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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": 8,
    "slug": "8-on-free-will-and-the-will-of-the-one",
    "title": "VI.8 — On Free-Will and the Will of the One",
    "of": 9,
    "words": 9734,
    "text": "## EIGHTH TRACTATE\n\n\n#### EIGHTH TRACTATE.\n\nON FREE-WILL AND THE WILL OF THE ONE.\n\n\n## Section 1\n\n\n##### Section 1\n\n1. Can there be question as to whether the gods have voluntary\naction? Or are we to take it that, while we may well enquire in the\ncase of men with their combination of powerlessness and hesitating\npower, the gods must be declared omnipotent, not merely some things\nbut all lying at their nod? Or is power entire, freedom of action in\nall things, to be reserved to one alone, of the rest some being\npowerful, others powerless, others again a blend of power and\nimpotence?\n\nAll this must come to the test: we must dare it even of\nthe Firsts\nand of the All-Transcendent and, if we find omnipotence\npossible, work\nout how far freedom extends. The very notion of power must be\nscrutinized lest in this ascription we be really making power\nidentical with Essential Act, and even with Act not yet achieved.\n\nBut for the moment we may pass over these questions to deal with\nthe traditional problem of freedom of action in ourselves.\n\nTo begin with, what must be intended when we assert that\nsomething\nis in our power; what is the conception here?\n\nTo establish this will help to show whether we are to ascribe\nfreedom to the gods and still more to God, or to refuse it, or\nagain, while asserting it, to question still, in regard both to the\nhigher and lower- the mode of its presence.\n\nWhat then do we mean when we speak of freedom in\nourselves and why\ndo we question it?\n\nMy own reading is that, moving as we do amid adverse fortunes,\ncompulsions, violent assaults of passion crushing the soul, feeling\nourselves mastered by these experiences, playing slave to them,\ngoing where they lead, we have been brought by all this to doubt\nwhether we are anything at all and dispose of ourselves in any\nparticular.\n\nThis would indicate that we think of our free act as one which\nwe execute of our own choice, in no servitude to chance or necessity\nor overmastering passion, nothing thwarting our will; the\nvoluntary is\nconceived as an event amenable to will and occurring or not as our\nwill dictates. Everything will be voluntary that is produced under\nno compulsion and with knowledge; our free act is what we are\nmasters to perform.\n\nDiffering conceptually, the two conditions will often\ncoincide but\nsometimes will clash. Thus a man would be master to kill, but the\nact will not be voluntary if in the victim he had failed to\nrecognise his own father. Perhaps however that ignorance is not\ncompatible with real freedom: for the knowledge necessary to a\nvoluntary act cannot be limited to certain particulars but must\ncover the entire field. Why, for example, should killing be\ninvoluntary in the failure to recognise a father and not so in the\nfailure to recognise the wickedness of murder? If because the killer\nought to have learned, still ignorance of the duty of\nlearning and the\ncause of that ignorance remain alike involuntary.\n\n\n## Section 2\n\n\n##### Section 2\n\n2. A cardinal question is where we are to place the freedom of\naction ascribed to us.\n\nIt must be founded in impulse or in some appetite, as when we\nact or omit in lust or rage or upon some calculation of advantage\naccompanied by desire.\n\nBut if rage or desire implied freedom we must allow freedom to\nanimals, infants, maniacs, the distraught, the victims of\nmalpractice producing incontrollable delusions. And if freedom turns\non calculation with desire, does this include faulty calculation?\nSound calculation, no doubt, and sound desire; but then comes the\nquestion whether the appetite stirs the calculation or the\ncalculation\nthe appetite.\n\nWhere the appetites are dictated by the very nature they are the\ndesires of the conjoint of soul and body and then soul lies under\nphysical compulsions: if they spring in the soul as an independent,\nthen much that we take to be voluntary is in reality outside of our\nfree act. Further, every emotion is preceded by some meagre\nreasoning;\nhow then can a compelling imagination, an appetite drawing\nus where it\nwill, be supposed to leave us masters in the ensuing act? Need,\ninexorably craving satisfaction, is not free in face of that to\nwhich it is forced: and how at all can a thing have efficiency of\nits own when it rises from an extern, has an extern for very\nprinciple, thence taking its Being as it stands? It lives by that\nextern, lives as it has been moulded: if this be freedom, there is\nfreedom in even the soulless; fire acts in accordance with its\ncharacteristic being.\n\nWe may be reminded that the Living Form and the soul know what\nthey do. But, if this is knowledge by perception, it does not help\ntowards the freedom of the act; perception gives awareness, not\nmastery: if true knowing is meant, either this is the knowing of\nsomething happening- once more awareness- with the motive-\nforce still\nto seek, or the reasoning and knowledge have acted to quell the\nappetite; then we have to ask to what this repression is to be\nreferred and where it has taken place. If it is that the mental\nprocess sets up an opposing desire we must assure ourselves\nhow; if it\nmerely stills the appetite with no further efficiency and this is\nour freedom, then freedom does not depend upon act but is a thing of\nthe mind- and in truth all that has to do with act, the very most\nreasonable, is still of mixed value and cannot carry freedom.\n\n\n## Section 3\n\n\n##### Section 3\n\n3. All this calls for examination; the enquiry must\nbring us close\nto the solution as regards the gods.\n\nWe have traced self-disposal to will, will to reasoning and,\nnext step, to right reasoning; perhaps to right reasoning we must\nadd knowledge, for however sound opinion and act may be they do not\nyield true freedom when the adoption of the right course is\nthe result\nof hazard or of some presentment from the fancy with no knowledge of\nthe foundations of that rightness.\n\nTaking it that the presentment of fancy is not a matter of our\nwill and choice, how can we think those acting at its dictation to\nbe free agents? Fancy strictly, in our use, takes it rise from\nconditions of the body; lack of food and drink sets up presentments,\nand so does the meeting of these needs; similarly with seminal\nabundance and other humours of the body. We refuse to range under\nthe principle of freedom those whose conduct is directed by such\nfancy: the baser sort, therefore, mainly so guided, cannot\nbe credited\nwith self-disposal or voluntary act. Self-disposal, to us, belongs\nto those who, through the activities of the Intellectual-Principle,\nlive above the states of the body. The spring of freedom is the\nactivity of Intellectual-Principle, the highest in our being; the\nproposals emanating thence are freedom; such desires as are formed\nin the exercise of the Intellectual act cannot be classed as\ninvoluntary; the gods, therefore, that live in this state, living by\nIntellectual-Principle and by desire conformed to it,\npossess freedom.