Plotinos Complete Works Volume IV

1. The (Aristotelian) ideal of living well and happiness are (practically) identical. Should we, on that account, grant even to animals the privilege of achieving happiness? Why might we not say that they live well, if it be granted them, in their lives, to follow the course of nature, without obstacles? For if to live well consist either in pleasure (pleasant passions, as the Epicureans taught), or in realizing one's own individual aim (the Stoic ideal), then this living well is, in either case, possible for animals, who can both enjoy pleasure, and accomplish their peculiar aim. Thus singing birds live a life desirable for them, if they enjoy pleasure, and sing conformably to their nature. If further we should define happiness as achieving the supreme purpose towards which nature aspires (the Stoic ideal), we should, even in this case, admit that animals share in happiness when they accomplish this supreme purpose. Then nature arouses in them no further desires, because their whole career is completed, and their life is filled from beginning to end.

There are no doubt some who may object to our admitting to happiness living beings other than man. They might even point out that on this basis happiness could not be refused to even the lowest beings, such as plants: for they also live, their life also has a purpose, by which they seek to fulfil their development. However, it would seem rather unreasonable to say, that living beings other than humans cannot possess happiness by this mere reason that to us they seem pitiable. Besides, it would be quite possible to deny to plants what may be predicated of other living beings, on the grounds that plants lack emotion. Some might hold they are capable of happiness, on the strength of their possessing life, for a being that lives can live well or badly; and in this way we could say that they possess or lack well-being, and bear, or do not bear fruits. If (as Aristippus thought), pleasure is the goal of man, and if to live well is constituted by enjoying it, it would be absurd to claim that no living beings other than man could live well. The same argument applies if we define happiness as (a state of imperturbable tranquility, by Epicurus called) ataraxy;2 or as (the Stoic ideal,3 of) living conformably to nature.

2. Those who deny the privilege of living well to plants, because these lack sensation, are not on that account obliged to grant it to all animals. For, if sensation consist in the knowledge of the experienced affection, this affection must already be good before the occurrence of the knowledge. For instance, the being must be in a state conformable to nature even though ignorant thereof. He must fulfil his proper function even when he does not know it. He must possess pleasure before perceiving it. Thus if, by the possession of this pleasure, the being already possesses the Good, he thereby possesses even well-being. What need then is there to join thereto sensation, unless indeed well-being be defined as sensation and knowledge (of an affection or state of the soul) rather than in the latter affection and state of the soul itself?

The Good would thus be reduced to no more than sensation, or the actualization of the sense-life. In this case, to possess it, it is sufficient to perceive irrespective of the content of that perception. Other persons might assert that goodness results from the union of these two things: of the state of the soul, and of the knowledge the soul has of it. If then the Good consist in the perception of some particular state, we shall have to ask how elements which, by themselves, are indifferent could, by their union, constitute the good. Other theories are that the Good consists in some particular state, or in possession of some particular disposition, and conscious enjoyment of the presence of the Good. These would, however, still have to answer the question whether, for good living, it be sufficient that the being knows he possesses this state; or must he know not only that this state is pleasant, but also that it is the Good? If then it be necessary to realize that it is the Good, the matter is one no longer of the function of sensation, but of a faculty higher than the senses. To live well, in this case, it will no longer be sufficient to possess pleasure, but we shall have to know that pleasure is the Good. The cause of happiness will not be the presence of pleasure itself, but the power of judging that pleasure is a good. Now judgment is superior to affection; it is reason or intelligence, while pleasure is only an affection, and what is irrational could not be superior to reason. How would reason forget itself to recognize as superior what is posited in a genus opposed to it? These men who deny happiness to plants, who explain it as some form of sensation, seems to us, in spite of themselves, to be really seeking happiness of a higher nature, and to consider it as this better thing which is found only in a completer life.

There is a greater chance of being right in the opinion that happiness consists in the reasonable life, instead of mere life, even though united to sensation. Still even this theory must explain why happiness should be the privilege of the reasonable animal. Should we add to the idea of an animal the quality of being reasonable, because reason is more sagacious, more skilful in discovering, and in procuring the objects necessary to satisfy the first needs of nature? Would you esteem reason just as highly if it were incapable of discovering, or procuring these objects? If we value reason only for the objects it aids us in getting, happiness might very well belong to the very irrational beings, if they are, without reason, able to procure themselves the things necessary to the satisfaction of the first needs of their nature. In this case, reason will be nothing more than an instrument. It will not be worth seeking out for itself, and its perfection, in which virtue has been shown to consist, will be of little importance. The opposite theory would be that reason does not owe its value to its ability to procure for us objects necessary to the satisfaction of the first needs of nature, but that it deserves to be sought out for itself. But even here we would have to explain its function, its nature, and set forth how it becomes perfect. If it were to be improvable, it must not be defined as the contemplation of sense-objects, for its perfection and essence (being) consist in a different (and higher) function. It is not among the first needs of nature, nor among the objects necessary to the satisfaction of its needs; it has nothing to do with them, being far superior. Otherwise, these philosophers would be hard pressed to explain its value. Until they discover some nature far superior to the class of objects with which they at present remain, they will have to remain where it suits them to be, ignorant of what good living is, and both how to reach that goal, and to what beings it is possible.

3. Dismissing these theories, we return to our own definition of happiness. We do not necessarily make life synonymous with happiness by attributing happiness to a living being. Otherwise, we would be implying that all living beings can achieve it, and we would be admitting to real complete enjoyment thereof all those who possessed that union and identity which all living beings are naturally capable of possessing. Finally, it would be difficult to grant this privilege to the reasonable being, while refusing it to the brute; for both equally possess life. They should, therefore, be capable of achieving happiness—for, on this hypothesis, happiness could be no more than a kind of life. Consequently, the philosophers who make it consist in the rational life, not in the life common to all beings, do not perceive that they implicitly suppose that happiness is something different from life. They are then obliged to say that happiness resides in a pure quality, in the rational faculty. But the subject (to which they should refer happiness) is the rational life, since happiness can belong only to the totality (of life joined to reason). They therefore, really limit the life they speak of to a certain kind of life; not that they have the right to consider these two kinds of life (life in general, and rational life) as being ranked alike, as both members of a single division would be, but another kind of distinction might be established between them, such as when we say that one thing is prior, and the other posterior. Since "life" may be understood in different senses, and as it possesses different degrees, and since by mere verbal similarity life may be equally predicated of plants and of irrational animals, and since its differences consist in being more or less complete, analogy demands a similar treatment of "living well." If, by its life, a being be the image of some other being, by its happiness it will also be the image of the happiness of this other being. If happiness be the privilege of complete life, the being that possesses a complete life will also alone possess happiness; for it possesses what is best since, in the order of these existences, the best is possession of the essence (being) and perfection of life. Consequently, the Good is not anything incidental, for no subject could owe its good to a quality that would be derived from elsewhere. What indeed could be added to complete life, to render it excellent?

Our own definition of the Good, interested as we are not in its cause, but in its essence, is that the perfect life, that is genuine and real, consists in intelligence. The other kinds of life are imperfect. They offer no more than the image of life. They are not Life in its fulness and purity. As we have often said they are not life, rather than its contrary. In one word, since all living beings are derived from one and the same Principle, and since they do not possess an equal degree of life, this principle must necessarily be the primary Life, and perfectness.

4. If man be capable of possessing perfect Life, he is happy as soon as he possesses it. If it were otherwise, if the perfect life pertained to the divinities alone, to them alone also would happiness belong. But since we attribute happiness to men, we shall have to set forth in what that which procures it consists. I repeat, what results from our former considerations, namely, that man has perfect Life when, besides the sense-life, he possesses reason and true intelligence. But is man as such stranger to the perfect Life, and does he possess it as something alien (to his essential being)? No, for no man lacks happiness entirely, either actually or even potentially. But shall we consider happiness as a part of the man, and that he in himself is the perfect form of life? We had better think that he who is a stranger to the perfect Life possesses only a part of happiness, as he possesses happiness only potentially; but that he who possesses the perfect Life in actuality, and he who has succeeded in identifying himself with it, alone is happy. All the other things, no more than envelope him (as the Stoics would say), and could not be considered as parts of him, since they surround him in spite of himself. They would belong to him as parts of himself, if they were joined to him by the result of his will. What is the Good for a man who finds himself in this condition? By the perfect life which he possesses, he himself is his own good. The principle (the Good in itself) which is superior (to the perfect Life) is the cause of the good which is in him; for we must not confuse the Good in itself—and the good in man.

That the man who has achieved perfect Life possesses happiness is proved by his no longer desiring anything. What more could he desire? He could not desire anything inferior; he is united to the best; he, therefore, has fulness of life. If he be virtuous he is fully happy, and fully possesses the Good, for no good thing escapes him. What he seeks is sought only by necessity, less for him than for some of the things which belong to him. He seeks it for the body that is united to him; and though this body be endowed with life, what relates to his needs is not characteristic of the real man. The latter knows it, and what he grants to his body, he grants without in any way departing from his own characteristic life. His happiness will, therefore, not be diminished in adversity, because he continues to possess veritable life. If he lose relatives or friends, he knows the nature of death, and besides those whom it strikes down know it also if they were virtuous. Though he may allow himself to be afflicted by the fate of these relatives or friends, the affliction will not reach the intimate part of his nature; the affliction will be felt only by that part of the soul which lacks reason, and whose suffering the man will not share.

5. It has often been objected that we should reckon with the bodily pains, the diseases, the obstacles which may hinder action, cases of unconsciousness, which might result from certain philtres and diseases (as the Peripatetics objected4). Under these conditions, they say, the sage could not live well, and be happy—without either mentioning poverty and lack of recognition. All these evils, not forgetting the famous misfortunes of Priam,5 justify serious objections. Indeed, even if the sage endured all these evils (as indeed he easily does), they would none the less be contrary to his will; and happy life must necessarily be one that conforms to our will. The sage is not only a soul endowed with particular dispositions; the body also must be comprised within his personality (as also thought the Pythagorean Archytas6). This assertion seems reasonable so far as the passions of the body are felt by the man himself, and as they suggest desires and aversions to him. If then pleasure be an element of happiness, how could the man afflicted by the blows of fate and by pains still be happy, even if he were virtuous? To be happy, the divinities need only to enjoy perfect life; but men, having their soul united to a lower part, must seek their happiness in the life of each of these two parts that compose him, and not exclusively in one of the two, even though it were the higher. Indeed, as soon as one of them suffers, the other one, in spite of its superiority, finds its actions hindered. Otherwise we shall have to regard neither the body, nor the sensations that flow from it; and to seek only what by itself could suffice to procure happiness, independently of the body.

6. If our exposition of the subject had defined happiness as exemption from pain, sickness, reverses, and great misfortunes, (we would have implied that) it would be impossible for us to taste happiness while exposed to one of those evils. But if happiness consist in the possession of the real good, why should we forget this good to consider its accessories? Why, in the appreciation of this good, should we seek things which are not among the number of its elements? If it consisted in a union of the true goods with those things which alone are necessary to our needs, or which are so called, even without being such, we should have to strive to possess the latter also. But as the goal of man must be single and not manifold—for otherwise it would be usual to say that he seeks his ends, rather than the more common expression, his end—we shall have to seek only what is most high and precious, what the soul somehow wishes to include. Her inclination and will cannot aspire to anything which is not the sovereign good. Reason only avoids certain evils, and seeks certain advantages, because it is provoked by their presence; but it is not so led by nature. The principal tendency of the soul is directed towards what is best; when she possesses it, she is satisfied, and stops; only then does she enjoy a life really conformable to her will. Speaking of will strictly,7 and not with unjustifiable license, the task of the will is not to procure things necessary to our needs (?) Of course we judge that it is suitable to procure things that are necessary, as we in general avoid evils. But the avoiding of them is no aim desirable in itself; such would rather be not to need to avoid them. This, for instance, occurs when one possesses health and is exempt from suffering. Which of these advantages most attracts us? So long as we enjoy health, so long as we do not suffer, it is little valued. Now advantages which, when present, have no attraction for the soul, and add nothing to her happiness, and which, when absent, are sought as causes of the suffering arising from the presence of their contraries, should reasonably be called necessity rather than goods, and not be reckoned among the elements of our goal. When they are absent and replaced by their contraries, our goal remains just what it was.

7. Why then does the happy man desire to enjoy the presence of these advantages, and the absence of their contraries? It must be because they contribute, not to his happiness, but to his existence; because their contraries tend to make him lose existence, hindering the enjoyment of the good, without however removing it. Besides, he who possesses what is best wishes to possess it purely, without any mixture. Nevertheless, when a foreign obstacle occurs, the good still persists even in spite of this obstacle. In short, if some accident happen to the happy man against his will, his happiness is in no way affected thereby. Otherwise, he would change and lose his happiness daily; as if, for instance, he had to mourn a son, or if he lost some of his possessions. Many events may occur against his wish without disturbing him in the enjoyment of the good he has attained. It may be objected that it is the great misfortunes, and not trifling accidents (which can disturb the happiness of the wise man). Nevertheless, in human things, is there any great enough not to be scorned by him who has climbed to a principle superior to all, and who no longer depends on lower things? Such a man will not be able to see anything great in the favors of fortune, whatever they be, as in being king, in commanding towns, or peoples; in founding or building cities, even though he himself should receive that glory; he will attach no importance to the loss of his power, or even to the ruin of his fatherland. If he consider all that as a great evil, or even only as an evil, he will have a ridiculous opinion. He will no longer be a virtuous man; for, as Jupiter is my witness, he would be highly valuing mere wood, or stones, birth, or death; while he should insist on the incontestable truth that death is better than the corporeal life (as held by Herodotus). Even though he were sacrificed, he would not consider death any worse merely because it occurred at the feet of the altars. Being buried is really of small importance, for his body will rot as well above as below ground (as thought Theodorus of Cyrene).8 Neither will he grieve at being buried without pomp and vulgar ostentation, and to have seemed unworthy of being placed in a magnificent tomb. That would be smallness of mind. If he were carried off as a captive, he would still have a road open to leave life, in the case that he should no longer be allowed to hope for happiness. (Nor would he be troubled if the members of his family, such as sons (?) and daughters (and female relatives?) were carried off into captivity. If he had arrived to the end of his life without seeing such occurrences (we would indeed be surprised). Would he leave this world supposing that such things cannot happen? Such an opinion would be absurd. Would he not have realized that his own kindred were exposed to such dangers? The opinion that such things could happen will not make him any less happy. No, he will be happy even with that belief. He would still be so even should that occur; he will indeed reflect that such is the nature of this world, that one must undergo such accidents, and submit. Often perhaps men dragged into captivity will live better (than in liberty); and besides, if their captivity be insupportable, it is in their power to release themselves. If they remain, it is either because their reason so induces them—and then their lot cannot be too hard; or it is against the dictates of their reason, in which case they have none but themselves to blame. The wise man, therefore, will not be unhappy because of the folly of his own people; he will not allow his lot to depend on the happiness or misfortunes of other people.

8. If the griefs that he himself undergoes are great, he will support them as well as he can; if they exceed his power of endurance, they will carry him off (as thought Seneca9). In either case, he will not, in the midst of his sufferings, excite any pity: (ever master of his reason) he will not allow his own characteristic light to be extinguished. Thus the flame in the lighthouse continues to shine, in spite of the raging of the tempest, in spite of the violent blowing of the winds. (He should not be upset) even by loss of consciousness, or even if pain becomes so strong that its violence could almost annihilate him. If pain become more intense, he will decide as to what to do; for, under these circumstances, freedom of will is not necessarily lost (for suicide remains possible, as thought Seneca10). Besides, we must realize that these sufferings do not present themselves to the wise man, under the same light as to the common man; that all these need not penetrate to the sanctuary of the man's life; which indeed happens with the greater part of pains, griefs and evils that we see being suffered by others; it would be proof of weakness to be affected thereby. A no less manifest mark of weakness is to consider it an advantage to ignore all these evils, and to esteem ourselves happy that they happen only after death,11 without sympathizing with the fate of others, and thinking only to spare ourselves some grief. This would be a weakness that we should eliminate in ourselves, not allowing ourselves to be frightened by the fear of what might happen. The objection that it is natural to be afflicted at the misfortunes of those who surround us, meets the answer that, to begin with, it is not so with every person; then, that it is part of the duty of virtue to ameliorate the common condition of human nature, and to raise it to what is more beautiful, rising above the opinions of the common people. It is indeed beautiful not to yield to what the common people usually consider to be evils. We should struggle against the blows of fortune not by affected ignoring (of difficulties, like an ostrich), but as a skilful athlete who knows that the dangers he is incurring are feared by certain natures, though a nature such as his bears them easily, seeing in them nothing terrible, or at least considering them terrifying only to children. Certainly, the wise man would not have invited these evils; but on being overtaken by them he opposes to them the virtue which renders the soul unshakable and impassible.

9. It may further be objected that the wise man might lose consciousness, if overwhelmed by disease, or the malice of magic. Would he still remain happy? Either he will remain virtuous, being only fallen asleep; in which case he might continue to be happy, since no one claims he must lose happiness because of sleep, inasmuch as no reckoning of the time spent in this condition is kept, and as he is none the less considered happy for life. On the other hand, if unconsciousness be held to terminate virtue, the question at issue is given up; for, supposing that he continues to be virtuous, the question at issue was, whether he remain happy so long as he remains virtuous. It might indeed still be objected that he cannot be happy if he remain virtuous without feeling it, without acting in conformity with virtue. Our answer is that a man would not be any less handsome or healthy for being so unconsciously. Likewise, he would not be any less wise merely for lack of consciousness thereof.

Once more it may be objected that it is essential to wisdom to be self-conscious, for happiness resides only in actualized wisdom. This objection would hold if reason and wisdom were incidentals. But if the hypostatic substance of wisdom consist in an essence (being), or rather, in being itself, and if this being do not perish during sleep, nor during unconsciousness, if consequently the activity of being continue to subsist in him; if by its very nature this (being) ceaselessly watch, then the virtuous man must even in this state (of sleep or unconsciousness), continue to exercise his activity. Besides, this activity is ignored only by one part of himself, and not by himself entirely. Thus during the operation of the actualization of growth,12 the perception of its activity is not by his sensibility transmitted to the rest of the man. If our personality were constituted by this actualization of growth, we would act simultaneously with it; but we are not this actualization, but that of the intellectual principle, and that is why we are active simultaneously with this (divine intellectual activity).

10. The reason that intelligence remains hidden is just because it is not felt; only by the means of this feeling can this activity be felt; but why should intelligence cease to act (merely because it was not felt)? On the other hand, why could the soul not have turned her activity towards intelligence before having felt or perceived it? Since (for intelligence) thinking and existence are identical, perception must have been preceded by some actualization. It seems impossible for perception to arise except when thought reflects upon itself, and when the principle whose activity constitutes the life of the soul, so to speak, turns backwards, and reflects, as the image of an object placed before a brilliant polished mirror reflects itself therein. Likewise, if the mirror be placed opposite the object, there is no more image; and if the mirror be withdrawn or badly adjusted, there is no more image, though the luminous object continue to act. Likewise, when that faculty of the soul which represents to us the images of discursive reason and of intelligence is in a suitable condition of calm, we get an intuition—that is, a somewhat sensual perception thereof—with the prior knowledge of the activity of the intelligence, and of discursive reason. When, however, this image is troubled by an agitation in the mutual harmony of the organs, the discursive reason, and the intelligence continue to act without any image, and the thought does not reflect in the imagination. Therefore we shall have to insist that thought is accompanied by an image without, nevertheless, being one itself. While we are awake, it often happens to us to perform praiseworthy things, to meditate and to act, without being conscious of these operations at the moment that we produce them. When for instance we read something, we are not necessarily self-conscious that we are reading, especially if our attention be fully centered on what we read. Neither is a brave man who is performing a courageous deed, self-conscious of his bravery. There are many other such cases. It would therefore seem that the consciousness of any deed weakens its energy, and that when the action is alone (without that consciousness) it is in a purer, livelier and more vital condition. When virtuous men are in that condition (of absence of self-consciousness), their life is more intense because it concentrates in itself instead of mingling with feeling.

11. It has sometimes been said that a man in such a condition does not really live. (If such be their honest opinion), they must be told that he does live, even if they be incapable of understanding his happiness and his life. If this seem to them incredible, they should reflect whether their own admission that such a man lives and is virtuous, does not imply that under those circumstances he is happy. Neither should they begin by supposing that he is annihilated, only later to consider whether he be happy. Neither should they confine themselves to externalities after having admitted that he turns his whole attention on things that he bears within himself; in short, not to believe that the goal of his will inheres in external objects. Indeed, such considering of external objects as the goal of the will of the virtuous man, would be tantamount to a denial of the very essence (being) of happiness; likewise, insisting that those are the objects he desires. His wish would undoubtedly be that all men should be happy, and that none of them should suffer any evil; but, nevertheless, he is none the less happy when that does not happen. Other people, again, would say that it was unreasonable for the virtuous man to form such an (impossible) wish, since elimination of evils here below is out of the question.13 This, however, would constitute an admission of our belief that the only goal of the virtuous man's will is the conversion of the soul towards herself.14

12. We grant, however, that the pleasures claimed for the virtuous man are neither those sought by debauchees, nor those enjoyed by the body. Those pleasures could not be predicated of him without degrading his felicity. Nor can we claim for him raptures of delight—for what would be their use? It is sufficient to suppose that the virtuous man tastes the pleasures attached to the presence of goods, pleasures which must consist neither in motions, nor be accidental. He enjoys the presence of those (higher) goods because he is present to himself; from that time on he lingers in a state of sweet serenity. The virtuous man, therefore, is always serene, calm, and satisfied. If he be really virtuous, his state cannot be troubled by any of the things that we call evils. Those who in the virtuous life are seeking for pleasures of another kind are actually seeking something else than the virtuous life.

13. The actions of the virtuous man could not be hindered by fortune, but they may vary with the fluctuations of fortune. All will be equally beautiful, and, perhaps, so much the more beautiful as the virtuous man will find himself placed amidst more critical circumstances. Any acts that concern contemplation, which relate to particular things, will be such that the wise man will be able to produce them, after having carefully sought and considered what he is to do. Within himself he finds the most infallible of the rules of conduct, a rule that will never fail him, even were he within the oft-discussed bull of Phalaris. It is useless for the vulgar man to repeat, even twice or thrice,15 that such a fate is sweet; for if a man were to utter those words, they are uttered by that very (animal) part that undergoes those tortures. On the contrary, in the virtuous man, the part that suffers is different from that which dwells within itself, and which, while necessarily residing within itself, is never deprived of the contemplation of the universal Good.

14. Man, and specially the virtuous man, is constituted not by the composite of soul and body,16 as is proved by the soul's power to separate herself from the body,17 and to scorn what usually are called "goods." It would be ridiculous to relate happiness to the animal part of man, since happiness consists in living well, and living well, being an actualization, belongs to the soul, exclusively. Not even does it extend to the entire soul, for happiness does not extend to that part of the soul concerned with growth, having nothing in common with the body, neither as to its size, nor its possible good condition. Nor does it depend on the perfection of the senses, because their development, as well as that of the organs, weights man down, and makes him earthy. Doing good will be made easier by establishing a sort of counter-weight, weakening the body, and taming its motions, so as to show how much the real man differs from the foreign things that (to speak as do the Stoics), surround him. However much the (earthy) common man enjoy beauty, greatness, wealth, command over other men, and earthly luxuries, he should not be envied for the deceptive pleasure he takes in all these advantages. To begin with, the wise man will probably not possess them; but if he do possess them, he will voluntarily diminish them, if he take due care of himself. By voluntary negligence he will weaken and disfigure the advantages of his body. He will abdicate from dignities. While preserving the health of his body, he will not desire to be entirely exempt from disease and sufferings. If he never experienced these evils, he will wish to make a trial of them during his youth. But when he has arrived at old age, he will no longer wish to be troubled either by pains, or pleasures, or anything sad or agreeable that relates to the body; so as not to be forced to give it his attention. He will oppose the sufferings he will have to undergo with a firmness that will never forsake him. He will not believe that his happiness is increased by pleasures, health or rest, nor destroyed nor diminished by their contraries. As the former advantages do not augment his felicity, how could their loss diminish it?

15. Let us now imagine two wise men, the first of whom possesses everything that heart can wish for, while the other is in a contrary position. Shall they be said to be equally happy? Yes, if they be equally wise. Even if the one possessed physical beauty, and all the other advantages that do not relate either to wisdom, virtue, contemplation of the good, or perfect life; what would be the use of all that since he who possesses all these advantages is not considered as really being happier than he who lacks them? Such wealth would not even help a flute-player to accomplish his object! We, however, consider the happy man only from the standpoint of the weakness of our mind, considering as serious and frightful what the really happy man considers indifferent. For the man could not be wise, nor consequently happy, so long as he has not succeeded in getting rid of all these vain ideas, so long as he has not entirely transformed himself, so long as he does not within himself contain the confidence that he is sheltered from all evil. Only then will he live without being troubled by any fear. The only thing that should affect him, would be the fear that he is not an expert in wisdom, that he is only partly wise. As to unforeseen fears that might get the better of him before he had had the time to reflect, during a moment of abstraction of attention, the wise man will hasten to turn them away, treating that which within himself becomes agitated as a child that has lost its way through pain. He will tranquilize it either by reason, or even by a threat, though uttered without passion. Thus the mere sight of a worthy person suffices to calm a child. Besides, the wise man will not hold aloof either from friendship nor gratitude. He will treat his own people as he treats himself; giving to his friends as much as to his own person; and he will give himself up to friendship, without ceasing to exercise intelligence therein.

16. If the virtuous man were not located in this elevated life of intelligence; if on the contrary he were supposed to be subject to the blows of fate, and if we feared that they would overtake him, our ideal would no longer be that of the virtuous man such as we outline it; we would be considering a vulgar man, mingled with good and evil, of whom a life equally mingled with good and evil would be predicated. Even such a man might not easily be met with, and besides, if we did meet him, he would not deserve to be called a wise man; for there would be nothing great about him, neither the dignity of wisdom, nor the purity of good. Happiness, therefore, is not located in the life of the common man. Plato rightly says that you have to leave the earth to ascend to the good, and that to become wise and happy, one should turn one's look towards the only Good, trying to acquire resemblance to Him, and to live a life conformable to Him.18 That indeed must suffice the wise man to reach his goal. To the remainder he should attach no more value than to changes of location, none of which can add to his happiness. If indeed he pay any attention to external things scattered here and there around him, it is to satisfy the needs of his body so far as he can. But as he is something entirely different from the body, he is never disturbed at having to leave it; and he will abandon it whenever nature will have indicated the time. Besides, he always reserves to himself the right to deliberate about this (time to leave the world by suicide).19 Achievement of happiness will indeed be his chief goal; nevertheless, he will also act, not only in view of his ultimate goal, or himself, but on the body to which he is united. He will care for this body, and will sustain it as long as possible. Thus a musician uses his lyre so long as he can; but as soon as it is beyond using, he repairs it, or abandons playing the lyre, because he now can do without it. Leaving it on the ground, he will look at it almost with scorn, and will sing without its accompaniment. Nevertheless it will not have been in vain that this lyre will have been originally given to him; for he will often have profited by its use.

1. When Epicurus21 derives the existence and constitution of the universe from automatism and chance, he commits an absurdity, and stultifies himself. That is self-evident, though the matter have elsewhere been thoroughly demonstrated.22 But (if the world do not owe its origin to chance) we will be compelled to furnish an adequate reason for the existence and creation of all these beings. This (teleological) question deserves the most careful consideration. Things that seem evil do indeed exist, and they do suggest doubts about universal Providence; so that some (like Epicurus23) insist there is no providence, while others (like the Gnostics24), hold that the demiurgic creator is evil. The subject, therefore, demands thorough investigation of its first principles.

Let us leave aside this individual providence, which consists in deliberating before an action, and in examining whether we should or should not do something, or whether we should give or not give it. We shall also assume the existence of the universal Providence, and from this principle we shall deduce the consequences.

We would acknowledge the existence of a particular Providence, such as we mentioned above, if we thought that the world had had a beginning of existence, and had not existed since all eternity. By this particular Providence we mean a recognition, in the divinity, of a kind of prevision and reasoning (similar to the reasoning and prevision of the artist who, before carrying out a work, deliberates on each of the parts that compose it25). We would suppose that this prevision and reasoning were necessary to determine how the universe could have been made, and on what conditions it should have been the best possible. But as we hold that the world's existence had no beginning, and that it has existed since all time, we can, in harmony with reason and our own views, affirm that universal Providence consists in this that the universe is conformed to Intelligence, and that Intelligence is prior to the universe, not indeed in time—for the existence of the Intelligence did not temporarily precede that of the universe—but (in the order of things), because, by its nature, Intelligence precedes the world that proceeds from it, of which it is the cause, type26 and model, and cause of unchanged perpetual persistence.

This is how Intelligence continues to make the world subsist. Pure Intelligence and Being in itself constitute the genuine (intelligible) World that is prior to everything, which has no extension, which is weakened by no division, which has no imperfection, even in its parts, for none of its parts are separated from its totality. This world is the universal Life and Intelligence. Its unity is both living and intelligent. In it each part reproduces the whole, its totality consists of a perfect harmony, because nothing within it is separate, independent, or isolated from anything else. Consequently, even if there were mutual opposition, there would be no struggle. Being everywhere one and perfect, the intelligible World is permanent and immutable, for it contains no internal reaction of one opposite on another. How could such a reaction take place in this world, since nothing is lacking in it? Why should Reason produce another Reason within it, and Intelligence produce another Intelligence27 merely because it was capable of doing so? If so, it would not, before having produced, have been in a perfect condition; it would produce and enter in motion because it contained something inferior.28 But blissful beings are satisfied to remain within themselves, persisting within their essence. A multiple action compromises him who acts by forcing him to issue from himself. The intelligible World is so blissful that even while doing nothing it accomplishes great things, and while remaining within itself it produces important operations.

2. The sense-world draws its existence from that intelligible World. The sense-world, however, is not really unitary; it is indeed multiple, and divided into a plurality of parts which are separated from each other, and are mutually foreign. Not love reigns there, but hate, produced by the separation of things which their state of imperfection renders mutually inimical. None of its parts suffices to itself. Preserved by something else, it is none the less an enemy of the preserving Power. The sense-world has been created, not because the divinity reflected on the necessity of creating, but because (in the nature of things) it was unavoidable that there be a nature inferior to the intelligible World, which, being perfect, could not have been the last degree of existence.29 It occupied the first rank, it had great power, that was universal and capable of creating without deliberation. If it had had to deliberate, it would not, by itself, have expressed the power of creation. It would not have possessed it essentially. It would have resembled an artisan, who, himself, does not have the power of creating, but who acquires it by learning how to work. By giving something of itself to matter, Intelligence produced everything without issuing from its rest or quietness. That which it gives is Reason, because reason is the emanation of Intelligence, an emanation that is as durable as the very existence of Intelligence. In a seminal reason all the parts exist in an united condition, without any of them struggling with another, without disagreement or hindrance. This Reason then causes something of itself to pass into the corporeal mass, where the parts are separated from each other, and hinder each other, and destroy each other. Likewise, from this unitary Intelligence, and from the Reason that proceeds thence, issues this universe whose parts are separate and distinct from each other, some of the parts being friendly and allied, while some are separate and inimical. They, therefore, destroy each other, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and through this destruction their generation is mutually operated. In such a way did the divinity arrange their actions and experiences that all concur in the formation of a single harmony,30 in which each utters its individual note because, in the whole, the Reason that dominates them produces order and harmony. The sense-world does not enjoy the perfection of Intelligence and Reason: it only participates therein. Consequently, the sense-world needed harmony, because it was formed by the concurrence of Intelligence and necessity.31 Necessity drives the sense-world to evil, and to what is irrational, because necessity itself is irrational; but Intelligence dominates necessity. The intelligible World is pure reason; none other could be such. The world, which is born of it, had to be inferior to it, and be neither pure reason, nor mere matter; for order would have been impossible in unmingled matter. The sense-world, therefore, is a mixture of matter and Reason; those are the elements of which it is composed. The principle from which this mixture proceeds, and which presides over the mixture, is the Soul. Neither must we imagine that this presiding over the mixture constitutes an effort for the Soul; for she easily administers the universe, by her presence.32

3. For not being beautiful this world should not be blamed; neither for not being the best of corporeal worlds; nor should the Cause, from which it derives its existence, be accused. To begin with, this world exists necessarily. It is not the work of a reflecting determination. It exists because a superior Being naturally begets it in His own likeness. Even if its creation were the result of reflective determination, it could not shame its author; for the divinity made the universe beautiful, complete and harmonious. Between the greater and lesser parts He introduced a fortunate accord. A person who would blame the totality of the world from consideration of its parts is therefore unjust. He should examine the parts in their relation to the totality, and see whether they be in accord and in harmony with it. Then the study of the whole should continue down to that of the least details. Otherwise criticism does not apply to the world as a whole, but only to some of its parts. For instance, we well know how admirable, as a whole, is man; yet we grant that there would be justification for criticism of a separate hair, or toe, or some of the vilest animals, or Thersites, as a specimen of humanity.

Since the work under consideration is the entire world, we would, were our intelligence attentively to listen to its voice, hear it exclaim as follows: "It is a divinity who has made Me, and from the divinity's hands I issued complete, including all animated beings, entire and self-sufficient, standing in need of nothing, since everything is contained within Me; plants, animals, the whole of Nature, the multitude of the divinities, the troupe of guardians, excellent souls, and the men who are happy because of virtue. This refers not only to the earth, which is rich in plants and animals of all kinds; the power of the Soul extends also to the sea. Nor are the air and entire heaven inanimate. They are the seat of all the excellent Souls, which communicate life to the stars, and which preside over the circular revolution of the heaven, a revolution that is eternal and full of harmony, which imitates the movement of Intelligence by the eternal and regular movement of the stars around one and the same centre, because heaven has no need to seek anything outside of itself. All the beings I contain aspire to the Good; all achieve Him, each according to its potentiality. Indeed, from the Good depends the entire heaven,33 my whole Soul, the divinities that inhabit my various parts, all the animals, all the plants, and all my apparently inanimate beings. In this aggregation of beings some seem to participate only in existence, others in life, others in sensation, others in intelligence, while still others seem to participate in all the powers of life at one time;34 for we must not expect equal faculties for unequal things, as for instance sight for the fingers, as it is suitable to the eye; while the finger needs something else; it needs its own form, and has to fulfil its function."

4. We should not be surprised at water extinguishing fire, or at fire destroying some other element. Even this element was introduced to existence by some other element, and it is not surprising that it should be destroyed, since it did not produce itself, and was introduced to existence only by the destruction of some other element (as thought Heraclitus and the Stoics35). Besides, the extinguished fire is replaced by another active fire. In the incorporeal heaven, everything is permanent; in the visible heaven, the totality, as well as the more important and the most essential parts, are eternal. The souls, on passing through different bodies, (by virtue of their disposition36), themselves change on assuming some particular form; but, when they can do so, they stand outside of generation, remaining united to the universal Soul. The bodies are alive by their form, and by the whole that each of them constitutes (by its union with a soul), since they are animals, and since they nourish themselves; for in the sense-world life is mobile, but in the intelligible world it is immobile. Immobility necessarily begat movement, self-contained life was compelled to produce other life, and calm being naturally exhaled vibrating spirit.

Mutual struggle and destruction among animals is necessary, because they are not born immortal. Their origin is due to Reason's embracing all of matter, and because this Reason possessed within itself all the things that subsist in the intelligible World. From what other source would they have arisen?

The mutual wrongs of human beings may however very easily all be caused by the desire of the Good (as had been thought by Democritus37). But, having strayed because of their inability to reach Him, they turned against each other. They are punished for it by the degradation these evil actions introduced within their souls, and, after death, they are driven into a lower place, for none can escape the Order established by the Law of the universe (or, the law of Adrastea38). Order does not, as some would think, exist because of disorder, nor law on account of lawlessness; in general, it is not the better that exists on account of the worse. On the contrary, disorder exists only on account of order, lawlessness on account of law, irrationality on account of reason, because order, law and reason, such as they are here below, are only imitations (or, borrowings). It is not that the better produced the worse, but that the things which need participation in the better are hindered therefrom, either by their nature, by accident, or by some other obstacle (as Chrysippus thought that evils happen by consequence or concomitance). Indeed, that which succeeds only in acquiring a borrowed order, may easily fail to achieve it, either because of some fault inherent in its own nature, or by some foreign obstacle. Things hinder each other unintentionally, by following different goals. Animals whose actions are free incline sometimes towards good, sometimes towards evil (as the two horses in Plato's Phaedrus).39 Doubtless, they do not begin by inclining towards evil; but as soon as there is the least deviation at the origin, the further the advance in the wrong road, the greater and more serious does the divergence become. Besides, the soul is united to a body, and from this union necessarily arises appetite. When something impresses us at first sight, or unexpectedly, and if we do not immediately repress the motion which is produced within us, we allow ourselves to be carried away by the object towards which our inclination drew us. But the punishment follows the fault, and it is not unjust that the soul that has contracted some particular nature should undergo the consequences of her disposition (by passing into a body which conforms thereto). Happiness need not be expected for those who have done nothing to deserve it. The good alone obtain it; and that is why the divinities enjoy it.

5. If then, even here below, souls enjoy the faculty of arriving at happiness, we should not accuse the constitution of the universe because some souls are not happy; the fault rather lies with their weakness, which hinders them from struggling courageously enough in the career where prizes are offered to virtue. Why indeed should we be astonished that the spirits which have not made themselves divine should not enjoy divine life? Poverty and diseases are of no importance to the good, and they are useful to the evil (as thought Theognis).40 Besides, we are necessarily subject to diseases, because we have a body. Then all these accidents are not useless for the order and existence of the universe. Indeed, when a being is dissolved into its elements, the Reason of the universe uses it to beget other beings, for the universal Reason embraces everything within its sphere of activity. Thus when the body is disorganized, and the soul is softened by her passions, then the body, overcome by sickness, and the soul, overcome by vice, are introduced into another series and order. There are things, like poverty and sickness, which benefit the persons who undergo them. Even vice contributes to the perfection of the universe, because it furnishes opportunity for the exercise of the divine justice. It serves other purposes also; for instance, it increases the vigilance of souls, and excites the mind and intelligence to avoid the paths of perdition; it also emphasizes the value of virtue by contrast with the evils that overtake the wicked. Of course, such utilities are not the cause of the existence of evils; we only mean that, since evils exist, the divinity made use of them to accomplish His purposes. It would be the characteristic of a great power to make even evils promote the fulfilment of its purposes, to cause formless things to assist in the production of forms. In short, we assert that evil is only an omission or failure of good. Now a coming short of good must necessarily exist in the beings here below, because in them good is mingled with other things; for this thing to which the good is allied differs from the good, and thus produces the lack of good. That is why "it is impossible for evil to be destroyed":41 because things are successively inferior, relatively to the nature of the absolute Good; and because, being different from the Good from which they derive their existence, they have become what they are by growing more distant from their principle.

6. It is constantly objected that fortune maltreats the good, and favors the evil in opposition to the agreement that ought to exist between virtue and happiness. The true answer to this is that no harm can happen to the righteous man, and no good to the vicious man.42 Other objectors ask why one man is exposed to what is contrary to nature, while the other obtains what conforms thereto. How can distributive justice be said to obtain in this world? If, however, the obtaining of what conforms to nature do not increase the happiness of the virtuous man, and if being exposed to what is contrary to nature do not diminish the wickedness of the vicious man, of what importance (as thought Plato43), are either of these conditions? Neither will it matter if the vicious man be handsome, or the virtuous man ugly.

