merges into a\nunity: but the distinction has existed and, once more, such a unity\ncannot be the First; we must put away all otherness from the Supreme\nwhich can need no such support; anything we add is so much lessening\nof what lacks nothing.\n\nTo us intellection is a boon since the soul needs it; to the\nIntellectual-Principle it is appropriate as being one thing with the\nvery essence of the principle constituted by the intellectual Act so\nthat principle and act coincide in a continuous self-consciousness\ncarrying the assurance of identity, of the unity of the two. But\npure unity must be independent, in need of no such assurance.\n\n\"Know yourself\" is a precept for those who, being manifold, have\nthe task of appraising themselves so as to become aware of the\nnumber and nature of their constituents, some or all of which they\nignore as they ignore their very principle and their manner of\nbeing. The First on the contrary if it have content must exist in a\nway too great to have any knowledge, intellection, perception of it.\nTo itself it is nothing; accepting nothing, self-sufficing, it is\nnot even a good to itself: to others it is good for they have need\nof it; but it could not lack itself: it would be absurd to\nsuppose The\nGood standing in need of goodness.\n\nIt does not see itself: seeing aims at acquisition: all this it\nabandons to the subsequent: in fact nothing found elsewhere can be\nThere; even Being cannot be There. Nor therefore has it intellection\nwhich is a thing of the lower sphere where the first\nintellection, the\nonly true, is identical with Being. Reason, perception,\nintelligence, none of these can have place in that Principle in\nwhich no presence can be affirmed.\n\n\n## Section 42\n\n\n##### Section 42\n\n42. Faced by the difficulty of placing these powers, you must in\nreason allocate to the secondaries what you count august:\nsecondaries must not be foisted upon the First, or\ntertiaries upon the\nsecondaries. Secondaries are to be ranged under the First,\ntertiaries under the secondaries: this is giving everything\nits place,\nthe later dependent on their priors, those priors free.\n\nThis is included in that true saying \"About the King of All, all\nhas being and in view of Him all is\": we are to understand from the\nattribution of all things to Him, and from, the words \"in\nview of Him\"\nthat He is their cause and they reach to Him as to something\ndiffering\nfrom them all and containing nothing that they contain: for\ncertainly His very nature requires that nothing of the later be in\nHim.\n\nThus, Intellectual-Principle, finding place in the universe,\ncannot have place in Him. Where we read that He is the cause of all\nbeauty we are clearly to understand that beauty depends upon the\nForms, He being set above all that is beautiful here. The\nForms are in\nthat passage secondaries, their sequels being attached to them as\ndependent thirds: it is clear thus that by \"the products of the\nthirds\" is meant this world, dependent upon soul.\n\nSoul dependent upon Intellectual-Principle and\nIntellectual-Principle upon the Good, all is linked to the Supreme\nby intermediaries, some close, some nearing those of the closer\nattachment, while the order of sense stands remotest, dependent upon\nsoul.",
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