\n\n\n## Section 4\n\n\n##### Section 4\n\n4. It will be asked how act rising from desire can be voluntary,\nsince desire pulls outward and implies need; to desire is still to\nbe drawn, even though towards the good.\n\nIntellectual-Principle itself comes under the doubt; having a\ncertain nature and acting by that nature can it be said to have\nfreedom and self-disposal- in an act which it cannot leave\nunenacted? It may be asked, also, whether freedom may strictly be\naffirmed of such beings as are not engaged in action.\n\nHowever that may be, where there is such act there is compulsion\nfrom without, since, failing motive, act will not be performed.\nThese higher beings, too, obey their own nature; where then is their\nfreedom?\n\nBut, on the other hand, can there be talk of constraint where\nthere is no compulsion to obey an extern; and how can any movement\ntowards a good be counted compulsion? Effort is free once it is\ntowards a fully recognised good; the involuntary is,\nprecisely, motion\naway from a good and towards the enforced, towards something not\nrecognised as a good; servitude lies in being powerless to move\ntowards one's good, being debarred from the preferred path\nin a menial\nobedience. Hence the shame of slavedom is incurred not when one is\nheld from the hurtful but when the personal good must be yielded in\nfavour of another's.\n\nFurther, this objected obedience to the characteristic nature\nwould imply a duality, master and mastered; but an undivided\nPrinciple, a simplex Activity, where there can be no difference of\npotentiality and act, must be free; there can be no thought\nof \"action\naccording to the nature,\" in the sense of any distinction between\nthe being and its efficiency, there where being and act are\nidentical.\nWhere act is performed neither because of another nor at another's\nwill, there surely is freedom. Freedom may of course be an\ninappropriate term: there is something greater here: it is\nself-disposal in the sense, only, that there is no disposal by the\nextern, no outside master over the act.\n\nIn a principle, act and essence must be free. No doubt\nIntellectual-Principle itself is to be referred to a yet higher; but\nthis higher is not extern to it; Intellectual-Principle is within\nthe Good; possessing its own good in virtue of that indwelling, much\nmore will it possess freedom and self-disposal which are sought only\nfor the sake of the good. Acting towards the good, it must all the\nmore possess self-disposal for by that Act it is directed towards\nthe Principle from which it proceeds, and this its act is\nself-centred\nand must entail its very greatest good.\n\n\n## Section 5\n\n\n##### Section 5\n\n5. Are we, however, to make freedom and self-disposal\nexclusive to\nIntellectual-Principle as engaged in its characteristic Act,\nIntellectual-Principle unassociated, or do they belong also to soul\nacting under that guidance and performing act of virtue?\n\nIf freedom is to be allowed to soul in its Act, it certainly\ncannot be allowed in regard to issue, for we are not master\nof events:\nif in regard to fine conduct and all inspired by\nIntellectual-Principle, that may very well be freedom; but is the\nfreedom ours?\n\nBecause there is war, we perform some brave feat; how is that\nour free act since had there been no war it could not have been\nperformed? So in all cases of fine conduct; there is always some\nimpinging event leading out our quality to show itself in\nthis or that\nact. And suppose virtue itself given the choice whether to find\noccasion for its exercise- war evoking courage; wrong, so that it\nmay establish justice and good order; poverty that it may show\nindependence- or to remain inactive, everything going well, it would\nchoose the peace of inaction, nothing calling for its intervention,\njust as a physician like Hippocrates would prefer no one to stand in\nneed of his skill.\n\nIf thus virtue whose manifestation requires action becomes\ninevitably a collaborator under compulsion, how can it have\nuntrammelled self-disposal?\n\nShould we, perhaps, distinguish between compulsion in the act\nand freedom in the preceding will and reasoning?\n\nBut in setting freedom in those preceding functions, we\nimply that\nvirtue has a freedom and self-disposal apart from all act; then we\nmust state what is the reality of the self-disposal attributed to\nvirtue as state or disposition. Are we to put it that virtue comes\nin to restore the disordered soul, taming passions and appetites? In\nwhat sense, at that, can we hold our goodness to be our own free\nact, our fine conduct to be uncompelled? In that we will and\nadopt, in\nthat this entry of virtue prepares freedom and self-disposal, ending\nour slavery to the masters we have been obeying. If then\nvirtue is, as\nit were, a second Intellectual-Principle, and heightens the soul to\nIntellectual quality, then, once more, our freedom is found\nto lie not\nin act but in Intellectual-Principle immune from act.\n\n\n## Section 6\n\n\n##### Section 6\n\n6. How then did we come to place freedom in the will when we\nmade out free action to be that produced- or as we also indicated,\nsuppressed- at the dictate of will?\n\nIf what we have been saying is true and our former statement is\nconsistent with it, the case must stand thus:\n\nVirtue and Intellectual-Principle are sovereign and must be held\nthe sole foundation of our self-disposal and freedom; both then are\nfree; Intellectual-Principle is self-confined: Virtue, in its\ngovernment of the soul which it seeks to lift into goodness, would\nwish to be free; in so far as it does so it is free and confers\nfreedom; but inevitably experiences and actions are forced upon it\nby its governance: these it has not planned for, yet when they do\narise it will watch still for its sovereignty calling these also to\njudgement. Virtue does not follow upon occurrences as a saver of the\nemperilled; at its discretion it sacrifices a man; it may decree the\njettison of life, means, children, country even; it looks to its own\nhigh aim and not to the safeguarding of anything lower. Thus our\nfreedom of act, our self-disposal, must be referred not to the\ndoing, not to the external thing done but to the inner activity, to\nthe Intellection, to virtue's own vision.\n\nSo understood, virtue is a mode of Intellectual-Principle, a\nmode not involving any of the emotions or passions controlled by its\nreasonings, since such experiences, amenable to morality and\ndiscipline, touch closely- we read- on body.