Further objections assert that propriety, order and justice demand the contrary of the existing state of affairs in the world, and that we could expect no less from a Providence that was wise. Even if it were a matter of moment to virtue or vice, it is unsuitable that the wicked should be the masters, and chiefs of state, and that the good should be slaves; for a bad prince commits the worst crimes. Moreover, the wicked conquer in battles, and force their prisoners to undergo the extremities of torments. How could such facts occur if indeed a divine Providence be in control? Although indeed in the production of some work (of art), it be especially the totality that claims attention, nevertheless, the parts must also obtain their due, especially when they are animated, living and reasonable; it is just that divine Providence should extend to everything, especially inasmuch as its duty is precisely to neglect nothing. In view of these objections we shall be forced to demonstrate that really everything here below is good, if we continue to insist that the sense-world depends on supreme Intelligence, and that its power penetrates everywhere.

7. To begin with, we must remark that to show that all is good in the things mingled with matter (and therefore of sense), we must not expect to find in them the whole perfection of the World which is not soiled by matter, and is intelligible; nor should we expect to find in that which holds the second rank characteristics of that which is of the first. Since the world has a body, we must grant that this body will have influence on the totality, and expect no more than that Reason will give it that which this mixed nature was capable of receiving. For instance, if we were to contemplate the most beautiful man here below, we would be wrong in believing that he was identical with the intelligible Man, and inasmuch as he was made of flesh, muscles and bones, we would have to be satisfied with his having received from his creator all the perfection that could be communicated to him to embellish these bones, muscles and flesh, and to make the ("seminal) reason" in him predominate over the matter within him.

Granting these premises, we may start out on an explanation of the above mentioned difficulties. For in the world we will find remarkable traces of the Providence and divine Power from which it proceeds. Let us take first, the actions of souls who do evil voluntarily; the actions of the wicked who, for instance, harm virtuous men, or other men equally evil. Providence need not be held responsible for the wickedness of these souls. The cause should be sought in the voluntary determinations of those souls themselves. For we have proved that the souls have characteristic motions, and that while here below they are not pure, but rather are animals (as would naturally be the case with souls united to bodies).44 Now, it is not surprising that, finding themselves in such a condition, they would live conformably to that condition.45 Indeed, it is not the formation of the world that made them descend here below. Even before the world existed, they were already disposed to form part of it, to busy themselves with it, to infuse it with life, to administer it, and in it to exert their power in a characteristic manner, either by presiding over its (issues), and by communicating to it something of their power, or by descending into it, or by acting in respect to the world each in its individual manner.46 The latter question, however, does not refer to the subject we are now considering; here it will be sufficient to show that, however these circumstances occur, Providence is not to be blamed.

But how shall we explain the difference that is observed between the lot of the good and the evil? How can it occur that the former are poor, while others are rich, and possess more than necessary to satisfy their needs, being even powerful, and governing cities and nations? (The Gnostics and Manicheans) think that the sphere of activity of Providence does not extend down to the earth.47 No! For all of the rest (of this world) conforms to (universal) Reason, inasmuch as animals and plants participate in Reason, Life and Soul. (The Gnostic) will answer that if Providence do extend to this earth, it does not predominate therein. As the world is but a single organism, to advance such an objection is the part of somebody who would assert that the head and face of man were produced by Nature, and that reason dominated therein, while the other members were formed by other causes, such as chance or necessity, and that they were evil either on this account, or because of the importance of Nature. Wisdom and piety, however, would forbid the admission that here below not everything was well, blaming the operation of Providence.

8. It remains for us to explain how sense-objects are good and participate in the (cosmic) Order; or at least, that they are not evil. In every animal, the higher parts, such as the face and head, are the most beautiful, and are not equalled by the middle or lower parts. Now men occupy the middle and lower region of the universe. In the higher region we find the heaven containing the divinities; it is they that fill the greater part of the world, with the vast sphere where they reside. The earth occupies the centre and seems to be one of the stars. We are surprised at seeing injustice reigning here below chiefly because man is regarded as the most venerable and wisest being in the universe. Nevertheless, this being that is so wise occupies but the middle place between divinities and animals, at different times inclining towards the former or the latter. Some men resemble the divinities, and others resemble animals; but the greater part continue midway between them.

It is those men who occupy this middle place who are forced to undergo the rapine and violence of depraved men, who resemble wild beasts. Though the former are better than those whose violence they suffer, they are, nevertheless, dominated by them because of inferiority in other respects, lacking courage, or preparedness.48 It would be no more than a laughing matter if children who had strengthened their bodies by exercise, while leaving their souls inviolate in ignorance, should in physical struggle conquer those of their companions, who had exercised neither body nor soul; if they stole their food or soft clothing. No legislator could hinder the vanquished from bearing the punishment of their cowardliness and effeminacy, if, neglecting the gymnastic exercises which had been taught them, they did not, by their inertia, effeminacy and laziness, fear becoming fattened sheep fit to be the prey of wolves? They who commit this rapine and violence are punished therefor first because they thereby become wolves and noxious beasts, and later because (in this or some subsequent existence) they necessarily undergo the consequences of their evil actions (as thought Plato49). For men who here below have been evil do not die entirely (when their soul is separated from their bodies). Now in the things that are regulated by Nature and Reason, that which follows is always the result of that which precedes; evil begets evil, just as good begets good. But the arena of life differs from a gymnasium, where the struggles are only games. Therefore, the above-mentioned children which we divided into two classes, after having grown up in ignorance, must prepare to fight, and take up arms, an display more energy than in the exercises of the gymnasium. As some, however, are well armed, while the others are not, the first must inevitably triumph. The divinity must not fight for the cowardly; for the (cosmic) law decrees that in war life is saved by valor, and not by prayers.50 Nor is it by prayers that the fruits of the earth are obtained; they are produced only by labor. Nor can one have good health without taking care of it. If the evil cultivate the earth better, we should not complain of their reaping a better harvest.51 Besides, in the ordinary conduct of life, it is ridiculous to listen only to one's own caprice, doing nothing that is prescribed by the divinities, limiting oneself exclusively to demanding one's conservation, without carrying out any of the actions on which (the divinities) willed that our preservation should depend.

Indeed it would be better to be dead than to live thus in contradiction with the laws that rule the universe. If, when men are in opposition to these laws, divine Providence preserved peace in the midst of all follies and vices, it would deserve the charge of negligence in allowing the prevalence of evil. The evil rule only because of the cowardice of those who obey them; this is juster than if it were otherwise.

9. Nor should the sphere of Providence be extended to the point of suppressing our own action. For if Providence did everything, and Providence alone existed, it would thereby be annihilated. To what, indeed, would it apply? There would be nothing but divinity! It is indeed incontestable that divinity exists, and that its sphere extends over other beings—but divinity does not suppress the latter. For instance, divinity approaches man, and preserves in him what constitutes humanity; that is, divinity makes him live in conformity to the law of Providence, and makes him fulfil the commandments of that law. Now, this law decrees that the life of men who have become virtuous should be good both here below and after their death; and that the evil should meet an opposite fate. It would be unreasonable to expect the existence of men who forget themselves to come and save the evil, even if the latter addressed prayers to the divinity. Neither should we expect the divinities to renounce their blissful existence to come and administer our affairs; nor that the virtuous men, whose life is holy and superior to human conditions, should be willing to govern the wicked. The latter never busy themselves with promoting the good to the governing of other men, and themselves to be good (as thought Plato52). They are even jealous of the man who is good by himself; there would indeed be more good people if virtuous men were chosen as chiefs.

Man is therefore not the best being in the universe; according to his choice he occupies an intermediate rank. In the place he occupies, however, he is not abandoned by Providence, which ever leads him back to divine things by the numerous means it possesses to cause the triumph of virtue. That is the reason why men have never lost rationality, and why, to some degree, they always participate in wisdom, intelligence, art, and the justice that regulates their mutual relations. Even when one wrongs another, he is still given credit for acting in justice to himself, and he is treated according to his deserts.53 Besides, man, as a creature, is handsome, as handsome as possible, and, by the part he plays in the universe, he is superior to all the animals that dwell here below.

No one in his senses would complain of the existence of animals inferior to man, if, besides, they contribute towards the embellishment of the universe. Would it not be ridiculous to complain that some of them bite men, as if the latter had an imprescriptible right to complete security? The existence of these animals is necessary; it procures us advantages both evident and still unknown, but which will be revealed in the course of time. Thus there is nothing useless in animals, either in respect to themselves, or to man.54 It is, besides, ridiculous to complain because many animals are wild, when there are even men who are such; what should surprise us most is that many animals are not submissive to man, and defend themselves against him.55

10. But if men be evil only in spite of themselves, and involuntarily, it would be impossible to say that those who commit injustices, and those who suffer them are responsible (the former for their ferocity, and the latter for their cowardice.56 To this we answer that if the wickedness of the former (as well as the cowardice of the latter) be, necessarily, produced by the course of the stars, or by the action of a principle of which it is only the effect, then it is explained by physical reasons. But if it be the very Reason of the universe that produces such things, how does it not thereby commit an injustice?

Unjust actions are involuntary only in this sense that one does not have the will to commit a fault; but this circumstance does not hinder the spontaneity of the action. However, when one acts spontaneously, one is responsible for the fault; one would avoid responsibility for the fault only if one were not the author of the action. To say that the wicked are such necessarily, does not mean that they undergo an external constraint, but that their character is constituted by wickedness. The influence of the course of the stars does not destroy our liberty, for, if every action in us were determined by the exterior influence of such agents, everything would go on as these agents desired it; consequently, men would not commit any actions contrary to the will of these agents. If the divinities alone were the authors of all our actions, there would be no impious persons; therefore, impiety is due to men. It is true that, once the cause is given, the effects will follow, if only the whole series of causes be given. But man himself is one of these causes; he therefore does good by his own nature, and he is a free cause.

11. Is it true that all things are produced by necessity, and by the natural concatenation of causes and effects, and that, thus, they are as good as possible? No! It is the Reason which, governing the world, produces all things (in this sense that it contains all the "seminal reasons"), and which decrees that they shall be what they are. It is Reason that, in conformity with its rational nature, produces what are called evils, because it does not wish everything to be equally good. An artist would not cover the body of a pictured animal with eyes.57 Likewise, Reason did not limit itself to the creation of divinities; it produced beneath them guardians, then men, then animals, not by envy (as Plato remarks58); but because its rational essence contains an intellectual variety (that is, contains the "seminal reasons" of all different beings). We resemble such men as know little of painting, and who would blame an artist for having put shadows in his picture; nevertheless, he has only properly disposed the contrasts of light. Likewise, well-regulated states are not composed of equal orders. Further, one would not condemn a tragedy, because it presents personages other than heroes, such as slaves or peasants who speak incorrectly.78 To cut out these inferior personages, and all the parts in which they appear, would be to injure the beauty of the composition.59

12. Since it is the Reason (of the world) which produced all things by an alliance with matter, and by preserving its peculiar nature, which is to be composed of different parts, and to be determined by the principle from which it proceeds (that is, by Intelligence), the work produced by Reason under these conditions could not be improved in beauty. Indeed, the Reason (of the world) could not be composed of homogeneous and similar parts; it must, therefore, not be accused, because it is all things, and because all its parts differ from others. If it had introduced into the world things which it had not previously contained, as for instance, souls, and had forced them to enter into the order of the world without considering their nature, and if it had made many become degraded, Reason would certainly be to blame. Therefore, we must acknowledge that the souls are parts of Reason, and that Reason harmonizes them with the world without causing their degradation, assigning to each that station which is suitable to her.

13. There is a further consideration that should not be overlooked, namely: that if you desire to discover the exercise of the distributive Justice of the divinity, it is not sufficient to examine only the present; the past and future must also be considered. Those who, in a former life, were slave-owners, if they abused their power, will be enslaved; and this change would be useful to them. It impoverishes those who have badly used their wealth; for poverty is of service even to virtuous people. Likewise, those who kill will in their turn be killed; he who commits homicide acts unjustly, but he who is its victim suffers justly. Thus arises a harmony between the disposition of the man who is maltreated, and the disposition of him who maltreats him as he deserved. It is not by chance that a man becomes a slave, is made prisoner, or is dishonored. He (must himself) have committed the violence which he in turn undergoes. He who kills his mother will be killed by his son; he who has violated a woman will in turn become a woman in order to become the victim of a rape. Hence, the divine Word80 called Adrastea.60 The orderly system here mentioned really is "unescapeable," truly a justice and an admirable wisdom. From the things that we see in the universe we must conclude that the order which reigns in it is eternal, that it penetrates everywhere, even in the smallest thing; and that it reveals an admirable art not only in the divine things, but also in those that might be supposed to be beneath the notice of Providence, on account of their minuteness. Consequently, there is an admirable variety of art in the vilest animal. It extends even into plants, whose fruits and leaves are so distinguished by the beauty of form, whose flowers bloom with so much grace, which grow so easily, and which offer so much variety. These things were not produced once for all; they are continually produced with variety, because the stars in their courses do not always exert the same influence on things here below. What is transformed is not transformed and metamorphosed by chance, but according to the laws of beauty, and the rules of suitability observed by divine powers. Every divine Power acts according to its nature, that is, in conformity with its essence. Now its essence is to develop justice and beauty in its actualizations; for if justice and beauty did not exist here, they could not exist elsewhere.

14. The order of the universe conforms to divine Intelligence without implying that on that account its author needed to go through the process of reasoning. Nevertheless, this order is so perfect that he who best knows how to reason would be astonished to see that even with reasoning one could not discover a plan wiser than that discovered as realized in particular natures, and that this plan better conforms to the laws of Intelligence than any that could result from reasoning. It can never, therefore, be proper to find fault with the Reason that produces all things because of any (alleged imperfections) of any natural object, nor to claim, for the beings whose existence has begun, the perfection of the beings whose existence had no beginning, and which are eternal, both in the intelligible World, and in this sense-world. That would amount to wishing that every being should possess more good than it can carry, and to consider as insufficient the form it received. It would, for instance, amount to complaining, that man does not bear horns, and to fail to notice that, if Reason had to spread abroad everywhere, it was still necessary for something great to contain something less, that in everything there should be parts, and that these could not equal the whole without ceasing to be parts. In the intelligible World every thing is all; but here below each thing is not all things. The individual man does not have the same properties as the universal Man. For if the individual beings had something which was not individual, then they would be universal. We should not expect an individual being as such to possess the highest perfection; for then it would no longer be an individual being. Doubtless, the beauty of the part is not incompatible with that of the whole; for the more beautiful a part is, the more does it embellish the whole. Now the part becomes more beautiful on becoming similar to the whole, or imitating its essence, and in conforming to its order. Thus a ray (of the supreme Intelligence) descends here below upon man, and shines in him like a star in the divine sky. To imagine the universe, one should imagine a colossal statue79 that were perfectly beautiful, animated or formed by the art of Vulcan, whose ears, face and breast would be adorned with shimmering stars disposed with marvelous skill.62

15. The above considerations suffice for things studied each in itself. The mutual relation, however, between things already begotten, and those that are still being begotten from time to time, deserves to attract attention, and may give rise to some objections, such as the following: How does it happen that animals devour each other, that men attack each other mutually, and that they are always in ceaseless internecine warfare?62 How could the reason (of the universe) have constituted such a state of affairs, while still claiming that all is for the best?

It does not suffice here to answer:63 "Everything is for the best possible. Matter is the cause that things are in a state of inferiority; evils could not be destroyed." It is true enough, indeed, that things had to be what they are, for they are good. It is not matter which has come to dominate the universe; it has been introduced in it so that the universe might be what it is, or rather, it is caused by reason (?). The principle of things is, therefore, the Logos, or Reason64 (of the universe), which is everything. By it were things begotten, by it were they co-ordinated in generation.

What then (will it be objected) is the necessity of this natural internecine warfare of animals, and also of men? First, animals have to devour each other in order to renew themselves; they could not, indeed, last eternally, even if they were not killed. Is there any reason to complain because, being already condemned to death, as they are, they should find an end which is useful to other beings? What objection can there be to their mutually devouring each other, in order to be reborn under other forms? It is as if on the stage an actor who is thought to be killed, goes to change his clothing, and returns under another mask. Is it objected that he was not really dead? Yes indeed, but dying is no more than a change of bodies, just as the comedian changes his costume, or if the body were to be entirely despoiled, this is no more than when an actor, at the end of a drama, lays aside his costume, only to take it up again when once more the drama begins. Therefore, there is nothing frightful in the mutual transformation of animals into each other. Is it not better for them to have lived under this condition, than never to have lived at all? Life would then be completely absent from the universe, and life could no longer be communicated to other beings. But as this universe contains a multiple life, it produces and varies everything during the course of its existence; as it were joking with them, it never ceases to beget living beings, remarkable by beauty and by the proportion of their forms. The combats in which mortal men continually fight against each other, with a regularity strongly reminding of the Pyrrhic dances (as thought Plato65), clearly show how all these affairs, that are considered so serious, are only children's games, and that their death was nothing serious. To die early in wars and battles is to precede by only a very little time the unescapable fate of old age, and it is only an earlier departure for a closer return. We may be comforted for the loss of our possessions during our lifetime by observing that they have belonged to others before us, and that, for those who have deprived us thereof, they form but a very fragile possession, since they, in turn, will be bereft thereof by others; and that, if they be not despoiled of their riches, they will lose still more by keeping them.66 Murders, massacres, the taking and pillaging of towns should be considered as in the theatre we consider changes of scene and of personages, the tears and cries of the actors.67

In this world, indeed, just as in the theatre, it is not the soul, the interior man, but his shadow, the exterior man, who gives himself up to lamentations and groans, who on this earth moves about so much, and who makes of it the scene of an immense drama with numberless different acts (?) Such is the characteristic of the actions of a man who considers exclusively the things placed at his feet, and outside of him, and who does not know that his tears and serious occupations are any more than games.68 The really earnest man occupies himself seriously only with really serious affairs, while the frivolous man applies himself to frivolous things. Indeed, frivolous things become serious for him who does not know really serious occupations, and who himself is frivolous. If, indeed, one cannot help being mixed up in this child's play, it is just as well to know that he has fallen into child's play where one's real personality is not in question. If Socrates were to mingle in these games, it would only be his exterior man who would do so. Let us add that tears and groans do not prove that the evils we are complaining of are very real evils; for often children weep and lament over imaginary grievances.

16. If the above considerations be true, what about wickedness, injustice, and sin? For if everything be well, how can there be agents who are unjust, and who sin? If no one be unjust, or sinful, how can unhappy men exist? How can we say that certain things conform to nature, while others are contrary thereto, if everything that is begotten, or that occurs, conforms to nature? Last, would that point of view not do away entirely with impiety towards the divinity, if it be the divinity that makes things such as they are, if the divinity resemble a poet, who would in his drama introduce a character whose business it was to ridicule and criticize the author?

Let us, therefore, more clearly define the Reason (of the universe), and let us demonstrate that it should be what it is. To reach our conclusion more quickly, let us grant the existence of this Reason. This Reason (of the universe) is not pure, absolute Intelligence. Neither is it the pure Soul, but it depends therefrom. It is a ray of light that springs both from Intelligence and from the Soul united to Intelligence. These two principles beget Reason, that is, a rational quiet life.69 Now all life is an actualization, even that which occupies the lowest rank. But the actualization (which constitutes the life of Reason) is not similar to the actualization of fire. The actualization of the life (peculiar to Reason), even without feeling, is not a blind movement. All things that enjoy the presence of Reason, and which participate therein in any manner soever, immediately receive a rational disposition, that is, a form; for the actualization which constitutes the life (of the Reason) can impart its forms, and for that actualization motion is to form beings. Its movement, like that of a dancer, is, therefore, full of art. A dancer, indeed, gives us the image of that life full of art; it is the art that moves it, because the art itself is its life. All this is said to explain the nature of life, whatever it be.

As reason proceeds from Intelligence and Life, which possesses both fulness and unity, Reason does not possess the unity and fulness of Intelligence and Life. Consequently, Reason does not communicate the totality and universality of its essence to the beings to which it imparts itself. It, therefore, opposes its parts to each other, and creates them defective; whereby, Reason constitutes and begets war and struggle. Thus Reason is the universal unity, because it could not be the absolute unity. Though reason imply struggle, because it consists of parts, it also implies unity and harmony. It resembles the reason of a drama, whose unity contains many diversities. In a drama, however, the harmony of the whole results from its component contraries being co-ordinated in the unity of action, while, in universal Reason, it is from unity that the struggle of contraries arises. That is why we may well compare universal Reason to the harmony formed by contrary sounds, and to examine why the reasons of the beings also contain contraries. In a concert, these reasons produce low and high sounds, and, by virtue of the harmony, that constitutes their essence, they make these divers sounds contribute to unity, that is, to Harmony70 itself, the supreme Reason of which they are only parts.71 In the same way we must consider other oppositions in the universe, such as black and white, heat and cold, winged or walking animals, and reasonable and irrational beings. All these things are parts of the single universal Organism. Now if the parts of the universal Organism were often in mutual disagreement, the universal Organism, nevertheless, remains in perfect accord with itself because it is universal, and it is universal by the Reason that inheres in it. The unity of this Reason must therefore be composed of opposite reasons, because their very opposition somehow constitutes its essence. If the Reason (of the world) were not multiple, it would no longer be universal, and would not even exist any longer. Since it exists, Reason must, therefore, contain within itself some difference; and the greatest difference is opposition. Now if Reason contain a difference, and produce different things, the difference that exists in these things is greater than that which exists in Reason. Now difference carried to the highest degree is opposition. Therefore, to be perfect, Reason must from its very essence produce things not only different, but even opposed.

17. If Reason thus from its essence produce opposed things, the things it will produce will be so much the more opposed as they are more separated from each other. The sense-world is less unitary than its Reason, and consequently, it is more manifold, containing more oppositions. Thus, in individuals, the love of life has greater force; selfishness is more powerful in them; and often, by their avidity, they destroy what they love, when they love what is perishable. The love which each individual has for himself, makes him appropriate all he can in his relations with the universe. Thus the good and evil are led to do opposite things by the Art that governs the universe; just as a choric ballet would be directed. One part is good, the other poor; but the whole is good. It might be objected that in this case no evil person will be left. Still, nothing hinders the existence of the evil; only they will not be such as they would be taken by themselves. Besides, this will be a motive of leniency in regard to them, unless Reason should decide that this leniency be not deserved, thereby making it impossible.72

Besides, if this world contain both bad and good people, and if the latter play the greater part in the world, there will take place that which is seen in dramas where the poet, at times, imposes his ideas on the actors, and again at others relies on their ingenuity. The obtaining of the first, second or third rank by an actor does not depend on the poet. The poet only assigns to each the part he is capable of filling, and assigns to him a suitable place. Likewise (in the world), each one occupies his assigned place, and the bad man, as well as the good one, has the place that suits him. Each one, according to his nature and character, comes to occupy the place that suits him, and that he had chosen, and then speaks and acts with piety if he be good, and impiously, if he be evil. Before the beginning of the drama, the actors already had their proper characters; they only developed it. In dramas composed by men, it is the poet who assigns their parts to the actors; and the latter are responsible only for the efficiency or inefficiency of their acting; for they have nothing to do but repeat the words of the poet. But in this drama (of life), of which men imitate certain parts when their nature is poetic, it is the soul that is the actor. This actor receives his part from the creator, as stage-actors receive from the poet their masks, garments, their purple robe, or their rags. Thus in the drama of the world it is not from chance that the soul receives her part.

Indeed, the fate of a soul conforms to her character, and, by going through with her part properly, the soul fulfils her part in the drama managed by universal Reason. The soul sings her part, that is, she does that which is in her nature to do. If her voice and features be beautiful, by themselves, they lend charm to the poem, as would be natural. Otherwise they introduce a displeasing element, but which does not alter the nature of the work.73 The author of the drama reprimands the bad actor as the latter may deserve it, and thus fulfils the part of a good judge. He increases the dignity of the good actor, and, if possible, invites him to play beautiful pieces, while he relegates the bad actor to inferior pieces. Likewise, the soul which takes part in the drama of which the world is the theatre, and which has undertaken a part in it, brings with her a disposition to play well or badly. At her arrival she is classed with the other actors, and after having been allotted to all the various gifts of fortune without any regard for her personality or activities, she is later punished or rewarded. Such actors have something beyond usual actors; they appear on a greater scene; the creator of the universe gives them some of his power, and grants them the freedom to choose between a great number of places. The punishments and rewards are so determined that the souls themselves run to meet them, because each soul occupies a place in conformity with her character, and is thus in harmony with the Reason of the universe.74

Every individual, therefore, occupies, according to justice, the place he deserves, just as each string of the lyre is fixed to the place assigned to it by the nature of the sounds it is to render. In the universe everything is good and beautiful if every being occupy the place he deserves, if, for instance, he utter discordant sounds when in darkness and Tartarus; for such sounds fit that place. If the universe is to be beautiful, the individual must not behave "like a stone" in it; he must contribute to the unity of the universal harmony by uttering the sound suitable to him (as thought Epictetus75). The sound that the individual utters is the life he leads, a life which is inferior in greatness, goodness and power (to that of the universe). The shepherd's pipe utters several sounds, and the weakest of them, nevertheless, contributes to the total Harmony, because this harmony is composed of unequal sounds whose totality constitutes a perfect harmony. Likewise, universal Reason though one, contains unequal parts. Consequently, the universe contains different places, some better, and some worse, and their inequality corresponds to the inequality of the soul. Indeed, as both places and souls are different, the souls that are different find the places that are unequal, like the unequal parts of the pipe, or any other musical instrument. They inhabit different places, and each utters sounds proper to the place where they are, and to the universe. Thus what is bad for the individual may be good for the totality; what is against nature in the individual agrees with the nature in the whole. A sound that is feeble does not change the harmony of the universe, as—to use another example—one bad citizen does not change the nature of a well-regulated city; for often there is need of such a man in a city; he therefore fits it well.

18. The difference that exists between souls in respect to vice and virtue has several causes; among others, the inequality that exists between souls from the very beginning. This inequality conforms to the essence of universal Reason, of which they are unequal parts, because they differ from each other. We must indeed remember that souls have three ranks (the intellectual, rational, and sense lives), and that the same soul does not always exercise the same faculties. But, to explain our meaning, let us return to our former illustration. Let us imagine actors who utter words not written by the poet; as if the drama were incomplete, they themselves supply what is lacking, and fill omissions made by the poet. They seem less like actors than like parts of the poet, who foresaw what they were to say, so as to reattach the remainder so far as it was in his power.76 In the universe, indeed, all things that are the consequences and results of bad deeds are produced by reasons, and conform to the universal Reason. Thus, from an illicit union, or from a rape, may be born natural children that may become very distinguished men; likewise, from cities destroyed by perverse individuals, may rise other flourishing cities.

It might indeed be objected that it is absurd to introduce into the world souls some of which do good, and others evil; for when we absolve universal Reason from the responsibility of evil, we are also simultaneously taking from it the merit for the good. What, however, hinders us from considering deeds done by actors as parts of a drama, in the universe as well as on the stage, and thus to derive from universal Reason both the good and the evil that are done here below? For universal Reason exercises its influence on each of the actors with so much the greater force as the drama is more perfect, and as everything depends on it.77

But why should we at all impute evil deeds to universal Reason? The souls contained in the universe will not be any more divine for that. They will still remain parts of the universal Reason (and consequently, remain souls): for we shall have to acknowledge that all reasons are souls. Otherwise if the Reason of the universe be a Soul, why should certain "reasons" be souls, and others only ("seminal) reasons"?

1. The question (why some reasons are souls, while others are reasons merely, when at the same time universal Reason is a certain Soul), may be answered as follows. Universal Reason (which proceeds from the universal Soul) embraces both good and bad things, which equally belong to its parts; it does not engender them, but exists with them in its universality. In fact, these "logoses" (or reasons) (or, particular souls), are the acts of the universal Soul; and these reasons being parts (of the universal Soul) have parts (of the operations) as their acts (or energies). Therefore, just as the universal Soul, which is one, has different parts, so this difference occurs again in the reasons and in the operations they effect. Just as their works (harmonize), so do the souls themselves mutually harmonize; they harmonize in this, that their very diversity, or even opposition, forms an unity. By a natural necessity does everything proceed from, and return to unity; thus creatures which are different, or even opposed, are not any the less co-ordinated in the same system, and that because they proceed from the same principle. Thus horses or human beings are subsumed under the unity of the animal species, even though animals of any kind, such as horses, for example, bite each other, and struggle against each other with a jealousy which rises to fury; and though animals of either species, including man, do as much. Likewise, with inanimate things; they form divers species, and should likewise be subsumed under the genus of inanimate things; and, if you go further, to essence, and further still, to super-Essence (the One). Having thus related or subsumed everything to this principle, let us again descend, by dividing it. We shall see unity splitting, as it penetrates and embraces everything simultaneously in a unique (or all-embracing system). Thus divided, the unity constitutes a multiple organism; each of its constituent parts acts according to its nature, without ceasing to form part of the universal Being; thus is it that the fire burns, the horse behaves as a horse should, and men perform deeds as various as their characters. In short, every being acts, lives well or badly, according to its own nature.

2. Circumstances, therefore, are not decisive of human fortune; they themselves only derive naturally from superior principles, and result from the mutual concatenation of all things. This concatenation, however, derives from the (Stoic) "predominant (element in the universe"), and every being contributes to it according to its nature; just as, in an army, the general commands, and the soldiers carry out his orders cooperatively. In the universe, in fact, everything has been strategically ordered by Providence, like a general, who considers everything, both actions and experiences,81 victuals and drink, weapons and implements, arranging everything so that every detail finds its suitable location. Thus nothing happens which fails to enter into the general's plan, although his opponents' doings remain foreign to his influence, and though he cannot command their army. If indeed, Providence were82 "the great Chief over all," to whom the universe is subordinated, what could have disarranged His plans, and could have failed to be intimately associated therewith?

3. Although I am able to make any desired decision, nevertheless my decision enters into the plan of the universe, because my nature has not been introduced into this plan subsequently; but it includes me and my character. But whence originates my character? This includes two points: is the cause of any man's character to be located in Him who formed him, or in that man himself? Must we, on the other hand, give up seeking its cause? Surely: just as it is hopeless to ask why plants have no sensation, or why animals are not men; it would be the same as asking why men are not gods. Why should we complain that men do not have a more perfect nature, if in the case of plants and animals nobody questions or accuses either these beings themselves, nor the power which has made them? (This would be senseless, for two reasons): if we say that they might have been better, we are either speaking of the qualities which each of them is capable of acquiring by himself; and in this case we should blame only him who has not acquired them—or, we are speaking of those qualities which he should derive not from himself, but from the Creator, in which case it would be as absurd to claim for man more qualities than he has received, than it would be to do so in the case of plants or animals. What we should examine is not if one being be inferior to another, but if it be complete within its own sphere; for evidently natural inequalities are unavoidable. This again depends on conformity to nature, not that inequalities depend on the will of the principle which has regulated all things.

The Reason of the Universe, indeed, proceeds from the universal Soul; and the latter, in turn, proceeds from Intelligence. Intelligence, however, is not a particular being; it consists of all (intelligible beings),83 and all the beings form a plurality. Now, a plurality of being implies mutual differences between them, consisting of first, second and third ranks. Consequently, the souls of engendered animals are rather degradations of souls, seeming to have grown weaker by their procession. The (generating) reason of the animal, indeed, although it be animated, is a soul other than that from which proceeds universal Reason. This Reason itself loses excellence in the degree that it hastens down to enter into matter, and what it produces is less perfect. Nevertheless, we may well consider how admirable a work is the creature, although it be so far distant from the creator. We should, therefore, not attribute to the creator the (imperfections of the) creature; for any principle is superior to its product. So we may assert that (the principle even of imperfect things) is perfect; and, (instead of complaining), we should rather admire His communication of some traits of His power to beings dependent from Him. We have even reason to be more than grateful for His having given gifts greater than they can receive or assimilate; and as the gifts of Providence are superabundant, we can find the cause (of imperfection) only in the creatures themselves.

4. If man were simple—that is, if he were no more than what he had been created, and if all his actions and passions derived from the same principle—we would no more exercise our reason to complain for his behoof than we have to complain for that of other animals. But we do have something to blame in the man, and that in the perverted man. We have good grounds for this blame, because man is not only that which he was created, but has, besides, another principle which is free (intelligence, with reason). This free principle, however, is not outside of Providence, and the Reason of the universe, any more than it would be reasonable to suppose that the things above depended on the things here below. On the contrary, it is superior things which shed their radiance on inferior ones, and this is the cause of the perfection of Providence. As to the Reason of the universe, it itself is double also; one produces things, while the other unites generated things to intelligible ones. Thus are constituted two providences: a superior one, from above (intellectual Reason, the principal power of the soul84), and an inferior one, the (natural and generative power, called) reason, which derives from the first; and from both results the concatenation of things, and universal Providence (or, Providence, and destiny).

Men (therefore, not being only what they were made) possess another principle (free intelligence with reason); but not all make use of all the principles they possess; some make use of the one principle (their intelligence), while others make use of the other (principle of reason), or even of the lower principle (of imagination and sensation).85 All these principles are present in the man, even when they do not react on him; and even in this case, they are not inert; each fulfils its peculiar office; only they do not all act simultaneously upon him (or, are not perceived by his consciousness). It may seem difficult to understand how this may be the case with all of them present, and it might seem easier to consider them absent; but they are present in us, in the sense that we lack none of them; although we might consider them absent in the sense that a principle that does not react on a man might be considered absent from him. It might be asked why these principles do not react on all men, since they are part of them? We might, referring chiefly to this (free, intelligent, reasonable) principle, say that first, it does not belong to animals; second, it is not even (practiced) by all men. If it be not present in all men, so much the more is it not alone in them, because the being in whom this principle alone is present lives according to this principle, and lives according to other principles only so far as he is compelled by necessity. The cause (which hinders intelligence and reason from dominating us) will have to be sought in the (Stoic) substrate of the man, either because our corporeal constitution troubles the superior principle (of reason and intelligence), or because of the predominance of our passions.

(After all), we have not yet reached any conclusion, because this substrate of man is composed of two elements: the ("seminal) reason,"86 and matter; (and either of them might be the cause). At first blush, it would seem that the cause (of the predominance of our lower natures) must be sought in matter, rather than in the ("seminal) reason"; and that which dominates in us is not ("seminal) reason," but matter and organized substrate. This, however, is not the case. What plays the part of substrate in respect of the superior principle (of free intelligence and reason), is both the ("seminal) reason," and that which is generated thereby, conforming to that reason; consequently, the predominant element in us is not matter, any more than our corporeal constitution.

Besides, our individual characters might be derived from pre-existences. In this case we would say that our ("seminal) reason" has degenerated as a result of our antecedents, that our soul has lost her force by irradiating what was below her. Besides, our ("seminal) reason" contains within itself the very reason of our constituent matter, a matter which it discovered, or conformed to its own nature.87 In fact, the ("seminal) reason" of an ox resides in no matter other than that of an ox. Thus, as said (Plato88), the soul finds herself destined to pass into the bodies of animals other than men, because, just like the ("seminal) reason," she has altered, and has become such as to animate an ox, instead of a man. By this decree of divine justice she becomes still worse than she was.

But why did the soul ever lose her way, or deteriorate? We have often said that not all souls belong to the first rank; some belong to a second, or even third rank, and who, consequently, are inferior to those of the first. Further, leaving the right road may be caused by a trifling divergence. Third, the approximation of two differing things produces a combination which may be considered a third somewhat, different from the other two components. (Thus even in this new element, or "habituation") the being does not lose the qualities he received with his existence; if he be inferior, he has been created inferior from the very origin; it is what he was created, he is inferior by the very virtue of his nature; if he suffer the consequences thereof, he suffers them justly. Fourth, we must allow for our anterior existence, because everything that happens to us to-day results from our antecedents.

5. From first to last Providence descends from on high, communicating its gifts not according to the law of an equality that would be numeric, but proportionate, varying its operations according to locality (or occasion). So, in the organization of an animal, from beginning to end, everything is related; every member has its peculiar function, superior or inferior, according to the rank it occupies; it has also its peculiar passions, passions which are in harmony with its nature, and the place it occupies in the system of things. So, for instance, a blow excites responses that differ according to the organ that received it; the vocal organ will produce a sound; another organ will suffer in silence, or execute a movement resultant from that passion; now, all sounds, actions and passions form in the animal the unity of sound, life and existence.89 The parts, being various, play different roles; thus there are differing functions for the feet, the eyes, discursive reason, and intelligence. But all things form one unity, relating to a single Providence, so that destiny governs what is below, and providence reigns alone in what is on high. In fact, all that lies in the intelligible world is either rational or super-rational, namely: Intelligence and pure Soul. What derives therefrom constitutes Providence, as far as it derives therefrom, as it is in pure Soul, and thence passes into the animals. Thence arises (universal) Reason, which, being distributed in unequal parts, produces things unequal, such as the members of an animal. As consequences from Providence are derived the human deeds which are agreeable to the divinity. All such actions are related (to the plan of Providence); they are not done by Providence; but when a man, or another animate or inanimate being performs some deeds, these, if there be any good in them, enter into the plan of Providence, which everywhere establishes virtue, and amends or corrects errors. Thus does every animal maintain its bodily health by the kind of providence within him; on the occasion of a cut or wound the ("seminal) reason" which administers the body of this animal immediately draws (the tissues) together, and forms scars over the flesh, re-establishes health, and invigorates the members that have suffered.

Consequently, our evils are the consequences (of our actions); they are its necessary effects, not that we are carried away by Providence, but in the sense that we obey an impulsion whose principle is in ourselves. We ourselves then indeed try to reattach our acts to the plan of Providence, but we cannot conform their consequences to its will; our acts, therefore, conform either to our will, or to other things in the universe, which, acting on us, do not produce in us an affection conformed to the intentions of Providence. In fact, the same cause does not act identically on different beings, for the effects experienced by each differ according to their nature. Thus Helena causes emotions in Paris which differ from those of Idumeneus.90 Likewise, the handsome man produces on a handsome man an effect different from that of the intemperate man on the intemperate; the handsome and temperate man acts differently on the handsome and temperate man than on the intemperate; and than the intemperate on himself. The deed done by the intemperate man is done neither by Providence, nor according to Providence.91 Neither is the deed done by the temperate man done by Providence; since he does it himself; but it conforms to Providence, because it conforms to the Reason (of the universe). Thus, when a man has done something good for his health, it is he himself who has done it, but he thereby conforms to the reason of the physician; for it is the physician who teaches him, by means of his art, what things are healthy or unhealthy; but when a man has done something injurious to his health, it is he himself who has done it, and he does it against the providence of the physician.

6. If then (the bad things do not conform to Providence), the diviners and astrologers predict evil things only by the concatenation which occurs between contraries, between form and matter, for instance, in a composite being. Thus in contemplating the form and ("seminal) reason" one is really contemplating the being which receives the form; for one does not contemplate in the same way the intelligible animal, and the composite animal; what one contemplates in the composite animal is the ("seminal) reason" which gives form to what is inferior. Therefore, since the world is an animal, when one contemplates its occurrences, one is really contemplating the causes that make them arise, the Providence which presides over them, and whose action extends in an orderly manner to all beings and events; that is, to all animals, their actions and dispositions, which are dominated by Reason and mingled with necessity. We thus contemplate what has been mingled since the beginning, and what is still continually mingled. In this mixture, consequently, it is impossible to distinguish Providence from what conforms thereto, nor what derives from the substrate (that is, from matter, and which, consequently, is deformed, and evil). This is not a human task, not even of a man who might be wise or divine; such a privilege can be ascribed only to God.