\n\nThis makes it all the more evident that the unembodied is the\nfree; to this our self-disposal is to be referred; herein lies our\nwill which remains free and self-disposing in spite of any orders\nwhich it may necessarily utter to meet the external. All then that\nissues from will and is the effect of will is our free action; and\nin the highest degree all that lies outside of the corporeal\nis purely\nwithin the scope of will, all that will adopts and brings,\nunimpeded, into existence.\n\nThe contemplating Intellect, the first or highest, has\nself-disposal to the point that its operation is utterly\nindependent; it turns wholly upon itself; its very action is itself;\nat rest in its good it is without need, complete, and may be said to\nlive to its will; there the will is intellection: it is called will\nbecause it expresses the Intellectual-Principle in the willing-phase\nand, besides, what we know as will imitates this operation taking\nplace within the Intellectual-Principle. Will strives\ntowards the good\nwhich the act of Intellectual-Principle realizes. Thus that\nprinciple holds what will seeks, that good whose attainment\nmakes will\nidentical with Intellection.\n\nBut if self-disposal is founded thus on the will aiming at the\ngood, how can it possibly be denied to that principle permanently\npossessing the good, sole object of the aim?\n\nAny one scrupulous about setting self-disposal so high may find\nsome loftier word.\n\n\n## Section 7\n\n\n##### Section 7\n\n7. Soul becomes free when it moves, through\nIntellectual-Principle, towards The Good; what it does in that\nspirit is its free act; Intellectual-Principle is free in its own\nright. That principle of Good is the sole object of desire and the\nsource of self-disposal to the rest, to soul when it fully\nattains, to\nIntellectual-Principle by connate possession.\n\nHow then can the sovereign of all that august sequence- the\nfirst in place, that to which all else strives to mount, all\ndependent\nupon it and taking from it their powers even to this power of\nself-disposal- how can This be brought under the freedom belonging\nto you and me, a conception applicable only by violence to\nIntellectual-Principle itself?\n\nIt is rash thinking drawn from another order that would imagine\na First Principle to be chance- made what it is, controlled by a\nmanner of being imposed from without, void therefore of freedom or\nself-disposal, acting or refraining under compulsion. Such a\nstatement\nis untrue to its subject and introduces much difficulty; it utterly\nannuls the principle of freewill with the very conception of our own\nvoluntary action, so that there is no longer any sense in discussion\nupon these terms, empty names for the non-existent. Anyone upholding\nthis opinion would be obliged to say not merely that free act exists\nnowhere but that the very word conveys nothing to him. To admit\nunderstanding the word is to be easily brought to confess that the\nconception of freedom does apply where it is denied. No doubt a\nconcept leaves the reality untouched and unappropriated, for nothing\ncan produce itself, bring itself into being; but thought insists\nupon distinguishing between what is subject to others and what is\nindependent, bound under no allegiance, lord of its own act.\n\nThis state of freedom belongs in the absolute degree to the\nEternals in right of that eternity and to other beings in so far as\nwithout hindrance they possess or pursue The Good which, standing\nabove them all, must manifestly be the only good they can reasonably\nseek.\n\nTo say that The Good exists by chance must be false; chance\nbelongs to the later, to the multiple; since the First has never\ncome to be, we cannot speak of it either as coming by chance into\nbeing or as not master of its being. Absurd also the\nobjection that it\nacts in accordance with its being if this is to suggest that freedom\ndemands act or other expression against the nature. Neither does its\nnature as the unique annul its freedom when this is the result of no\ncompulsion but means only that The Good is no other than itself, is\nself-complete and has no higher.\n\nThe objection would imply that where there is most good there is\nleast freedom. If this is absurd, still more absurd to deny\nfreedom to\nThe Good on the ground that it is good and self-concentred, not\nneeding to lean upon anything else but actually being the Term to\nwhich all tends, itself moving to none.\n\nWhere- since we must use such words- the essential act is\nidentical with the being- and this identity must obtain in The Good\nsince it holds even in Intellectual-Principle- there the act is no\nmore determined by the Being than the Being by the Act. Thus\n\"acting according to its nature\" does not apply; the Act, the Life,\nso to speak, cannot be held to issue from the Being; the Being\naccompanies the Act in an eternal association: from the two\n[Being and\nAct] it forms itself into The Good, self-springing and unspringing.\n\n\n## Section 8\n\n\n##### Section 8\n\n8. But it is not, in our view, as an attribute that this freedom\nis present in the First. In the light of free acts, from which we\neliminate the contraries, we recognise There self-determination,\nself-directed and, failing more suitable terms, we apply to it the\nlesser terms brought over from lesser things and so tell it\nas best we\nmay: no words could ever be adequate or even applicable to that from\nwhich all else- the noble, the august- is derived. For This is\nprinciple of all, or, more strictly, unrelated to all and, in this\nconsideration, cannot be made to possess such laters as even freedom\nand self-disposal, which in fact indicate manifestation upon the\nextern- unhindered but implying the existence of other beings whose\nopposition proves ineffective.\n\nWe cannot think of the First as moving towards any\nother; He holds\nhis own manner of being before any other was; even Being we withhold\nand therefore all relation to beings.\n\nNor may we speak of any \"conforming to the nature\"; this again\nis of the later; if the term be applicable at all in that realm it\napplies only to the secondaries- primally to Essential Existence as\nnext to this First. And if a \"nature\" belongs only to things of\ntime, this conformity to nature does not apply even to Essential\nExistence. On the other hand, we are not to deny that it is derived\nfrom Essential Existence for that would be to take away its\nexistence and would imply derivation from something else.\n\nDoes this mean that the First is to be described as happening to\nbe?\n\nNo; that would be just as false; nothing \"happens\" to the First;\nit stands in no such relationship; happening belongs only to the\nmultiple where, first, existence is given and then something\nis added.\nAnd how could the Source \"happen to be\"? There has been no coming so\nthat you can put it to the question \"How does this come to be? What\nchance brought it here, gave it being?\" Chance did not yet exist;\nthere was no \"automatic action\": these imply something before\nthemselves and occur in the realm of process.\n\n\n## Section 9\n\n\n##### Section 9\n\n9. If we cannot but speak of Happening we must not halt at the\nword but look to the intention. And what is that? That the Supreme\nby possession of a certain nature and power is the Principle.\nObviously if its nature were other it would be that other and if the\ndifference were for the worse it would manifest itself as that\nlesser being. But we must add in correction that, as\nPrinciple of All,\nit could not be some chance product; it is not enough to say that it\ncould not be inferior; it could not even be in some way good, for\ninstance in some less perfect degree; the Principle of All must be\nof higher quality than anything that follows it. It is therefore in\na sense determined- determined, I mean, by its uniqueness and not in\nany sense of being under compulsion; compulsion did not co-exist\nwith the Supreme but has place only among secondaries and even there\ncan exercise no tyranny; this uniqueness is not from outside.\n\nThis, then, it is; This and no other; simply what it must be; it\nhas not \"happened\" but is what by a necessity prior to all\nnecessities\nit must be. We cannot think of it as a chance existence; it is not\nwhat it chanced to be but what it must be- and yet without a \"Must.\"\n\nAll the rest waits for the appearing of the king to hail him for\nhimself, not a being of accident and happening but\nauthentically king,\nauthentically Principle, The Good authentically, not a being\nthat acts\nin conformity with goodness- and so, recognisably, a secondary- but\nthe total unity that he is, no moulding upon goodness but the very\nGood itself.\n\nEven Being is exempt from happening: of course, anything\nhappening\nhappens to Being, but Being itself has not happened nor is the\nmanner of its Being a thing of happening, of derivation; it is the\nvery nature of Being to be; how then can we think that this\nhappening can attach to the Transcendent of Being, That in\nwhose power\nlay the very engendering of Being?\n\nCertainly this Transcendent never happened to be what it\nis; it is\nso, just as Being exists in complete identity with its own essential\nnature and that of Intellectual-Principle. Certainly that which has\nnever passed outside of its own orbit, unbendingly what it\nis, its own\nunchangeably, is that which may most strictly be said to possess its\nown being: what then are we to say when we mount and contemplate\nthat which stands yet higher; can we conceivably say \"Thus, as we\nsee it, thus has it happened to be\"? Neither thus nor in any mode\ndid it happen to be; there is no happening; there is only a \"Thus\nand No Otherwise than Thus.\" And even \"Thus\" is false; it would\nimply limit, a defined form: to know This is to be able to\nreject both\nthe \"Thus\" and the \"Not-Thus,\" either of which classes among\nBeings to\nwhich alone Manner of Being can attach.\n\nA \"Thus\" is something that attaches to everything in the world\nof things: standing before the indefinable you may name any of these\nsequents but you must say This is none of them: at most it is to be\nconceived as the total power towards things, supremely\nself-concentred, being what it wills to be or rather projecting into\nexistence what it wills, itself higher than all will, will a thing\nbeneath it. In a word it neither willed its own \"Thus\"- as something\nto conform to- nor did any other make it \"Thus.\"\n\n\n## Section 10\n\n\n##### Section 10\n\n10. The upholder of Happening must be asked how this false\nhappening can be supposed to have come about, taking it that it did,\nand haw the happening, then, is not universally prevalent.\nIf there is\nto be a natural scheme at all, it must be admitted that this\nhappening\ndoes not and cannot exist: for if we attribute to chance the\nPrinciple\nwhich is to eliminate chance from all the rest, how can there ever\nbe anything independent of chance? And this Nature does take away\nthe chanced from the rest, bringing in form and limit and shape. In\nthe case of things thus conformed to reason the cause cannot be\nidentified with chance but must lie in that very reason; chance must\nbe kept for what occurs apart from choice and sequence and is purely\nconcurrent. When we come to the source of all reason, order\nand limit,\nhow can we attribute the reality there to chance? Chance is no doubt\nmaster of many things but is not master of Intellectual-Principle,\nof reason, of order, so as to bring them into being. How\ncould chance,\nrecognised as the very opposite of reason, be its Author? And if it\ndoes not produce Intellectual-Principle, then certainly not\nthat which\nprecedes and surpasses that Principle. Chance, besides, has no means\nof producing, has no being at all, and, assuredly, none in the\nEternal.\n\nSince there is nothing before Him who is the First, we\nmust call a\nhalt; there is nothing to say; we may enquire into the origin of his\nsequents but not of Himself who has no origin.\n\nBut perhaps, never having come to be but being as He is, He is\nstill not master of his own essence: not master of his essence but\nbeing as He is, not self-originating but acting out of his nature as\nHe finds it, must He not be of necessity what He is, inhibited from\nbeing otherwise?\n\nNo: What He is, He is not because He could not be otherwise but\nbecause so is best. Not everything has power to move towards the\nbetter though nothing is prevented by any external from\nmoving towards\nthe worse. But that the Supreme has not so moved is its own doing:\nthere has been no inhibition; it has not moved simply because it is\nThat which does not move; in this stability the inability to\ndegenerate is not powerlessness; here permanence is very Act, a\nself-determination. This absence of declination comports the fulness\nof power; it is not the yielding of a being held and controlled but\nthe Act of one who is necessity, law, to all.\n\nDoes this indicate a Necessity which has brought itself into\nexistence? No: there has been no coming into being in any\ndegree; This\nis that by which being is brought to all the rest, its\nsequents. Above\nall origins, This can owe being neither to an extern nor to itself.\n\n\n## Section 11\n\n\n##### Section 11\n\n11. But this Unoriginating, what is it?\n\nWe can but withdraw, silent, hopeless, and search no\nfurther. What\ncan we look for when we have reached the furthest? Every enquiry\naims at a first and, that attained, rests.\n\nBesides, we must remember that all questioning deals with the\nnature of a thing, its quality, its cause or its essential being. In\nthis case the being- in so far as we can use the word- is knowable\nonly by its sequents: the question as to cause asks for a principle\nbeyond, but the principle of all has no principle; the question as\nto quality would be looking for an attribute in that which has none:\nthe question as to nature shows only that we must ask\nnothing about it\nbut merely take it into the mind if we may, with the knowledge\ngained that nothing can be permissibly connected with it.