In fact, the function of the diviner is not to distinguish the cause, but the fact; his art consists in reading the characters traced by nature, and which invariably indicate the order and concatenation of facts; or rather, in studying the signs of the universal movement, which designate the character of each being before its revelation in himself. All beings, in fact, exercise upon each other a reciprocal influence, and concur together in the constitution and perpetuity of the world.92 To him who studies, analogy reveals the march of events, because all kinds of divination are founded on its laws; for things were not to depend on each other, but to have relations founded on their resemblance.93 This no doubt is that which94 is meant by the expression that "analogy embraces everything."

Now, what is this analogy? It is a relation between the worse and the worse, the better and the better, one eye and the other, one foot and the other, virtue and justice, vice and injustice. The analogy which reigns in the universe is then that which makes divination possible. The influence which one being exercises on another conforms to the laws of influence which the members of the universal Organism must exercise upon each other. The one does not produce the other; for all are generated together; but each is affected according to its nature, each in its own manner. This constitutes the unity of the Reason of the universe.

7. It is only because there are good things in the world, that there are worse ones. Granting the conception of variety, how could the worse exist without the better, or the better without the worse? We should not, therefore, accuse the better because of the existence of the worse; but rather we should rejoice in the presence of the better, because it communicates a little of its perfection to the worse. To wish to annihilate the worse in the world is tantamount to annihilating Providence itself;95 for if we annihilate the worse, to what could Providence be applied? Neither to itself, nor to the better; for when we speak of supreme Providence, we call it supreme in contrast with that which is inferior to it.

Indeed, the (supreme) Principle is that to which all other things relate, that in which they all simultaneously exist, thus constituting the totality. All things proceed from the Principle, while it remains wrapt in itself. Thus, from a single root, which remains wrapt in itself, issue a host of parts, each of which offers the image of their root under a different form. Some of them touch the root; others trend away from it, dividing and subdividing down to the branches, twigs, leaves and fruits; some abide permanently (like the branches); others swirl in a perpetual flux, like the leaves and fruits. These latter parts which swirl in a perpetual flux contain within themselves the ("seminal) reasons" of the parts from which they proceed (and which abide permanently); they themselves seem disposed to be little miniature trees; if they engendered before perishing, they would engender only that which is nearest to them. As to the parts (which abide permanently), and which are hollow, such as the branches, they receive from the root the sap which is to fill them; for they have a nature different (from that of the leaves, flowers, and fruits). Consequently, it is the branches' extremities that experience "passions" (or modifications) which they seem to derive only from the contiguous parts. The parts contiguous to the Root are passive on one end, and active on the other; but the Principle itself is related to all. Although all the parts issue from the same Principle,96 yet they differ from each other more as they are more distant from the root. Such would be the mutual relations of two brothers who resemble each other because they are born from the same parents.

1. Must thought, and self-consciousness imply being composed of different parts, and on their mutual contemplation? Must that which is absolutely simple be unable to turn towards itself, to know itself? ls it, on the contrary, possible that for that which is not composite to know itself? Self-consciousness, indeed, does not necessarily result from a thing's knowing itself because it is composite, and that one of its parts grasps the other; as, for instance, by sensation we perceive the form and nature of our body. In this case the whole will not be known, unless the part that knows the others to which it is united also knows itself; otherwise, we would find the knowledge of one entity, through another, instead of one entity through itself.

While, therefore, asserting that a simple principle does know itself, we must examine into the possibility of this.98 Otherwise, we would have to give up hope of real self-knowledge. But to resign this would imply many absurdities; for if it be absurd to deny that the soul possesses self-knowledge, it would be still more absurd to deny it of intelligence. How could intelligence have knowledge of other beings, if it did not possess the knowledge and science of itself? Indeed, exterior things are perceived by sensation, and even, if you insist, by discursive reason and opinion; but not by intelligence. It is indeed worth examining whether intelligence does, or does not have knowledge of such external things. Evidently, intelligible entities are known by intelligence. Does intelligence limit itself to knowledge of these entities, or does it, while knowing intelligible entities, also know itself? In this case, does it know that it knows only intelligible entities, without being able to know what itself is? While knowing that it knows what belongs to it, is it unable to know what itself, the knower, is? Or can it at the same time know what belongs to it, and also know itself? Then how does this knowledge operate, and how far does it go? This is what we must examine.

2. Let us begin by a consideration of the soul. Does she possess self-consciousness? By what faculty? And how does she acquire it? It is natural for the sense-power to deal only with exterior objects; for even in the case in which it feels occurrences in the body, it is still perceiving things that are external to it, since it perceives passions experienced by the body over which it presides.99

Besides the above, the soul possesses the discursive reason, which judges of sense-representations, combining and dividing them. Under the form of images, she also considers the conceptions received from intelligence, and operates on these images as on images furnished by sensation. Finally, she still is the power of understanding, since she distinguishes the new images from the old, and harmonizes them by comparing them; whence, indeed, our reminiscences are derived.

That is the limit of the intellectual power of the soul. Is it, besides, capable of turning upon itself, and cognizing itself, or must this knowledge be sought for only within intelligence? If we assign this knowledge to the intellectual part of the soul; we will be making an intelligence out of it; and we will then have to study in what it differs from the superior Intelligence. If again, we refuse this knowledge to this part of the soul, we will, by reason, rise to Intelligence, and we will have to examine the nature of self-consciousness. Further, if we attribute this knowledge both to the inferior and to the superior intelligences, we shall have to distinguish self-consciousness according as it belongs to the one or to the other; for if there were no difference between these two kinds of intelligence, discursive reason would be identical with pure Intelligence. Does discursive reason, therefore, turn upon itself? Or does it limit itself to the comprehension of the types received from both (sense and intelligence); and, in the latter case, how does it achieve such comprehension? This latter question is the one to be examined here.

3. Now let us suppose that the senses have perceived a man, and have furnished an appropriate image thereof to discursive reason. What will the latter say? It may say nothing, limiting itself to taking notice of him. However, it may also ask itself who this man is; and, having already met him, with the aid of memory, decide that he is Socrates. If then discursive reason develop the image of Socrates, then it divides what imagination has furnished. If discursive reason add that Socrates is good, it still deals with things known by the senses; but that which it asserts thereof, namely, his goodness, it has drawn from itself, because within itself it possesses the rule of goodness. But how does it, within itself, possess goodness? Because it conforms to the Good, and receives the notion of it from the Intelligence that enlightens itself; for (discursive reason), this part of the soul, is pure, and receives impressions from Intelligence.101

But why should this whole (soul-) part that is superior to sensation be assigned to the soul rather than to intelligence? Because the power of the soul consists in reasoning, and because all these operations belong to the discursive reason. But why can we not simply assign to it, in addition, self-consciousness, which would immediately clear up this inquiry? Because the nature of discursive reason consists in considering exterior things, and in scrutinizing their diversity, while to intelligence we attribute the privilege of contemplating itself, and of contemplating its own contents. But what hinders discursive reason, by some other faculty of the soul, from considering what belongs to it? Because, in this case, instead of discursive reason and reasoning, we would have pure Intelligence. But what then hinders the presence of pure Intelligence within the soul? Nothing, indeed. Shall we then have a right to say that pure Intelligence is a part of the soul? No indeed; but still we would have the right to call it "ours." It is different from, and higher than discursive reason; and still it is "ours," although we cannot count it among the parts of the soul. In one respect it is "ours," and in another, is not "ours;" for at times we make use of it, and at other times we make use of discursive reason; consequently, intelligence is "ours" when we make use of it; and it is not "ours" when we do not make use of it. But what is the meaning of "making use of intelligence"? Does it mean becoming intelligence, and speaking in that character, or does it mean speaking in conformity with intelligence? For we are not intelligence; we speak in conformity with intelligence by the first part of discursive reason, the part that receives impressions from Intelligence. We feel through sensation, and it is we who feel. Is it also we who conceive and who simultaneously are conceived? Or is it we who reason, and who conceive the intellectual notions which enlighten discursive reason? We are indeed essentially constituted by discursive reason. The actualizations of Intelligence are superior to us, while those of sensation are inferior; as to us, "we" are the principal part of the soul, the part that forms a middle power between these two extremes, now lowering ourselves towards sensation, now rising towards Intelligence.102 We acknowledge sensibility to be ours because we are continually feeling. It is not as evident that intelligence is ours, because we do not make use of it continuously, and because it is separated, in this sense, that it is not intelligence that inclines towards us, but rather we who raise our glances towards intelligence. Sensation is our messenger, Intelligence is our king.99

4. We ourselves are kings when we think in conformity with intelligence. This, however, can take place in two ways. Either we have received from intelligence the impressions and rules which are, as it were, engraved within us, so that we are, so to speak, filled with intelligence; or we can have the perception and intuition of it, because it is present with us. When we see intelligence, we recognize that by contemplation of it we ourselves are grasping other intelligible entities. This may occur in two ways; either because, by the help of this very power, we grasp the power which cognizes intelligible entities; or because we ourselves become intelligence. The man who thus knows himself is double. Either he knows discursive reason, which is characteristic of the soul, or, rising to a superior condition, he cognizes himself and is united with intelligence. Then, by intelligence, that man thinks himself; no more indeed as being man, but as having become superior to man, as having been transported into the intelligible Reason, and drawing thither with himself the best part of the soul, the one which alone is capable of taking flight towards thought, and of receiving the fund of knowledge resulting from his intuition. But does discursive reason not know that it is discursive reason, and that its domain is the comprehension of external objects? Does it not, while doing so, know that it judges? Does it not know that it is judging by means of the rules derived from intelligence, which itself contains? Does it not know that above it is a principle which possesses intelligible entities, instead of seeking (merely) to know them? But what would this faculty be if it did not know what it is, and what its functions are? It knows, therefore, that it depends on intelligence, that it is inferior to intelligence, and that it is the image of intelligence, that it contains the rules of intelligence as it were engraved within itself, such as intelligence engraves them, or rather, has engraved them on it.

Will he who thus knows himself content himself therewith? Surely not. Exercising a further faculty, we will have the intuition of the intelligence that knows itself; or, seizing it, inasmuch as it is "ours" and we are "its," we will thus cognize intelligence, and know ourselves. This is necessary for our knowledge of what, within intelligence, self-consciousness is. The man becomes intelligence when, abandoning his other faculties, he by intelligence sees Intelligence, and he sees himself in the same manner that Intelligence sees itself.

5. Does pure Intelligence know itself by contemplating one of its parts by means of another part? Then one part will be the subject, and another part will be the object of contemplation; intelligence will not know itself. It may be objected that if intelligence be a whole composed of absolutely similar parts, so that the subject and the object of contemplation will not differ from each other; then, by the virtue of this similitude, on seeing one of its parts with which it is identical, intelligence will see itself; for, in this case, the subject does not differ from the object. To begin with, it is absurd to suppose that intelligence is divided into several parts. How, indeed, would such a division be carried out? Not by chance, surely. Who will carry it out? Will it be the subject or object? Then, how would the subject know itself if, in contemplation, it located itself in the object, since contemplation does not belong to that which is the object? Will it know itself as object rather than as subject? In that case it will not know itself completely and in its totality (as subject and object); for what it sees is the object, and not the subject of contemplation; it sees not itself, but another. In order to attain complete knowledge of itself it will, besides, have to see itself as subject; now, if it see itself as subject, it will, at the same time, have to see the contemplated things. But is it the (Stoic104) "types" (or impressions) of things, or the things themselves, that are contained in the actualization of contemplation? If it be these impressions, we do not possess the things themselves. If we do possess these things, it is not because we separate ourselves (into subject and object). Before dividing ourselves in this way, we already saw and possessed these things. Consequently, contemplation must be identical with that which is contemplated, and intelligence must be identical with the intelligible. Without this identity, we will never possess the truth. Instead of possessing realities, we will never possess any more than their impressions, which will differ from the realities; consequently, this will not be the truth. Truth, therefore, must not differ from its object; it must be what it asserts.

On one hand, therefore, intelligence, and on the other the intelligible and existence form but one and the same thing, namely, the primary existence and primary Intelligence, which possesses realities, or rather, which is identical with them. But if the thought-object and the thought together form but a single entity, how will the thinking object thus be able to think itself? Evidently thought will embrace the intelligible, or will be identical therewith; but we still do not see how intelligence is to think itself. Here we are: thought and the intelligible fuse into one because the intelligible is an actualization and not a simple power; because life is neither alien nor incidental to it; because thought is not an accident for it, as it would be for a brute body, as for instance, for a stone; and, finally, because the intelligible is primary "being." Now, if the intelligible be an actualization, it is the primary actualization, the most perfect thought, or, "substantial thought." Now, as this thought is supremely true, as it is primary Thought, as it possesses existence in the highest degree, it is primary Intelligence. It is not, therefore, mere potential intelligence; there is no need to distinguish within it the potentiality from the actualization of thought; otherwise, its substantiality would be merely potential. Now since intelligence is an actualization, and as its "being" also is an actualization, it must fuse with its actualization. But existence and the intelligible also fuse with their actualization. Therefore105 intelligence, the intelligible, and thought will form but one and the same entity. Since the thought of the intelligible is the intelligible, and as the intelligible is intelligence, intelligence will thus think itself. Intelligence will think, by the actualization of the thought to which it is identical, the intelligible to which it also is identical. It will think itself, so far as it is thought; and in so far as it is the intelligible which it thinks by the thought to which it is identical.106

6. Reason, therefore, demonstrates that there is a principle which must essentially know itself. But this self-consciousness is more perfect in intelligence than in the soul. The soul knows herself in so far as she knows that she depends on another power; while intelligence, by merely turning towards itself, naturally cognizes its existence and "being." By contemplating realities, it contemplates itself; this contemplation is an actualization, and this actualization is intelligence; for intelligence and thought107 form but a single entity. The entire intelligence sees itself entire, instead of seeing one of its parts by another of its parts. Is it in the nature of intelligence, such as reason conceives of it, to produce within us a simple conviction? No. Intelligence necessarily implies (certitude), and not mere persuasion; for necessity is characteristic of intelligence, while persuasion is characteristic of the soul. Here below, it is true, we rather seek to be persuaded, than to see truth by pure Intelligence. When we were in the superior region, satisfied with intelligence, we used to think, and to contemplate the intelligible, reducing everything to unity. It was Intelligence which thought and spoke about itself; the soul rested, and allowed Intelligence free scope to act. But since we have descended here below, we seek to produce persuasion in the soul, because we wish to contemplate the model in its image.

We must, therefore, teach our soul how Intelligence contemplates itself. This has to be taught to that part of our soul which, because of its intellectual character, we call reason, or discursive intelligence, to indicate that it is a kind of intelligence, that it possesses its power by intelligence, and that it derives it from intelligence. This part of the soul must, therefore, know that it knows what it sees, that it knows what it expresses, and that, if it were identical with what it describes, it would thereby know itself. But since intelligible entities come to it from the same principle from which it itself comes, since it is a reason, and as it receives from intelligence entities that are kindred, by comparing them with the traces of intelligence it contains, it must know itself. This image it contains must, therefore, be raised to true Intelligence, which is identical with the true intelligible entities, that is, to the primary and really true Beings; for it is impossible that this intelligence should originate from itself. If then intelligence remain in itself and with itself, if it be what it is (in its nature) to be, that is, intelligence—for intelligence can never be unintelligent—it must contain within it the knowledge of itself, since it does not issue from itself, and since its function and its "being" (or, true nature) consist in being no more than intelligence.106 It is not an intelligence that devotes itself to practical action, obliged to consider what is external to it, and to issue from itself to become cognizant of exterior things; for it is not necessary that an intelligence which devotes itself to action should know itself. As it does not give itself to action—for, being pure, it has nothing to desire—it operates a conversion towards itself, by virtue of which it is not only probable, but even necessary for it to know itself. Otherwise, what would its life consist of, inasmuch as it does not devote itself to action, and as it remains within itself?

7. It may be objected that the Intelligence contemplates the divinity. If, however, it be granted, that the Intelligence knows the divinity, one is thereby forced to admit that it also knows itself; for it will know what it derives from the divinity, what it has received from Him, and what it still may hope to receive from Him. By knowing this, it will know itself, since it is one of the entities given by the divinity; or rather, since it is all that is given by the divinity. If then, it know the divinity, it knows also the powers of the divinity, it knows that itself proceeds from the divinity, and that itself derives its powers from the divinity. If Intelligence cannot have a clear intuition of the divinity, because the subject and object of an intuition must be the same, this will turn out to be a reason why Intelligence will know itself, and will see itself, since seeing is being what is seen. What else indeed could we attribute to Intelligence? Rest, for instance? For Intelligence, rest does not consist in being removed from itself, but rather to act without being disturbed by anything that is alien. The things that are not troubled by anything alien need only to produce their own actualization, especially when they are in actualization, and not merely potential. That which is in actualization, and which cannot be in actualization for anything foreign, must be in actualization for itself. When thinking itself, Intelligence remains turned towards itself, referring its actualization to itself. If anything proceed from it, it is precisely because it remains turned towards itself that it remains in itself. It had, indeed, to apply itself to itself, before applying itself to anything else, or producing something else that resembled it; thus fire must first be fire in itself, and be fire in actualization, in order later to impart some traces of its nature to other things. Intelligence, in itself, therefore, is an actualization. The soul, on turning herself towards Intelligence, remains within herself; on issuing from Intelligence, the soul turns towards external things. On turning towards Intelligence, she becomes similar to the power from which she proceeds; on issuing from Intelligence, she becomes different from herself. Nevertheless, she still preserves some resemblance to Intelligence, both in her activity and productiveness. When active, the soul still contemplates Intelligence; when productive, the soul produces forms, which resemble distant thoughts, and are traces of thought and Intelligence, traces that conform to their archetype; and which reveal a faithful imitation thereof, or which, at least, still preserve a weakened image thereof, even if they do occupy only the last rank of beings.

8. What qualities does Intelligence display in the intelligible world? What qualities does it discover in itself by contemplation? To begin with, we must not form of Intelligence a conception showing a figure, or colors, like bodies. Intelligence existed before bodies. The "seminal reasons" which produce figure and color are not identical with them; for "seminal reasons" are invisible. So much the more are intelligible entities invisible; their nature is identical with that of the principles in which they reside, just as "seminal reasons" are identical with the soul that contains them. But the soul does not see the entities she contains, because she has not begotten them; even she herself, just like the "reasons," is no more than an image (of Intelligence). The principle from which she comes possesses an evident existence, that is genuine, and primary; consequently, that principle exists of and in itself. But this image (which is in the soul) is not even permanent unless it belong to something else, and reside therein. Indeed, the characteristic of an image is that it resides in something else, since it belongs to something else, unless it remain attached to its principle. Consequently, this image does not contemplate, because it does not possess a light that is sufficient; and even if it should contemplate, as it finds its perfection in something else, it would be contemplating something else, instead of contemplating itself. The same case does not obtain in Intelligence; there the contemplated entity and contemplation co-exist, and are identical. Who is it, therefore, that declares the nature of the intelligible? The power that contemplates it, namely, Intelligence itself. Here below our eyes see the light because our vision itself is light, or rather because it is united to light; for it is the colors that our vision beholds. On the contrary, Intelligence does not see through something else, but through itself, because what it sees is not outside of itself. It sees a light with another light, and not by another light; it, is therefore, a light that sees another; and, consequently, it sees itself. This light, on shining in the soul, illuminates her; that is, intellectualizes her; assimilates her to the superior light (namely, in Intelligence). If, by the ray with which this light enlightens the soul, we judge of the nature of this light and conceive of it as still greater, more beautiful, and more brilliant, we will indeed be approaching Intelligence and the intelligible world; for, by enlightening the soul, Intelligence imparts to her a clearer life. This life is not generative, because Intelligence converts the soul towards Intelligence; and, instead of allowing the soul to divide, causes the soul to love the splendor with which she is shining. Neither is this life one of the senses, for though the senses apply themselves to what is exterior, they do not, on that account, learn anything beyond (themselves). He who sees that superior light of the verities sees much better things that are visible, though in a different manner. It remains, therefore, that the Intelligence imparts to the soul the intellectual life, which is a trace of her own life; for Intelligence possesses the realities. It is in the life and the actualization which are characteristic of Intelligence that here consists the primary Light, which from the beginning,108 illumines itself, which reflects on itself, because it is simultaneously enlightener and enlightened; it is also the true intelligible entity, because it is also at the same time thinker and thought. It sees itself by itself, without having need of anything else; it sees itself in an absolute manner, because, within it, the known is identical with the knower. It is not otherwise in us; it is by Intelligence that we know intelligence. Otherwise, how could we speak of it? How could we say that it was capable of clearly grasping itself, and that, by it, we understand ourselves? How could we, by these reasonings, to Intelligence reduce our soul which recognizes that it is the image of Intelligence, which considers its life a faithful imitation of the life of Intelligence, which thinks that, when it thinks, it assumes an intellectual and divine form? Should one wish to know which is this Intelligence that is perfect, universal and primary, which knows itself essentially, the soul has to be reduced to Intelligence; or, at least, the soul has to recognize that the actualization by which the soul conceives the entities of which the soul has the reminiscence is derived from Intelligence. Only by placing herself in that condition, does the soul become able to demonstrate that inasmuch as she is the image of Intelligence she, the soul, can by herself, see it; that is, by those of her powers which most exactly resemble Intelligence (namely, by pure thought); which resembles Intelligence in the degree that a part of the soul can be assimilated to it.

9. We must, therefore, contemplate the soul and her divinest part in order to discover the nature of Intelligence. This is how we may accomplish it: From man, that is from yourself, strip off the body; then that power of the soul that fashions the body; then sensation, appetite, and anger, and all the lower passions that incline you towards the earth. What then remains of the soul is what we call the "image of intelligence," an image that radiates from Intelligence, as from the immense globe of the sun radiates the surrounding luminary sphere. Of course, we would not say that all the light that radiates from the sun remains within itself around the sun; only a part of this light remains around the sun from which it emanates; another part, spreading by relays, descends to us on the earth. But we consider light, even that which surrounds the sun, as located in something else, so as not to be forced to consider the whole space between the sun and us as empty of all bodies. On the contrary, the soul is a light which remains attached to Intelligence, and she is not located in any space because Intelligence itself is not spatially located. While the light of the sun is in the air, on the contrary the soul, in the state in which we consider her here, is so pure that she can be seen in herself by herself, and by any other soul that is in the same condition. The soul needs to reason, in order to conceive of the nature of Intelligence according to her own nature; but Intelligence conceives of itself without reasoning because it is always present to itself. We, on the contrary, are present both to ourselves and to Intelligence when we turn towards it, because our life is divided into several lives. On the contrary, Intelligence has no need of any other life, nor of anything else; what Intelligence gives is not given to itself, but to other things; neither does Intelligence have any need of what is inferior to it; nor could Intelligence give itself anything inferior, since Intelligence possesses all things; instead of possessing in itself the primary images of things (as in the case of the soul), Intelligence is these things themselves.

If one should find himself unable to rise immediately to pure thought, which is the highest, or first, part of the soul, he may begin by opinion, and from it rise to Intelligence. If even opinion be out of the reach of his ability, he may begin with sensation, which already represents general forms; for sensation which contains the forms potentially may possess them even in actualization. If, on the contrary, the best he can do is to descend, let him descend to the generative power, and to the things it produces; then, from the last forms, one may rise again to the higher forms, and so on to the primary forms.

10. But enough of this. If the (forms) contained by Intelligence are not created forms—otherwise the forms contained in us would no longer, as they should, occupy the lowest rank—if these forms in intelligence really be creative and primary, then either these creative forms and the creative principle fuse into one single entity, or intelligence needs some other principle. But does the transcendent Principle, that is superior to Intelligence (the One), itself also need some other further principle? No, because it is only Intelligence that stands in need of such an one. Does the Principle superior to Intelligence (the transcendent One) not see Himself? No. He does not need to see Himself. This we shall study elsewhere.

Let us now return to our most important problem. Intelligence needs to contemplate itself, or rather, it continually possesses this contemplation. It first sees that it is manifold, and then that it implies a difference, and further, that it needs to contemplate, to contemplate the intelligible, and that its very essence is to contemplate. Indeed, every contemplation implies an object; otherwise, it is empty. To make contemplation possible there must be more than an unity; contemplation must be applied to an object, and this object must be manifold; for what is simple has no object on which it could apply its action, and silently remains withdrawn in its solitude. Action implies some sort of difference. Otherwise, to what would action apply itself? What would be its object? The active principle, must, therefore, direct its action on something else than itself, or must itself be manifold to direct its action on itself. If, indeed, it direct its action on nothing, it will be at rest; and if at rest, it will not be thinking. The thinking principle, therefore, when thinking, implies duality. Whether the two terms be one exterior to the other, or united, thought always implies both identity and difference. In general, intelligible entities must simultaneously be identical with Intelligence, and different from Intelligence. Besides, each of them must also contain within itself identity and difference. Otherwise, if the intelligible does not contain any diversity, what would be the object of thought? If you insist that each intelligible entity resembles a ("seminal) reason," it must be manifold. Every intelligible entity, therefore, knows itself to be a compound, and many-colored eye. If intelligence applied itself to something single and absolutely simple, it could not think. What would it say? What would it understand? If the indivisible asserted itself it ought first to assert what it is not; and so, in order to be single it would have to be manifold. If it said, "I am this," and if it did not assert that "this" was different from itself, it would be uttering untruth. If it asserted it as an accident of itself, it would assert of itself a multitude. If it says, "I am; I am; myself; myself;" then neither these two things will be simple, and each of them will be able to say, "me;" or there will be manifoldness, and, consequently, a difference; and, consequently, number and diversity. The thinking subject must, therefore, contain a difference, just as the object thought must also reveal a diversity, because it is divided by thought. Otherwise, there will be no other thought of the intelligible, but a kind of touch, of unspeakable and inconceivable contact, prior to intelligence, since intelligence is not yet supposed to exist, and as the possessor of this contact does not think. The thinking subject, therefore, must not remain simple, especially, when it thinks itself; it must split itself, even were the comprehension of itself silent. Last, that which is simple (the One) has no need of occupying itself with itself. What would it learn by thinking? Is it not what it is before thinking itself? Besides, knowledge implies that some one desires, that some one seeks, and that some one finds. That which does not within itself contain any difference, when turned towards itself, rests without seeking anything within itself; but that which develops, is manifold.

11. Intelligence, therefore, becomes manifold when it wishes to think the Principle superior to it. By wishing to grasp Him in his simplicity, it abandons this simplicity, because it continues to receive within itself this differentiated and multiplied nature. It was not yet Intelligence when it issued from Unity; it found itself in the state of sight when not yet actualized. When emanating from Unity, it contained already what made it manifold. It vaguely aspired to an object other than itself, while simultaneously containing a representation of this object. It thus contained something that it made manifold; for it contained a sort of impress produced by the contemplation (of the One); otherwise it would not receive the One within itself. Thus Intelligence, on being born of Unity, became manifold, and as it possessed knowledge, it contemplated itself. It then became actualized sight. Intelligence is really intelligence only when it possesses its object, and when it possesses it as intelligence. Formerly, it was only an aspiration, only an indistinct vision. On applying itself to the One, and grasping the One, it becomes intelligence. Now its receptivity to Unity is continuous, and it is continuously intelligence, "being," thought, from the very moment it begins to think. Before that, it is not yet thought, since it does not possess the intelligible, and is not yet Intelligence, since it does not think.

That which is above these things is their principle, without being inherent in them. The principle from which these things proceed cannot be inherent in them; that is true only of the elements that constitute them. The principle from which all things proceed (the One) is not any of them; it differs from all of them. The One, therefore, is not any of them; it differs from all of them. The One, therefore, is not any of the things of the universe: He precedes all these things, and consequently, He precedes Intelligence, since the latter embraces all things in its universality. On the other hand, as the things that are posterior to Unity are universal, and as Unity thus is anterior to universal things, it cannot be any one of them. Therefore, it should not be called either intelligence or good, if by "good" you mean any object comprised within the universe; this name suits it only, if it indicate that it is anterior to everything. If Intelligence be intelligence only because it is manifold; if thought, though found within Intelligence, be similarly manifold, then the First, the Principle that is absolutely simple, will be above Intelligence; for if He think, He would be Intelligence; and if He be Intelligence, He would be manifold.

12. It may be objected, that nothing would hinder the existence of manifoldness in the actualization of the First, so long as the "being," or nature, remain unitary. That principle would not be rendered composite by any number of actualizations. This is not the case for two reasons. Either these actualizations are distinct from its nature ("being"), and the First would pass from potentiality to actuality; in which case, without doubt, the First is not manifold, but His nature would not become perfect without actualization. Or the nature ("being") is, within Him identical to His actualization; in which case, as the actualization is manifold, the nature would be such also. Now we do indeed grant that Intelligence is manifold, since it thinks itself; but we could not grant that the Principle of all things should also be manifold. Unity must exist before the manifold, the reason of whose existence is found in unity; for unity precedes all number. It may be objected that this is true enough for numbers which follow unity, because they are composite; but what is the need of a unitary principle from which manifoldness should proceed when referring (not to numerals, but) to beings? This need is that, without the One, all things would be in a dispersed condition, and their combinations would be no more than a chaos.

Another objection is, that from an intelligence that is simple, manifold actualizations can surely proceed. This then admits the existence of something simple before the actualizations. Later, as these actualizations become permanent, they form hypostatic forms of existence. Being such, they will have to differ from the Principle from which they proceed, since the Principle remains simple, and that which is born of it must in itself be manifold, and be dependent thereon. Even if these actualizations exist only because the Principle acted a single time, this already constitutes manifoldness. Though these actualizations be the first ones, if they constitute second-rank (nature), the first rank will belong to the Principle that precedes these actualizations; this Principle abides in itself, while these actualizations constitute that which is of second rank, and is composed of actualizations. The First differs from the actualizations He begets, because He begets them without activity; otherwise, Intelligence would not be the first actualization. Nor should we think that the One first desired to beget Intelligence, and later begat it, so that this desire was an intermediary between the generating principle and the generated entity. The One could not have desired anything; for if He had desired anything, He would have been imperfect, since He would not yet have possessed what He desired. Nor could we suppose that the One lacked anything; for there was nothing towards which He could have moved. Therefore, the hypostatic form of existence which is beneath Him received existence from Him, without ceasing to persist in its own condition. Therefore, if there is to be a hypostatic form of existence beneath Him He must have remained within Himself in perfect tranquility; otherwise, He would have initiated movement; and we would have to conceive of a movement before the first movement, a thought before the first thought, and its first actualization would be imperfect, consisting in no more than a mere tendency. But towards what can the first actualization of the One tend, and attain, if, according to the dictates of reason, we conceive of that actualization originating from Him as light emanates from the sun? This actualization, therefore, will have to be considered as a light that embraces the whole intelligible world; at the summit of which we shall have to posit, and over whose throne we shall have to conceive the rule of the immovable One, without separating Him from the Light that radiates from Him. Otherwise, above this Light we would have to posit another one, which, while remaining immovable, should enlighten the intelligible. Indeed the actualization that emanates from the One, without being separated from Him, nevertheless, differs from Him. Neither is its nature non-essential, or blind; it, therefore, contemplates itself, and knows itself; it is, consequently, the first knowing principle. As the One is above Intelligence, it is also above consciousness; as it needs nothing, neither has it any need of knowing anything. Cognition (or, consciousness), therefore, belongs only to the second-rank nature. Consciousness is only an individual unity, while the One is absolute unity; indeed individual unity is not absolute Unity, because the absolute is (or, "in and for itself"), precedes the ("somehow determined," or) individual.

13. This Principle, therefore, is really indescribable. We are individualizing it in any statement about it. That which is above everything, even above the venerable Intelligence, really has no name, and all that we can state about Him is, that He is not anything. Nor can He be given any name, since we cannot assert anything about Him. We refer to Him only as best we can. In our uncertainty we say, "What does He not feel? is He not self-conscious? does He not know Himself?" Then we must reflect that by speaking thus we are thinking of things, that are opposed to Him of whom we are now thinking. When we suppose that He can be known, or that He possesses self-consciousness, we are already making Him manifold. Were we to attribute to Him thought, it would appear that He needed this thought. If we imagine thought as being within Him, thought seems to be superfluous. For of what does thought consist? Of the consciousness of the totality formed by the two terms that contribute to the act of thought, and which fuse therein. That is thinking oneself, and thinking oneself is real thinking; for each of the two elements of thought is itself an unity to which nothing is lacking. On the contrary, the thought of objects exterior (to Intelligence) is not perfect, and is not true thought. That which is supremely simple and supremely absolute stands in need of nothing. The absolute that occupies the second rank needs itself, and, consequently, needs to think itself. Indeed, since Intelligence needs something relatively to itself, it succeeds in satisfying this need, and consequently, in being absolute, only by possessing itself entirely. It suffices itself only by uniting all the elements constituting its nature ("being"), only by dwelling within itself, only by remaining turned towards itself while thinking; for consciousness is the sensation of manifoldness, as is indicated by the etymology of the word "con-scious-ness," or, "conscience." If supreme Thought occur by the conversion of Intelligence towards itself, it evidently is manifold. Even if it said no more than "I am existence," Intelligence would say it as if making a discovery, and Intelligence would be right, because existence is manifold. Even though it should apply itself to something simple, and should say, "I am existence," this would not imply successful grasp of itself or existence. Indeed, when Intelligence speaks of existence in conformity with reality, intelligence does not speak of it as of a stone, but, merely, in a single word expresses something manifold. The existence that really and essentially deserves the name of existence, instead of having of it only a trace which would not be existence, and which would be only an image of it, such existence is a multiple entity. Will not each one of the elements of this multiple entity be thought? No doubt you will not be able to think it if you take it alone and separated from the others; but existence itself is in itself something manifold. Whatever object you name, it possesses existence. Consequently, He who is supremely simple cannot think Himself; if He did, He would be somewhere, (which is not the case). Therefore He does not think, and He cannot be grasped by thought.

14. How then do we speak of Him? Because we can assert something about Him, though we cannot express Him by speech. We could not know Him, nor grasp Him by thought. How then do we speak of Him, if we cannot grasp Him? Because though He does escape our knowledge, He does not escape us completely. We grasp Him enough to assert something about Him without expressing Him himself, to say what He is not, without saying what He is; that is why in speaking of Him we use terms that are suitable to designate only lower things. Besides we can embrace Him without being capable of expressing Him, like men who, transported by a divine enthusiasm, feel that they contain something superior without being able to account for it. They speak of what agitates them, and they thus have some feeling of Him who moves them, though they differ therefrom. Such is our relation with Him; when we rise to Him by using our pure intelligence, we feel that He is the foundation of our intelligence, the principle that furnishes "being" and other things of the kind; we feel that He is better, greater, and more elevated than we, because He is superior to reason, to intelligence, and to the senses, because He gives these things without being what they are.

15. How does He give them? Is it because He possesses them, or because He does not possess them? If it be because He does not possess them, how does He give what He does not possess? If it be because He does possess them, He is no longer simple. If He give what He does not possess, how is multiplicity born of Him? It would seem as if only one single thing could proceed from Him, unity; and even so one might wonder how anything whatever could be born of that which is absolutely one. We answer, in the same way as from a light radiates a luminous sphere (or, fulguration109). But how can the manifold be born from the One? Because the thing that proceeds from Him must not be equal to Him, and so much the less, superior; for what is superior to unity, or better than Him? It must, therefore, be inferior to Him, and, consequently, be less perfect. Now it cannot be less perfect, except on condition of being less unitary, that is, more manifold. But as it must aspire to unity, it will be the "manifold one." It is by that which is single that that which is not single is preserved, and is what it is; for that which is not one, though composite, cannot receive the name of existence. If it be possible to say what each thing is, it is only because it is one and identical. What is not manifold is not one by participation, but is absolute unity; it does not derive its unity from any other principle; on the contrary it is the principle to which other things owe that they are more or less single, according as they are more or less close to it. Since the characteristic of that which is nearest to unity is identity, and is posterior to unity, evidently the manifoldness contained therein, must be the totality of things that are single. For since manifoldness is therein united with manifoldness, it does not contain parts separated from each other, and all subsist together. Each of the things, that proceed therefrom, are manifold unity, because they cannot be universal unity. Universal unity is characteristic only of their principle (the intelligible Being), because itself proceeds from a great Principle which is one, essentially, and genuinely. That which, by its exuberant fruitfulness, begets, is all; on the other hand, as this totality participates in unity, it is single; and, consequently, it is single totality (universal unity).

We have seen that existence is "all these things;" now, what are they? All those of which the One is the principle. But how can the One be the principle of all things? Because the One preserves their existence while effecting the individuality of each of them. Is it also because He gives them existence? And if so, does He do so by possessing them? In this case, the One would be manifold. No, it is by containing them without any distinction yet having arisen among them. On the contrary, in the second principle they are distinguished by reason; that is, they are logically distinguished, because this second principle is an actualization, while the first Principle is the power-potentiality107 of all things; not in the sense in which we say that matter is potential in that it receives, or suffers, but in the opposite sense that the One produces. How then can the One produce what it does not possess, since unity produces that neither by chance nor by reflection? We have already said that what proceeds from unity must differ from it; and, consequently, cannot be absolutely one; that it must be duality, and, consequently, multitude, since it will contain (the categories, such as) identity, and difference, quality, and so forth.110 We have demonstrated that that which is born of the One is not absolutely one. It now remains for us to inquire whether it will be manifold, such as it is seen to be in what proceeds from the One. We shall also have to consider why it necessarily proceeds from the One.

16. We have shown elsewhere that something must follow the One, and that the One is a power, and is inexhaustible; and this is so, because even the last-rank entities possess the power of begetting. For the present we may notice that the generation of things reveals a descending procession, in which, the further we go, the more does manifoldness increase; and that the principle is always simpler than the things it produces.111 Therefore, that which has produced the sense world is not the sense-world itself, but Intelligence and the intelligible world; and that which has begotten Intelligence and the intelligible world is neither Intelligence nor the intelligible world, but something simpler than them. Manifoldness is not born of manifoldness, but of something that is not manifold. If That which was superior to Intelligence were manifold, it would no longer be the (supreme) Principle, and we would have to ascend further. Everything must, therefore, be reduced to that which is essentially one, which is outside of all manifoldness; and whose simplicity is the greatest possible. But how can manifold and universal Reason be born of the One, when very evidently the One is not a reason? As it is not a reason, how can it beget Reason? How can the Good beget a hypostatic form of existence, which would be good in form? What does this hypostatic form of existence possess? Is it identity? But what is the relation between identity and goodness? Because as soon as we possess the Good, we seek identity and permanence; and because the Good is the principle from which we must not separate; for if it were not the Good, it would be better to give it up. We must, therefore, wish to remain united to the Good. Since that is the most desirable for Intelligence, it need seek nothing beyond, and its permanence indicates its satisfaction with the entities it possesses. Enjoying, as it does, their presence in a manner such that it fuses with them, it must then consider life as the most precious entity of all. As Intelligence possesses life in its universality and fulness, this life is the fulness and universality of the Soul and Intelligence. Intelligence, therefore, is self-sufficient, and desires nothing; it contains what it would have desired if it had not already possessed such desirable object. It possesses the good that consists in life and intelligence, as we have said, or in some one of the connected entities. If Life and Intelligence were the absolute Good, there would be nothing above them. But if the absolute Good be above them, the good of Intelligence is this Life, which relates to the absolute Good, which connects with it, which receives existence from it, and rises towards it, because it is its principle. The Good, therefore, must be superior to Life and Intelligence. On this condition only does the life of Intelligence, the image of Him from whom all life proceeds, turn towards Him; on this condition only does Intelligence, the imitation of the contents of the One, whatever be His nature, turn towards Him.