\n\nThe difficulty this Principle presents to our mind in so\nfar as we\ncan approach to conception of it may be exhibited thus:\n\nWe begin by posing space, a place, a Chaos; into this existing\ncontainer, real or fancied, we introduce God and proceed to enquire:\nwe ask, for example, whence and how He comes to be there: we\ninvestigate the presence and quality of this new-comer projected\ninto the midst of things here from some height or depth. But the\ndifficulty disappears if we eliminate all space before we attempt to\nconceive God: He must not be set in anything either as enthroned in\neternal immanence or as having made some entry into things: He is to\nbe conceived as existing alone, in that existence which the\nnecessity of discussion forces us to attribute to Him, with space\nand all the rest as later than Him- space latest of all. Thus we\nconceive as far as we may, the spaceless; we abolish the\nnotion of any\nenvironment: we circumscribe Him within no limit; we attribute no\nextension to Him; He has no quality since no shape, even shape\nIntellectual; He holds no relationship but exists in and for Himself\nbefore anything is.\n\nHow can we think any longer of that \"Thus He happened to be\"?\nHow make this one assertion of Him of whom all other assertion can\nbe no more than negation? It is on the contrary nearer the truth to\nsay \"Thus He has happened not to be\": that contains at least\nthe utter\ndenial of his happening.\n\n\n## Section 12\n\n\n##### Section 12\n\n12. Yet, is not God what He is? Can He, then, be master of being\nwhat He is or master to stand above Being? The mind utterly\nreluctant returns to its doubt: some further considerations,\ntherefore, must be offered:\n\nIn us the individual, viewed as body, is far from\nreality; by soul\nwhich especially constitutes the being we participate in reality,\nare in some degree real. This is a compound state, a mingling of\nReality and Difference, not, therefore reality in the\nstrictest sense,\nnot reality pure. Thus far we are not masters of our being; in some\nsense the reality in us is one thing and we another. We are not\nmasters of our being; the real in us is the master, since that is\nthe principle establishing our characteristic difference; yet we are\nagain in some sense that which is sovereign in us and so even on\nthis level might in spite of all be described as self-disposing.\n\nBut in That which is wholly what it is- self-existing reality,\nwithout distinction between the total thing and its essence-\nthe being\nis a unit and is sovereign over itself; neither the being nor the\nessence is to be referred to any extern. Besides, the very\nquestion as\nto self. disposal falls in the case of what is First in\nreality; if it\ncan be raised at all, we must declare that there can be no\nsubjection whatever in That to which reality owes its\nfreedom, That in\nwhose nature the conferring of freedom must clearly be vested,\npreeminently to be known as the liberator.\n\nStill, is not this Principle subject to its essential Being? On\nthe contrary, it is the source of freedom to Being.\n\nEven if there be Act in the Supreme- an Act with which\nit is to be\nidentified- this is not enough to set up a duality within it and\nprevent it being entirely master of that self from which the Act\nsprings; for the Act is not distinct from that self. If we utterly\ndeny Act in it- holding that Act begins with others moving about it-\nwe are all the less able to allow either self-mastery or\nsubjection in\nit: even self-mastery is absent here, not that anything else\nis master\nover it but that self-mastery begins with Being while the Supreme is\nto be set in a higher order.\n\nBut what can there be higher than that which is its own master?\n\nWhere we speak of self-mastery there is a certain duality, Act\nagainst essence; from the exercise of the Act arises the\nconception of\nthe mastering principle- though one identical with the essence-\nhence arises the separate idea of mastery, and the being concerned\nis said to possess self-mastery. Where there is no such duality\njoining to unity but solely a unity pure- either because the Act is\nthe whole being or because there is no Act at all- then we cannot\nstrictly say that the being has this mastery of self.\n\n\n## Section 13\n\n\n##### Section 13\n\n13. Our enquiry obliges us to use terms not strictly applicable:\nwe insist, once more, that not even for the purpose of forming the\nconcept of the Supreme may we make it a duality; if now we do, it is\nmerely for the sake of conveying conviction, at the cost of verbal\naccuracy.\n\nIf, then, we are to allow Activities in the Supreme and make\nthem depend upon will- and certainly Act cannot There be\nwill-less and\nthese Activities are to be the very essence, then will and essence\nin the Supreme must be identical. This admitted, as He\nwilled to be so\nHe is; it is no more true to say that He wills and acts as His\nnature determines than that His essence is as He wills and acts.\nThus He is wholly master of Himself and holds His very being at His\nwill.\n\nConsider also that every being in its pursuit of its\ngood seeks to\nbe that good rather than what it is it judges itself most truly to\nbe when it partakes of its good: in so far as it thus draws on its\ngood its being is its choice: much more, then, must the very\nPrinciple, The Good, be desirable in itself when any\nfragment of it is\nvery desirable to the extern and becomes the chosen essence\npromoting that extern's will and identical with the will\nthat gave the\nexistence?\n\nAs long as a thing is apart from its good it seeks\noutside itself;\nwhen it holds its good it itself as it is: and this is no matter of\nchance; the essence now is not outside of the will; by the good it\nis determined, by the good it is in self-possession.\n\nIf then this Principle is the means of determination to\neverything\nelse, we see at once that self-possession must belong primally to\nit, so that, through it, others in their turn may be self-belonging:\nwhat we must call its essence comports its will to possess such a\nmanner of being; we can form no idea of it without including\nin it the\nwill towards itself as it is. It must be a consistent self\nwilling its\nbeing and being what it wills; its will and itself must be one\nthing, all the more one from the absence of distinction between a\ngiven nature and one which would be preferred. What could The Good\nhave wished to be other than what it is? Suppose it had the choice\nof being what it preferred, power to alter the nature, it could not\nprefer to be something else; it could have no fault to find with\nanything in its nature, as if that nature were imposed by force; The\nGood is what from always it wished and wishes to be. For the really\nexistent Good is a willing towards itself, towards a good not gained\nby any wiles or even attracted to it by force of its nature; The\nGood is what it chose to be and, in fact, there was never anything\noutside it to which it could be drawn.\n\nIt may be added that nothing else contains in its essence the\nprinciple of its own satisfaction; there will be inner discord: but\nthis hypostasis of the Good must necessarily have self-option, the\nwill towards the self; if it had not, it could not bring\nsatisfaction to the beings whose contentment demands participation\nin it or imagination of it.\n\nOnce more, we must be patient with language; we are forced to\napply to the Supreme terms which strictly are ruled out;\neverywhere we\nmust read \"So to speak.\" The Good, then, exists; it holds its\nexistence through choice and will, conditions of its very being: yet\nit cannot be a manifold; therefore the will and the essential being\nmust be taken as one identity; the act of the will must be\nself-determined and the being self-caused; thus reason shows the\nSupreme to be its own Author. For if the act of will springs from\nGod Himself and is as it were His operation and the same will is\nidentical with His essence, He must be self-established. He is not,\ntherefore, \"what He has happened to be\" but what He has willed to be.\n\n\n## Section 14\n\n\n##### Section 14\n\n14. Another approach: Everything to which existence may be\nattributed is either one with its essence or distinct from it. Thus\nany given man is distinct from essential man though belonging to the\norder Man: a soul and a soul's essence are the same- that is, in\ncase of soul pure and unmingled- Man as type is the same as man's\nessence; where the thing, man, and the essence are different, the\nparticular man may be considered as accidental; but man, the\nessence, cannot be so; the type, Man, has Real Being. Now if the\nessence of man is real, not chanced or accidental, how can we think\nThat to be accidental which transcends the order man, author of the\ntype, source of all being, a principle more nearly simplex than\nman's being or being of any kind? As we approach the\nsimplex, accident\nrecedes; what is utterly simplex accident never touches at all.\n\nFurther we must remember what has been already said, that where\nthere is true being, where things have been brought to\nreality by that\nPrinciple- and this is true of whatsoever has determined condition\nwithin the order of sense- all that reality is brought about\nin virtue\nof something emanating from the divine. By things of determined\ncondition I mean such as contain, inbound with their essence, the\nreason of their being as they are, so that, later, an observer can\nstate the use for each of the constituent parts- why the\neye, why feet\nof such and such a kind to such and such a being- and can recognise\nthat the reason for the production of each organ is inherent in that\nparticular being and that the parts exist for each other. Why feet\nof a certain length? Because another member is as it is: because the\nface is as it is, therefore the feet are what they are: in a word\nthe mutual determinant is mutual adaptation and the reason of each\nof the several forms is that such is the plan of man.\n\nThus the essence and its reason are one and the same. The\nconstituent parts arise from the one source not because that source\nhas so conceived each separately but because it has produced\nsimultaneously the plan of the thing and its existence. This\ntherefore\nis author at once of the existence of things and of their reasons,\nboth produced at the one stroke. It is in correspondence with the\nthings of process but far more nearly archetypal and authentic and\nin a closer relation with the Better, their source, than they can be.\n\nOf things carrying their causes within, none arises at hazard or\nwithout purpose; this \"So it happened to be\" is applicable to none.\nAll that they have comes from The Good; the Supreme itself, then, as\nauthor of reason, of causation, and of causing essence- all\ncertainly lying far outside of chance- must be the Principle\nand as it\nwere the examplar of things, thus independent of hazard: it is, the\nFirst, the Authentic, immune from chance, from blind effect and\nhappening: God is cause of Himself; for Himself and of Himself He is\nwhat He is, the first self, transcendently The Self.\n\n\n## Section 15\n\n\n##### Section 15\n\n15. Lovable, very love, the Supreme is also self-love in that He\nis lovely no otherwise than from Himself and in Himself.\nSelf-presence\ncan hold only in the identity of associated with associating; since,\nin the Supreme, associated and associating are one, seeker and\nsought one the sought serving as Hypostasis and substrate of the\nseeker- once more God's being and his seeking are identical: once\nmore, then, the Supreme is the self-producing, sovereign of Himself,\nnot happening to be as some extern willed but existing as He\nwills it.\n\nAnd when we say that neither does He absorb anything nor\nanything absorb Him, thus again we are setting Him outside of all\nhappening- not only because we declare Him unique and\nuntouched by all\nbut in another way also. Suppose we found such a nature in\nourselves; we are untouched by all that has gathered round us\nsubjecting us to happening and chance; all that accruement was of\nthe servile and lay exposed to chance: by this new state alone we\nacquire self-disposal and free act, the freedom of that light\nwhich belongs to the order of the good and is good in actuality,\ngreater than anything Intellectual-Principle has to give, an\nactuality\nwhose advantage over Intellection is no adventitious superiority.\nWhen we attain to this state and become This alone, what can we say\nbut that we are more than free, more than self-disposing?\nAnd who then\ncould link us to chance, hazard, happening, when thus we are become\nveritable Life, entered into That which contains no alloy but is\npurely itself?\n\nIsolate anything else and the being is inadequate; the Supreme\nin isolation is still what it was. The First cannot be in\nthe soulless\nor in an unreasoning life; such a life is too feeble in being; it is\nreason dissipated, it is indetermination; only in the measure of\napproach towards reason is there liberation from happening; the\nrational is above chance. Ascending we come upon the Supreme, not as\nreason but as reason's better: thus God is far removed from all\nhappening: the root of reason is self-springing.\n\nThe Supreme is the Term of all; it is like the principle and\nground of some vast tree of rational life; itself\nunchanging, it gives\nreasoned being to the growth into which it enters.\n\n\n## Section 16\n\n\n##### Section 16\n\n16. We maintain, and it is evident truth, that the Supreme is\neverywhere and yet nowhere; keeping this constantly in mind\nlet us see\nhow it bears on our present enquiry.