17. What better thing is there then than this supremely wise Life, exempt from all fault or error? What is there better than the Intelligence that embraces everything? In one word, what is there better than universal Life and universal Intelligence? If we answer that what is better than these things is the Principle that begat them, if we content ourselves with explaining how it begat them, and to show that one cannot discover anything better, we shall, instead of progressing in this discussion, ever remain at the same point. Nevertheless, we need to rise higher. We are particularly obliged to do this, when we consider that the principle that we seek must be considered as the "Self-sufficient supremely independent of all things;" for no entity is able to be self-sufficient, and all have participated in the One; and since they have done so, none of them can be the One. Which then is this principle in which all participate, which makes Intelligence exist, and is all things? Since it makes Intelligence exist, and since it is all things, since it makes its contained manifoldness self-sufficient by the presence of unity, and since it is thus the creative principle of "being" and self-sufficiency, it must, instead of being "being," be super-"being" and super-existence.

Have we said enough, and can we stop here? Or does our soul still feel the pains of parturition? Let her, therefore, produce (activity), rushing towards the One, driven by the pains that agitate her. No, let us rather seek to calm her by some magic charm, if any remedy therefor exist. But to charm the soul, it may perhaps be sufficient to repeat what we have already said. To what other charm, indeed, would it suffice to have recourse? Rising above all the truths in which we participate, this enchantment evanesces the moment we speak, or even think. For, in order to express something, discursive reason is obliged to go from one thing to another, and successively to run through every element of its object. Now what can be successively scrutinized in that which is absolutely simple? It is, therefore, sufficient to reach Him by a sort of intellectual contact. Now at the moment of touching the One, we should neither be able to say anything about Him, nor have the leisure to speak of Him; only later is it possible to argue about Him. We should believe that we have seen Him when a sudden light has enlightened the soul; for this light comes from Him, and is Himself. We should believe that He is present when, as another (lower) divinity, He illumines the house of him who calls on this divinity,112 for it remains obscure without the illumination of the divinity. The soul, therefore, is without light when she is deprived of the presence of this divinity, when illumined by this divinity, she has what she sought. The true purpose of the soul is to be in contact with this light, to see this light in the radiance of this light itself, without the assistance of any foreign light, to see this principle by the help of which she sees. Indeed, it is the principle by which she is enlightened that she must contemplate as one gazes at the sun only through its own light. But how shall we succeed in this? By cutting off everything else.113

1. Is Love a divinity, a guardian, or a passion of the human soul? Or is it all three under different points of view? In this case, what is it under each of these points of view? These are the questions we are to consider, consulting the opinions of men, but chiefly those of the philosophers. The divine Plato, who has written much about love, here deserves particular attention. He says that it is not only a passion capable of being born in souls, but he calls it also a guardian, and he gives many details about its birth and parents.115

To begin with passion, it is a matter of common knowledge that the passion designated as love is born in the souls which desire to unite themselves to a beautiful object. But its object may be either a shameful practice, or one (worthy to be pursued by) temperate men, who are familiar with beauty. We must, therefore, investigate in a philosophical manner what is the origin of both kinds of love.

The real cause of love is fourfold: the desire of beauty; our soul's innate notion of beauty; our soul's affinity with beauty, and our soul's instinctive sentiment of this affinity.116 (Therefore as beauty lies at the root of love, so) ugliness is contrary to nature and divinity. In fact, when Nature wants to create, she contemplates what is beautiful, determinate, and comprehended within the (Pythagorean) "sphere" of the Good. On the contrary, the (Pythagorean) "indeterminate"115 is ugly, and belongs to the other system.117 Besides, Nature herself owes her origin to the Good, and, therefore, also to the Beautiful. Now, as soon as one is attracted by an object, because one is united to it by a secret affinity, he experiences for the images of this object a sentiment of sympathy. We could not explain its origin, or assign its cause on any other hypothesis, even were we to limit ourselves to the consideration of physical love. Even this kind of love is a desire to procreate beauty,118 for it would be absurd to insist that that Nature, which aspires to create beautiful things, should aspire to procreate that which is ugly.

Of course, those who, here below, desire to procreate are satisfied in attaining that which is beautiful here below: namely, the beauty which shines in images and bodies; for they do not possess that intelligible Beauty which, nevertheless, inspires them with that very love which they bear to visible beauty. That is the reason why those who ascend to the reminiscence of intelligible Beauty love that which they behold here below only because it is an image of the other.119 As to those who fail to rise to the reminiscence of the intelligible Beauty, because they do not know the cause of their passion, they mistake visible beauty for that veritable Beauty, and they may even love it chastely, if they be temperate: but to go as far as a carnal union is an error, in any case. Hence, it happens that only he who is inspired by a pure love for the beautiful really loves beauty, whether or not he have aroused his reminiscence of intelligible Beauty.

They who join to this passion as much of a desire for immortality as our mortal nature admits, seek beauty in the perpetuity of the procreation which renders man imperishable. They determine to procreate and produce beauty according to nature; procreating because their object is perpetuity; and procreating beautifully because they possess affinity with it. In fact, perpetuity does bear affinity to beauty; perpetual nature is beauty itself; and such also are all its derivatives.

Thus he who does not desire to procreate seems to aspire to the possession of the beautiful in a higher degree. He who desires to procreate does no doubt desire to procreate the beautiful; but his desire indicates in him the presence of need, and dissatisfaction with mere possession of beauty; He thinks he will be procreating beauty, if he begets on that which is beautiful. They who wish to satisfy physical love against human laws, and nature, no doubt have a natural inclination as principle of a triple passion; but they lose their way straying from the right road for lack of knowledge of the end to which love was impelling them, of the goal of the aspiration (roused by) the desire of generation, and of the proper use of the image of beauty.120 They really do ignore Beauty itself. They who love beautiful bodies without desiring to unite themselves to them, love them for their beauty only. Those who love the beauty of women, and desire union with them, love both beauty and perpetuity, so long as this object is not lost from sight. Both of these are temperate, but they who love bodies for their beauty only are the more virtuous. The former admire sensual beauty, and are content therewith; the latter recall intelligible beauty, but, without scorning visible beauty, regard it as an effect and image of the intelligible Beauty.121 Both, therefore, love beauty without ever needing to blush. But, as to those (who violate laws human and divine), love of beauty misleads them to falling into ugliness; for the desire of good may often mislead to a fall into evil. Such is love considered as a passion of the soul.

2. Now let us speak of the Love which is considered a deity not only by men in general, but also by the (Orphic) theologians, and by Plato. The latter often speaks of Love, son of Venus, attributing to him the mission of being the chief of the beautiful children (or, boys); and to direct souls to the contemplation of intelligible Beauty, or, if already present, to intensify the instinct to seek it. In his "Banquet" Plato says that Love is born (not of Venus, but) of Abundance and Need,122 ... on some birthday (?) of Venus.

To explain if Love be born of Venus, or if he were only born contemporaneously with his mother, we shall have to study something about Venus. What is Venus? Is she the mother of Love, or only his contemporary? As answer hereto we shall observe that there are two Venuses.123 The second (or Popular Venus) is daughter of Jupiter and Dione, and she presides over earthly marriages. The first Venus, the celestial one, daughter of Uranus (by Plato, in his Cratylus, interpreted to mean "contemplation of things above"), has no mother, and does not preside over marriages, for the reason that there are none in heaven. The Celestial Venus, therefore, daughter of Kronos,124 that is, of Intelligence, is the divine Soul, which is born pure of pure Intelligence, and which dwells above.125 As her nature does not admit of inclining earthward, she neither can nor will descend here below. She is, therefore, a form of existence (or, an hypostasis), separated from matter, not participating in its nature. This is the significance of the allegory that she had no mother. Rather than a guardian, therefore, she should be considered a deity, as she is pure Being unmingled (with matter), and abiding within herself.

In fact, that which is immediately born of Intelligence is pure in itself, because, by its very proximity to Intelligence, it has more innate force, desiring to unite itself firmly to the principle that begat it, and which can retain it there on high. The soul which is thus suspended to Intelligence could not fall down, any more than the light which shines around the sun could separate from the body from which it radiates, and to which it is attached.

Celestial Venus (the universal Soul, the third principle or hypostasis126), therefore, attaches herself to Kronos (divine Intelligence, the second principle), or, if you prefer to Uranos (the One, the Good, the first Principle), the father of Kronos. Thus Venus turns towards Uranos, and unites herself to him; and in the act of loving him, she procreates Love, with which she contemplates Uranus. Her activity thus effects a hypostasis and being. Both of them therefore fix their gaze on Uranus, both the mother and the fair child, whose nature it is to be a hypostasis ever turned towards another beauty, an intermediary essence between the lover and the beloved object. In fact, Love is the eye by which the lover sees the beloved object; anticipating her, so to speak; and before giving her the faculty of seeing by the organ which he thus constitutes, he himself is already full of the spectacle offered to his contemplation. Though he thus anticipates her, he does not contemplate the intelligible in the same manner as she does, in that he offers her the spectacle of the intelligible, and that he himself enjoys the vision of the beautiful, a vision that passes by him (or, that coruscates around him, as an aureole).

3. We are therefore forced to acknowledge that Love is a hypostasis and is "being," which no doubt is inferior to the Being from which it (emanates, that is, from celestial Venus, or the celestial Soul), but which, nevertheless, still possesses "being." In fact, that celestial Soul is a being born of the activity which is superior to her (the primary Being), a living Being, emanating from the primary Being, and attached to the contemplation thereof. In it she discovers the first object of her contemplation, she fixes her glance on it, as her good; and finds in this view a source of joy. The seen object attracts her attention so that, by the joy she feels, by the ardent attention characterizing her contemplation of its object, she herself begets something worthy of her and of the spectacle she enjoys. Thus is Love born from the attention with which the soul applies herself to the contemplation of its object, and from the very emanation of this object; and so Love is an eye full of the object it contemplates, a vision united to the image which it forms. Thus Love (Eros) seems to owe its name to its deriving its existence from vision.127 Even when considered as passion does Love owe its name to the same fact, for Love-that-is-a-being is anterior to Love-that-is-not-a-being. However much we may explain passion as love, it is, nevertheless, ever the love of some object, and is not love in an absolute sense.

Such is the love that characterizes the superior Soul (the celestial Soul). It contemplates the intelligible world with it, because Love is the Soul's companion, being born of the Soul, and abiding in the Soul, and with her enjoys contemplation of the divinities. Now as we consider the Soul which first radiates its light on heaven as separate from matter, we must admit that the love which is connected with her, is likewise separate from matter. If we say that this pure Soul really resides in heaven, it is in the sense in which we say that that which is most precious in us (the reasonable soul) resides in our body, and, nevertheless, is separate from matter. This love must, therefore, reside only there where resides this pure Soul.

But as it was similarly necessary that beneath the celestial Soul there should exist the world-Soul,128 there must exist with it another love, born of her desire, and being her eye.129 As this Venus belongs to this world, and as it is not the pure soul, nor soul in an absolute sense, it has begotten the Love which reigns here below, and which, with her, presides over marriages. As far as this Love himself feels the desire for the intelligible, he turns towards the intelligible the souls of the young people, and he elevates the soul to which he may be united, as far as it is naturally disposed to have reminiscence of the intelligible. Every soul, indeed, aspires to the Good, even that soul that is mingled with matter, and that is the soul of some particular being; for it is attached to the superior Soul, and proceeds therefrom.

4. Does each soul include such a love in her being, and possess it as a hypostatic (form of existence)? Since the world-Soul possesses, as hypostasis (form of existence), the Love which is inherent in her being, our soul should also similarly possess, as hypostatic (form of existence), a love equally inherent in our being. Why should the same not obtain even with animals? This love inherent to the being of every soul is the guardian considered to be attached to each individual.130 It inspires each soul with the desires natural for her to experience; for, according to her nature, each soul begets a love which harmonizes with her dignity and being. As the universal Soul possesses universal Love, so do individual souls each possess her individual love. But as the individual souls are not separated from the universal Soul, and are so contained within her that their totality forms but a single soul,131 so are individual loves contained within the universal Love. On the other hand, each individual love is united to an individual soul, as universal Love is united to the universal Soul. The latter exists entire everywhere in the universe, and so her unity seems multiple; she appears anywhere in the universe that she pleases, under the various forms suitable to her parts, and she reveals herself, at will, under some visible form.

We shall have to assume also a multiplicity of Venuses, which, born with Love, occupy the rank of guardians. They originate from the universal Venus, from which derive all the individual "venuses," with the loves peculiar to each. In fact, the soul is the mother of love; now Venus is the Soul, and Love is the Soul's activity in desiring the Good. The love which leads each soul to the nature of the Good, and which belongs to her most exalted part, must also be considered a deity, inasmuch as it unites the soul to the Good. The love which belongs to the soul mingled (with matter), is to be considered a Guardian only.

5. What is the nature of this Guardian, and what is, in general, the nature of guardians, according to (Plato's treatment of the subject in) his "Banquet"? What is the nature of guardians? What is the nature of the Love born of Need (Penia) and Abundance (Poros), son of Prudence (Metis), at the birth of Venus?132

(Plutarch)133 held that Plato, by Love, meant the world. He should have stated that Love is part of the world, and was born in it. His opinion is erroneous, as may be demonstrated by several proofs. First, (Plato) calls the world a blessed deity, that is self-sufficient; however, he never attributes these characteristics to Love, which he always calls a needy being. Further, the world is composed of a body and a Soul, the latter being Venus; consequently, Venus would be the directing part of Love; or, if we take the world to mean the world-Soul, just as we often say "man" when we mean the human soul,134 Love would be identical with Venus. Third, if Love, which is a Guardian, is the world, why should not the other Guardians (who evidently are of the same nature) not also be the world? In this case, the world would be composed of Guardians. Fourth, how could we apply to the world that which (Plato) says of Love, that it is the "guardian of fair children"? Last, Plato describes Love as lacking clothing, shoes, and lodging. This could not be applied to the world without absurdity or ridicule.

6. To explain the nature and birth of Love, we shall have to expound the significance of his mother Need to his father Abundance, and to show how such parents suit him. We shall also have to show how such parents suit the other Guardians, for all Guardians, by virtue of their being Guardians, must have the same nature, unless, indeed, Guardians have only that name in common.

First, we shall have to consider the difference between deities and guardians. Although it be common to call Guardians deities, we are here using the word in that sense it bears when one says that Guardians and deities belong to different species. The deities are impassible, while the Guardians, though eternal, can experience passions; placed beneath the deities, but next to us, they occupy the middle place between deities and men.135

But how did the Guardians not remain impassible? How did they descend to an inferior nature? This surely is a question deserving consideration. We should also inquire whether there be any Guardian in the intelligible world, whether there be Guardians only here below, and if deities exist only in the intelligible world. (We shall answer as follows.) There are deities also here below; and the world is, as we habitually say, a deity of the third rank, inasmuch as every supra-lunar being is a divinity. Next, it would be better not to call any being belonging to the intelligible world a Guardian; and if we locate the chief Guardian (the Guardian himself) in the intelligible world, we had better consider him a deity. In the world of sense, all the visible supra-lunar deities should be called second-rank deities, in that they are placed below the intelligible deities, and depend on them as the rays of light from the star from which they radiate. Last, a Guardian should be defined as the vestige of a soul that had descended into the world. The latter condition is necessary because every pure soul begets a deity, and we have already said136 that the love of such a soul is a deity.

But why are not all the Guardians Loves? Further, why are they not completely pure from all matter? Among Guardians, those are Loves, which owe their existence to a soul's desire for the good and the beautiful; therefore, all souls that have entered into this world each generate a Love of this kind. As to the other Guardians, which are not born of human souls, they are engendered by the different powers of the universal Soul, for the utility of the All; they complete and administer all things for the general good. The universal Soul, in fact, was bound to meet the needs of the universe by begetting Guardian powers which would suit the All of which she is the soul.

How do Guardians participate in matter, and of what matter are they formed? This their matter is not corporeal, otherwise they would be animals with sensation. In fact, whether they have aerial or fire-like bodies,137 they must have had a nature primitively different (from pure Intelligence) to have ultimately united each with his own body, for that which is entirely pure could not have immediately united with a body, although many philosophers think that the being of every Guardian, as guardian, is united to an air-like or fire-like body. But why is the being of every Guardian mingled with a body, while the being of every deity is pure, unless in the first case there be a cause which produces the mingling (with matter)? This cause must be the existence of an intelligible matter,138 so that whatever participates in it might, by its means, come to unite with sense-matter.

7. Plato's account of the birth of Love132 is that Abundance intoxicated himself with nectar, this happening before the day of wine, which implies that Love was born before the sense-world's existence. Then Need, the mother of Love, must have participated in the intelligible nature itself, and not in a simple image of the intelligible nature; she, therefore, approached (the intelligible nature) and found herself to be a mixture of form and indeterminateness (or, intelligible matter).139 The soul, in fact, containing a certain indeterminateness before she had reached the Good, but feeling a premonition of her existence, formed for herself a confused and indeterminate image, which became the very hypostasis (or, form of existence) of Love. Thus, as here, reason mingles with the unreasonable, with an indeterminate desire, with an indistinct (faint or obscure) hypostatic (form of existence). What was born was neither perfect nor complete; it was something needy, because it was born from an indeterminate desire, and a complete reason. As to (Love, which is) the thus begotten reason, it is not pure, since it contains a desire that is indeterminate, unreasonable, indefinite; nor will it ever be satisfied so long as it contains the nature of indetermination. It depends on the soul, which is its generating principle; it is a mixture effected by a reason which, instead of remaining within itself, is mingled with indetermination. Besides, it is not Reason itself, but its emanation which mingles with indetermination.

Love, therefore, is similar to a gad-fly;140 needy by nature, it still remains needy, whatever it may obtain; it could never be satisfied, for this would be impossible for a being that is a mixture; no being could ever be fully satisfied if by its nature it be incapable of attaining fulness; even were it satisfied for a moment, it could not retain anything if its nature made it continue to desire. Consequently, on one side, Love is deprived of all resources141 because of its neediness; and on the other, it possesses the faculty of acquisition, because of the reason that enters into its constitution.

All other Guardians have a similar constitution. Each of them desires, and causes the acquisition of the good he is destined to procure; that is the characteristic they have in common with Love. Neither could they ever attain satisfaction; they still desire some particular good. The result of this is that the men who here below are good are inspired by the love of the true, absolute Good, and not by the love of such and such a particular good.142 Those who are subordinated to divers Guardians are successively subordinated to such or such a Guardian; they let the simple and pure love of the absolute Good rest within themselves, while they see to it that their actions are presided over by another Guardian, that is, another power of their soul, which is immediately superior to that which directs them, or is active within them.143 As to the men who, driven by evil impulses, desire evil things, they seem to have chained down all the loves in their souls, just as, by false opinions, they darken the right reason which is innate within them. Thus all the loves implanted in us by nature, and which conform to nature, are all good; those that belong to the inferior part of the soul are inferior in rank and power; those that belong to the superior part are superior; all belong to the being of the soul. As to the loves which are contrary to nature, they are the passions of strayed souls, having nothing essential or substantial; for they are not engendered by the pure Soul; they are the fruits of the faults of the soul which produces them according to her vicious habits and dispositions.

In general, we might admit that the true goods which are possessed by the soul when she acts conformably to her nature, by applying herself to things determined (by reason), constitute real being; that the others, on the contrary, are not engendered by the very action of the soul, and are only passions.144 Likewise, false intellections lack real being, such as belongs to true intellections, which are eternal and determinate, possessing simultaneously the intellectual act, the intelligible existence and essence; and this latter not only in general, but in each real intelligible being (manifesting?) Intelligence in each idea. As to us, we must acknowledge that we possess only intellection and the intelligible; we do not possess them together (or completely), but only in general; and hence comes our love for generalities. Our conceptions, indeed, usually trend towards the general. It is only by accident that we conceive something particular; when, for instance, we conceive that some particular triangle's angles amount to two right angles, it is only as a result of first having conceived that the triangle in general possesses this property.

8. Finally, who is this Jupiter into whose gardens (Plato said that) Abundance entered? What are these gardens? As we have already agreed, Venus is the Soul, and Abundance is the Reason of all things. We still have to explain the significance of Jupiter and his gardens.

Jupiter cannot well signify anything else than the soul, since we have already admitted that the soul was Venus. We must here consider Jupiter as that deity which Plato, in his Phaedrus, calls the Great Chief;145 and, elsewhere, as I think, the Third God. He explains himself more clearly in this respect in the Philebus,146 where he says that Jupiter "has a royal soul, a royal intelligence." Since Jupiter is, therefore, both an intelligence and a soul, since he forms part of the order of causes, since we must assign him his rank according to what is best in him; and for several reasons, chiefly because he is a cause, a royal and directing cause, he must be considered as the Intelligence. Venus (that is, Aphrodite) which belongs to him, which proceeds from him, and accompanies him, occupies the rank of a soul, for she represents in the soul that which is beautiful, brilliant, pure, and delicate ("abron"); and that is why she is called "Aphrodite."147 In fact, if we refer the male deities to the intellect, and if we consider the female deities as souls—because a soul is attached to each intelligence—we shall have one more reason to relate Venus to Jupiter. Our views upon this point are confirmed by the teachings of the priests and the (Orphic) Theologians, who always identify Venus and Juno, and who call the evening star, or Star of Venus, the Star of Juno.148

9. Abundance, being the reason of the things that exist in Intelligence and in the intelligible world—I mean the reason which pours itself out and develops—trends towards the soul, and exists therein. Indeed, the (Being) which remains united in Intelligence does not emanate from a foreign principle, while the intoxication of Abundance is only a factitious fulness. But what is that which is intoxicated with nectar? It is Reason that descends from the superior principle to the inferior; the Soul receives it from Intelligence at the moment of the birth of Venus; that is why it is said that the nectar flows in the garden of Jupiter. This whole garden is the glory and splendor of the wealth (of Intelligence);149 this glory originates in the reason of Jupiter; this splendor is the light which the intelligence of this Deity sheds on the soul. What else but the beauties and splendors of this deity could the "gardens of Jupiter" signify? On the other hand, what else can the beauties and splendors of Jupiter be, if not the reasons150 that emanate from him? At the same time, these reasons are called Abundance (Poros, or "euporia"), the wealth of the beauties which manifest; that is the nectar which intoxicates Abundance.151 For indeed what else is the nectar among the deities, but that which each of them receives? Now Reason is that which is received from Intelligence by its next inferior principle. Intelligence possesses itself fully; yet this self-possession does not intoxicate it, as it possesses nothing foreign thereto. On the contrary, Reason is engendered by Intelligence. As it exists beneath Intelligence, and does not, as Intelligence does, belong to itself, it exists in another principle; consequently, we say that Abundance is lying down in the garden of Jupiter, and that at the very moment when Venus, being born, takes her place among living beings.

10. If myths are to earn their name (of something "reserved," or "silent") they must necessarily develop their stories under the category of time, and present as separate many things, that are simultaneous, though different in rank or power. That is the reason they so often mention the generation of ungenerated things, and that they so often separate simultaneous things.152 But after having thus (by this analysis) yielded us all the instruction possible to them, these myths leave it to the reader to make a synthesis thereof. Ours is the following:

Venus is the Soul which coexists with Intelligence, and subsists by Intelligence. She receives from Intelligence the reasons150 which fill her,153 and embellishes her, and whose abundance makes us see in the Soul the splendor and image of all beauties. The reasons which subsist in the Soul are Abundance154 of the nectar which flows down from above. Their splendors which shine in the Soul, as in life, represent the Garden of Jupiter. Abundance falls asleep in this garden, because he is weighted down by the fulness contained within him. As life manifests and ever exists in the order of beings, (Plato) says that the deities are seated at a feast, because they ever enjoy this beatitude.

Since the Soul herself exists, Love also must necessarily exist, and it owes its existence to the desire of the Soul which aspires to the better and the Good. Love is a mixed being: it participates in need, because it needs satisfaction; it also participates in abundance, because it struggles to acquire good which it yet lacks, inasmuch as only that which lacked good entirely would cease to seek it. It is, therefore, correct to call Love the son of Abundance and Need, which are constituted by lack, desire, and reminiscence of the reasons—or ideas—which, reunited in the soul, have therein engendered that aspiration towards the good which constitutes love. Its mother is Need, because desire belongs only to need, and "need" signifies matter, which is entire need.155 Even indetermination, which characterizes the desire of the good, makes the being which desires the Good play the part of matter—since such a being would have neither form nor reason, considered only from its desiring. It is a form only inasmuch as it remains within itself. As soon as it desires to attain a new perfection, it is matter relatively to the being from whom it desires to receive somewhat.

That is why Love is both a being which participates in matter, and is also a Guardian born of the soul; it is the former, inasmuch as it does not completely possess the good; it is the latter, inasmuch as it desires the Good from the very moment of its birth.

1. Studying the origin of evils that might affect all beings in general, or some one class in particular, it is reasonable to begin by defining evil, from a consideration of its nature. That would be the best way to discover whence it arises, where it resides, to whom it may happen, and in general to decide if it be something real. Which one of our faculties then can inform us of the nature of evil? This question is not easy to solve, because there must be an analogy between the knower and the known.157 The Intelligence and the Soul may indeed cognize forms and fix their desires on them, because they themselves are forms; but evil, which consists in the absence of all goods, could not be described as a form.158 But inasmuch as there can be but one single science, to embrace even contraries, and as the evil is the contrary of the good, knowledge of the good implies that of evil. Therefore, to determine the nature of evil, we shall first have to determine that of good, for the higher things must precede the lower, as some are forms and others are not, being rather a privation of the good. Just in what sense evil is the contrary of the good must also be determined; as for instance, if the One be the first, and matter the last;159 or whether the One be form, and matter be its absence. Of this further.160

2. Let us now determine the nature of the Good, at least so far as is demanded by the present discussion. The Good is the principle on which all depends, to which everything aspires, from which everything issues, and of which everything has need. As to Him, He suffices to himself, being complete, so He stands in need of nothing; He is the measure161 and the end of all things; and from Him spring intelligence, being, soul, life, and intellectual contemplation.

All these beautiful things exist as far as He does; but He is the one Principle that possesses supreme beauty, a principle that is superior to the things that are best. He reigns royally,162 in the intelligible world, being Intelligence itself, very differently from what we call human intelligences. The latter indeed are all occupied with propositions, discussions about the meanings of words, reasonings, examinations of the validity of conclusions, observing the concatenation of causes, being incapable of possessing truth "a priori," and though they be intelligences, being devoid of all ideas before having been instructed by experience; though they, nevertheless, were intelligences. Such is not the primary Intelligence. On the contrary, it possesses all things. Though remaining within itself, it is all things; it possesses all things, without possessing them (in the usual acceptation of that term); the things that subsist in it not differing from it, and not being separated from each other. Each one of them is all the others,163 is everything and everywhere, although not confounded with other things, and remaining distinct therefrom.

The power which participates in Intelligence (the universal Soul) does not participate in it in a manner such as to be equal to it, but only in the measure of her ability to participate therein. She is the first actualization of Intelligence, the first being that Intelligence, though remaining within itself, begets. She directs her whole activity towards supreme Intelligence, and lives exclusively thereby. Moving from outside Intelligence, and around it, according to the laws of harmony,164 the universal Soul fixes her glance upon it. By contemplation penetrating into its inmost depths, through Intelligence she sees the divinity Himself. Such is the nature of the serene and blissful existence of the divinities, a life where evil has no place.

If everything stopped there (and if there were nothing beyond the three principles here described), evil would not exist (and there would be nothing but goods). But there are goods of the first, second and third ranks. Though all relate to the King of all things,165 who is their author, and from whom they derive their goodness, yet the goods of the second rank relate more specially to the second principle; and to the third principle, the goods of the third rank.

3. As these are real beings, and as the first Principle is their superior, evil could not exist in such beings, and still less in Him, who is superior to them; for all these things are good. Evil then must be located in non-being, and must, so to speak, be its form, referring to the things that mingle with it, or have some community with it. This "non-being," however, is not absolute non-being.166 Its difference from being resembles the difference between being and movement or rest; but only as its image, or something still more distant from reality. Within this non-being are comprised all sense-objects, and all their passive modifications; or, evil may be something still more inferior, like their accident or principle, or one of the things that contribute to its constitution. To gain some conception of evil it may be represented by the contrast between measure and incommensurability; between indetermination and its goal; between lack of form and the creating principle of form; between lack and self-sufficiency; as the perpetual unlimited and changeableness; as passivity, insatiableness, and absolute poverty.167 Those are not the mere accidents of evil, but its very essence; all of that can be discovered when any part of evil is examined. The other objects, when they participate in the evil and resemble it, become evil without however being absolute Evil.

All these things participate in a being; they do not differ from it, they are identical with it, and constitute it. For if evil be an accident in something, then evil, though not being a real being, must be something by itself. Just as, for the good, there is the Good in itself, and the good considered as an attribute of a foreign subject, likewise, for evil, one may distinguish Evil in itself, and evil as accident.

It might be objected that it is impossible to conceive of indetermination outside of the indeterminate, any more than determination outside of the determinate; or measure outside of the measured. (We shall have to answer that) just as determination does not reside in the determined (or measure in the measured), so indetermination cannot exist within the indeterminate. If it can exist in something other than itself, it will be either in the indeterminate, or in the determinate. If in the indeterminate, it is evident that it itself is indeterminate, and needs no indetermination to become such. If, on the other hand (it be claimed that indetermination exist), in the determinate, (it is evident that) the determinate cannot admit indetermination. This, therefore, demands the existence of something infinite in itself, and formless in itself, which would combine all the characteristics mentioned above as the characteristics of evil.168 As to evil things, they are such because evil is mingled with them, either because they contemplate evil, or because they fulfil it.

Reason, therefore, forces us to recognize as the primary evil, Evil in itself.169 (This is matter which is) the subject of figure, form, determination, and limitation; which owes its ornaments to others, which has nothing good in itself, which is but a vain image by comparison with the real beings—in other word, the essence of evil, if such an essence can exist.

4. So far as the nature of bodies participates in matter, it is an evil; yet it could not be the primary Evil, for it has a certain form. Nevertheless, this form possesses no reality, and is, besides, deprived of life (?); for bodies corrupt each other mutually. Being agitated by an unregulated movement, they hinder the soul from carrying out her proper movement. They are in a perpetual flux, contrary to the immutable nature of essences; therefore, they constitute the secondary evil.

By herself, the soul is not evil, and not every soul is evil. What soul deserves to be so considered? That of the man who, according to the expression of Plato,170 is a slave to the body. In this man it is natural for the soul to be evil. It is indeed the irrational part of the soul which harbors all that constitutes evil: indetermination, excess, and need, from which are derived intemperance, cowardliness, and all the vices of the soul, the involuntary passions, mothers of false opinions, which lead us to consider the things we seek or avoid as goods or evils. But what produces this evil? How shall we make a cause or a principle of it? To begin with, the soul is neither independent of matter, nor, by herself, perverse. By virtue of her union with the body, which is material, she is mingled with indetermination, and so, to a certain point, deprived of the form which embellishes and which supplies measure. Further, that reason should be hindered in its operations, and cannot see well, must be due to the soul's being hindered by passions, and obscured by the darkness with which matter surrounds her. The soul inclines171 towards matter. Thus the soul fixes her glance, not on what is essence, but on what is simple generation.172 Now the principle of generation is matter, whose nature is so bad that matter communicates it to the beings which, even without being united thereto, merely look at it. Being the privation of good, matter contains none of it, and assimilates to itself all that touches it. Therefore, the perfect Soul, being turned towards ever pure Intelligence, repels matter, indeterminateness, the lack of measure, and in short, evil. The perfect Soul does not approach to it, does not lower her looks; she remains pure and determined by Intelligence. The soul which does not remain in this state, and which issues from herself (to unite with the body), not being determined by the First, the Perfect, is no more than an image of the perfect Soul because she lacks (good), and is filled with indetermination. The soul sees nothing but darkness. The soul already contains matter because she looks at what she cannot see; or, in the every-day expression, because the soul looks at darkness.173

5. Since the lack of good is the cause that the soul looks at darkness, and mingles therewith, the lack of good and darkness is primary Evil for the soul. The secondary evil will be the darkness, and the nature of evil, considered not in matter, but before matter. Evil consists not in the lack of any particular thing, but of everything in general. Nothing is evil merely because it lacks a little of being good; its nature might still be perfect. But what, like matter, lacks good entirely, is essentially evil, and possesses nothing good? Nature, indeed, does not possess essence, or it would participate in the good; only by verbal similarity can we say that matter "is," while we can truly say that matter "is" absolute "nonentity." A mere lack (of good) therefore, may be characterized as not being good; but complete lack is evil; while a lack of medium intensity consists in the possibility of falling into evil, and is already an evil. Evil, therefore, is not any particular evil, as injustice, or any special vice; evil is that which is not yet anything of that, being nothing definite. Injustice and the other vices must be considered as kinds of evil, distinguished from each other by mere accidents; as for instance, what occurs by malice. Besides, the different kinds of evil differ among each other either by the matter in which evil resides, or by the parts of the soul to which it refers, as sight, desire, and passion.

If we grant the existence of evils external to the soul, we shall be forced to decide about their relation to sickness, ugliness, or poverty. Sickness has been explained as a lack or excess of material bodies which fail to support order or measure. The cause of ugliness, also, has been given as deficient adjustment of matter to form. Poverty has been described as the need or lack of objects necessary to life as a result of our union with matter, whose nature is (the Heraclitian and Stoic) "indigence." From such definitions it would follow that we are not the principle of evil, and are not evil in ourselves, for these evils existed before us. Only in spite of themselves would men yield to vice. The evils of the soul are avoidable, but not all men possess the necessary firmness. Evil, therefore, is caused by the presence of matter in sense-objects, and is not identical with the wickedness of men. For wickedness does not exist in all men; some triumph over wickedness, while they who do not even need to triumph over it, are still better. In all cases men triumph over evil by those of their faculties that are not engaged in matter.

6. Let us examine the significance of the doctrine174 that evils cannot be destroyed, that they are necessary, that they do not exist among the divinities, but that they ever besiege our mortal nature, and the place in which we dwell.175 Surely heaven is free from all evil because it moves eternally with regularity, in perfect order; because in the stars is neither injustice nor any other kind of evil, because they do not conflict with each other in their courses; and because their revolutions are presided over by the most beautiful harmony.164 On the contrary, the earth reveals injustice and disorder, (chiefly) because our nature is mortal, and we dwell in a lower place. But when Plato,176 says, that we must flee from here below, he does not mean that we should leave the earth, but, while remaining therein, practice justice, piety, and wisdom. It is wickedness that must be fled from, because wickedness and its consequences are the evil of man.

When176 (Theodor) tells (Socrates) that evils would be annihilated if men practised (Socrates') teachings, the latter answers that that is impossible, for evil is necessary even if only as the contrary of good. But how then can wickedness, which is the evil of man, be the contrary of good? Because it is the contrary of virtue. Now virtue, without being Good in itself, is still a good, a good which makes us dominate matter. But how can Good in itself, which is not a quality, have a contrary? Besides, why need the existence of one thing imply its contrary? Though we may grant that there is a possibility of the existence of the contrary of some things—as for instance, that a man in good health might become sick—there is no such necessity. Nor does Plato assert that the existence of each thing of this kind necessarily implies that of its contrary; he makes this statement exclusively of the Good. But how can there be a contrary to good, if the good be "being," let alone "above being"?177 Evidently, in reference to particular beings, there can be nothing contrary to "being." This is proved by induction; but the proposition has not been demonstrated as regards universal Being. What then is the contrary of universal Being, and first principles in general? The contrary of "being" must be nonentity; the contrary of the nature of the Good is the nature and principle of Evil. These two natures are indeed respectively the principles of goods and of evils. All their elements are mutually opposed, so that both these natures, considered in their totality, are still more opposed than the other contraries. The latter, indeed, belong to the same form, to the same kind, and they have something in common in whatever subjects they may be. As to the Contraries that are essentially distinguished from each other, whose nature is constituted of elements opposed to the constitutive elements of the other, those Contraries are absolutely opposed to each other, since the connotation of that word implies things as opposite to each other as possible. Measure, determination, and the other characteristics of the divine nature178 are the opposites of incommensurability, indefiniteness, and the other contrary things that constitute the nature of evil. Each one of these wholes, therefore, is the contrary of the other. The being of the one is that which is essentially and absolutely false; that of the other is genuine Being; the falseness of the one is, therefore, the contrary of the truth of the other. Likewise what pertains to the being of the one is the contrary of what belongs to the being of the other. We also see that it is not always true to say that there is no contrary to "being," for we acknowledge that water and fire are contraries, even if they did not contain the common element of matter, of which heat and cold, humidity and dryness, are accidents. If they existed alone by themselves, if their being were complete without any common subject, there would still be an opposition, and an opposition of "being." Therefore the things that are completely separate, which have nothing in common, which are as distant as possible, are by nature contrary. This is not an opposition of quality, nor of any kinds of beings; it is an opposition resulting from extreme distance, and from being composed of contraries, thereby communicating this characteristic to their elements.

7. Why is the existence of both good and evil necessary? Because matter is necessary to the existence of the world. The latter is necessarily composed of contraries, and, consequently, it could not exist without matter. In this case the nature of this world is a mixture of intelligence and necessity.179 What it receives from divinity are goods; its evils derive from the primordial nature,180 the term used (by Plato) to designate matter as a simple substance yet unadorned by a divinity. But what does he mean by "mortal nature?" When he says that "evils besiege this region here below," he means the universe, as appears from the following quotations181: "Since you are born, you are not immortal, but by my help you shall not perish." In this case it is right to say that evils cannot be annihilated. How then can one flee from them?182 Not by changing one's locality, (as Plato) says, but by acquiring virtue, and by separating from the body, which, simultaneously, is separation from matter; for being attached to the body is also attachment to matter. It is in the same sense that (Plato) explains being separated from the body, or not being separated from it. By dwelling with the divinities he means being united to the intelligible objects; for it is in them that inheres immortality.

Here follows still another demonstration of the necessity of evil. Since good does not remain alone, evil must necessarily exist by issuing from the good.183 We might express this differently, as the degradation and exhaustion (of the divine power, which, in the whole hierarchic series of successive emanations weakens from degree to degree). There must, therefore, be a last degree of being, beyond which nothing further can be begotten, and that is evil. Just as the existence of something after a first (Good) is necessary, so must also a last degree (of being) be necessary. Now the last degree is matter, and contains nothing more of the First; (and, as matter and evil are identical,) the existence of evil is necessary.

8. It may still be objected that it is not matter that makes us wicked; for it is not matter that produces ignorance and perverted appetites. If, indeed, these appetites mislead us to evil as a result of the perversity of the body, we must seek its cause, not in matter, but in form (in the qualities of the bodies). These, for instance, are heat, cold, bitterness, pungency, and the other qualities of the bodily secretions; or, the atonic condition or inflammation of certain organs; or, certain dispositions which produce the difference of appetites; and, if you please, false opinions. Evil, therefore, is form rather than matter. Even under this (mistaken) hypothesis we are none the less driven to acknowledge that matter is the evil. A quality does not always produce the same results within or outside of matter; thus the form of the axe without iron does not cut. The forms that inhere in matter are not always what they would be if they were outside of it. The ("seminal) reasons" when inhering in matter are by it corrupted and filled with its nature. As fire, when separate from matter, does not burn; so form, when remaining by itself, effects what it would if it were in matter. Matter dominates any principle that appears within it, alters it, and corrupts it by imparting thereto its own nature, which is contrary to the Good. It does not indeed substitute cold for heat, but it adds to the form—as, for instance, to the form of fire—its formless substance; to figure adding its shapelessness; to measure, its excess and lack, proceeding thus until it has degraded things, transubstantiating them into its own nature. That is the reason that, in the nutrition of animals, what has been ingested does not remain what it was before. The foods that enter into the body of a dog, for instance, are by assimilation transformed into blood and canine secretions, and, in general, are transformed according to the animal that receives them. Thus even under the hypothesis that evils are referred to the body, matter is the cause of evils.

It may be objected that one ought to master these dispositions of the body. But the principle that could triumph over them is pure only if it flee from here below. The appetites which exercise the greatest force come from a certain complexion of the body, and differ according to its nature. Consequently, it is not easy to master them. There are men who have no judgment, because they are cold and heavy on account of their bad constitution. On the contrary, there are others who, because of their temperament, are light and inconstant. This is proved by the difference of our own successive dispositions. When we are gorged, we have appetites and thoughts that differ from those we experience when starved; and our dispositions vary even according to the degrees of satiety.

In short, the primary Evil is that which by itself lacks measure. The secondary evil is that which accidentally becomes formless, either by assimilation or participation. In the front rank is the darkness; in the second that which has become obscured. Thus vice, being in the soul the result of ignorance and formlessness, is of secondary rank. It is not absolute Evil, because, on its side, virtue is not absolute Good; it is good only by its assimilation and participation with the Good.

9. How do we get to know vice and virtue? As to virtue, we know it by the very intelligence and by wisdom; for wisdom knows itself. But how can we know vice? Just as we observe that an object is not in itself straight, by applying a rule, so we discern vice by this characteristic, that it does not comport itself with virtue. But do we, or do we not have direct intuition thereof? We do not have the intuition of absolute vice, because it is indeterminate. We know it, therefore, by a kind of abstraction, observing that virtue is entirely lacking. We cognize relative vice by noticing that it lacks some part of virtue. We see a part of virtue, and, by this part, judging what is lacking in order completely to constitute the form (of virtue), we call vice what is lacking to it; defining as the indeterminate (evil) what is deprived of virtue. Similarly with matter. If, for instance, we notice a figure that is ugly because its ("seminal) reason," being unable to dominate matter, has been unable to hide its deformity, we notice ugliness by what is lacking to form.

But how do we know that which is absolutely formless (matter)? We make abstraction of all kinds of form, and what remains we call matter. We allow ourselves to be penetrated by a kind of shapelessness by the mere fact that we make abstraction of all shape in order to be able to represent matter (by a "bastard reasoning").185 Consequently, intelligence becomes altered, and ceases to be genuine intelligence when it dares in this way to look at what does not belong to its domain.186 It resembles the eye, which withdraws from light to see darkness, and which on that very account does not see. Thus, in not seeing, the eye sees darkness so far as it is naturally capable of seeing it. Thus intelligence which hides light within itself, and which, so to speak, issues from itself, by advancing towards things alien to its nature, without bringing along its own light, places itself in a state contrary to its being to cognize a nature contrary to its own.165 But enough of this.

10. It may well be asked (by Stoics) how matter can be evil, as it is without quality?187 That matter possesses no qualities can be said in the sense that by itself it has none of the qualities it is to receive, or to which matter is to serve as substrate; but cannot be said in the sense that it will possess no nature. Now, if it have a nature, what hinders this nature from being bad, without this being bad being a quality? Nothing indeed is a quality but what serves to qualify something different from itself; a quality is, therefore, an accident; a quality is that which can be mentioned as the attribute of a subject other than itself.188 But matter is not the attribute of something alien; it is the subject to which accidents are related. Therefore, since every quality is an accident, matter, whose nature is not to be an accident, is without quality.189 If, besides, quality (taken in general), itself be without quality, how could one say of matter, so far as it has not yet received any quality, that it is in some manner qualified? It is, therefore, possible to assert of matter that, it both has no quality, and yet is evil. Matter is not evil because it has a quality, but just because it has none. If, indeed, matter possessed a form, it might indeed be bad; but it would not be a nature contrary to all form.

11. It may be further objected that nature, independent of all form, is deprivation. Now deprivation is always the attribute of some hypostatic substance, instead of itself being substance. If then evil consist in privation, it is the attribute of the substrate deprived of form; and on that account it could not exist by itself. If it be in the soul that we consider evil, privation in the soul will constitute vice and wickedness, and there will be no need to have recourse to anything external to explain it.

Elsewhere190 it is objected that matter does not exist; here the attempt is to show that matter is not evil in so far as it exists. (If this were the case), we should not seek the origin of evil outside of the soul, but it would be located within the soul herself; there evil consists in the absence of good. But, evidently, the soul would have nothing good on the hypothesis that privation of form is an accident of the being, which desires to receive form; that, consequently, the privation of good is an accident of the soul; and that the latter produces within herself wickedness by her ("seminal) reason." Another result would be that the soul would have no life, and be inanimate; which would lead to the absurdity that the soul is no soul.

We are thus forced to assert, that the soul possesses life by virtue of her ("seminal) reason," so that she does not, by herself, possess privation of good. Then she must from intelligence derive a trace of good, and have the form of good. The soul, therefore, cannot by herself be evil. Consequently, she is not the first Evil, nor does she contain it as an accident, since she is not absolutely deprived of good.

12. To the objection that in the soul wickedness and evil are not an absolute privation, but only a relative privation of good, it may be answered that in this case, if the soul simultaneously, contain possession and privation of the good, she will have possessed a feeling mingled of good and evil, and not of unmingled evil. We will still not have found the first evil, the absolute Evil. The good of the soul will reside in her essence (being); evil will only be an accident thereof.

13. Another hypothesis is that evil owes its character only to its being an obstacle for the soul, as certain objects are bad for the eye, because they hinder it from seeing. In this case, the evil of the soul would be the cause that produces the evil, and it would produce it without being absolute Evil. If, then, vice be an obstacle for the soul, it will not be absolute Evil, but the cause of evil, as virtue is not the good, and only contributes to acquiring it. If virtue be not good, and vice be not evil, the result is that since virtue is neither absolute beauty nor goodness, vice is neither absolute ugliness nor evil. We hold that virtue is neither absolute beauty, nor absolute goodness, because above and before it is absolute Beauty and Goodness. Only because the soul participates in these, is virtue or beauty considered a good. Now as the soul, by rising above virtue, meets absolute Beauty and Goodness, thus in descending below wickedness the soul discovers absolute Evil. To arrive at the intuition of evil the soul, therefore, starts from wickedness, if indeed an intuition of evil be at all possible. Finally, when the soul descends, she participates in evil. She rushes completely into the region of diversity,191 and, plunging downwards she falls into a murky mire. If she fell into absolute wickedness, her characteristic would no longer be wickedness, and she would exchange it for a still lower nature. Even though mingled with a contrary nature, wickedness, indeed, still retains something human. The vicious man, therefore, dies so far as a soul can die. Now when, in connection with the soul, we speak of dying, we mean that while she is engaged in the body, she penetrates (further) into matter, and becomes saturated with it. Then, when the soul has left the body, she once more falls into the same mud until she have managed to return into the intelligible world, and weaned her glance from this mire. So long as she remains therein, she may be said to have descended into hell, and to be slumbering there.192

14. Wickedness is by some explained as weakness of the soul, because the wicked soul is impressionable, mobile, easy to lead to evil, disposed to listen to her passions, and equally likely to become angry, and to be reconciled; she yields inconsiderately to vain ideas, like the weakest works of art and of nature, which are easily destroyed by winds and storms. This theory (is attractive, but implies a totally new conception, that of "weakness" of soul, and it would have) to explain this "weakness," and whence it is derived; for weakness in a soul is very different from weakness in a body, but just as in the body weakness consists in inability to fulfil a function, in being too impressionable, the same fault in the soul might, by analogy, be called by the same name, unless matter be equally the cause of both weaknesses. Reason, however, will have to explore the problem further, and seek the cause of the soul-fault here called weakness.

In the soul weakness does not derive from an excess of density or rarefaction of leanness or stoutness, nor of any sickness such as fever. It must be met in souls which are either entirely separated from matter, or in those joined to matter, or in both simultaneously. Now, as it does not occur in souls separated from matter, which are entirely pure, and "winged,"193 and which, as perfect, carry out their functions without any obstacle; it remains, that this weakness occurs in fallen souls, which are neither pure nor purified. For them weakness consists not in the privation of anything, but in the presence of something alien, just as, for instance, weakness of the body consists in the presence of slime or bile. We shall, therefore, be able to understand clearly the weakness of the soul by ferreting out the cause of the "fall" of the soul.

Just as much as the soul, matter is included within the order of beings. For both, so to speak, there is but a single locality; for it would be an error to imagine two different localities, one for matter, and the other for the soul; such as, for instance, earth might be for matter, and air for the soul. The expression that "soul occupies a locality different from matter" means only that the soul is not in matter; that is, that the soul is not united to matter; that the soul does not together with matter constitute something unitary; and that for the soul matter is not a substrate that could contain the soul. That is how the soul is separated from matter. But the soul possesses several powers, since she contains the principle (intelligence), the medium (the discursive reason), and the goal (the power of sensation) (united to the generative and growing powers). Now, just like the beggar who presents himself at the door of the banquet-hall, and with importunity asks to be admitted,194 matter tries to penetrate into the place occupied by the soul. But every place is sacred, because nothing in it is deprived of the presence of the soul. Matter, on exposing itself to its rays is illuminated by it, but it cannot harbor the principle that illuminates her (the soul). The latter indeed, does not sustain matter,195 although she be present, and does not even see it, because it is evil. Matter obscures, weakens the light that shines down upon her, by mingling its darkness with her. To the soul, matter affords the opportunity of producing generation, by clearing free access towards matter; for if matter were not present, the soul would not approach it. The fall of the soul is, therefore, a descent into matter; hence comes her "weakness," which means, that not all of the soul's faculties are exercised; because matter hinders their action, intruding on the place occupied by the soul and forcing her, so to speak, to retrench. Until the soul can manage to accomplish her return into the intelligible world, matter degrades what it has succeeded in abstracting from the soul. For the soul, therefore, matter is a cause of weakness and vice. Therefore, by herself, the soul is primitively evil, and is the first evil. By its presence, matter is the cause of the soul's exerting her generative powers, and being thus led to suffering; it is matter that causes the soul to enter into dealings with matter, and thus to become evil. The soul, indeed, would never have approached matter unless the latter's presence had not afforded the soul an opportunity to produce generation.

15. Those who claim that matter does not exist, will have to be referred to our extended discussion196 where we have demonstrated the necessity of its hypostatic existence. Those who would assert that evil does not belong among beings would, if logical, thereby also deny the existence of the good, and of anything that was desirable; thereby annihilating desire, as well as aversion, and even thought; for everybody shares desire for the good, and aversion for the evil. Thought and knowledge, simultaneously, apply to good and evil; thought itself is a good.

We must, therefore, acknowledge the existence first of Good, unmixed, and then the nature mingled of good and evil; but what most participates in evil thereby trends towards absolute Evil; and what participates in it to a less degree thereby trends towards good. For what is evil to soul? It is being in contact with inferior nature; otherwise the soul would not have any appetite, pain, or fear. Indeed fear is felt by us only for the composite (of soul and body), fearing its dissolution, which thus is the cause of our pains and sufferings. The end of every appetite is to put aside what troubles it, or to forestall what might do so. As to sense-representations (fancy197), it is the impression made by an exterior object on the irrational part of the soul, a part which can receive this impression only because it is not indivisible. False opinion rises within the soul because it is no longer within truth, and this occurs because the soul is no longer pure. On the contrary, the desire of the intelligible leads the soul to unite intimately with intelligence, as she should, and there remain solidly entrenched, without declining towards anything inferior. It is only because of the nature and power of the Good that evil does not remain pure Evil. (Matter, which is synonymous with evil) is like a captive which beauty covers with golden chains, so that the divinities might not see its nakedness, and that men might not be intruded on by it; or that men, if they must see it, shall be reminded of beauty on observing an even weakened image thereof.

1. It has been said199 that the course of the stars indicates what is to happen to each being; though, it does not, as many persons think, cause every event. To the supporting proofs hereof we are to add now more precise demonstrations, and new considerations, for the opinion held about this matter is no trifle.

Some people hold that, by their movements, the planets produce not only poverty and wealth, health and sickness, but even beauty and ugliness; and, what is more, vices and virtues. At every moment the stars, as if they were irritated against men, (are said to) force them to commit actions concerning which no blame attaches to the men who commit them, since they are compelled thereto by the influence of the planets. It is even believed that the cause of the planets' doing us evil or good is not that they love or hate us; but that their dispositions towards us is good or evil according to the localities through which they travel. Towards us they change their disposition according as they are on the cardinal points or in declination therefrom. It is even held that while certain stars are maleficent, others are beneficent, and that, nevertheless, the former frequently grant us benefits, while the latter often become harmful. Their effects differ according to their being in opposition,200 just as if they were not self-sufficient, and as if their quality depended on whether or not they looked at each other. Thus a star's (influence) may be good so long as it regards another, and evil when it does so no longer. A star may even consider another in different manners,201 when it is in such or such an aspect.202 Moreover, the totality of the stars exercises a mingled influence which differs from the individual influences, just as several liquors may form a compound possessing qualities differing from either of the component elements. As these and similar assertions are freely made, it becomes important to examine each one separately. This would form a proper beginning for our investigation.

2. Should we consider the stars to be animated, or not? If they be inanimate, they will be able to communicate only cold and heat; that is, if203 we grant the existence of cold influences. In this case, they will limit themselves to modifying the nature of our body, exercising on us a merely corporeal influence. They will not produce a great diversity among the bodies, since each of them exercises the same influence, and since, on the earth, their diverse actions are blended into a single one, which varies only by the diversity of locality, or by the proximity or distance of the objects. The same argument would hold on the hypothesis that the stars spread cold. But I could not understand how they could render some learned, others ignorant, making of some grammarians, others orators, musicians or experts in various arts. How could they exercise an action which would have no relation to the constitution of the bodies, such as giving us a father, a brother, a son, or a wife of such or such characteristics, or to make us successful, or make of us generals or kings?204

On the contrary hypothesis, that the stars are animated, and act with reflection, what have we done to them that they should desire to harm us? Are they not dwellers of a divine region? Are they not themselves divine? Nor are they subjected to the influences that make men good or evil, nor could they experience good or evil as a result of our prosperity or our misfortunes.

3. In case, however, that the stars injure us only involuntarily, they are constrained thereunto by the aspects,205 and their localities. If so, they should, all of them, produce the same effects when they find themselves in the same localities or aspects. But what difference can occur in a planet according to its location in the zodiac? What does the zodiac itself experience? In fact, the planets are not located in the zodiac itself, but above or below it, at great distances. Besides, in whatever location they are, they all are ever in the heaven. Now it would be ridiculous to pretend that their effects differed according to their location in the heaven, and that they have an action differing according as they rise, culminate, or decline. It would be incredible that such a planet would feel joy when it culminates, sadness or feebleness when declining, anger at the rising of some other planet, or satisfaction at the latter's setting. Can a star be better when it declines? Now a star culminates for some simultaneously with its declination for others; and it could not at the same time experience joy and sadness, anger and benevolence. It is sheer absurdity to assert that a star feels joy at its rising, while another feels the same at its setting; for this would really mean that the stars felt simultaneous joy and sadness. Besides, why should their sadness injure us? Nor can we admit that they are in turn joyous and sad, for they ever remain tranquil, content with the goods they enjoy, and the objects of their contemplation. Each of them lives for itself, finding its welfare in its own activity, without entering into relations with us. As they have no dealing with us, the stars exert their influence on us only incidentally, not as their chief purpose; rather, they bear no relation whatever to us; they announce the future only by coincidence, as birds announce it to the augurs.

4. Nor is it any more reasonable to assert that the aspect of one planet makes one joyous, or the other sad. What animosity could obtain betwixt the stars? What could be its reason? Why should their condition be different when they are in trine aspect, or in opposition, or in quadrature? What reason have we to suppose that one star regards the other when it is in some particular aspect to it, or that it no more regards it when it is in the next zodiacal sign, though thus really closer to it?

Besides, what is the manner in which the planets exert the influence attributed to them? How does each exercise its own particular influence? How do they all, in combination, exert an influence that differs from this (particular influence)? In fact, they do not hold deliberations to carry out their decisions on us, each of them yielding a little of its individual influence. The one does not violently hinder the action of the other, nor does it condescendingly make concessions to it. To say that the one is joyous when it is in the "house" of the other, and that the latter is sad when it is in "house" of the former, amounts to saying that two men are united by mutual friendship, though the former love the latter, while the latter hate the former.

5. The cold planet (Saturn) is said to be more beneficent for us when it is distant, because the evil that it produces on us is said to consist of its cold effluence; in which case our good should consist in the zodiacal signs opposite to us. It is also asserted that when the cold planet (Saturn) is in opposition to the warm planet (Mars), both become harmful; yet it would seem that their influences should neutralize each other. Besides, it is held that (Saturn) likes the day, whose heat renders it favorable to men, while (Mars) likes the night, because it is fiery, as if in heaven there did not reign a perpetual day, that is, a continual light; or as if a star could be plunged into the shadow (projected by the earth) when it is very distant from the earth.

It is said that the moon, in conjunction with (Saturn) is favorable when full, but harmful when otherwise. The opposite, however, ought to be the truth if the moon possess any influence. In fact, when it presents a full face, it presents its dark face to the planet above it (Saturn or Mars); when its disk decreases on our side, it increases on the other; therefore, it ought to exert a contrary influence when it decreases on our side, and when it increases on the side of the planet above it. These phases are of no importance for the moon, inasmuch as one of its sides is always lit. Nothing can result from it but for the planet which receives heat from it (Saturn); now this one will be heated whenever the moon turns towards us its dark side. Therefore, the moon is good for this planet when it is full towards it, but dark towards us. Besides, this obscurity of the moon for us can be of importance only for terrestrial things, not for the celestial203 ... (?)206 ... but if, because of its distance, it does not support the moon, then it must be in a worse predicament; when the moon is full, it is sufficient for terrestrial things, even when the moon is distant.... Finally, when the moon presents its obscure side to the fiery planet (Mars), it seems beneficent towards us; for the power of this planet, more fiery than (Saturn), is then sufficient by itself.

Besides, the bodies of the animated beings which move in the heaven may be of different degrees of heat; none of them is cold, as is witnessed to by their location. The planet named Jupiter is a suitable mixture of fire; likewise with Venus. That is why they seem to move harmoniously. As to the fiery planet Mars, it contributes its share to the mixture (of the general action of the stars). As to Saturn, its case is different, because of its distance. Mercury is indifferent, because it assimilates itself easily to all.

All these planets contribute to the Whole. Their mutual relation, therefore, is one suitable to the universe, just as the organs of an animal are shaped to take part in the organism they constitute.208 Take, for instance, a part of the body, such as the bile, which serves both the whole animal that contains it, and its special organ, inasmuch as it was necessary to arouse courage, and to oppose the injury of both the whole body, and its special organ. There had to be something similar (to bile) in the universe; that something sweet should soften it, that there be parts that would play the role of eyes, and that all things should possess mutual sympathy by their irrational life.209 Thus only is the universe one, and thus only is it constituted by a single harmony. How then could it be denied that all these things might be signs, resulting from the laws of analogy?

6. Is it not unreasonable to assert that Mars, or Venus, in a certain position, should produce adulteries? Such a statement attributes to them incontinence such as occurs only among man, and human passion to satisfy unworthy impulses. Or again, how could we believe that the aspects of planets is favorable when they regard each other in a certain manner? How can we avoid believing that their nature is determinate? What sort of an existence would be led by the planets if they occupied themselves with each single one of the innumerable ever-arising and passing beings, giving them each glory, wealth, poverty, or incontinence, and impelling all their actions? How could the single planets effect so many simultaneous results? Nor is it any more rational to suppose that the planets' actions await the ascensions of the signs, nor to say that the ascension of a sign contains as many years as there are degrees of ascension in it. Absurd also is the theory that the planets calculate, as it were on their fingers, the period of time when they are to accomplish something, which before was forbidden. Besides, it is an error not to trace to a single principle the government of the universe, attributing everything to the stars, as if there were not a single Chief from which depends the universe, and who distributes to every being a part and functions suitable to its nature. To fail to recognize Him, is to destroy the order of which we form a part, it is to ignore the nature of the world, which presupposes a primary cause, a principle by whose activity everything is interpenetrated.211

7. In fact, we would still have to ask ourselves for the cause of the events (in our world) even if the stars, like many other things, really prognosticated future events. We would still have to wonder at the maintenance of the order without which no events could be prefigured. We might, therefore, liken the stars to letters, at every moment flung along the heavens, and which, after having been displayed, continued in ceaseless motion, so that, while exercising another function in the universe, they would still possess significance.212 Thus in a being animated by a single principle it is possible to judge one part by another; as it is possible, by the study of the eyes or some other organ of an individual, to conclude as to his characters, to the dangers to which he is exposed, and how he may escape them. Just as our members are parts of our bodies, so are we ourselves parts of the universe. Things, therefore, are made for each other. Everything is significant, and the wise man can conclude from one thing to another. Indeed many habitual occurrences are foreseen by men generally. In the universe everything is reduced to a single system.213 To this co-ordination is due the possibility of birds furnishing us with omens, and other animals furnishing us with presages. All things mutually depend from each other. Everything conspires to a single purpose,214 not only in each individual, whose parts are perfectly related; but also in the universe, and that in a higher degree, and far earlier. This multiple being could be turned into a single universal Living organism only by a single principle. As in the human body every organ has its individual function, likewise in the universe each being plays its individual part; so much the more that they not only form part of the universe, but that they themselves also form universes not without importance.215 All things, therefore, proceed from a single principle, each plays its individual part, and lends each other mutual assistance. Neither are they separate from the universe, but they act and react on each other, each assisting or hindering the other. But their progress is not fortuitous, nor is it the result of chance. They form a series, where each, by a natural bond, is the effect of the preceding one, and the cause of the following one.216

8. When the soul applies herself to carry out her proper function217—for the soul effects everything, as far as she plays the part of a principle—she follows the straight road;218 when she loses her way219 the divine justice subjugates her to the physical order which reigns in the universe,220 unless the soul succeed in liberating herself. The divine justice221 reigns ever, because the universe is directed by the order and power of the dominating principle (the universal Soul).222 To this is joined the co-operation of the planets which are important parts of the heaven, either by embellishing it, or by serving as signs. Now they serve as signs for all things that occur in the sense-world. As to their potency, they should be credited only with what they effect indisputably.

As to us, we fill the functions of the soul in accordance with nature when we do not stray into the multiplicity contained in the universe. When we do stray therein, we are punished for it both by the straying itself, and by a less happy fate thereafter. Wealth and poverty, therefore, happen to us as effects of the operation of exterior things. As to the virtues and vices, virtues are derived from the primitive nature of the soul, while the vices result from dealings of the soul with exterior things. But this has been treated of elsewhere.223

9. This brings us to a consideration of the spindle, which, according to the ancients, is turned by the Fates, and by which Plato signifies224 that which, in the evolution of the world, moves, and that which is immovable. According to (Plato), it is the Fates, and their mother Necessity, which turn this spindle, and which impress it with a rotary motion in the generation of each being. It is by this motion that begotten beings arrive at generation. In the Timaeus225 the (Intelligence, or) divinity which has created the universe gives the (immortal) principle of the soul, (the reasonable soul), and the deities which revolve in the heaven add (to the immortal principle of the soul) the violent passions which subject us to Necessity, namely, angers, desires, sufferings, and pleasures; in short, they furnish us with that other kind of soul (the animal nature, or vegetable soul) from which they derive these passions. Plato thus seems to subject us to the stars, by hinting that we receive from them our souls,227 subordinating to the sway of Necessity when we descend here below, both ourselves and our morals, and through these, the "actions" and "passions"228 which are derived from the passional habit215 of the soul (the animal nature).229

Our genuine selves are what is essentially "us"; we are the principle to which Nature has given the power to triumph over the passions. For, if we be surrounded by evils because of the body, nevertheless, the divinity has given us virtue, which "knows of no master"223 (is not subject to any compulsion). Indeed we need virtue not so much when we are in a calm state, but when its absence exposes us to evils. We must, therefore, flee from here below;230 we must divorce ourselves from the body added to us in generation, and apply ourselves to the effort to cease being this animal, this composite in which the predominant element is the nature of the body, a nature which is only a trace of the soul, and which causes animal life231 to pertain chiefly to the body. Indeed, all that relates to this life is corporeal. The other soul (the reasonable soul, which is superior to the vegetative soul), is not in the body; she rises to the beautiful, to the divine, and to all the intelligible things, which depend on nothing else. She then seeks to identify herself with them, and lives conformably to the divinity when retired within herself (in contemplation). Whoever is deprived of this soul (that is, whoever does not exercise the faculties of the reasonable soul), lives in subjection to fatality.222 Then the actions of such a being are not only indicated by the stars, but he himself becomes a part of the world, and he depends on the world of which he forms a part. Every man is double,232 for every man contains both the composite (organism), and the real man (which constitutes the reasonable soul).

Likewise the universe is a compound of a body and of a Soul intimately united to it, and of the universal Soul, which is not in the Body, and which irradiates the Soul united to the Body.233 There is a similar doubleness in the sun and the other stars, (having a soul united to their body, and a soul independent thereof). They do nothing that is shameful for the pure soul. The things they produce are parts of the universe, inasmuch as they themselves are parts of the universe, and inasmuch as they have a body, and a soul united to this body; but their will and their real soul apply themselves to the contemplation of the good Principle. It is from this Principle, or rather from that which surrounds it, that other things depend, just as the fire radiates its heat in all directions, and as the superior Soul (of the universe) infuses somewhat of her potency into the lower connected soul. The evil things here below originate in the mixture inhering in the nature of this world. After separating the universal Soul out of the universe, the remainder would be worthless. Therefore, the universe is a deity if the Soul that is separable from it be included within its substance. The remainder constitutes the guardian which (Plato) names the Great Guardian,234 and which, besides, possesses all the passions proper to guardians.

10. Under these circumstances, we must acknowledge that events are, by the stars, announced, though not produced, not even by their (lower) corporeal soul. By their lower part, their body,235 they produce only the things which are passions of the universe. Besides, we shall have to acknowledge, that the soul, even before entering into generation, while descending here below, brings something which she has by herself; for she would not enter into a body unless she had a great disposition to suffer.236 We must also admit that while passing into a body the soul is exposed to accidents, inasmuch as she is subjected to the course of the universe, and as this very course contributes to the production of what the universe is to accomplish; for the things which are comprised in the course of the universe act as its parts.

11. We must also reflect that the impressions which we derive from the stars do not reach us in the same condition in which they leave them. Just as fire in us is much degenerated from that in the heaven, so sympathy, degenerating within the receiving person, begets an unworthy affection. Courage produces in those who do not possess it in the proper proportions, either violence or cowardliness. Love of the beautiful and good thus becomes the search for what only appears so. Discernment, in undergoing this degradation, becomes the trickiness which seeks to equal it, without succeeding in doing so. Thus all these qualities become evil in us, without being such in the stars. All the impressions we receive thereof are in us not such as they are in the stars; besides they are still further degraded by mingling with the bodies, with matter, and with each other.237

12. The influences proceeding from the stars commingle; and this mixture modifies all generated things, determining their nature and qualities.238 It is not the celestial influence which produces the horse, it is limited to exercising an influence upon him; for,239 the horse is begotten from horse, man from man; the sun can only contribute to their formation. Man is born from the (seminal logos), or reason of man; but the circumstances may be favorable or unfavorable to him. In fact, a son resembles the father, though he may be formed better or worse; but never does he entirely detach himself from matter. Sometimes, however, the matter so prevails over nature that the being is imperfect because the form does not dominate.240

13. We must now distinguish, decide and express the origin of various things, inasmuch as there are some things that are produced by the course of the stars, and others that are not. Our principle is that the Soul governs the universe by Reason, just as each animal is governed by the principle (the reason) which fashions his organs, and harmonizes them with the whole of which they are parts;241 now the All contains everything, while the parts contain only what is individual to them. As to exterior influences, some assist, while others oppose the tendency of nature. All things are subordinated to the All because they are parts of it; by their co-operation, each with its own nature and their particular tendencies they form the total life of the universe.242 The inanimate beings serve as instruments for the others that set them in motion by a mechanical impulse. Irrational animated beings move indeterminately; such as horses attached to a chariot before the driver indicates which direction they are to follow; for they need the whip to be directed. The nature of the reasonable animal contains the directing driver;243 if the driver be skilful, it follows the straight road, instead of going blindly at chance, as often happens. Beings gifted with reason and those that lack it are both contained within the universe, and contribute to the formation of the whole. Those which are more powerful, and which occupy a more elevated rank do many important things, and co-operate in the life of the universe where their part is active, rather than passive. The passive ones act but little. Those of intermediary rank are passive in regard to some, and often active in regard to others, because they themselves possess the power of action and production (the stars, the brutes, and men.244).

The universe leads an universal and perfect life, because the good principles (the star-Souls) produce excellency, that is, the more excellent part in every object.245 These principles are subordinate to the Soul that governs the universe, as soldiers are to their general; consequently, (Plato) describes this by the figure of the attendants of Jupiter (the universal Soul) advancing to the contemplation of the intelligible world.

The beings which possess a nature inferior to the star-Souls, that is, men, occupy the second rank in the universe, and play in it the same part played in us by the second power of the soul (the discursive reason). The other beings, that is, the animals, occupy about the same rank occupied in us by the lowest (or vegetative) power of the soul; for all these powers in us are not of equal rank.246 Consequently, all the beings which are in the heaven, or which are distributed in the universe are animated beings, and derive their life from the total Reason of the universe (because it contains the "seminal reasons" of all living beings). None of the parts of the universe, whatever be its greatness, possesses the power of altering the reasons, nor the beings engendered with the co-operation of these reasons. It may improve or degrade these beings, but cannot deprive them of their individual nature. It degrades them by injuring either their body or their soul; which occurs when an accident becomes a cause of vice for the soul which partakes of the passions of the body (the sensitive and vegetative soul) and which is given over to the inferior principle (to the animal) by the superior principle (the reasonable soul); or when the body, by its poor organization, hinders the actions in which the soul needs its co-operation; then it resembles a badly attuned lyre, which is incapable of producing sounds which could form a perfect harmony.247

14. Poverty, wealth, glory, and authoritative positions may have many different causes. If a man derive his wealth from his parents, the stars have only announced that he would be rich; and they would have only announced his nobility if he owed his wealth to his birth. If a man acquire wealth by his merit, in some way in which his body contributed thereto, the causes of his bodily vigor co-operated in his fortune; first his parents, then his fatherland, if it be possessed of a good climate, and last the fertility of the soil.248 If this man owe his wealth to virtue, this source should be considered exclusive; and likewise with the transitory advantages he may by divine favor possess. Even if his wealth be derived from virtuous persons, still, in another way, his fortune is due to virtue. If his wealth were derived from evil men, though by a just means, yet the wealth proceeds from a good principle which was active in them. Finally, if a man who has amassed wealth be evil, the cause of his fortune is this very wickedness, and the principle from which it derives; even those who may have given him money must be included in the order of its causes. If a man owe his wealth to labor, such as agricultural work, the causes of the wealth include the care of the ploughman and the co-operation of exterior circumstances. Even if he found a treasure, it is something in the universe which contributed thereto. Besides, this discovery may have been foretold; for all things concatenate with everything else, and, consequently, announce each other. If a man scatter his wealth, he is the cause of their loss; if his wealth be taken from him, the cause is the man who takes it. Many are the contributory causes of a shipwreck. Glory may be acquired justly or unjustly. Just glory is due to services rendered, or to the esteem of other people. Unjust glory is caused by the injustice of those who glorify that man. Deserved power is due to the good sense of the electors, or to the activity of the man who acquired it by the co-operation of his friends, or to any other circumstance. A marriage is determined by a preference, or by some accidental circumstance, or by the co-operation of several circumstances. The procreation of children is one of its consequences; it occurs in accordance with the ("seminal) reason," in case it meet no obstacle; if it be defective, there must be some interior defect in the pregnant mother, or the fault lies in the impotence of the father.

15. Plato249 speaks of the lots, and conditions chosen by one turn of the spindle (of Clotho); he speaks also of a guardian who helps each man to fulfil his destiny. These conditions are the disposition of the universe at the time of the soul's entrance into the body, the nature of their body, parents and fatherland; in short, the aggregate of external circumstances. Evidently all these things, in detail as well as in totality, are simultaneously produced and related by one of the Fates, namely Clotho. Lachesis then presents the conditions to the souls. Finally Atropos renders the accomplishment of all the circumstances of each destiny irrevocable.

Some men, fascinated by the universe and exterior objects, completely or partially abdicate their freedom.250 Others, dominating their environment, raise their head to the sky, and freeing themselves from exterior circumstances, release that better part of their souls which forms their primitive being. As to the latter point, it would be wrong to think that the nature of the soul was determined by the passions aroused in her by external objects, and that she did not possess her own individual nature. On the contrary, as she plays the part of a principle, she possesses, much more than other things, faculties suitable to accomplish actions suitable to her nature. Since she is a being, the soul necessarily possesses appetites, active faculties, and the power of living well.251 The aggregate (of the soul and body, the organism) depends on the nature which formed it, and from it receives its qualities and actions. If the soul separate from the body, she produces actions which are suitable to her nature, and which do not depend from the body; she does not appropriate the credit for the passions of the body, because she recognizes the difference of her nature.252

16. What is the mingled, and what is the pure part of the soul? What part of the soul is separable? What part is not separable so long as the soul is in a body? What is the animal? This subject will have to be studied elsewhere,253 for there is practically no agreement on the subject. For the present, let us explain in which sense we above said that the soul governs the universe by Reason.

Does the universal Soul form all the beings successively, first man, then the horse, then some other animal, and last the wild beasts?254 Does she begin by producing earth and fire; then, seeing the co-operation of all these things which mutually destroy or assist each other, does she consider only their totality and their connections, without regarding the accidents which occur to them later? Does she limit herself to the reproduction of preceding generations of animals, and does she leave these exposed to the passions with which they inspire each other?

Does the "reason" of each individual contain both his "actions" and "reactions"215 in a way such that these are neither accidental nor fortuitous, but necessary?255 Are these produced by the reasons? Or do the reasons know them, without producing them? Or does the soul, which contains the generative "reasons,"256 know the effects of all her works by reasoning according to the following principle, that the concourse of the same circumstances must evidently produce the same effects? If so, the soul, understanding or foreseeing the effects of her works, by them determines and concatenates all the events that are to happen. She, therefore, considers all the antecedents and consequents, and foresees what is to follow from what precedes.257 It is (because the beings thus proceed from each other) that the races continually degenerate. For instance, men degenerate because in departing continually and unavoidably (from the primitive type) the ("seminal) reasons" yield to the "passions" of matter.258

Is the soul the cause of these passions, because she begets the beings that produce them? Does the soul then consider the whole sequence of events, and does she pass her existence watching the "passions" experienced by her works? Does she never cease thinking of the latter, does she never put on them the finishing touch, regulating them so that they should always go well?259 Does she resemble some farmer who, instead of limiting himself to sowing and planting, should ceaselessly labor to repair the damage caused by the rains, the winds, and the storms? Unless this hypothesis be absurd, it must be admitted that the soul knows in advance, or even that the ("seminal)260 reasons" contain accidents which happen to begotten beings, that is, their destruction and all the effects of their faults.261 In this case, we are obliged to say that the faults are derived from the ("seminal) reasons", although the arts and their reasons contain neither error, fault, nor destruction of a work of art.262

THE UNIVERSE IS HARMONY,207 IN SPITE OF THE FAULTS IN THE DETAILS.

It might here be objected that there could not be in the universe anything bad or contrary to nature; and it must be acknowledged that even what seems less good still has its utility. If this seem to admit that things that are less good contribute to the perfection of the universe, and that there is no necessity that all things be beautiful,263 it is only because the very contraries contribute to the perfection of the universe, and so the world could not exist without them. It is likewise with all living beings. The ("seminal) reason" necessarily produces and forms what is better; what is less good is contained in the "potentiality" of the "reasons," and "actualized" in the begotten beings. The (universal) Soul has, therefore, no need to busy herself therewith, nor to cause the "reasons" to become active. For the "reasons" successfully subdue matter to what is better (the forms), even though matter alters what it receives by imparting a shock to the "reasons" that proceed from the higher principles. All things, therefore, form a harmonious totality because they simultaneously proceed from matter, and the "reasons" which beget them.

17. Let us examine if the "reasons" contained in the Soul are thoughts. How could the Soul produce by thoughts? It is the Reason which produces in matter; but the principle that produces naturally is neither a thought nor an intuition, but a power that fashions matter unconsciously, just as a circle gives water a circular figure and impression. Indeed, the natural generative power has the function of production; but it needs the co-operation of the governing (principle) of the Soul, which forms and which causes the activity of the generative soul engaged in matter. If the governing power of the Soul form the generative soul by reasoning, it will be considering either another object, or what it possesses in herself. If the latter be the case, she has no need of reasoning,264 for it is not by reasoning that the Soul fashions matter, but by the power which contains the reasons, the power which alone is effective, and capable of production. The Soul, therefore, produces by the forms. The forms she transmits are by her received from the Intelligence. This Intelligence, however, gives the forms to the universal Soul which is located immediately below her, and the universal Soul transmits them to the inferior soul (the natural generative power), fashioning and illuminating her. The inferior soul then produces, at one time without meeting any obstacles, at others, when doing so, although, in the latter case, she produces things less perfect. As she has received the power of production, and as she contains the reasons which are not the first (the "seminal reasons," which are inferior to the Ideas) not only does she, by virtue of what she has received, produce, but she also draws from herself something which is evidently inferior (matter).265 It doubtless produces a living being (the universe), but a living being which is less perfect, and which enjoys life much less, because it occupies the last rank, because it is coarse and hard to manage, because the matter which composes it is, as it were, the bitterness or the superior principles, because it spreads its bitterness around her, and communicates some of it to the universe.