\n\nIf God is nowhere, then not anywhere has He \"happened to be\"; as\nalso everywhere, He is everywhere in entirety: at once, He is that\neverywhere and everywise: He is not in the everywhere but is the\neverywhere as well as the giver to the rest of things of their being\nin that everywhere. Holding the supreme place- or rather no\nholder but\nHimself the Supreme- all lies subject to Him; they have not brought\nHim to be but happen, all, to Him- or rather they stand there before\nHim looking upon Him, not He upon them. He is borne, so to speak, to\nthe inmost of Himself in love of that pure radiance which He is, He\nHimself being that which He. loves. That is to say, as self-dwelling\nAct and Intellectual-Principle, the most to be loved, He has given\nHimself existence. Intellectual-Principle is the issue of Act: God\ntherefore is issue of Act, but, since no other has generated Him, He\nis what He made Himself: He is not, therefore, \"as He happened to\nbe\" but as He acted Himself into being.\n\nAgain; if He preeminently is because He holds firmly, so\nto speak,\ntowards Himself, looking towards Himself, so that what we must call\nhis being is this self-looking, He must again, since the word is\ninevitable, make Himself: thus, not \"as He happens to be\" is\nHe but as\nHe Himself wills to be. Nor is this will a hazard, a something\nhappening; the will adopting the Best is not a thing of chance.\n\nThat his being is constituted by this self-originating\nself-tendence- at once Act and repose- becomes clear if we\nimagine the\ncontrary; inclining towards something outside of Himself, He would\ndestroy the identity of his being. This self-directed Act is,\ntherefore, his peculiar being, one with Himself. If, then, his act\nnever came to be but is eternal- a waking without an awakener, an\neternal wakening and a supra-Intellection- He is as He waked Himself\nto be. This awakening is before being, before\nIntellectual-Principle, before rational life, though He is these; He\nis thus an Act before Intellectual-Principle and consciousness and\nlife; these come from Him and no other; his being, then, is a\nself-presence, issuing from Himself. Thus not \"as He happened to be\"\nis He but as He willed to be.\n\n\n## Section 17\n\n\n##### Section 17\n\n17. Or consider it another way: We hold the universe, with its\ncontent entire, to be as all would be if the design of the maker had\nso willed it, elaborating it with purpose and prevision by\nreasonings amounting to a Providence. All is always so and all is\nalways so reproduced: therefore the reason-principles of things must\nlie always within the producing powers in a still more perfect form;\nthese beings of the divine realm must therefore be previous to\nProvidence and to preference; all that exists in the order of being\nmust lie for ever There in their Intellectual mode. If this regime\nis to be called Providence it must be in the sense that before our\nuniverse there exists, not expressed in the outer, the\nIntellectual-Principle of all the All, its source and archetype.\n\nNow if there is thus an Intellectual-Principle before all\nthings, their founding principle, this cannot be a thing\nlying subject\nto chance- multiple, no doubt, but a concordance, ordered so to\nspeak into oneness. Such a multiple- the co-ordination of all\nparticulars and consisting of all the Reason-Principles of the\nuniverse gathered into the closest union- this cannot be a thing of\nchance, a thing \"happening so to be.\" It must be of a very different\nnature, of the very contrary nature, separated from the other by all\nthe difference between reason and reasonless chance. And if\nthe Source\nis precedent even to this, it must be continuous with this reasoned\nsecondary so that the two be correspondent; the secondary must\nparticipate in the prior, be an expression of its will, be a power\nof it: that higher therefore [as above the ordering of reason] is\nwithout part or interval [implied by reasoned arrangement], is a\none- all Reason-Principle, one number, a One greater than\nits product,\nmore powerful, having no higher or better. Thus the Supreme\ncan derive\nneither its being nor the quality of its being. God Himself,\ntherefore, is what He is, self-related, self-tending; otherwise He\nbecomes outward-tending, other-seeking- who cannot but be wholly\nself-poised.\n\n\n## Section 18\n\n\n##### Section 18\n\n18. Seeking Him, seek nothing of Him outside; within is to be\nsought what follows upon Him; Himself do not attempt. He is,\nHimself, that outer, He the encompassment and measure of all things;\nor rather He is within, at the innermost depth; the outer, circling\nround Him, so to speak, and wholly dependent upon Him, is\nReason-Principle and Intellectual-Principle-or becomes\nIntellectual-Principle by contact with Him and in the degree of that\ncontact and dependence; for from Him it takes the being\nwhich makes it\nIntellectual-Principle.\n\nA circle related in its path to a centre must be admitted to owe\nits scope to that centre: it has something of the nature of that\ncentre in that the radial lines converging on that one central point\nassimilate their impinging ends to that point of convergence and of\ndeparture, the dominant of radii and terminals: the terminals are of\none nature with the centre, separate reproductions of it, since the\ncentre is, in a certain sense, the total of terminals and radii\nimpinging at every point upon it; these lines reveal the centre;\nthey are the development of that undeveloped.\n\nIn the same way we are to take Intellectual-Principle and Being.\nThis combined power springs from the Supreme, an outflow and as it\nwere development from That and remaining dependent upon that\nIntellective nature, showing forth That which, in the purity of its\noneness, is not Intellectual-Principle since it is no\nduality. No more\nthan in the circle are the lines or circumference to be identified\nwith that Centre which is the source of both: radii and circle are\nimages given forth by indwelling power and, as products of a certain\nvigour in it, not cut off from it.\n\nThus the Intellective power circles in its multiple unity around\nthe Supreme which stands to it as archetype to image; the\nimage in its\nmovement round about its prior has produced the multiplicity by\nwhich it is constituted Intellectual-Principle: that prior has no\nmovement; it generates Intellectual-Principle by its sheer wealth.\n\nSuch a power, author of Intellectual-Principle, author of being-\nhow does it lend itself to chance, to hazard, to any \"So it\nhappened\"?\n\nWhat is present in Intellectual-Principle is present, though in\na far transcendent mode, in the One: so in a light diffused afar\nfrom one light shining within itself, the diffused is vestige, the\nsource is the true light; but Intellectual-Principle, the\ndiffused and\nimage light, is not different in kind from its prior; and it is not\na thing of chance but at every point is reason and cause.\n\nThe Supreme is cause of the cause: it is cause\npreeminently, cause\nas containing cause in the deepest and truest mode; for in it lie\nthe Intellective causes which are to be unfolded from it,\nauthor as it\nis not of the chance- made but of what the divine willed: and this\nwilling was not apart from reason, was not in the realm of hazard\nand of what happened to present itself.