18. Must the evils in the universe be considered as necessary,266 because they are the consequences of the superior principles? Yes, for without them the universe would be imperfect. The greater number of evils, if not all of them, are useful to the universe; such as the venomous animals; though they often ignore their real utility. Even wickedness is useful in certain respects, and can produce many beautiful things; for example, it leads to fine inventions, it forces men to prudence, and does not let them fall asleep in an indolent security.267

Under these circumstances, it is plain that the universal Soul ever contemplates the better principles, because it is turned towards the intelligible world, and towards the divinity. As she fills herself with God, and is filled with God, she, as it were, overflows over her image, namely, the power which holds the last rank (the natural generative power), and which, consequently, is the last creative power. Above this creative power is the power of the Soul which immediately receives the forms from the Intelligence. Above all is the Intelligence, the Demiurge, who gives the forms to the universal Soul, and the latter impresses its traces on the third-rank power (the natural generative power).268 This world, therefore, is veritably a picture which perpetually pictures itself. The two first principles are immovable; the third is also immovable (in essence); but it is engaged in matter, and becomes immovable (only) by accident. As long as the Intelligence and the Soul subsist, the "reasons" flow down into this image of the Soul (the natural generative power); likewise, so long as the sun subsists, all light emanates therefrom.269

1. To what part of our nature do pleasure and grief, fear and boldness desire and aversion, and, last, pain, belong? Is it to the soul (herself),271 or to the soul when she uses the body as an instrument,272 or to some third (combination) of both? Even the latter might be conceived of in a double sense: it might be either the simple mixture of the soul and the body,273 or some different product resulting therefrom.274 The same uncertainty obtains about the products of the above mentioned experiences: namely, passions,275 actions, and opinions. For example, we may ask whether ratiocination276 and opinion both, belong to the same principle as the passions; or whether only one of them does; in which case the other would belong to some other principle. We should also inquire concerning the nature and classification of thought.277 Last we should study the principle that undertakes this inquiry and which comes to some conclusion about it. But, first of all, who is the agent, who feels? This is the real starting point: for even passions are modes of feeling, or at least they do not exist without it.278

2. Let us first examine the soul (herself). Is there any difference between the soul and the soul-essence? If there be a difference, the soul must be a composite aggregate: and it should no longer be a matter of surprise that both she and her essence, at least so far as she admits thereof, together experience the above mentioned passions, and in general the habits, and better or worse dispositions. But, on the contrary, if, soul and soul-essence be identical, then the soul should be a form which would be unreceptive for all these energies of essence, which on the contrary she imparts to other things, possessing in herself a connate energy which our reason reveals in her. In this case we must acknowledge that she is immortal, inasmuch as the immortal and undecaying must be impassible, giving to others without receiving anything in return from them; or at least, deriving nothing but from the superior (or anterior) principles, from which she is not cut off, inasmuch as they are better.

A being that were so unreceptive to anything external would have no ground for fear of anything external. Fear might indeed be natural to something. Neither would she be bold, for this sentiment, implies shelter from what is terrifying. As to such desires which are satisfied by the emptying or filling of the body, they belong only to some nature foreign enough to be emptied or filled. How could she participate in a mixture, inasmuch as the essential is unmingled? Further she would not wish to have anything introduced (in herself), for this would imply striving to become something foreign to herself. She would also be far from suffering, for how could she grieve, and about what? For that which is of simple being is self-sufficient, in that she remains in her own being. Neither will she rejoice at any increase, as not even the good could happen to her. What she is, she ever will be. Nor could we attribute to the pure soul sensation, ratiocination or opinion; for sensation is the perception, of a form or of an impassible body; and besides ratiocination and opinion (depend) on sensation. We shall, however, have to examine whether or no we should attribute to the soul thought; also, whether pure pleasure can affect a soul while she remains alone.279

3. Whether the soul, according to her being, be located in the body, above or within this latter, the soul forms with the body an entity called (a "living being" or) organism.280 In this case, the soul using the body as a tool is not forced to participate in its passions, any more than workmen participate in the experiences of their tools. As to sensations, of course, the soul must perceive them, since in order to use her instrument, the soul must, by means of sensation, cognize the modifications that this instrument may receive from without. Thus seeing consists of using the eyes; and the soul at the same time feels the evils which may affect the sight. Similar is the case with griefs, pains and any corporeal exigency; also with the desires which arise from the soul's need to take recourse to the ministry of the body. But how do passions from the body penetrate into the soul? For a body could communicate her own properties to some other body; but how could she do so to a soul?

Such a process would imply that one individual suffers when an entirely different individual is affected. There must be a distinction between them so long as we consider the former the user, and the latter the used; and it is philosophy,281 that produces this separation by giving to the soul the power of using the body as a tool.

But what was the condition of the soul before her separation from the body by philosophy? Was she mingled with the body? If she were mingled with it, she must either have been formed282 by mixing;271 or she was spread all over the body; or she was283 a form interwoven with the body; or she was a form governing the body284 as a pilot governs the ship;285 or286 was partly mingled with, and partly separated from, the body. (In the latter case) I would call the independent part that which uses the body as a tool, while the mingled part is that which lowers itself to the classification or rank of instrument. Now philosophy raises the latter to the rank of the former; and the detached part turns her away, as far as our needs allow, from the body she uses, so that she may not always have to use the body.

4. Now let us suppose the soul is mingled with the body. In this mixture, the worse part, or body, will gain, while the soul will lose. The body will improve by participation with the soul; and the soul will deteriorate by association with death and irrationality. Well, does the soul, in somewhat losing life, gain the accession of sensation? On the other hand, would not the body, by participation in life, gain sensation and its derived passions? It is the latter, then, which will desire, inasmuch as it will enjoy the desired objects, and will feel fear about them. It is the latter which may be exposed to the escape of the objects of its desire, and to decay.287

We will set aside as impossible the mixture of two incommensurables, such as a line and the color called white. A mixture of the soul and body, which must imply their commensurability, would demand explanation. Even if the soul interpenetrate the body, the soul need not share the body's passions, for the interpenetrating medium may remain impassible; as light, which remains such in spite of its diffusion.288 Thus the soul might remain a stranger to the body's passions, though diffused through it, and need not necessarily undergo its passions.

Should we say that the soul is in the body, as form in matter? In this case, she is "being," and she would be a separable form. If then289 she be in the body as, in the case of the axe, the schematic figure is in the iron, so as by her own proper virtue, to form the power of doing what iron thus formed accomplishes, we will have all the more reason to attribute the common passions to the body, which is290 an organized physical tool possessing potential life. For if as (Plato) says291 it be absurd to suppose that it is the soul that weaves, it is not any more reasonable to attribute the desires and griefs to the soul; rather, by far, to the living organism.

5. The "living organism" must mean either the thus organized body, or the common mixture of soul and body, or some third thing which proceeds from the two first. In either of these three cases the soul will have to be considered impassible, while the power of experiencing passions will inhere in something else; or the soul will have to share the body's passions, in which case the soul will have to experience passions either identical or analogous to those of the body, so that to a desire of the animal there will correspond an act or a passion of the concupiscible appetite.

We shall later on consider the organized body; here we must find how the conjunction of soul and body could experience suffering. The theory that the affection of the body modifies it so as to produce a sensation which itself would end in the soul, leaves unexplained the origin of sensation. To the theory that suffering has its principle in this opinion or judgment, that a misfortune is happening to ourselves or some one related to us, whence results disagreeable emotion first in the body, and then in the whole living organism,292 there is this objection, that it is yet uncertain to which opinion belongs; to the soul, or to the conjunction of soul and body. Besides, the opinion of the presence of an evil does not always entail suffering; it is possible that, in spite of such an opinion, one feels no affliction; as, for instance, one may not become irritated at believing oneself scorned; or in experiencing no desire even in the expectation of some good.

How then arise these affections common to the soul and the body? Shall we then say that desire derives from the desire-appetite,293 anger from the anger-appetite, or in short, every emotion or affliction from the corresponding appetite? But even so, they will not be common, and they will belong exclusively to the soul, or to the body. There are some whose origin needs the excitation of blood and bile, and that the body be in some certain state which excites desire, as in physical love. On the contrary, however, the desire of goodness is no common affection; it is an affection peculiar to the soul, as are several others. Reason, therefore, does not allow us to consider all affections as common to soul and body.

Is it possible, however, that for example, in physical love, the man294 may experience a desire simultaneously with the corresponding appetite? This is impossible, for two reasons. If we say that the man begins to experience the desire, while the corresponding appetite continues it, it is plain the man cannot experience a desire without the activity of the appetite. If on the other hand it be the appetite that begins, it is clear that it cannot begin being excited unless the body first find itself in suitable circumstances, which is unreasonable.

6. It would, however, probably be better to put the matter thus: by their presence, the faculties of the soul cause reaction in the organs which possess them, so that while they themselves remain unmoved, they give them the power to enter into movement.295 In this case, however, when the living organism experiences suffering, the life-imparting cause must itself remain impassible, while the passions and energies belong wholly to that which receives life. In this case, therefore, the life will not belong exclusively to the soul, but to the conjunction of the soul and body; or, at least, the latter's life will not be identical with the soul's, nor will it be the faculty of sensation, which will feel, but the being in whom that faculty inheres.

If, however, sensation, which is no more than a corporeal emotion, finds its term in the soul, the soul must surely feel sensation; therefore it does not occur as an effect of the presence of the faculty of sensation, for this ignores the feeling agent back of it. Nor is it the conjunction of soul and body, for unless the faculty of sensation operate, that aggregate could not feel, and it would then no longer include as elements either the soul, or the faculty of sensation.

7. The aggregate results from the presence of the soul, not indeed that the soul enters into the aggregate, or constitutes one of its elements. Out of this organized body, and of a kind of light furnished by herself, the soul forms the animal nature, which differs both from soul and body, and to which belongs sensation, as well as all the passions attributed to the animal.296

If now we should be asked how it happened that "we" feel, we answer: We are not separated from the organism, although within us exist principles297 of a higher kind which concur in forming the manifold complex of human nature.

As to the faculty of sensation which is peculiar to the soul, it cannot be the power of perceiving the sense-objects themselves, but only their typical forms, impressed on the animal by sensation. These have already somewhat of the intelligible nature; the exterior sensation peculiar to the animal is only the image of the sensation peculiar to the soul; which, by its very essence is truer and more real, since it consists only in contemplating images while remaining impassible.298 Ratiocination, opinion and thought, which principally constitute us,299 deal exclusively with these images, by which the soul has the power of directing the organism.

No doubt these faculties are "ours," but "we" are the superior principle which, from above, directs the organising but in this whole we shall have to distinguish an inferior part, mingled with the body, and a superior part, which is the true man. The former (irrational soul) constitutes the beast, as for instance, the lion; the latter is the rational soul, which constitutes man. In every ratiocination, it is "we" who reason, because ratiocination is the peculiar activity (or, energy) of the soul.300

8. What is our relation with the Intelligence? I mean not the habit imparted to the soul by the intellect, but the absolute Intelligence;301 which, though above us, is also common to all men, or peculiar to each of them; in other words, is simultaneously common and individual. Common because it is indivisible, one and everywhere the same; particular because each soul possesses it entirely in the first or rational soul. Likewise, we possess the ideas in a double manner; in the soul they appear developed and separate; in the intelligence they exist all together.302

What is our relation with God? He hovers over the intelligible nature, and real being; while we, being on the third rank as counted from thence, are of the undivided universal Soul, which303 is indivisible because she forms part of the upper world, while she is divisible in regard to the bodies. She is indeed divisible in regard to the bodies, since she permeates each of them as far as they live; but at the same time she is indivisible because she is one in the universe.

She seems to be present in the bodies, and illuminates them, making living beings out of them. This occurs not as a mixture of herself and bodies, but by remaining individual, giving out images of herself,304 just as a single face in several mirrors. Of these, the first is sensation, which resides in the common part, the organism; then come all the other forms of the soul—forms which successively derive each from the other, down to the faculties of generation and increase, and generally, the power of producing and fashioning that which is different from self—which indeed the soul does as soon as she turns towards the object she fashions.305

9. In this conception of the soul, she will be foreign to the cause of the evils which the man does and suffers. These refer to the organism, that common part, understood as above. Although opinion be deceptive, and makes us commit much evil, and although opinion and ratiocination both belong to the soul, yet the soul may be sinless, inasmuch as we are only mastered by the worse part of our nature.306 Often, indeed, we yield to appetite, to anger, and we are the dupes of some imperfect image. The conception of false things, the imagination307 does not await the judgment of discursive reason. There are still other cases where we yield to the lower part of ourselves; in sensation, for instance, we see things that do not exist, because we rely on the common sensation of soul and body, before having discerned its objects by discursive reason.

In this case did the intellect grasp the object itself? Certainly not; and, therefore, it is not the intellect that is responsible for the error. We say as much for the "we," according as we will or will not have perceived the object, either in the intellect, or in ourselves;—for it is possible to possess an object without having it actually present.

We have distinguished from things common to soul and body, those peculiar to the soul. The former are corporeal, and cannot be produced without the organs, while the latter's occurrence is independent of the body. Ratiocination276 is the essential and constitutive faculty of the real soul, because it determines the typical forms derived from sensation, it looks, it somehow feels the images, and really is the dominating part of the soul. The conception of true things is the act of intuitive thoughts.

There is often a resemblance and community between exterior and interior things; in this case the soul will not any the less exercise herself on herself, will not any the less remain within herself, without feeling any passive modification. As to the modifications and troubles which may arise in us, they derive from foreign elements, attached to the soul, as well as from passions experienced by the above described common part.

10. But if "we" are the "soul," we must admit that when we experience passions, the soul experiences them also; that when we act, the soul acts. We may even say that the common part is also "ours," especially before philosophy separated the soul from the body;308 in fact, we even say "we" suffer, when our body suffers. "We" is, therefore, taken in a double sense: either the soul with the animal part, or living body; or simply the upper part; while the vivified body is a wild beast.

The real Man differs from the body; pure from every passion, he possesses the intellectual virtues, virtues which reside in the soul, either when she is separated from the body, or when she is—as usually here below—only separable by philosophy; for even when she seems to us entirely separated, the soul is, in this life, ever accompanied by a lower309 sensitive part, or part of growth, which she illuminates.310

As to the virtues which consist not in wisdom, but in ethical habits and austerities, they belong to the common part. To it alone, also, are vices to be imputed, inasmuch as it exclusively experiences envy, jealousy and cowardly pity. Friendships, however, should be referred some to the common part, and others to the pure Soul or inner Man. In childhood, the faculties of the composite common part are exercised, but rarely is it illuminated from above. When this superior principle seems inactive in relation to us, it is actively engaged towards the upper intelligible world; and it only begins to be active towards us when it advances as far as311 (fancy or representation), the middle part of our being.

But is the superior principle not "ours" also? Surely, but only when we are conscious thereof; for we do not always utilize our possessions. This utilization, however, takes place when we direct this middle part of our being towards either the upper or lower worlds, and when we actualize into energies what before was only an (Aristotelian) "potentiality" or a (Stoic) "habit."

We might define the animating principle of animals. If it be true, according to common opinion, that animal bodies contain human souls that have sinned, the separable part of these souls does not properly belong to these bodies; although these souls assist these bodies, the souls are not actually present to them.312 In them the sensation is common to the image of the soul and to the body;—but to the latter only in so far as it is organized and fashioned by the image of the soul. As to the animals into whose bodies no human soul entered, they are produced by an illumination of the universal Soul.

12. There is a contradiction between our own former opinion that the soul cannot sin, and the universally admitted belief that the soul commits sins, expiates them, undergoes punishments in Hades, and that she passes into new bodies. Although we seem to be in a dilemma, forcing us to choose between them, it might be possible to show they are not incompatible.

When we attribute infallibility to the soul, we are supposing her to be one and simple, identifying the soul with soul essence. When, however, we consider her capable of sin, we are looking at her as a complex, of her essence and of another kind of soul which can experience brutal passions. The soul, thus, is a combination of various elements; and it is not the pure soul, but this combination, which experiences passions, commits sins, and undergoes punishments. It was this conception of the soul Plato was referring to when he said:313 "We see the soul as we see Glaucus, the marine deity," and he adds, "He who would know the nature of the soul herself should, after stripping her of all that is foreign to her, in her, especially consider her philosophic love for truth; and see to what things she attaches herself, and by virtue of whose affinities she is what she is." We must, therefore, differentiate the soul's life acts from that which is punished, and when we speak of philosophy's separation of the soul, we mean a detaching not only from the body, but also from what has been added to the soul.

This addition occurs during her generation, or rather in the generation of another ideal form of soul, the "animal nature." Elsewhere314 this generation has been explained thus. When the soul descends, at the very moment when she inclines towards the body, she produces an image of herself. The soul, however, must not be blamed for sending this image into the body. For the soul to incline towards the body is for the soul to shed light on what is below her; and this is no more sinful than to produce a shadow. That which is blamable is the illuminated object; for if it did not exist, there would be nothing to illuminate. The descent of the soul, or her inclination to the body, means only that she communicates life to what she illuminates. She drives away her image, or lets it vanish, if nothing receptive is in its vicinity; the soul lets the image vanish, not because she is separated—for to speak accurately, she is not separated from the body—but because she is no longer here below; and she is no longer below when she is entirely occupied in contemplating the intelligible world.

(Homer) seems to admit this distinction in speaking of Hercules, when he sends the image of this hero into Hades, and still he locates him within the abode of the deities315;—it is at least the idea implied in this double assertion that Hercules is in Hades and that he is in Olympus. The poet, therefore, distinguished in him two elements. We might perhaps expound the passage as follows: Hercules had an active virtue, and because of his great qualities was judged worthy of being classified with the deities, but as he possessed only the active virtue, and not the contemplative virtue, he could not be admitted into Heaven entirely; while he is in heaven, there is something of him in Hades.316

13. Is it "we" or the "soul" which makes these researches? It is we, by means of the soul. The cause of this is, not we who consider the soul because we possess her, but that the soul considers herself. This need not imply motion, as it is generally understood, but a motion entirely different from that of the bodies, and which is its own life.

Intelligence277 also is ours, but only in the sense that the soul is intelligent; for us, the (higher) life consists in a better thinking. The soul enjoys this life either when she thinks intelligible objects, or when the intellect is both a part of ourselves, and something superior towards which we ascend.

1. Could any one say that there was, for any being, any good but the activity of "living according to nature?"318 For a being composed of several parts, however, the good will consist in the activity of its best part, an action which is peculiar, natural, and unfailing. Further: as the soul is an excellent being, and directs her activity towards something excellent, this excellent aim is not merely excellent relatively to the soul, but is the absolute Good. If then there be a principle which does not direct its action towards any other thing, because it is the best of beings, being above them all, it can be this only because all other beings trend towards it. This then, evidently, is the absolute Good by virtue of which all other beings participate therein.

Now there are two methods of participation in the Good: the first, is to become similar to it; the second is to direct one's activity towards it. If then the direction of one's desire and one's action towards the better principle be a good, then can the absolute good itself neither regard nor desire any other thing, remaining in abiding rest, being the source and principle of all actions conforming to nature, giving to other things the form of the Good, without acting on them, as they, on the contrary, direct their actions thereto.

Only by permanence—not by action, nor even by thought—is this principle the Good. For if it be super-Being, it must also be super-Activity, super-Intelligence, and Thought. The principle from which everything depends, while itself depending on nothing else, must, therefore, be recognized as the Good. (This divinity) must, therefore, persist in His condition, while everything turns towards Him, just as, in a circle, all the radii meet in the centre. An example of this is the sun, which is a centre of the light that is, as it were, suspended from that planet. The light accompanies the sun everywhere, and never parts from it; and even if you wished to separate it on one side, it would not any the less remain concentrated around it.

2. Let us study the dependence of everything on the Good. The inanimate trends toward the Soul, while the animate Soul trends towards the Good through Intelligence. As far as anything possesses unity, essence or form, it participates in the Good. By its participation in unity, essence and form each being participates in the Good, even though the latter be only an image, for the things in which it participates are only images of unity, essence, and form. For the (first) Soul319 as she approaches Intelligence, she acquires a life which approaches closer to truth; and she owes this to Intelligence; thus (by virtue of Intelligence) she possesses the form of the Good. To possess the latter, all she needs to do is to turn her looks towards it; for Intelligence is the next after the Good. Therefore, to those to whom it is granted to live, life is the good. Likewise, for those who participate in intelligence, Intelligence is the good. Consequently, such (a being as) joins intelligence to life possesses a double good.

3. Though life be a good, it does not belong to all beings. Life is incomplete for the evil person, as for an eye that does not see distinctly; neither accomplish their purpose. If, for us, life, though mingled as it is, be a good, even if an imperfect one, how shall we continue to assert that death is not an evil? But for whom would it be an evil? This we must ask because evil must necessarily be an attribute of somebody. Now there is no more evil for a being which, though even existing, is deprived of life, any more than for a stone (as they say). But if, after death, the being still live, if it be still animate, it will possess good, and so much the more as it exercises its faculties without the body. If it be united to the universal Soul, evidently there can be no evil for it, any more than for the gods who possess good unmingled with evil. Similar is the case of the soul which preserves her purity, inasmuch as he who loses her finds that life, and not death, is the real Evil. If there be chastisements in Hades, again is life an evil for the soul, because she is not pure. If, further, we define life as the union of the soul with the body, and death as their separation, the soul can pass through both these conditions (without, on that account, being unhappy, or losing her hold on the Good).

How is death not an evil, if life be a good? Certainly life is a good for such as possess the Good, (it is a good) not because the soul is united to the body, but because she repels evil by virtue. (Without the latter) death would rather be a good (because it delivers us from the body320). To resume: by itself, life in a body is evil; but, by virtue, the soul locates herself in the good, not by perpetuating the existing corporeal union, but by separating herself from the body.

The order of Bouillet has been left, because the other orders differ anyway, and because this is the one that Porphyry introduced into the works of Plotinos. It must, therefore, have been of most significance to him.

I.—There is a difference between the virtues of the citizen, those of the man who essays to rise to contemplation, and who, on this account, is said to possess a contemplative mind; those of him who contemplates intelligence; and finally those of pure Intelligence, which is completely separated from the soul.

1. The civil virtues consist of moderation in passions, and in letting one's actions follow the rational laws of duty. The object of these virtues being to make us benevolent in our dealings with our fellow-human beings, they are called civil virtues because they mutually unite citizens. "Prudence refers to the rational part of our soul; courage, to that part of the soul subject to anger; temperance consists in the agreement and harmony of appetite and reason; finally justice, consists in the accomplishment, by all these faculties, of the function proper to each of them, either to command, or to obey."

2. The virtues of the man who tries to rise to contemplation consist in detaching oneself from things here below; that is why they are called "purifications."323 They command us to abstain from activities which innervate the organs, and which excite the affections that relate to the body. The object of these virtues is to raise the soul to genuine existence. While the civil virtues are the ornament of mortal life, and prepare the soul for the purificatory virtues, the latter direct the man whom they adorn to abstain from activities in which the body predominates. Thus, in the purificatory virtues, "prudence consists in not forming opinions in harmony with the body, but in acting by oneself, which is the work of pure thought. Temperance consists in not sharing the passions of the body; courage, in not fearing separation therefrom, as if death drove man into emptiness and annihilation; while justice exacts that reason and intelligence command and be obeyed." The civil virtues moderate the passions; their object is to teach us to live in conformity with the laws of human nature. The contemplative virtues obliterate the passions from the soul; their object is to assimilate man to the divinity.

There is a difference between purifying oneself, and being pure. Consequently the purificatory virtues may, like purification itself, be considered in two lights; they purify the soul, and they adorn the purified soul, because the object of purification is purity. But "since purification and purity consist in being separated from every foreign entity, the good is something different from the soul that purifies itself. If the soul that purifies herself had possessed the good before losing her purity, it would be sufficient for the soul to purify herself; but in this very case, what would remain to her after the purification would be the good, but not the purification. But the soul is not the good; she can only participate therein, and have its form; otherwise the soul would not have fallen into evil. For the soul, good consists in being united to her author, and her evil is to unite with lower things."324

Of evil, there are two kinds; the one, is to unite with lower things; the other is to abandon oneself to the passions. The civil virtues owe their name of virtues and their value to their releasing the soul from one of these two kinds of evil (of the passions). The purificatory virtues are superior to the former, in that they free the soul from her characteristic form of evil (that is, union with lower things). Therefore, when the soul is pure, she must be united to her author; her virtue, after her "conversion," consists in her knowledge and science of veritable existence; not that the soul lacks this knowledge, but because without her superior principle, without intelligence, she does not see what she possesses.325

3. There is a third kind of virtues, which are superior to the civil and purificatory virtues, the "virtues of the soul that contemplates intelligence." "Here prudence and wisdom consist in contemplating the "beings" or essences contained by intelligence; justice consists in the soul's fulfilling of her characteristic function; that is, in attaching herself to intelligence and to direct her activity thither. Temperance is the intimate conversion of the soul towards Intelligence, while courage is the impassibility by which the soul becomes assimilated to what she contemplates, since the soul's nature is to be impassible.326 These virtues are as intimately concatenated as the other (lower forms)."

4. There is a fourth kind of virtues, the "exemplary virtues," which reside within intelligence. Their superiority to the virtues of the soul is the same as that of the type to the image; for intelligence contains simultaneously all the "beings" or essences which are the types of lower things. "Within intelligence, prudence is the science; wisdom is the thought, temperance is the conversion towards oneself; justice is the accomplishment of one's characteristic function; courage is the identity of intelligence, its perseverance in purity, concentrated within itself, in virtue of its superiority."327

We thus have four kinds of virtues: 1, the exemplary virtues, characteristic of intelligence, and of the "being" or nature to which they belong; 2, the virtues of the soul turned towards intelligence, and filled with her contemplation; 3, the virtues of the soul that purifies herself, or which has purified herself from the brutal passions characteristic of the body; 4, the virtues that adorn the man by restraining within narrow limits the action of the irrational part, and by moderating the passions. "He who possesses the virtues of the superior order necessarily (potentially) possesses the inferior virtues. But the converse does not occur."328 "He who possesses the superior virtues will not prefer to practice the lower virtues because of the mere possession thereof; he will practice them only when circumstances will invite (it). The objects, indeed, differ with the kind of virtues. The object of the civil virtues is to moderate our passions so as to conform our conduct to the laws of human nature. That of the purificatory virtues is to detach the soul completely from the passions. That of the contemplative virtues is to apply the soul to intellectual operations, even to the extent of no longer having to think of the need of freeing oneself from the passions. Last, that of the exemplary virtues is similar to that of the other virtues. Thus the practical virtues make man virtuous; the purificatory virtues make man divine, or make of the good man, a protecting deity; the contemplative virtues deify; while the exemplary virtues make a man the parent of divinities. We should specially apply ourselves to purificatory virtues believing that we can acquire them even in this life; and that possession of them leads to superior virtues. We must push purification as far as possible, as it consists in separating (the soul) from the body, and in freeing oneself from any passional movement of the irrational part. But how can one purify the soul? To what limit may purification be pushed? These are two questions that demand examination.

To begin with, the foundation of purification is to know oneself, to realize that he is a soul bound to a foreign being, of a different nature (or, "being").

Further, when one is convinced of this truth, one should gather oneself together within himself, detaching himself from the body, and freeing himself entirely from the passions. He who makes use of his senses too often, though it be done without devotion or pleasure, is, nevertheless, distracted by the care of the body, and is chained thereto by sensation. The pains and the pleasures produced by sense-objects exercise a great influence on the soul, and inspire the soul with an inclination for the body. It is important to remove such a disposition from the soul. "To achieve this purpose, the soul will allow the body only necessary pleasures, that serve to cure her of her sufferings, to refresh her from her exhaustions, to hinder her from being importunate. The soul will free herself from pains;327 if this be beyond her powers, the soul will support them patiently, and will diminish them, while refusing to share them. The soul will appease anger so far as possible; she will even try to suppress them entirely; at least, if that be impossible, she will not voluntarily participate therein, leaving the non-reflective excitement to another (animal) nature, reducing the involuntary motions as far as possible. The soul will be inaccessible to fear—having nothing further to risk; even so, she will restrain every sudden movement; she will pay attention to fear only insofar as it may be nature's warning at the approach of danger. Absolutely nothing shameful will be desired; in eating and drinking, she will seek only the satisfaction of a need, while remaining essentially alien thereto. The pleasures of love will not even involuntarily be tasted, at least, she will not allow herself to be drawn beyond the flights of fancy that occur in dreams. In the purified man, the intellectual part of the soul will be pure of all these passions. She will even desire that the part that experiences the irrational passions of the body should take notice of them without being agitated thereby, and without yielding to them. In this way, if the irrational part should itself happen to experience emotions, the latter will be promptly calmed by the presence of reason. Struggles will have been left behind before any headway will have been made to purification. The presence of reason will suffice; the inferior principle, indeed, will respect the higher one to the extent of being angry with itself, and reproaching itself for weakness, in case it feels any agitation that disturbs its master's rest." So long as the soul experiences even moderate passions, the soul's progress towards impassibility remains in need of improvement. The soul is impassible only when she has entirely ceased to participate in the passions of the body. Indeed, that which permitted the passions to rule was that reason relaxed the reins as a result of her own inclination.

2. Nature releases what nature has bound. The soul releases what the soul has bound. Nature binds the body to the soul, but it is the soul herself that has bound herself to the body. It, therefore, belongs to nature to detach the body from the soul, while it is the soul herself that detaches herself from the body.

3. There is a double death. One, known by all men, consists in the separation of the body with the soul; the other, characteristic of philosophers, results in the separation of the soul from the body. The latter is consequence of the former.

4. While separating ourselves from existence we by thought beget nonentity (matter). While remaining united with existence, we also conceive of nonentity (the one). Consequently, when we separate ourselves from existence, we do not conceive of the nonentity which is above existence (the one), but we beget by thought something that is deceptive, and we put ourselves in the condition (of indetermination) in which one is when outside of oneself. Just as each one can really, and by himself, raise himself to the non-existence which is above existence (the One); so (by separating oneself from existence by thought), we may reach the nonentity beneath existence.

5. The name "incorporeal" does not designate one and the same genus, as does the word "body." Incorporeal entities derive their name from the fact that they are conceived of by abstraction from the body. Consequently, some of them (like intelligence and discursive reason) are genuine beings, existing as well without as within the body, subsisting by themselves, by themselves being actualizations and lives; other beings (such as matter, sense-form without matter, place, time, and so forth), do not constitute real beings, but are united to the body, and depend therefrom, live through others, possess only a relative life, and exist only through certain actualizations. Indeed, when we apply to them the name of incorporeal entities (it is merely a negative designation), indicating only what they are not, but not what they are.

6. (1) The soul is a "being" or essence, without extension, immaterial and incorruptible; her nature consists in a life which is life in itself.

7. (3, end) When the existence of some being is life itself, and when the passions are lives, its death consists in a life of a certain nature, and not in entire privation of life; for the "passion" experienced by this "being" or essence, does not force it into complete loss of life.

8. (2, 3) There is a difference between the affections of the bodies, and those of incorporeal things. The affection of bodies consists in change. On the contrary, the affections and experiences characteristic of the soul are actualizations that have nothing in common with the cooling or heating up of the bodies. Consequently if, for bodies, an affection ever implies a change, we may say that all incorporeal (beings) are impassible. Indeed, immaterial and incorporeal beings are always identical in their actualization; but those that impinge on matter and bodies, though in themselves impassible, allow the subjects in which they reside to be affected. So when an animal feels, the soul resembles a harmony separated from its instrument, which itself causes the vibration of the strings that have been tuned to unison herewith; while the body resembles a harmony inseparable from the strings. The reason why the soul moves the living being is that the latter is animated. We, therefore, find an analogy between the soul and the musician who causes his instrument to produce sounds because he himself contains a harmonic power. The body, struck by a sense-impression, resembles strings tuned in unison. In the production of sound, it is not the harmony itself but the string that is affected. The musician causes it to resound because he contains a harmonic power. Nevertheless, in spite of the will of the musician, the instrument would produce no harmonies that conformed to the laws of music, unless harmony itself dictated them.

9. (5) The soul binds herself to the body by a conversion toward the affections experienced by the body. She detaches herself from the body by "apathy," (turning away from the body's affections.)

10. (7) According to the ancient (sages) such are the properties of matter. "Matter is incorporeal because it differs from bodies. Matter is not lifeless, because it is neither intelligence, nor soul, nor anything that lives by itself. It is formless, variable, infinite, impotent; consequently, matter cannot be existence, but nonentity. Of course it is not nonentity in the same way that movement is nonentity; matter is nonentity really. It is an image and a phantom of extension, because it is the primary substrate of extension. It is impotence, and the desire for existence. The only reason that it persists is not rest (but change); it always seems to contain contraries, the great and small, the less and more, lack and excess. It is always "becoming," without ever persisting in its condition, or being able to come out of it. Matter is the lack of all existence; and, consequently, what matter seems to be is a deception. If, for instance, matter seems to be large, it really is small; like a mere phantom, it escapes and evanesces into nonentity, not by any change of place, but by its lack of reality. Consequently, the substrate of the images in matter consists of a lower image. That in which objects present appearances that differ according to their positions is a mirror, a mirror that seems crowded, though it possesses nothing, and which yet seems to be everything."

11. Passions (or, affections) refer to something destructible; for it is passion that leads to destruction; it is the same sort of being that can be affected, and can be destroyed. Incorporeal entities, however, are not subject to destruction; they either exist or not; in either case they are non-affectible. That which can be affected need not have this impassible nature, but must be subject to alteration or destruction by the qualities of things that enter into it and affect it; for that which in it subsists is not altered by the first chance entity. Consequently, matter is impassible, as by itself it possesses no quality. The forms that enter into and issue from matter (as a substrate) are equally impassible. That which is affected is the composite of form and matter, whose existence consists in the union of these two elements; for it is evidently subject to the action of contrary powers, and of the qualities of things which enter into it, and affect it. That is why the beings that derive their existence from something else, instead of possessing it by themselves, can likewise by virtue of their passivity, either live or not. On the contrary, the beings whose existence consists in an impassible life necessarily live permanently; likewise the things that do not live are equally impassible inasmuch as they do not live. Consequently, being changed and being affected refer only to the composite of form and matter, to the body, and not to matter. Likewise, to receive life and to lose it, to feel passions that are its consequence, can refer only to the composite of soul and body. Nothing similar could happen to the soul; for she is not something compounded out of life and lifelessness; she is life itself, because her "being" or nature is simple, and is automatic.

12. (1) Thought is not the same everywhere; it differs according to the nature of every "being." In intelligence, it is intellectual; in the soul it is rational; in the plant it is seminal; last, it is superior to intelligence and existence in the principle that surpasses all these.

13. (7) The word "body" is not the only one that may be taken in different senses; such is also the case with "life." There is a difference between the life of the plant, of the animal, of the soul, of intelligence, and of super-intelligence. Indeed, intelligible entities are alive though the things that proceed therefrom do not possess a life similar to theirs.

14. (8) By (using one's) intelligence one may say many things about the super-intellectual (principle). But it can be much better viewed by an absence of thought, than by thought. This is very much the same case as that of sleep, of which one can speak, up to a certain point, during the condition of wakefulness; but of which no knowledge of perception can be acquired except by sleeping. Indeed, like is known only by like; the condition of all knowledge is for the subject to be assimilated to the subject.330

15. (1) Every body is in a place; the incorporeal in itself is not in a place, any more than the things which have the same nature as it.

16. (1) The incorporeal in itself, by the mere fact of its being superior to every body and to every place, is present everywhere without occupying extension, in an indivisible manner.

17. (1) The incorporeal in itself, not being present to the body in a local manner, is present to the body whenever it pleases, that is, by inclining towards it so far as it is within its nature to do so. Not being present to the body in a local manner, it is present to the body by its disposition.

18. (1) The incorporeal in itself does not become present to the body in "being" nor in hypostatic form of existence. It does not mingle with the body. Nevertheless, by its inclination to the body, it begets and communicates to it a potentiality capable of uniting with the body. Indeed the inclination of the incorporeal constitutes a second nature (the irrational soul), which unites with the body.

19. (1) The soul has a nature intermediary between the "being" that is indivisible, and the "being" that is divisible by its union with the bodies. Intelligence is a "being" absolutely indivisible; the bodies alone are divisible; but the qualities and the forms engaged in matter are divisible by their union with the bodies.

20. (2) The things that act upon others do not act by approximation and by contact. It is only accidentally when this occurs (that they act by proximity and contact).

21. (20) The hypostatic substance of the body does not hinder the incorporeal in itself from being where and as it wishes; for just as that which is non-extended cannot be contained by the body, so also that which has extension forms no obstacle for the incorporeal, and in relation to it is as nonentity. The incorporeal does not transport itself where it wishes by a change of place; for only extended substance occupies a place. Neither is the incorporeal compressed by the body; for only that which is extended can be compressed and displaced. That which has neither extension nor magnitude, could not be hindered by that which has extension, nor be exposed to a change of place. Being everywhere and nowhere, the incorporeal, wherever it happens to be, betrays its presence only by a certain kind of disposition. It is by this disposition that it rises above heaven, or descends into a corner of the world. Not even this residence makes it visible to our eyes. It is only by its works that it manifests its presence.

22. (21–24) If the incorporeal be contained within the body, it is not contained within it like an animal in a zoölogical garden; for it can neither be included within, nor embraced by the body. Nor is it, compressed like water or air in a bag of skins. It produces potentialities which from within its unity (?) radiate outwards; it is by them that it descends into the body and penetrates it.331 It is by this indescribable extension of itself that it enters into the body, and shuts itself up within it. Except itself nothing retains it. It is not the body that releases the incorporeal as result of a lesion, or of its decay; it is the incorporeal that detaches itself by turning away from the passions of the body.

23. (9) Just as "being on the earth," for the soul, is not to tread on the ground, as does the body, but only to preside over the body that treads on the ground; likewise, "to be in hell" for the soul, is to preside over an image whose nature is to be in a place, and to have an obscure hypostatic form of existence. That is why if the subterranean hell be a dark place, the soul, without separating from existence, descends into hell when she attaches herself to some image. Indeed, when the soul abandons the solid body over which she presided she remains united to the spirit which she has received from the celestial spheres. Since, as a result of her affection for matter, she has developed particular faculties by virtue of which she had a sympathetic habit for some particular body during life, as a result of this disposition, she impresses a form on the spirit by the power of her imagination, and thus she acquires an image. The soul is said to be in hell because the spirit that surrounds her also happens to have a formless and obscure nature; and as the heavy and moistened spirit descends down into subterranean localities, the soul is said to descend underground. Not indeed that the very "being" of the soul changes place, or is in a locality, but because she contracts the habits of the bodies whose nature it is to change location, and to be located somewhere. That is why the soul according to her disposition, acquires some one body rather than some other; for the rank and the special characteristics of the body into which she enters depend on her disposition.

Therefore, when in a condition of superior purity, she unites with a body that is close to immaterial nature, that is, an ethereal body. When she descends from the development of reason to that of the imagination, she receives a solar body. If she becomes effeminate, and falls in love with forms, she puts on a lunar body. Finally, when she falls into the terrestrial bodies, which, resembling her shapeless character, are composed of moist vapors, there results for her a complete ignorance of existence, a sort of eclipse, and a veritable childhood. When the soul leaves an earthly body, having her spirit still troubled by these moist vapors, she develops a shadow that weights her down; for a spirit of this kind naturally tends to descend into the depths of the earth, unless it be held up and raised by a higher cause. Just as the soul is attached to the earth by her earthly vesture, so the moist spirit(ual body) to which the soul is united makes her drag after her an image which weights down the soul. The soul surrounds herself with moist vapors when she mingles with a nature that in its operations is moist or subterranean. But if the soul separate from this nature, immediately around her shines a dry light, without shade or shadow. In fact it is humidity which forms clouds in the air; the dryness of the atmosphere produces a dry and serene clearness.

24. (3) The soul contains the reasons of all things. The soul operates according to these reasons, whether incited to activity by some exterior object, or whether the soul be turned towards these reasons by folding back on herself. When the soul is incited to this activity by some exterior object, she applies her senses thereto; when she folds back on herself, she applies herself to thoughts. It might be objected that the result is that there is neither sensation nor thought without imagination; for just as in the animal part, no sensation occurs without an impression produced on the organs of sense; likewise there is no thought without imagination. Certainly, an analogy obtains between both cases. Just as the sense-image (type) results from the impression experienced by sensation, likewise the intellectual image (phantasm) results from thought.

25. (2) Memory does not consist in preserving images. It is the faculty of reproducing the conceptions with which our soul has been occupied.

26. When incorporeal hypostatic substances descend, they split up and multiply, their power weakening as they apply themselves to the individual. When, on the contrary, they rise, they simplify, unite, and their power intensifies.

27. In the life of incorporeal entities, the procession operates in a manner such that the superior principle remains firm and substantial in its nature, imparting its existence to what is below it, without losing anything, or transforming itself into anything. Thus that which receives existence does not receive existence with decay or alteration; it is not begotten like generation (that is, the being of sense), which participates in decay and change. It is, therefore, non-begotten and incorruptible, because it is produced without generation or corruption.

28. Every begotten thing derives the cause of its generation from some other (being); for nothing is begotten causelessly. But, among begotten things, those which owe their being to a union of elements are on that very account perishable. As to those which, not being composite, owe their being to the simplicity of their hypostatic substances, they are imperishable, inasmuch as they are indissoluble. When we say that they are begotten, we do not mean that they are composite, but only that they depend on some cause. Thus bodies are begotten doubly, first because they depend on a cause, and then because they are composite. Souls and intelligence, indeed, are begotten in the respect that they depend on a cause; but not in the respect that they are composite. Therefore, bodies, being doubly begotten, are dissoluble and perishable. The Soul and Intelligence, being unbegotten in the sense that they are not composite, are indissoluble and imperishable; for they are begotten only in the sense that they depend on a cause.

29. Every principle that generates, by virtue of its "being," is superior to the product it generates. Every generated being naturally turns towards its generating principle. Of the generating principles, some (the universal and perfect substances) do not turn towards their product; while others (the substances that are individual, and subject to conversion towards the manifold) partly turn towards their product, and remain partly turned towards themselves; while others entirely turn towards their product, and do not turn at all towards themselves.

30. Of the universal and perfect hypostatic substances, none turns towards its product. All perfect hypostatic substances return to the principles that generated them. The very body of the world, by the mere fact of its perfection, is converted to the intelligent Soul, and that is the cause of its motion being circular. The Soul of the world is converted to Intelligence, and this to the First.332 All beings, therefore, aspire to the First, each in the measure of its ability, from the very lowest in the ranks of the universe up. This anagogical return of beings to the First is necessary, whether it be mediate or immediate. So we may say that beings not only aspire to the First, but that each being enjoys the First according to its capacity.333 The individual hypostatic substances, however, that are subject to declining towards manifoldness, naturally turn not only towards their author, but also towards their product. That is the cause of (any subsequent) fall and unfaithfulness. Matter perverts them because they possess the possibility of inclining towards it, though they are also able to turn towards the divinity. That is how perfection makes second rank beings be born of the first principles, and then be converted towards them. It is, on the contrary, the result of imperfection, to turn higher entities to lower things, inspiring them with love for that which, before them, withdrew from the first principles (in favor of matter).

31. (1) When one being subsists by dependence on any other, and not by self-dependence and withdrawal from any other, it could not turn itself towards itself to know itself by separating from (the substrate) by which it subsists. By withdrawing from its own existence it would alter and perish. But when one being cognizes itself by withdrawal from that to which it is united, when it grasps itself as independent of that being, and succeeds in doing so without exposing itself to destruction, it evidently does not derive its "being" or nature from the being from which it can, without perishing, withdraw, to face itself, and know itself independently. If sight, and in general all sensation do not feel itself, nor perceive itself on separating from the body, and do not subsist by itself; if, on the contrary, intelligence think better by separating from the body, and can be converted to itself without perishing, evidently sense-faculties are actualized only by help of the body, while intelligence actualizes and exists by itself, and not by the body.

32. (3, 5–7) There is a difference between intelligence and the intelligible, between sensation and that which can be sensed. The intelligible is united to intelligence as that which can be sensed is connected with sensation. But sensation cannot perceive itself.... As the intelligible is united to Intelligence, it is grasped by intelligence and not by sensation. But intelligence is intelligible for intelligence. Since then intelligence is intelligible for intelligence, intelligence is its own object. If intelligence be intelligible, but not "sensible," it is an intelligible object. Being intelligible by intelligence, but not by sensation, it will be intelligent. Intelligence, therefore, is simultaneously thinker and thought, all that thinks and all that is thought. Its operation, besides, is not that of an object that rubs and is rubbed: "It is not a subject in some one part of itself, and in some other, object of thought; it is simple, it is entirely intelligible for itself as a whole."334 The whole of intelligence excludes any idea of unintelligence. It does not contain one part that thinks, while another would not think; for then, in so far as it would not think, "it would be unintelligent." It does not abandon one object to think of another; for it would cease to think the object it abandoned. If, therefore, intelligence do not successively pass from one object to another, it thinks simultaneously; it does not think first one (thought) and then another; it thinks everything as in the present, and as always....

If intelligence think everything as at present, if it know no past nor future, its thought is a simple actualization, which excludes every interval of time. It, therefore, contains everything together, in respect to time. Intelligence, therefore, thinks, all things according to unity, and in unity, without anything falling in in time or in space. If so, intelligence is not discursive, and is not (like the soul) in motion; it is an actualization, which is according to unity, and in unity, which shuns all chance development and every discursive operation.335 If, in intelligence, manifoldness be reduced to unity, and if the intellectual actualization be indivisible, and fall not within time, we shall have to attribute to such a "being" eternal existence in unity. Now that happens to be "aeonial" or everlasting existence.336 Therefore, eternity constitutes the very "being" (or nature) of intelligence. The other kind of intelligence, that does not think according to unity, and in unity, which falls into change, and into movement, which abandons one object to think another, which divides, and gives itself up to a discursive action, has time as "being" (or nature).

The distinction of past and future suits its action. When passing from one object to another, the soul changes thoughts; not indeed that the former perish, or that the latter suddenly issue from some other source; but the former, while seeming to have disappeared, remain in the soul; and the latter, while seeming to come from somewhere else, do not really do so, but are born from within the soul, which moves only from one object to another, and which successively directs her gaze from one to another part of what she possesses. She resembles a spring which, instead of flowing outside, flows back into itself in a circle. It is this (circular) movement of the soul that constitutes time, just as the permanence of intelligence in itself constitutes (aeonial) eternity. Intelligence is not separated from eternity, any more than the soul is from time. Intelligence and eternity form but a single hypostatic form of existence. That which moves simulates eternity by the indefinite perpetuity of its movement, and that which remains immovable, simulates time by seeming to multiply its continual present, in the measure that time passes. That is why some have believed that time manifested in rest as well as in movement, and that eternity was no more than the infinity of time. To each of these two (different things) the attributes of the other were mistakenly attributed. The reason of this is that anything that ever persists in an identical movement gives a good illustration of eternity by the continuousness of its movement; while that which persists in an identical actualization represents time by the permanence of its actualization. Besides, in sense-objects, duration differs according to each of them. There is a difference between the duration of the course of the sun, and that of the moon, as well as that of Venus, and so on. There is a difference between the solar year, and the year of each of these stars. Different, further, is the year that embraces all the other years, and which conforms to the movement of the soul, according to which the stars regulate their movements. As the movement of the soul differs from the movement of the stars, so also does its time differ from that of the stars; for the divisions of this latter kind of time correspond to the spaces travelled by each star, and by its successive passages in different places.

33. (10–12) Intelligence is not the principle of all things; for it is manifold. Now the manifold presupposes the One. Evidently, it is intelligence that is manifold; the intelligibles that it thinks do not form unity, but manifoldness, and they are identical therewith. Therefore, since intelligence and the intelligible entities are identical, and as the intelligible entities form a manifoldness, intelligence itself is manifold.

The identity of intelligence and of intelligible entities may be demonstrated as follows. The object that intelligence contemplates must be in it, or exist outside of itself. It is, besides, evident, that intelligence contemplates; since, for intelligence, to think is to be intelligence,337 therefore, to abstract its thought would be to deprive it of its "being." This being granted, we must determine in what manner intelligence contemplates its object. We shall accomplish this by examining the different faculties by which we acquire various kinds of knowledge, namely, sensation, imagination and intelligence.

The principle which makes use of the senses contemplates only by grasping exterior things, and far from uniting itself to the objects of its contemplation, from this perception it gathers no more than an image. Therefore when the eye sees the visible object, it cannot identify itself with this object; for it would not see it, unless it were at a certain distance therefrom. Likewise if the object of touch confused itself with the organ that touches it, it would disappear. Therefore the senses, and the principle that makes use of the senses, apply themselves to what is outside of them to perceive this sense-object.

Likewise imagination applies its attention to what is outside of it to form for itself an image of it; it is by this very attention to what is outside of it that it represents to itself the object of which it forms an image as exterior.

That is how sensation and imagination perceive their objects. Neither of these two faculties folds itself back on itself, nor concentrates on itself, whether the object of their perception be a corporeal or incorporeal form.

Not in this manner is intelligence perceived; this can occur only by turning towards itself, and by contemplating itself. If it left the contemplation of its own actualizations, if it ceased to be their contemplation (or, intuition), it would no longer think anything. Intelligence perceives the intelligible entity as sensation perceives the sense-object, by intuition. But in order to contemplate the sense-object, sensation applies to what is outside of it, because its object is material. On the contrary, in order to contemplate the intelligible entity, intelligence concentrates in itself, instead of applying itself to what is outside of it. That is why some philosophers have thought that there was only a nominal difference between intelligence and imagination; for they believed that intelligence was the imagination of the reasonable animal; as they insisted that everything should depend on matter and on corporeal nature, they naturally had to make intelligence also depend therefrom. But our intelligence contemplates natures (or, "beings"). Therefore, (according to the hypothesis of these philosophers) our intelligence will contemplate these natures as located in some place. But these natures are outside of matter; consequently, they could not be located in any place. It is therefore evident that the intelligible entities had to be posited as within intelligence.

If the intelligible entities be within intelligence, intelligence will contemplate intelligible entities and will contemplate itself while contemplating them; by understanding itself, it will think, because it will understand intelligible entities. Now intelligible entities form a multitude, for338 intelligence thinks a multitude of intelligible entities, and not a unity; therefore, intelligence is manifold. But manifoldness presupposes unity; consequently, above intelligence, the existence of unity will be necessary.

34. (5) Intellectual being is composed of similar parts, so that existing beings exist both in individual intelligence, and in universal Intelligence. But, in universal Intelligence, individual (entities) are themselves conceived universally; while in individual intelligence, universal beings as well as individual beings are conceived individually.

35. The incorporeal is that which is conceived of by abstraction of the body; that is the derivation of its name. To this genus, according to ancient sages, belong matter, sense-form, when conceived of apart from matter, natures, faculties, place, time, and surface. All these entities, indeed, are called incorporeal because they are not bodies. There are other things that are called incorporeal by a wrong use of the word, not because they are not bodies, but because they cannot beget bodies. Thus the incorporeal first mentioned above subsists within the body, while the incorporeal of the second kind is completely separated from the body, and from the incorporeal that subsists within the body. The body, indeed, occupies a place, and the surface does not exist outside of the body. But intelligence and intellectual reason (discursive reason), do not occupy any place, do not subsist in the body, do not constitute any body, and do not depend on the body, nor on any of the things that are called incorporeal by abstraction of the body. On the other hand, if we conceive of the void as incorporeal, intelligence cannot exist within the void. The void, indeed, may receive a body, but it cannot contain the actualization of intelligence, nor serve as location for that actualization. Of the two kinds of the incorporeal of which we have just spoken, the followers of Zeno reject the one (the incorporeal that exists outside of the body) and insist on the other (the incorporeal that is separated from the body by abstraction, and which has no existence outside of the body); not seeing that the first kind of incorporeality is not similar to the second, they refuse all reality to the former, though they ought, nevertheless, to acknowledge that the incorporeal (which subsists outside of the body), is of another kind (than the incorporeal that does not subsist outside of the body), and not to believe that, because one kind of incorporeality has no reality, neither can the other have any.

34. (2, 3, 4) Everything, if it be somewhere, is there in some manner that conforms to its nature. For a body that is composed of matter, and possesses volume, to be somewhere, means that it is located in some place. On the contrary, the intelligible world, and in general the existence that is immaterial, and incorporeal in itself, does not occupy any place, so that the ubiquity of the incorporeal is not a local presence. "It does not have one part here, and another there;" for, if so, it would not be outside of all place, nor be without extension; "wherever it is, it is entire; it is not present here and absent there;" for in this way it would be contained in some one place, and excluded from some other. "Nor is it nearer one place, and further from some other," for only things that occupy place stand in relations of distance. Consequently, the sense-world is present to the intelligible in space; but the intelligible is present to the sense-world in space; but the intelligible is present to the sense-world without having any parts, nor being in space. When the indivisible is present in the divisible, "it is entire in each part," identically and numerically one. "If simple and indivisible existence become extended and manifold, it is not in respect to the extended and manifold existence which possesses it, not such as it really is, but in the manner in which (simple existence) can possess (manifold existence)." Extended and manifold existence has to become unextended and simple in its relation with naturally extended and simple existence, to enjoy its presence. In other terms, it is conformable to its nature, without dividing, nor multiplying, nor occupying space, that intelligible existence is present to existence that is naturally divisible, manifold, and contained within a locality; but it is in a manifold, divisible and local manner that a located existence is present to "the existence that has no relation to space." In our speculations on corporeal and incorporeal existence, therefore, we must not confuse their characteristics, preserving the respective nature of each, taking good care not to let our imagination or opinion attribute to the incorporeal certain corporeal qualities. Nobody attributes to bodies incorporeal characteristics, because everybody lives in daily touch with bodies; but as it is so difficult to cognize incorporeal natures ("beings"), only vague conceptions are formed of it, and they cannot be grasped so long as one lets oneself be guided by imagination. One has to say to oneself, a being known by the senses is located in space, and is outside of itself because it has a volume; "the intelligible being is not located in space, but in itself," because it has no volume. The one is a copy, the other is an archetype; the one derives its existence from the intelligible, the other finds it in itself; for every image is an image of intelligence. The properties of the corporeal and the incorporeal must be clearly kept in mind so as to avoid surprise at their difference, in spite of their union, if indeed it be permissible to apply the term "union" to their mutual relation; for we must not think of the union of corporeal substances, but of the union of substances whose properties are completely incompatible, according to the individuality of their hypostatic form of existence. Such union differs entirely from that of "homoousian" substances of the same nature; consequently, it is neither a blend, nor a mixture, nor a real union, nor a mere collocation. The relation between the corporeal and the incorporeal is established in a different manner, which manifests in the communication of "homoousian" substances of the sense nature, of which, however, no corporeal operation can give any idea. The incorporeal being is wholly without extension in all the parts of the extended being, even though the number of these parts were infinite. "It is present in an indivisible manner, without establishing a correspondence between each of its parts with the parts of the extended being;" it does not become manifold merely because, in a manifold manner, it is present to a multitude of parts. The whole of it is entire in all the parts of the extended being, in each of them, and in the whole mass, without dividing or becoming manifold to enter into relations with the manifold, preserving its numerical identity.339 It is only to beings whose power is dispersed that it belongs to possess the intelligible by parts and by fractions. Often these beings, on changing from their nature, imitate intelligible beings by a deceptive appearance, and we are in doubt about their nature ("being"), for they seem to have exchanged it for that of incorporeal "being," or essence.

37. (5) That which really exists has neither great nor small. Greatness and smallness are attributes of corporeal mass. By its identity and numerical unity, real existence is neither great nor small, neither very large nor very small, though it cause even greatest and smallest to participate in its nature. It must not, therefore, be represented as great, for in that case we could not conceive how it could be located in the smallest space without being diminished or condensed. Nor should it be represented as small, which conception of it would hinder our understanding how it could be present in a whole large body without being increased or extended. We must try to gain a simultaneous conception of both that which is very large and very small, and realize real existence as preserving its identity and its indwelling in itself in any chance body whatever, along with an infinity of other bodies of different sizes. It is united to the extension of the world, without extending itself, or uniting, and it exceeds the extension of the world as well as that of its parts, by embracing them within its unity. Likewise, the world unites with real existence by all its parts, so far as its nature allows it to do so, though it cannot, however, embrace it entirely, nor contain its whole power. Real existence is infinite and incomprehensible for the world because, among other attributes, it possesses that of having no extension.

38. Great340 magnitude is a hindrance for a body, if, instead of comparing it to things of the same kind, it is considered in relation with things of a different nature; for volume is, as it were, a kind of procession of existence outside of itself, and a breaking up of its power. That which possesses a superior power is alien to all extension; for potentiality does not succeed in realizing its fulness until it concentrates within itself; it needs to fortify itself to acquire all its energy. Consequently the body, by extending into space, loses its energy, and withdraws from the potency that belongs to real and incorporeal existence; but real existence does not weaken in extension, because, having no extension, it preserves the greatness of its potency. Just as, in relation to the body, real existence has neither extension nor volume, likewise corporeal existence, in relation to real existence, is weak and impotent. The existence that possesses the greatest power does not occupy any extension. Consequently, though the world fill space, though it be everywhere united to real extension, it could not, nevertheless, embrace the greatness of its potency. It is united to real existence, not by parts, but in an indivisible and indefinite manner. Therefore, the incorporeal is present to the body, not in a local manner, but by assimilation, so far as the body is capable of being assimilated to the incorporeal, and as the incorporeal can manifest in it. The incorporeal is not present to the material, in so far as the material is incapable of being assimilated to a completely immaterial principle; however, the incorporeal is present to the corporeal in so far as the corporeal can be assimilated thereto. Nor is the incorporeal present to the material by receptivity (in the sense that one of these two substances would receive something from the other); otherwise the material and the immaterial would be altered; the former, on receiving the immaterial, into which it would be transformed, and the latter, on becoming material. Therefore, when a relation is established between two substances that are as different as the corporeal and the incorporeal, an assimilation and participation that is reciprocal to the power of the one, and the impotence of the other, occurs. That is why the world always remains very distant from the power of real existence, and the latter from the impotence of material nature. But that which occupies the middle, that which simultaneously assimilates and is assimilated, that which unites the extremes, becomes a cause of error in respect to them, because the substances it brings together by assimilation are very different.

39. "It341 would be wrong to suppose that the manifoldness of souls was derived from the manifoldness of bodies. The individual souls, as well as the universal Soul, subsist independently of the bodies, without the unity of the universal Soul absorbing the manifoldness of individual souls, and without the manifoldness of the latter splitting up the unity of the universal Soul." Individual souls are distinct without being separated from each other, and without dividing the universal Soul into a number of parts; they are united to each other without becoming confused, and without making the universal Soul a mere total; "for they are not separated by limits," and they are not confused with each other; "they are as distinct from each other as different sciences in a single soul." Further, individual souls are not contained in the universal Soul as if they were bodies, that is, like really different substances (?), for they are qualitative actualizations of the soul. Indeed, "the power of the universal Soul is infinite," and all that participates in her is soul; all the souls form the universal Soul, and, nevertheless, the universal Soul exists independently of all individual souls. Just as one does not arrive at the incorporeal by infinite division of bodies, seeing that such a division would modify them only in respect to magnitude, likewise, on infinitely dividing the soul, which is a living form, we reach nothing but species (not individuals); for the Soul contains specific differences, and she exists entire with them as well as without them. Indeed, though the Soul should be divided within herself, her diversity does not destroy her identity. If the unity of bodies, in which manifoldness prevails over identity, is not broken up by their union with an incorporeal principle; if, on the contrary, all of them possess the unity of "being" or substance, and are divided only by qualities and other forms; what shall we say or think of the species of incorporeal life, where identity prevails over manifoldness, and where there is no substrate alien to form, and from which bodies might derive their unity? The unity of the Soul could not be split up by her union with a body, though the body often hinder her operations. Being identical, the Soul discovers everything by herself, because her actualizations are species, however far the division be carried. When the Soul is separated from bodies, each of her parts possesses all the powers possessed by the Soul herself, just as an individual seed has the same properties as the universal Seed (seminal reason). As an individual seed, being united to matter, preserves the properties of the universal Seed (seminal reason), and as, on the other hand, universal Seed possesses all the properties of the individual seeds dispersed within matter, thus the parts which we conceive of in the (universal) Soul that is separated from matter, possess all the powers of the universal Soul.342 The individual soul, which declines towards matter, is bound to the matter by the form which her disposition has made her choose; but she preserves the powers of the universal Soul, and she unites with her when the (individual soul) turns away from the body, to concentrate within herself.

Now as in the course of her declination towards matter, the soul is stripped entirely bare by the total exhaustion of her own faculties; and as, on the contrary, on rising towards intelligence, she recovers the fulness of the powers of the universal Soul,343 the ancient philosophers were right, in their mystic phrasing, to describe these two opposite conditions of the Soul by the names of Penia and Poros, (Wealth and Poverty).344

40. Better346 to express the special nature of incorporeal existence the ancient philosophers, particularly Parmenides,347 do not content themselves with saying "it is one," but they also add "and all," just as a sense-object is a whole. But as this unity of the sense-object contains a diversity (for in the sense-object the total unity is not all things in so far as it is one, and as all things constitute the total unity). The ancient philosophers also add, "in so far as it is one." This was to prevent people from imagining a collective whole and to indicate that the real being is all, only by virtue of its indivisible unity. After having said, "it is everywhere," they add, "it is nowhere." Then, after having said, "it is in all," that is, in all individual things whose disposition enables them to receive it, they still add, as an entire whole. They represent it thus simultaneously under the most opposite attributes, so as to eliminate all the false imaginations which are drawn from the natures of the bodies, and which will only obscure the genuine idea of real existence.

41. Such348 are the genuine characteristics of the sensual and material; it is extended, mutable, always different from what it was, and composite; it does not subsist by itself, it is located in a place, and has volume, and so forth. On the contrary, the real being that is self-subsisting, is founded on itself, and is always identical; its nature ("being") is identity, it is essentially immutable, simple, indissoluble, without extension, and outside of all place; it is neither born, nor does it perish. So let us define these characteristics of the sensual and veritable existence, and let us put aside all other attributes.

42. Real349 existence is said to be manifold, without its really being different in space, volume, number, figure, or extension of parts; its division is a diversity without matter, volume, or real manifoldness. Consequently, the real being is one. Its unity does not resemble that of a body, of a place, of a volume, of a multitude. It possesses diversity in unity. Its diversity implies both division and union; for it is neither exterior nor incidental; real existence is not manifold by participation in some other (nature), but by itself. It remains one by exercising all its powers, because it holds its diversity from its very identity, and not by an assemblage of heterogeneous parts, such as bodies. The latter possess unity in diversity; for, in them, it is diversity that dominates, the unity being exterior and incidental. In real existence, on the contrary, it is unity that dominates with identity; diversity is born of the development of the power of unity. Consequently, real existence preserves its indivisibility by multiplying itself; while the body preserves its volume and multiplicity by unifying itself. Real existence is founded on itself, because it is one by itself. The body is never founded upon itself, because it subsists only by its extension. Real existence is, therefore, a fruitful unity, and the body is a unified multitude. We must, therefore, exactly determine how real existence is both one and manifold, how the body is both manifold and one, and we must guard from confusing the attributes of either.

43. The divinity350 is everywhere because it is nowhere. So also with intelligence and the soul. But it is in relation to all beings that it surpasses, that the divinity is everywhere and nowhere; its presence and its absence depend entirely on its nature and its will.351 Intelligence is in the divinity, but it is only in relation to the things that are subordinated to it, that intelligence is everywhere and nowhere (?). The body is within the soul and in divinity. All things that possess or do not possess existence proceed from divinity, and are within divinity; but the divinity is none of them, nor in any of them. If the divinity were only present everywhere, it would be all things, and in all things; but, on the other hand, it is nowhere; everything, therefore, is begotten in it and by it, because it is everywhere, but nothing becomes confused with it, because it is nowhere. Likewise if intelligence be the principle of the souls and of the things that come after the souls, it is because it is everywhere and nowhere; because it is neither soul, nor any of the things that come after the soul, nor in any of them; it is because it is not only everywhere, but also nowhere in respect to the beings that are inferior to it. Similarly the soul is neither a body, nor in the body, but is only the cause of the body, because she is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere in the body. So there is procession in the universe (from what is everywhere and nowhere), down to what can neither simultaneously be everywhere and nowhere, and which limits itself to participating in this double property.

44. "When352 you have conceived of the inexhaustible and infinite power of existence in itself, and when you begin to realize its incessant and indefatigable nature, which completely suffices itself," which has the privilege of being the purest life, of possessing itself fully, of being founded upon itself, of neither desiring nor seeking anything outside of itself, "you should not attribute to it any special determination," or any relation; for when you limit yourself by some consideration of space or relation, you doubtlessly do not limit existence in itself, but you turn away from it, extending the veil of imagination over your thought. "You can neither transgress, nor fix, nor determine, nor condense within narrow limits, the nature of existence in itself, as if it had nothing further to give beyond (certain limits), exhausting itself gradually." It is the most inexhaustible spring of which you can form a notion. "When you will have achieved (?) that nature, and when you will have become assimilated to eternal existence, seek nothing beyond." Otherwise, you will be going away from it, you will be directing your glances on something else. "If you do not seek anything beyond," if you shrink within yourself and into your own nature, "you will become assimilated to universal Existence, and you will not halt at anything inferior to it. Do not say, That is what I am. Forgetting what you are (?), you will become universal Existence. You were already universal Existence, but you had something besides; by that mere fact you were inferior, because that possession of yours that was beyond universal Existence was derived from nonentity. Nothing can be added to universal Existence." When we add to it something derived from nonentity, we fall into poverty and into complete deprivation. "Therefore, abandon nonentity, and you will fully possess yourself, (in that you will acquire universal existence by putting all else aside; for, so long as one remains with the remainder, existence does not manifest; and does not grant its presence)." Existence is discovered by putting aside everything that degrades and diminishes it, ceasing to confuse it with inferior objects, and ceasing to form a false idea of it. Otherwise one departs both from existence and from oneself. Indeed, when one is present to oneself, he possesses the existence that is present everywhere; when one departs from himself, he also departs from it. So important is it for the soul to acquaint herself with what is in her, and to withdraw from what is outside of her; for existence is within us, and nonentity is outside of us. Now existence is present within us, when we are not distracted from it by other things. "It does not come near us to make us enjoy its presence. It is we who withdraw from it, when it is not present with us." Is there anything surprising in this? To be near existence, you do not need to withdraw from yourselves; for "you are both far from existence and near it, in this sense that it is you who come near to it, and you who withdraw from it, when, instead of considering yourselves, you consider that which is foreign to you." If then you are near existence while being far from it; if, by the mere fact of your being ignorant of yourselves, you know all things to which you are present, and which are distant from you, rather than yourself who is naturally near you, is there anything surprising in that, that which is not near you should remain foreign to you, since you withdraw from it when you withdraw from yourself? Though you should always be near yourself, and though you cannot withdraw from it, you must be present with yourself to enjoy the presence of the being from which you are so substantially inseparable as from yourself. In that way it is given you to know what exists near existence, and what is distant from it, though itself be present everywhere and nowhere. He who by thought can penetrate within his own substance, and can thus acquire knowledge of it, finds himself in this actualization of knowledge and consciousness, where the substrate that knows is identical with the object that is known. Now when a man thus possesses himself, he also possesses existence. He who goes out of himself to attach himself to external objects, withdraws also from existence, when withdrawing also from himself. It is natural to us to establish ourselves within ourselves, where we enjoy the whole wealth of our own resources, and not to turn ourselves away from ourselves towards what is foreign to ourselves, and where we find nothing but the most complete poverty. Otherwise, we are withdrawing from existence, though it be near us; for it is neither space, nor "being" (substance), nor any obstacle that separates us from existence; it is our reversion towards nonentity. Our alienation from ourselves, and our ignorance are thus a just punishment of our withdrawal from existence. On the contrary, the love that the soul has for herself leads her to self-knowledge and communion with the divinity. Consequently, it has rightly been said that man here below is in a prison, because he has fled from heaven353 ... and because he tries to break his bonds; for, when he turns towards things here below, he has abandoned himself, and has withdrawn from his divine origin. It is, (as Empedocles says), "a fugitive who has deserted his heavenly fatherland."354 That is why the life of a vicious man is a life that is servile, impious, and unjust, and his spirit is full of impiety and injustice.355 On the contrary, justice, as has been rightly said, consists in each one fulfilling his function (?). To distribute to each person his due is genuine justice.

We propose to describe the faculties of the soul, and to set forth the various opinions on the subject held by both ancient and modern thinkers.

Aristo (there were two philosophers by this name, one a Stoic, the other an Aristotelian) attributes to the soul a perceptive faculty, which he divides into two parts. According to him, the first, called sensibility, the principle and origin of sensations, is usually kept active by some one of the sense-organs. The other, which subsists by itself, and without organs, does not bear any special name in beings devoid of reason, in whom reason does not manifest, or at least manifests only in a feeble or obscure manner; however, it is called intelligence in beings endowed with reason, among whom alone it manifests clearly. Aristo holds that sensibility acts only with the help of the sense-organs, and that intelligence does not need them to enter into activity. Why then does he subordinate both of these to a single genus, called the perceptive faculty? Both doubtless perceive, but the one perceives the sense-form of beings, while the other perceives their essence. Indeed, sensibility does not perceive the essence, but the sense-form, and the figure; it is intelligence that perceives whether the object be a man or a horse. There are, therefore, two kinds of perception that are very different from each other; sense-perception receives an impression, and applies itself to an exterior object; on the contrary, intellectual perception does not receive any impression.

There have been philosophers who separated these two parts; they called intelligence or discursive reason the understanding which is exercised without imagination and sensation; and opinion, the understanding which is exercised with imagination and sensation. Others, on the contrary, considered rational "being," or nature, a simple essence, and attributed to it operations whose nature is entirely different. Now it is unreasonable to refer to the same essence faculties which differ completely in nature; for thought and sensation could not depend on the same essential principle; and if we were to call the operation of intelligence a perception, we would only be juggling with words. We must, therefore, establish a perfectly clear distinction between these two entities, intelligence and sensibility. On the one hand, intelligence possesses a quite peculiar nature, as is also the case with discursive reason, which is next below it. The function of the former is intuitive thought, while that of the latter is discursive thought. On the other hand, sensibility differs entirely from intelligence, acting with or without the help of organs; in the former case, it is called sensation; in the latter, imagination. Nevertheless, sensation and imagination belong to the same genus. In understanding, intuitive intelligence is superior to opinion, which applies to sensation or imagination; this latter kind of thought, whether called discursive thought, or anything else (such as opinion), is superior to sensation and imagination, but inferior to intuitive thought.

Numenius, who teaches that the faculty of assent (or, combining faculty) is capable of producing various operations, says that representation (fancy) is an accessory of this faculty, that it does not, however, constitute either an operation or function of it, but a consequence of it. The Stoics, on the contrary, not only make sensation consist in representation, but even reduce representation to (combining) assent. According to them sense-imagination (or sense-fancy) is assent, or the sensation of the determination of assent. Longinus, however, does not acknowledge any faculty of assent. The philosophers of the ancient Academy (the Platonists) believe that sensation does not comprise sense-representation, and that, consequently, it does not have any original property, since it does not participate in assent. If sense representation consisted of assent added to sensation, sensation, by itself, will have no virtue, since it is not the assent given to the things we possess.

It is not only about the faculties that the ancient philosophers disagree.... They are besides in radical disagreement about the following questions: What are the parts of the soul; what is a part; what is a faculty; what difference is there between a part and a faculty?

The Stoics divide the soul into eight parts: the five senses, speech, sex-power, and the directing (predominating) principle, which is served by the other faculties, so that the soul is composed of a faculty that commands, and faculties that obey.

In their writing about ethics, Plato and Aristotle divide the soul into three parts. This division has been adopted by the greater part of later philosophers; but these have not understood that the object of this definition was to classify and define the virtues (Plato: reason, anger and appetite; Aristotle: locomotion, appetite and understanding). Indeed, if this classification be carefully scrutinized, it will be seen that it fails to account for all the faculties of the soul; it neglects imagination, sensibility, intelligence, and the natural faculties (the generative and nutritive powers).

Other philosophers, such as Numenius, do not teach one soul in three parts, like the preceding, nor in two, such as the rational and irrational parts. They believe that we have two souls, one rational, the other irrational. Some among them attribute immortality to both of the souls; others attribute it only to the rational soul, and think that death not only suspends the exercise of the faculties that belong to the irrational soul, but even dissolves its "being" or essence. Last, there are some that believe, that by virtue of the union of the two souls, their movements are double, because each of them feels the passions of the other.

We shall now explain the difference obtaining between a part and a faculty of the soul. One part differs from another by the characteristics of its genus (or, kind); while different faculties may relate to a common genus. That is why Aristotle did not allow that the soul contained parts, though granting that it contained faculties. Indeed, the introduction of a new part changes the nature of the subject, while the diversity of faculties does not alter its unity. Longinus did not allow in the animal (or, living being) for several parts, but only for several faculties. In this respect, he followed the doctrine of Plato, according to whom the soul, in herself indivisible, is divided within bodies. Besides, that the soul does not have several parts does not necessarily imply that she has only a single faculty; for that which has no parts may still possess several faculties.

To conclude this confused discussion, we shall have to lay down a principle of definition which will help to determine the essential differences and resemblances that exist either between the parts of a same subject, or between its faculties, or between its parts and its faculties. This will clearly reveal whether in the organism the soul really has several parts, or merely several faculties, and what opinion about them should be adopted. (For there are two special types of these.) The one attributes to man a single soul, genuinely composed of several parts, either by itself, or in relation to the body. The other one sees in man a union of several souls, looking on the man as on a choir, the harmony of whose parts constitutes its unity, so that we find several essentially different parts contributing to the formation of a single being.

First we shall have to study within the soul the differentials between the part, the faculty and the disposition. A part always differs from another by the substrate, genus, and function. A disposition in a special aptitude of some one part to carry out the part assigned to it by nature. A faculty is the habit of a disposition, the power inherent in some part to do the thing for which it has a disposition. There was no great inconvenience in confusing faculty and disposition; but there is an essential difference between part and faculty. Whatever the number of faculties, they can exist within a single "being," or nature, without occupying any particular point in the extension of the substrate, while the parts somewhat participate in its extension, occupying therein a particular point. Thus all the properties of an apple are gathered within a single substrate, but the different parts that compose it are separate from each other. The notion of a part implies the idea of quantity in respect to the totality of the subject. On the contrary, the notion of a faculty implies the idea of totality. That is why the faculties remain indivisible, because they penetrate the whole substrate, while the parts are separate from each other because they have a quantity.

How then may we say that a soul is indivisible, while having three parts? For when we hear it asserted that she contains three parts in respect to quantity, it is reasonable to ask how the soul can simultaneously be indivisible, and yet have three parts. This difficulty may be solved as follows: the soul is indivisible in so far as she is considered within her "being," and in herself; and that she has three parts in so far as she is united to a divisible body, and that she exercises her different faculties in the different parts of the body. Indeed, it is not the same faculty that resides in the head, in the breast, or in the liver;357 (the seats of reason, of anger and appetite). Therefore, when the soul has been divided into several parts, it is in this sense that her different functions are exercised within different parts of the body.

Nicholas (of Damascus358), in his book "On the Soul," used to say that the division of the soul was not founded on quantity, but on quality, like the division of an art or a science. Indeed, when we consider an extension, we see that the whole is a sum of its parts, and that it increases or diminishes according as a part is added or subtracted. Now it is not in this sense that we attribute parts to the soul; she is not the sum of her parts, because she is neither an extension nor a multitude. The parts of the soul resemble those of an art. There is, however, this difference, that an art is incomplete or imperfect if it lack some part, while every soul is perfect, and while every organism that has not achieved the goal of its nature is an imperfect being.

Thus by parts of the soul Nicholas means the different faculties of the organism. Indeed, the organism, and, in general, the animated being, by the mere fact of possessing a soul, possesses several faculties, such as life, feeling, movement, thought, desire, and the cause and principle of all of them is the soul. Those, therefore, who distinguish parts in the soul thereby mean the faculties by which the animated being can produce actualizations, or experience affections. While the soul herself is said to be indivisible, nothing hinders her functions from being divided. The organism, therefore, is divisible, if we introduce within the notion of the soul that of the body; for the vital functions by the soul communicated to the body must thereby necessarily be divided by the diversity of the organs, and it is this division of vital functions that has caused parts to be ascribed to the soul herself. As the soul can be conceived of in two different conditions, according as she lives within herself, or as she declines towards the body,359 it is only when she declines towards the body that she splits up into parts. When a seed of corn is sowed, and produces an ear, we see in this ear of corn the appearance of parts, though the whole it forms be indivisible,360 and these indivisible parts themselves later return to an indivisible unity; likewise, when the soul, which by herself is indivisible, finds herself united to the body, parts are seen to appear.

We must still examine which are the faculties that the soul develops by herself (intelligence and discursive reason), and which the soul develops by the animal (sensation). This will be the true means of illustrating the difference between these two natures ("beings"), and the necessity of reducing to the soul herself those parts of her "being" which have been enclosed within the parts of the body.361

Plato, Archytas, and the other Pythagoreans divide the soul into three parts, reason, anger, and appetite, which they consider to be necessary to form the ground-work for the virtues. They assign to the soul as faculties the natural (generative) power, sensibility, imagination, locomotion, love of the good and beautiful, and last, intelligence.

Aristotle says, in his Physics,364 that the soul has five faculties, the power of growth, sensation, locomotion, appetite, and understanding. But, in his Ethics, he divides the soul into two principal parts, which are rational part, and the irrational part; then Aristotle subdivides the latter into the part that is subject to reason, and the part not subject to reason.

The Platonists hold different opinions. Some, like Plotinos and Porphyry, reduce to a single order and idea the different functions and faculties of life; others, like Numenius, imagine them to be opposed, as if in a struggle; while others, like Atticus and Plutarch, bring harmony out of the struggle.

It will suffice to oppose the arguments of Ammonius, teacher of Plotinos, and those of Numenius the Pythagorean, to that of all those who claim that the soul is material. These are the reasons: "Bodies, containing nothing unchangeable, are naturally subject to change, to dissolution, and to infinite divisions. They inevitably need some principle that may contain them, that may bind and strengthen their parts; this is the unifying principle that we call soul. But if the soul also be material, however subtle be the matter of which she may be composed, what could contain the soul herself, since we have just seen that all matter needs some principle to contain it? The same process will go on continuously to infinity until we arrive at an immaterial substance."

Ammonius, teacher of Plotinos, thus explained the present problem (the union of soul and body): "The intelligible is of a nature such that it unites with whatever is able to receive it, as intimately as the union of things, that mutually alter each other in uniting, though, at the same time, it remains pure and incorruptible, as do things that merely coexist.367 Indeed, in the case of bodies, union alters the parts that meet, since they form new bodies; that is how elements change into composite bodies, food into blood, blood into flesh, and other parts of the body. But, as to the intelligible, the union occurs without any alteration; for it is repugnant to the nature of the intelligible to undergo an alteration in its essential nature. It disappears, or it ceases to be, but it is not susceptible of change. Now the intelligible cannot be annihilated; otherwise it would not be immortal; and as the soul is life, if it changed in its union with the body, it would become something different, and would no longer be life. What would the soul afford to the body, if not life? In her union (with the body, therefore), the soul undergoes no alteration.

Since it has been demonstrated that, in its essential nature, the intelligible is immutable, the necessary result must be that it does not alter at the same time as the entities to which it is united. The soul, therefore, is united to the body, but she does not form a mixture with it.368 The sympathy that exists between them shows that they are united; for the entirely animated being is a whole that is sympathetic to itself, and that is consequently really one.369

What proves that the soul does not form a mixture with the body, is the soul's power to separate from the body during sleep; leaving the body as it were inanimate, with only a breath of life, to keep it from dying entirely; using her own activity only in dreams, to foresee the future, and to live in the intelligible world.