\n\nThus Plato, seeking the best account of the necessary and\nappropriate, says they are far removed from hazard and that what\nexists is what must exist: if thus the existence is as it must be it\ndoes not exist without reason: if its manner of being is the\nfitting, it is the utterly self-disposing in comparison with its\nsequents and, before that, in regard to itself: thus it is not \"as\nit happened to be\" but as it willed to be: all this, on the\nassumption\nthat God wills what should be and that it is impossible to separate\nright from realization and that this Necessary is not to God an\noutside thing but is, itself, His first Activity manifesting\noutwardly\nin the exactly representative form. Thus we must speak of\nGod since we\ncannot tell Him as we would.\n\n\n## Section 19\n\n\n##### Section 19\n\n19. Stirred to the Supreme by what has been told, a man must\nstrive to possess it directly; then he too will see, though still\nunable to tell it as he would wish.\n\nOne seeing That as it really is will lay aside all reasoning\nupon it and simply state it as the self-existent; such that if it\nhad essence that essence would be subject to it and, so to speak,\nderived from it; none that has seen would dare to talk of its\n\"happening to be,\" or indeed be able to utter word. With all his\ncourage he would stand astounded, unable at any venture to speak of\nThis, with the vision everywhere before the eyes of the soul so\nthat, look where one may, there it is seen unless one deliberately\nlook away, ignoring God, thinking no more upon Him. So we are to\nunderstand the Beyond-Essence darkly indicated by the\nancients: is not\nmerely that He generated Essence but that He is subject neither to\nEssence nor to Himself; His essence is not His Principle; He is\nPrinciple to Essence and not for Himself did He make it; producing\nit He left it outside of Himself: He had no need of being who\nbrought it to be. Thus His making of being is no \"action in\naccordance\nwith His being.\"\n\n\n## Section 20\n\n\n##### Section 20\n\n20. The difficulty will be raised that God would seem to have\nexisted before thus coming into existence; if He makes Himself, then\nin regard to the self which He makes He is not yet in being and as\nmaker He exists before this Himself thus made.\n\nThe answer is that we utterly must not speak of Him as made but\nsheerly as maker; the making must be taken as absolved from all\nelse; no new existence is established; the Act here is not\ndirected to\nan achievement but is God Himself unalloyed: here is no duality but\npure unity. Let no one suspect us of asserting that the\nfirst Activity\nis without Essence; on the contrary the Activity is the very\nreality. To suppose a reality without activity would be to make the\nPrinciple of all principles deficient; the supremely complete\nbecomes incomplete. To make the Activity something superadded to\nthe essence is to shatter the unity. If then Activity is a more\nperfect thing than essence and the First is all perfect, then the\nActivity is the First.\n\nBy having acted, He is what He is and there is no question of\n\"existing before bringing Himself into existence\"; when He acted He\nwas not in some state that could be described as \"before\nexisting.\" He\nwas already existent entirely.\n\nNow assuredly an Activity not subjected essence is utterly free;\nGod's selfhood, then, is of his own Act. If his being has to be\nensured by something else, He is no longer the self-existent\nFirst: if\nit be true to say that He is his own container, then He inducts\nHimself; for all that He contains is his own production from the\nbeginning since from the beginning He caused the being of all that\nby nature He contains.\n\nIf there had been a moment from which He began to be, it would\nbe possible assert his self-making in the literal sense; but, since\nwhat He is He is from before all time, his self-making is to be\nunderstood as simultaneous with Himself; the being is one\nand the same\nwith the making and eternal \"coming into existence.\"\n\nThis is the source also of his self-disposal- strictly\napplicable if there were a duality, but conveying, in the case of a\nunity, a disposing without a disposed, an abstract disposing. But\nhow a disposer with nothing to dispose? In that there is here a\ndisposer looking to a prior when there is none: since there is no\nprior, This is the First- but a First not in order but in\nsovereignty,\nin power purely self-controlled. Purely; then nothing can be There\nthat is under any external disposition; all in God is self-willing.\nWhat then is there of his content that is not Himself, what that is\nnot in Act, what not his work? Imagine in Him anything not of his\nAct and at once His existence ceases to be pure; He is not\nself-disposing, not all-powerful: in that at least of whose doing He\nis not master He would be impotent.\n\n\n## Section 21\n\n\n##### Section 21\n\n21. Could He then have made Himself otherwise than as He did?\n\nIf He could we must deny Him the power to produce goodness for\nHe certainly cannot produce evil. Power, There, is no producer of\nthe inapt; it is that steadfast constant which is most\ndecidedly power\nby inability to depart from unity: ability to produce the inapt\ninability to hold by the fitting; that self-making must be definite\nonce for all since it is the right; besides, who could upset what is\nmade by the will of God and is itself that will?\n\nBut whence does He draw that will seeing that essence, source of\nwill, is inactive in Him?\n\nThe will was included in the essence; they were identical: or\nwas there something, this will for instance, not existing in Him?\nAll was will, nothing unwilled in Him. There is then nothing before\nthat will: God and will were primally identical.\n\nGod, therefore, is what He willed, is such as He willed; and all\nthat ensued upon that willing was what that definite willing\nengendered: but it engendered nothing new; all existed from\nthe first.\n\nAs for his \"self-containing,\" this rightly understood can mean\nonly that all the rest is maintained in virtue of Him by means of a\ncertain participation; all traces back to the Supreme; God Himself,\nself-existing always, needs no containing, no participating; all in\nHim belongs to Him or rather He needs nothing from them in order to\nbeing Himself.\n\nWhen therefore you seek to state or to conceive Him, put all\nelse aside; abstracting all, keep solely to Him; see that you add\nnothing; be sure that your theory of God does not lessen\nHim. Even you\nare able to take contact with Something in which there is no\nmore than\nThat Thing itself to affirm and know, Something which lies away\nabove all and is- it alone- veritably free, subject not even to its\nown law, solely and essentially That One Thing, while all else is\nthing and something added.",
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