This appears again when the soul gathers herself together to devote herself to her thoughts; for then she separates from the body so far as she can, and retires within herself better to be able to apply herself to the consideration of intelligible things. Indeed, being incorporeal, she unites with the body as closely as the union of things which by combining together perish because of each other, (thus giving birth to a mixture); at the same time, she remains without alteration, as two things that are only placed by each others' side; and she preserves her unity. Thus, according to her own life, she modifies that to which she is united, but she is not modified thereby. Just as the sun, by its presence, makes the air luminous, without itself changing in any way, and thus, so to speak, mingles itself therewith, without mingling itself (in reality), so the soul, though united with the body, remains quite distinct therefrom. But there is this difference, that the sun, being a body, and consequently being circumscribed within a certain space, is not everywhere where is its light; just as the fire dwells in the wood, or in the wick of the lamp, as if enclosed within a locality; but the soul, being incorporeal, and not being subjected to any local limitation, exists as a whole everywhere where her light is; and there is no part of the body that is illuminated by the soul in which the soul is not entirely present. It is not the body that commands the soul; it is the soul, on the contrary, that commands the body. She is not in the body as if in a vase or a gourd; it is rather the body that is in the soul.370

The intelligible, therefore, is not imprisoned within the body; it spreads in all the body's parts, it penetrates them, it goes through them, and could not be enclosed in any place; for by virtue of its nature, it resides in the intelligible world; it has no locality other than itself, or than an intelligible situated still higher. Thus the soul is within herself when she reasons, and in intelligence when she yields herself to contemplation. When it is asserted that the soul is in the body, it is not meant that the soul is in it as in a locality; it is only meant that the soul is in a habitual relation with the body; and that the soul is present there, as we say that God is in us. For we think that the soul is united to the body, not in a corporeal and local manner, but by the soul's habitual relations, her inclination and disposition, as a lover is attached to his beloved. Besides, as the affection of the soul has neither extension, nor weight, nor parts, she could not be circumscribed by local limitations. Within what place could that which has no parts be contained? For place and corporeal extension are inseparable; the place is limited space in which the container contains the contained. But if we were to say, "My soul is then in Alexandria, in Rome, and everywhere else;" we would be still speaking of space carelessly, since being in Alexandria, or in general, being somewhere, is being in a place; now the soul is absolutely in no place; she can only be in some relation with some place, since it has been demonstrated that she could not be contained within a place. If then an intelligible entity "be in relation with a place, or with something located in a place, we say, in a figurative manner, that this intelligible entity is in this place, because it tends thither by its activity; and we take the location for the inclination or for the activity which leads it thither. If we were to say, That is where the soul acts, we would be saying, "The soul is there."

Then shone the wisdom of Ammonius, who is famous under the name of "Inspired by the Divinity." It was he, in fact, who, purifying the opinions of the ancient philosophers, and dissipating the fancies woven here and there, established harmony between the teaching of Plato, and that of Aristotle, in that which was most essential and fundamental.... It was Ammonius of Alexandria, the "Inspired by the Divinity," who, devoting himself enthusiastically to the truth in philosophy, and rising above the popular notions that made of philosophy an object of scorn, clearly understood the doctrine of Plato and of Aristotle, gathered them into a single ideal, and thus peacefully handed philosophy down to his disciples Plotinos, the (pagan) Origen, and their successors.

It was only through long hard work that the writer arrived at conclusions which the reader may be disposed to accept as very natural, under the circumstances. It is possible that the reader may, nevertheless, be interested in the manner in which the suggestion here advanced was reached.

The writer had for several years been working at the premier edition of the fragments of Numenius, in reasonably complete form, with translation and outline. After ransacking the accessible sources of fragments, there remained yet an alleged treatise of Numenius on Matter, in the library of the Escoreal, near Madrid. This had been known to savants in Germany for many years; and Prof. Uzener, of Bonn, in his criticism of Thedinga's partial collection of fragments, had expressed a strong desire that it be investigated; it had also been noticed by Zeller, and Bouillet, as well as Chaignet. If then I hoped to publish a comparatively reliable collection of the fragments of Numenius, it was my duty, though hailing from far America, and though no European had shown enough interest therein to send for a photographic copy, to go there, and get one, which I did in July, 1913. I bore the precious fragment to Rostock and Prof. Thedinga in Hagen, where, however, we discovered that it was no more than a section of Plotinos's Enneads, iii. 6.6 to end. The manuscript did, indeed, show an erasure of the name of Plotinos, and the substitution of that of Numenius. After the first disappointment, it became unavoidable to ask the question why the monk should have done that. Had he any reason to suppose that this represented Numenian doctrine, even if it was not written by Numenius? Having no external data to go by, it became necessary to resort to internal criticism, to compare this Plotinian treatment of matter with other Plotinian treatments, in other portions of the Enneads.

This then inevitably led to a close scrutiny of Plotinos's various treatments of the subject, with results that were very much unlooked for. This part that we might well have had reason to ascribe to Numenian influence, on the contrary, turned out to be by far more Plotinian than other sections that we would at first have unhesitatingly considered Plotinian, and, as will be seen elsewhere, the really doubtful portions occur in the very last works of Plotinos's life, where it would have been more natural to expect the most genuine. However, the result was a demonstration of a progress in doctrines in the career of Plotinos, and after a careful study thereof, the reader will agree that we have in this case every element of probability in favor of such a development; indeed, it will seem so natural that the unbiased reader will ask himself why this idea has not before this been the general view of the matter.

First a few words about the distinction of periods in general. Among unreflecting people, for centuries, it has been customary to settle disputes by appeals to the Bible as a whole. This was always satisfactory, until somebody else came along who held totally different views, which he supported just as satisfactorily from the same authority. The result was the century-long bloody wars of the Reformation, everywhere leaving in that particular place, as the orthodox, the stronger. Since thirty years, however, the situation has changed. The contradictions of the Bible, so long the ammunition of scoffers of the type of Ingersoll, became the pathfinders of the Higher Criticism, which has solved the otherwise insoluble difficulties by showing them to rest on parallel documents, and different authors. It is no longer sufficient to appeal to Isaiah; we must now specify which Isaiah we mean; and we may no longer refer to the book of Genesis, but to the Jehovistic or Elohistic documents.

This method of criticism is slowly gaining ground with other works. The writer, for instance, applied it with success to the Gathas, or hymns of Zoroaster. These appear in the Yasnas in two sections which have ever given the editors much trouble. Either they were printed in the meaningless traditional order, or they were mixed confusedly according to the editor's fancy, resulting of course in a fancy picture. The writer, however, discovered they were duplicate lives of Zoroaster, and printing them on opposite pages, he has shown parallel development, reducing the age-long difficulties to perfectly reasonable, and mutually confirming order.

Another case is that of Plato. It is still considered allowable to quote the authority of Plato, as such; but in scientific matters we must always state which period of Plato's activities, the Plato of the Republic, or the more conservative Plato of the Laws, and the evil World-soul, is meant.

Another philosopher in the same case is Schelling, among whose views the text-books distinguish as many as five different periods. This is no indication of mental instability, but rather a proof that he remained awake as long as he lived. No man can indeed continue to think with genuineness without changing his views; and only men as great as Bacon or Emerson have had the temerity to discredit consistency when it is no more than mental inertia.

There are many other famous men who changed their views. Prominent among them is Goethe, whose Second Faust, finished in old age, strongly contrasted with the First Part. What then would be inherently unlikely in Plotinos's changing his views during the course of half a century of philosophical activity? On the contrary, it would be a much greater marvel had he not done so; and the burden of proof really lies with the partisans of unchanging opinions.

For example: in ii. 4 we find Plotinos discussing the doctrine of two matters, the physical and the intelligible. In the very next book, of the same Ennead, in ii. 5.3, we find him discrediting this same intelligible matter. Moreover, in i. 8.7, he approves of the world as mixture; in ii. 4.7 he disapproves of it. What do these contradictions mean? That Plotinos was unreliable? That he was mentally incoherent? No, something much simpler. By consulting the tables of Porphyry, we discover of the first two, that the first statement was made during the Amelian period, and the latter during the Porphyrian. Another case of such contradiction is his assertion of positive evil (i. 8) and his denial thereof (ii. 9). The latter assertion is of the Porphyrian period, the former is Eustochian; while of the latter two, the first was Eustochian; and the second Amelian. It is simply a case of development of doctrines at different periods of his life.

Let us now examine Plotinos's various treatments of the subject of matter.

The first treatment of matter occurs in the first Ennead, and it may be described as thoroughly Numenian, being treated in conjunction with the subject of evil. First, we have the expression of the Supreme hovering over Being.372 Then we have the soul double,373 reminding us of Numenius's view of the double Second Divinity374 and the double soul.375 Then we have positive evil occurring in the absence of good.376 Plotinos377 opposes the Stoic denial of evil, for he says, "if this were all," there were no evil. We find a threefold division of the universe without the Stoic term hypostasis, which occurs in the treatment of the same topic elsewhere.378 Similar to Numenius is the King of all,379 the blissful life of the divinities around him,380 and the division of the universe into three.381 Plotinos382 acknowledges evil things in the world, something denied by the Stoics,383 but taught by Numenius, as is also original, primary existence of evil, in itself. Evil is here said to be a hypostasis in itself, and imparts evil qualities to other things. It is an image of being, and a genuine nature of evil. Plotinos describes384 matter as flowing eternally, which reminds us unmistakably of Numenius's image385 of matter as a swiftly flowing stream, unlimited and infinite in depth, breadth, and length. Evil inheres in the material part of the body,386 and is seen as actual, positive, darkness, which is Numenian, as far as it means a definite principle.387 Plotinos also388 insists on the ineradicability of evil, in almost the same terms as Numenius,389 who calls on Heraclitus and Homer as supporters. Plotinos390 as reason for this assigns the fact that the world is a mixture, which is the very proof advanced by Numenius in 12. Plotinos, moreover,391 defines matter as that which remains after all qualities are abstracted; this is thoroughly Numenian.392

In the fourth book of the Second Ennead the treatment of matter is original, and is based on comparative studies. Evil has disappeared from the horizon; and the long treatment of the controversy with the Gnostics393 is devoted to explaining away evil as misunderstood good. Although he begins by finding fault with Stoic materialism,394 he asserts two matters, the intelligible and the physical. Intelligible matter395 is eternal, and possesses essence. Plotinos goes on396 to argue for the necessity of an intelligible, as well as a physical substrate (hypokeimenon). In the next paragraph397 Plotinos seems to undertake a historical polemic, against three traditional teachers (Empedocles, Anaxagoras, and Democritus) under whose names he was surely finding fault with their disciples: the Stoics, Numenius, and possibly such thinkers as Lucretius. Empedocles is held responsible for the view that elements are material, evidently a Stoical view. Anaxagoras is held responsible for three views, which are distinctly Numenian: that the world is a mixture,398 that it is all in all,399 and that it is infinite.400 We might, in passing, notice another Plotinian contradiction in here condemning the world as mixture, approved in the former passage.401 As to the atomism of Democritus, it is not clear with which contemporaries he was finding fault. Intelligible matter reappears402 where we also find again the idea of doubleness of everything. As to the terms used by the way, we find the Stoic categories of Otherness or Variety403 and Motion; the conceptual seminal logoi, and the "Koinê ousia" of matter; but in his psychology he uses "logos" and "noêsis," instead of "nous" and "phronesis," which are found in the Escorial section, and which are more Stoical. We also find the Aristotelian category of energy, or potentiality.

In the very next book of the same Ennead,404 we find another treatment of matter, on an entirely different basis, accented by a rejection of intelligible matter.405 Here the whole basis of the treatment of matter is the Aristotelian category of "energeia" and "dunamis," or potentiality and actuality, Although we find the Stoic term hypostasis, the book seems to be more Numenian, for matter is again a positive lie, and the divinity is described by the Numenian double name406 of Being and Essence ("ousia" and "to on").

We now come to the Escorial section.407 This is by far the most extensive treatment of matter, and as we are chiefly interested in it in connection with its bearing the name of Numenius at the Escorial, we shall analyze it for and against this Numenian authorship, merely noting that the chief purpose is to describe the impassibility of matter, a Stoic idea.

For Numenius as author we note:

a. A great anxiety to preserve agreement with Plato, even to the point of stretching definitions.408

b. Plato's idea of participation, useless to monistic Stoics, is repeatedly used.409 Numenius had gone so far as to assert a participation, even in the intelligibles.410

c. Matter appears as the curse of all existent objects.411 It also appears as mother.412

d. Try as he may, the author of this section cannot escape the dualism so prominent in Numenius;413 the acrobatic nature of his efforts in this direction are pointed out elsewhere. We find here a thoroughgoing distinction between soul and body, which is quite Numenian, and dualistic.414

e. Matter is passive, possessing no resiliency.415

f. We find an argument directed416 against those who "posit being in matter." These must be the Stoics, with whom Numenius is ever in feud.

g. Of Numenian terms, we find "sôteria,"417 God the Father.418 Also the double Numenian name for the Divinity, Being and Essence.419

Against Numenius as author, we note:

a. The general form of the section, which is that of the Enneads, not the dialogue of Numenius's Treatise on the Good. We find also the usual Plotinic interjected questions.

b. Un-Numenian, at least, is matter as a mirror,420 and evil as merely negative, merely unaffectability to good.421 While Numenius speaks of matter as nurse and feeder, here we read nurse and receptacle.

c. Stoic, is the chief subject of the section, namely the affectibility of matter. Also, the allegoric interpretation of the myths, of the ithyphallic Hermes, and the Universal Mother, which are like the other Plotinic myths, of the double Hercules, Poros, Penia, and Koros. We find422 the Stoic idea of passibility and impassibility, although not exactly that of passion and action. We find423 connected the terms "nous" and "phronêsis," also "anastasis." The term hypostasis, though used undogmatically, as mere explanation of thought, is found.424 Frequent425 are the conceptual logoi of the divine Mind (the seminal logoi) which enter into matter to clothe themselves with it, to produce objects. We also have the Stoic category "heterotês,"426 and the application of sex as explanation of the differences of the world.427

d. Aristotelian, are the "energeia" and "dunamis."428

e. Plotinic, are the latter ideas, for they are used in the same connection.429 Also the myths of Poros, Penia and Koros, which are found elsewhere in similar relations.430

On the whole, therefore, the Plotinic authorship is much more strongly indicated than the Numenian.

The next treatment of matter in the Fourth Ennead, is semi-stoical.431 The opposite aspects of the Universe appear again as "phronesis" and "phusis." We find here the Stoic doing and suffering, and432 hypostasis. Nevertheless, the chief process illustrated is still the Platonic image reproduced less and less clearly in successively more degraded spheres of being. Plotinos seems to put himself out of the Numenian sphere of thought, referring to it in abstract historical manner, as belonging to the successors of Pythagoras and Pherecydes, who treated of matter as the element that distinguished objects in the intelligible world.

The last treatment of matter433 seems to have reached the extreme distance of Numenianism. Instead of a dualism, with matter an original, positive principle, Plotinos closes his discussion by stating that perhaps form and matter may not come from the same origin, as there is some difference between them. He has just said that Being is common to both form and matter, as to quality, though not as to quantity. A little above this he insists that matter is not something original, as it is later than many earthly, and than all intelligible objects. As to the Numenian double name of the Divinity, Being and Essence, he had taken from Aristotelianism the conceptions of "energeia" and "dunamis," and added them as the supreme hypostasis, so as to form in theological dialect the triad he, following Numenius and Plato, had always asserted cosmologically (good, intellect, and soul): "The developed energy434 assumes hypostasis, as if from a great, nay, as from the greatest hypostasis of all; and so it joins Essence and Being."

Reviewing these various treatments of matter we might call the first435 Numenian; the next436 Platonic (as most independent, and historically treated); the next437 as Aristotelian; the Escorial Section as semi-Stoic;438 as also another short notice.439 The last treatment of matter, in vi. 3.7, is fully Stoic, in its denial of the evil of matter.

How then shall we explain these differences? Chiefly by studying the periods in which they are written, and which they therefore explain.

When we try to study the periods in Plotinos's thought, as shown in his books, we are met with great difficulties, which are chiefly due to Porphyry. Exactly following the contemporary methods of the compilers of the Bible, he undiscerningly confused the writings of the various periods, so as to make up an anthology, grouped by six groups of nine books each, according to subjects, consisting first of ethical disquisitions; second, of physical questions; third, of cosmic considerations; fourth, of psychological discussions; fifth, of transcendental lucubrations; and sixth, of metaphysics and theology.440 As the reader might guess from the oversymmetrical grouping, and this pretty classification, the apparent order is only illusory, as he may have concluded from the fact that the discussions of matter analyzed above are scattered throughout the whole range of this anthology. The result of this Procrustean arrangement was the same as with the Bible: a confusion of mosaic, out of which pretty nearly anything could be proved, and into which almost everything has been read. Compare the outlines of the doctrines of Plotinos by Ritter, Zeller, Ueberweg, Chaignet, Mead, Guthrie, and Drews, and it will be seen that there is very little agreement between them, while none of them allow for the difference between the various parts of the Enneads.

How fearful the confusion is, will best be realized from the following two tables, made up from the indications given in Porphyry's Life of Plotinos.

Porphyry gives three lists of the works of the various periods. Identifying these in the present Ennead arrangement, they are to be found as follows:

The works of the Amelian period are now i. 6; iv. 7; iii. 1; iv. 2; v. 9; iv. 8; iv. 4; iv. 9; vi. 9; v. 1; v. 2; ii. 4; iii. 9; ii. 2; iii. 4; i. 9; ii. 6; v. 7; i. 2; i. 3; i. 8.

The works of the Porphyrian period are now vi. 5, 6; v. 6; ii. 5; iii. 6; iv. 3–5; iii. 8; v. 8; v. 5; ii. 9; vi. 6; ii. 8; i. 5; ii. 7; vi. 7; vi. 8; ii. 1; iv. 6; vi. 1–3; iii. 7.

The works of the latest or Eustochian period are: i. 4; iii. 2, 3; v. 3; iii. 5; i. 8; ii. 3; i. 1; i. 7. (For Eustochius, see Scholion to Enn. iv. 4.29, ii. 7.86, Creuz. 1, 301 Kirchhof.)

A more convenient table will be the converse arrangement. Following the present normal order of the books in Enneads, we will describe its period by a letter, referring to the Amelian period by A, to the Porphyrian by P, and the Eustochian by E. I: EAAEPAEAA. II: PAEAPAPPP. III: AEEAEAPPA. IV: AAPPPPAAA. V: AAEAPPAPA. VI: PPPPPPPPA.

This artificial arrangement into Enneads should therefore be abandoned, and in a new English translation that the writer has in mind, the books would appear in the order of their periods, while an index would allow easy reference by the old numbers. Then only will we be able to study the successive changes of Plotinos's thought, in their normal mutual relation; and it is not difficult to prophesy that important results would follow.

Having thus achieved internal proof of development of doctrines in Plotinos, by examination of his views about Matter, we may with some confidence state that the externally known facts of the life of no philosopher lend themselves to such a progress of opinions more readily than that of Plotinos. His biographer, Porphyry, as we have seen, had already given us a list of the works of three easily characterized periods in Plotinos's life: the period before Porphyry came to him, the period while Porphyry staid with him, and the later period when Plotinos was alone, and Porphyry was in retirement (or banishment?) in Sicily.

An external division into periods is therefore openly acknowledged; but it remains for us to recall its significance.

In the first place, the reader will ask himself, how does it come about that Plotinos is so dependent on Porphyry, and before him, on Amelius? The answer is that Plotinos himself was evidently somewhat deficient in the details of elementary education, however much proficiency in more general philosophical studies, and in independent thought, and personal magnetic touch with pupils he may have achieved. His pronunciation was defective, and in writing he was careless, so much so that he usually failed to affix proper headings or notice of definite authorship.441 These peculiarities would to some extent put him in the power, and under the influence of his editors, and this explains why he was dependent on Porphyry later, and Amelius earlier.442 These editors might easily have exerted potent, even if unconscious or merely suggestive influence; but we know that Porphyry did not scruple to add glosses of his own,443 not to speak of hidden Stoic and Aristotelian pieces,444 for he relied on Aristotle's "Metaphysics." Besides, Plotinos was so generally accused of pluming himself on writings of Numenius, falsely passed off as his own, that it became necessary for Amelius to write a book on the differences between Numenius and Plotinos, and for Porphyry to defend his master, as well as to quote a letter of Longinus on the subject;445 but Porphyry does not deny that among the writings of the Platonists Kronius, Caius, and Attikus, and the Peripatetics Aspasius, Alexander and Adrastus, the writings of Numenius also were used as texts in the school of Plotinos (14).

Having thus shown the influence of the editors of Plotinos, we must examine who and what they were. Let us however first study the general trend of the Plotinic career.

His last period was Stoic practise, for so zealously did he practise austerities that his death was, at least, hastened thereby.446 It is unlikely that he would have followed Stoic precepts without some sympathy for, or acquaintance with their philosophical doctrines; and as we saw above, Porphyry acknowledges Plotinos's writings contain hidden Stoic pieces.447 Then, Plotinos spent the last period of his life in Rome, where ruled, in philosophical circles, the traditions of Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.

That these Stoic practices became fatal to him is significant when we remember that this occurred during the final absence of Porphyry, who may, during his presence, have exerted a friendly restraint on the zealous master. At any rate, it was during Porphyry's regime that the chief works of Plotinos were written, including a bitter diatribe against the Gnostics, who remained the chief protagonists of dualism and belief in positive evil. Prophyry's work, "De Abstinentia," proves clearly enough his Stoic sympathies.

Such aggressive enmity is too positive to be accounted for by the mere removal to Rome from Alexandria, and suggests a break of some sort with former friends. Indications of such a break do exist, namely, the permanent departure to his earlier home, Apamea, of his former editor, Amelius. We hear448 of an incident in which Amelius invited Plotinos to come and take part in the New Moon celebrations449 of the mysteries. Plotinos, however, refused, on the grounds that "They must come to me, not I go to them." Then we hear450 of bad blood between this Amelius and Porphyry, a long, bitter controversy, patched up, indeed, but which cannot have failed to leave its mark. Then this Amelius writes a book on the Differences between Plotinos and Numenius, which, in a long letter, he inscribes to Porphyry,451 as if the latter were the chief one interested in these distinctions. Later, Amelius, who before this seems to have been the chief disciple and editor of Plotinos, departs, never to return, his place being taken by Porphyry. It is not necessary to possess a vivid imagination to read between the lines, especially when Plotinos, in the last work of this period, against the Gnostics, section 10, seems to refer to friends of his who still held to other doctrines.

Now in order to understand the nature of the period when Amelius was the chief disciple of Plotinos, we must recall who Amelius was. In the first place, he hailed from the home-town of Numenius, Apamea in Syria. He had adopted as son Hostilianus-Hesychius, who also hailed from Apamea. And it was to Apamea that Amelius withdrew, after he left Plotinos. We are therefore not surprised to learn that he had written out almost all the books of Numenius, that he had gathered them together, and learned most of them by heart.452 Then we learn from Proclus (see Zeller's account) that Amelius taught the trine division of the divine creator, exactly as did Numenius. Is it any wonder, then, that he wrote a book on the differences between Plotinos and Numenius at a later date, when Porphyry had started a polemic with him? During his period as disciple of Plotinos, twenty-four years in duration, Plotinos would naturally have been under Numenian influence of some kind, and we cannot be very far wrong in thinking that this change of editors must have left some sort of impress on the dreamy thinker, Plotinos, ever seeking to experience an ecstasy.

In this account of the matter we have restrained ourselves from mentioning one of the strangest coincidences in literature, which would have emphasized the nature of the break of Amelius with Plotinos, for the reason that it may be no more than a chance pun; but that even as such it must have been present to the actors in that drama, there is no doubt. We read above that Amelius invited Plotinos to accompany him to attend personally the mystery-celebrations at the "noumênia," a time sacred to such celebrations.453 But this was practically the name of Numenius, and the text might well have been translated that Amelius invited him to visit the celebrations as Numenius would have done; and indeed, from all we know of Numenius, with his initiation at Eleusis and in Egypt, that is just of what we might have supposed he would have approved. In other words, we would discover Amelius in the painful act of choice between the two great influences of his life, Numenius, and Plotinos. Moreover, that the incident was important is revealed by Porphyry's calling Plotinos's answer a "great word," which was much commented on, and long remembered.

In thus dividing the career of Plotinos in the Amelian, the Porphyrian, and Eustochian (98) we meet however one very interesting difficulty. The Plotinic writings by Porphyry assigned to the last or Eustochian period are those which internal criticism would lead us to assign to his very earliest philosophising; and in our study of the development of the Plotinic views about Matter, we have taken the liberty of considering them as the earliest. We are however consoled in our regret at having to be so radical, by noticing that Porphyry, to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of the periods of the works, has done the same thing. He says that he has assigned the earliest place in each Ennead to the easier and simpler discussions;454 yet these latest-issued works of Plotinos are assigned to the very beginning of each Ennead, four going to the First Ennead, one to the Second, three to the Third, and one only to the Fifth. If these had been the crowning works of the Master's life, especially the treatise on the First God and Happiness, it would have been by him placed at the very end of all, and not at the beginning. Porphyry must therefore have possessed some external knowledge which would agree with the conclusions of our internal criticism, which follows.

These Eustochian works make the least use of Stoic, or even Aristotelian terms, most closely following even the actual words of Numenius. For instance, we may glance at the very first book of the First Ennead, which though of the latest period, is thoroughly Numenian.

The first important point is the First Divinity "hovering over" Being,455 using the same word as Numenius.456 This was suggested by Prof. Thedinga. However, he applied the words "he says" to Numenius; but this cannot be the case, as a Platonic quotation immediately.

The whole subject of the Book is the composite soul, and this is thoroughly Numenian.457

Then we have the giving without return.458

Then we find the pilot-simile as illustration for the relation of soul to body,459 although in Numenius it appears of the Logos and the world.

We find the animal divided in two souls, the irrational and the rational,460 which reminds us of Numenius's division into two souls.461

The soul consists of a peculiar kind of motion, which however is entirely different from that of other bodies, which is its own life.462 This reminds us of Numenius's still-standing of the Supreme, which however is simultaneously innate motion.463

Referring to the problem, discussed elsewhere, that these Plotinic works of the latest or Eustochian period, are the most Numenian, which we would be most likely to attribute to his early or formative stage, rather than to the last or perfected period, it is interesting to notice that these works seem to imply other works of the Amelian or Porphyrian periods, by the words,464 "It has been said," or treated of, referring evidently to several passages.465 Still this need not necessarily refer to this later work, it may even refer to Plato, or even to Numenius's allegory of the Cave of the Nymphs,470 where the descent of the souls is most definitely studied. Or it might even refer to Num. 35a, where birth or genesis is referred to as the wetting of the souls in the matter of bodies.

Moreover, they contain an acknowledgment, and a study of positive evil, something which would be very unlikely after his elaborate explaining away of evil in his treatise against the Gnostics, of the Porphyrian period, and his last treatment of Matter, where he is even willing to grant the possibility of matter possessing Being. The natural process for any thinker must ever be to begin with comparative imitation of his master, and then to progress to independent treatment of the subject. But for the process to be reversed is hardly likely.

Moreover, when we examine these Eustochian works in detail, they hardly seem to be such as would be the expressions of the last years of an ecstatic, suffering intense agony at times, his interest already directed heavenwards. The discussion of astrology must date from the earliest association with Gnostics, in Alexandria, who also might have inspired or demanded a special treatment of the nature of evil, which later he consistently denied. Then there is an amateurish treatment of anthropology in general, which the cumulatively-arranging Porphyry puts at the very beginning of the First Book. The treatise on the First Good and Happiness, is not unlike a beginner's first attempt at writing out his body of divinity, as George Herbert said, and Porphyry also puts it at the beginning. The Eros-article is only an amplification of Platonic myths, indeed making subtler distinctions, still not rising to the heights of pure, subjective speculation.

These general considerations may be supplemented by a few more definite indications. It is in the Eros-article that we find the Platonic myth of Poros and Penia. Yet these reappear in the earliest Amelian treatment of matter (ii. 4), as a sort of echo, mentioned only by the way, as if they had been earlier thoroughly threshed out. Here also we find only a stray, incidental use of the term "hypostasis," whereas the Stoic language in other Amelian and Porphyrian treatises has already been pointed out.

We are therefore driven to the following, very human and natural conclusion. Plotinos's first attempts at philosophical writing had consisted of chiefly Numenian disquisitions, which would be natural in Alexandria, where Numenius had probably resided, and had left friends and successors among the Gnostics. When Plotinos went to Rome, he took these writings with him, but was too absorbed in new original Amelian treatises to resurrect his youthful Numenian attempts, which he probably did not value highly, as being the least original, and because they taught doctrines he had left behind in his Aristotelian and Stoic progress. He laid them aside. Only when Porphyry had left him, and he felt the increasing feebleness due to old age and Stoic austerities, did his attendant Eustochius urge him to preserve these early works. Plotinos was willing, and sent them to Sicily where Porphyry had retired. And so it happened with Plotinos, as it has happened with many another writer, that the last things became first, and the first became last.

The idea of classifying the works of Plotinos chronologically, therefore, has so much external proof, as well as internal indications, to support it, that, no doubt, in the future no reference will be made to Plotinos without specifying to which period it refers; and we may expect that future editions of his works will undo the grievous confusion introduced by Porphyry, and thus render Plotinos's works comparatively accessible to rational study.

There are besides many other minor proofs of the chronological order of the writings of Plotinos, most of which are noticed at the heading of each succeeding book; but the most startling human references are those to Amelius's departure as a false friend;466 to Porphyry's desire to suicide at his departure,467 and to his own impending dissolution,468 each of these occurring at the exact time of the event chronologically, but certainly not according to the traditional order.

Of all fetishes which have misled humanity, perhaps none is responsible for more error than that of originality. As if anything could be new that was true, or true that was new! The only possible lines along which novelty or progress can lie are our reports, combinations, and expressions. Some people think they have done for a poet if they have shown that he made use of suitable materials in the construction of his poem! So Shakespeare has been shown to have used whole scenes from earlier writers. So Virgil, by Macrobius, has been shown to have laid under contribution every writer then known to be worth ransacking. Dante has also been shown to have re-edited contemporary apocalypses. So Homer, even, has been shown to re-tell stories gathered from many sources. The result is that people generally consider Shakespeare, Virgil, or Homer great in spite of their borrowings, when, on the contrary, the statement should be that they were great because of their rootage in the best of their period. In other words, they are great not because of their own personality (which in many cases has dropped out of the ken of history), but because they more faithfully, completely, and harmoniously represent their periods than other now forgotten writers. Therein alone lay their cosmic value, and their assurance of immortality. They are the voices of their ages, and we are interested in the significance of their age, not in them personally.

It is from this standpoint that we must approach Plato. Of his personality what details are known are of no soteriologic significance; and the reason why the world has not been able to get away from him, and probably never will, is that he sums up prior Greek philosophy in as coherent a form as is possible without doing too great Procrustean violence to the elements in question. This means that Plato did not fuse them all into one absolutely, rigid, coherent, consistent system, in which case his utility would have been very much curtailed. The very form of his writings, the dialogue, left each element in the natural living condition to survive on its merits, not as an authoritative oracle, or Platonic pronunciamento, or creed.

For details, the reader is referred to Zeller's fuller account of these pre-Platonic elements.471 But we may summarize as follows: the physical elements to which the Hylicists had in turn attributed finality Plato united into Pythagorean matter, which remained as an element of Dualism. The world of nature became the becoming of Heraclitus. Above that he placed the Being of Parmenides, in which the concepts of Socrates found place as ideas. These he identified with the numbers and harmonies of Pythagoras, and united them in an Eleatic unity of many, as an intelligible world, or reason, which he owed to Anaxagoras. The chief idea, that of the Good, was Megaro-Socratic. His cosmology was that of Timaeus. His psychology was based on Anaxagoras, as mind; on Pythagoras, as immortal. His ethics are Socratic, his politics are Pythagorean. Who therefore would flout Plato, has all earlier Greek philosophy to combat; and whoever recognizes the achievements of the Hellenic mind will find something to praise in Plato. When, therefore, we are studying Platonism, we are only studying a blending of the rays of Greece, and we are chiefly interested in Greece as one of the latest, clearest, and most kindred expressions of human thought.

If however we should seek some one special Platonic element, it would be that genuineness of reflection, that sincerity of thought, that makes of his dialogues no cut and dried literary figments, but soul-tragedies, with living, breathing, interest and emotion. Plato thus practised his doctrine of the double self,472 the higher and the lower selves, of which the higher might be described as "superior to oneself." In his later period, that of the Laws, he applied this double psychology to cosmology, thereby producing doubleness in the world-Soul: besides the good one, appears the evil one, which introduces even into heaven things that are not good.

It was only a step from this to the logical deduction of Xenocrates that these things in heaven were "spirits" or "guardians," both good and evil, assisting in the administration of human affairs.473 Such is the result of doubleness introduced into anthropology; introduced into cosmology, it establishes Pythagorean indefinite duality as the principle opposing the unity of goodness.

The next step was taken by Plutarch. The evil demons, had, in Stoic phraseology, been called "physical;" and so, in regard to matter, they came to stand in the relation of soul to body. Original matter, therefore, became two-fold; matter itself, and its moving principle, "the soul of matter." This was identified with the worse World-soul by a development, or historical event, which was the ordering of the cosmos, or, creation.

This then was the state of affairs at the advent of Numenius. Although his chief interest lay in practical comparative religion, he tried, philosophically, to return to a mythical "original" Platonism or Pythagoreanism. What Plato did for earlier Greek speculation, Numenius did for post-Platonic development. He harked back to the latter Platonic stage, which taught the evil world-Soul. He included the achievements of Plutarch, the "soul of matter," and the trine division of a separate principle, such as Providence. To the achievement of Xenocrates he was drawn by two powerful interests, the Egyptian, Hermetic, Serapistic, in connection with the evil demons; and the Pythagorean, in connection with the Indefinite-duality. Thus Numenius's History of the Platonic Succession is not a delusion; Numenius really did sum up the positive Platonic progress, not omitting even Maximus of Tyre's philosophical hierarchic explanation of the emanative or participative streaming forth of the Divine. But Numenius was not merely a philosopher: of this gathering of Platonic achievements he made a religion. In this he was also following the footsteps of Pythagoras, who limited his doctrines to a group of students. But Numenius did not merely copy Pythagoras. Numenius modernized him, connecting up the Platonic doctrinal aggregate with the mystery-rites current in his own day. Nor did Numenius shirk any unpleasant responsibilities of a restorer of Platonism: he continued the traditional Academico-Stoical feud. Strange to say, the last great Stoic philosopher, Posidonius (A.D. 135–151) hailed from Numenius's home-town, Apamea, so that this Stoic feud may have been forced on Numenius from home personalities or conditions. It would seem that in Numenius and Posidonius we have a re-enactment of the tragedy of Greek philosophy on a Syrian theatre, where dogmatic Stoicism died, and Platonism admitted Oriental ideas.

Apamea, however, had not yet ended its role in the development of thought. Numenius's pupil, Amelius, had gathered, copied, and learned by heart his master's works. It was in Apamea that he adopted as son Hostilianius-Hesychius. After a twenty-four years' sojourn in Rome he returned to Apamea, and was dwelling there still at the time of the death of Plotinos, with whom he had spent that quarter of a century. Here then we have a historical basis for a connection between Numenius and Plotinos, which we have elsewhere endeavored to demonstrate from inner grounds.

It was however by Amelius that philosophy is drawn into the maelstrom of the world-city. Plotinos, in his early periods a Numenian Platonist, will later go over to Stoicism, and conduct a polemic with the Gnostics, the Alexandrian heirs of Platonic dualism, under the influence of the Stoic Porphyry. However, Plotinos will not publicly abandon Platonism; he will fuse the two streams of thought, and interpret in Stoic terms the fundamentals of Platonism, producing something which, when translated into Latin, he will leave as inheritance to all the ages. Not in vain, therefore, did Amelius transport the torch of philosophy to the Capital.

Let us in a few words dispose of the general outlines of the fate of the Platonic movement.

Plotinos was no religious leader; he was before everything else a philosopher, even if he centred his efforts on the practical aspects of the ecstatic union with God. Indeed, Porphyry relates to us the incident in which this matter was objectively exemplified. At the New Moon, Amelius invited him to join in a visit to the mystery celebrations. Plotinos refused, saying that "they would have to come to him, not he go over to them." This then is the chief difference between Numenius and Plotinos, and the result would be a recrudescence of pure philosophic contentions, as those of Plotinos against the Gnostics.

As to the general significance of Plotinos, we must here resume what we have elsewhere detailed: that with the change of editors, from Amelius to Porphyry, Plotinos changed from Numenian or Pythagorean dualism to Stoic monism, in which the philosophic feud was no longer with the Stoics, but with the Alexandrian descendants of Numenian dualism, the Gnostics. Even though Plotinos showed practical religious aspects in his studying and experiencing the ecstasy, there is no record of any of his pupils being encouraged to do so, and therefore Plotinos remains chiefly a philosopher.

The successors of Plotinos could not remain on this purely philosophic standpoint. Instead of practising the ecstasy, they followed the Gnostics in theorizing about practical religious reality in their cosmology and theology, which took on, more or less, the shape of magic, not inconsiderably aided by Stoic allegoric interpretations of myths, as in Porphyry's "Cave of the Nymphs."

What Plato did for early Greek philosophy, what Numenius did for post-Platonic thought, that Proclus Diadochus, the "Successor," did for Plotinos and his followers. For the first time since Numenius we find again a comparative method. By this time religion and philosophy have fused in magic, and so, instead of a comparative religion, we have a comparative philosophy. Proclus was the first genuine commentator, quoting authorities on all sides. He was sufficient of a philosopher to grasp Neoplatonism as a school of thought; and far from paying any attention to Ammonius, as recent philosophy has done, as source of Neoplatonism, he traces the movement as far as Plutarch, calling him the "father of us all," inasmuch as he introduced the conception of "hypostasis." Evidently, Proclus looked upon this as the centre of Neoplatonic development, and therefore we shall be justified in a closer study of this conception; and we may even say that its historic destiny was a continuation of the main stream of creative Greek philosophy; or, if you prefer, of Platonism, or Noumenianism, or even Plotinian thought.

Did Greek philosophy die with Proclus? The political changes of the time forced alteration of dialect and position; but the accumulations of mental achievements could not perish. This again we owe to Proclus. Besides being the first great commentator he precipitated his most valuable achievements in logical form, in analytic arrangement, in the form of crystal-clear propositions, theorems, demonstrations, and corollaries. Such a highly abstract form was inevitable, inasmuch as Numenius had turned away from Aristotelian observation of nature. Just like the Hebrew thinkers, who finally became commentators and abstract theorizers, nothing else was left for a philosophy without connection with experiment, when whittled down by the keenest intellects of the times.

This abstract method, still familiarly used by geometry, reappeared among the School-men, notably in Thomas Aquinas. Later it persisted with Spinoza and Descartes. However, rising experimentalism has gradually terminated it, its last form appearing in Kant and Hegel. Kant's "Ding in sich," reached after abstracting all qualities, is only a re-statement of Numenius and Plotinos's "subject," or, definition of matter; and Hegel's dialectic, beginning with Being and Not-being, more definitely proclaimed by Plotinos, goes as far back as the Eleatics and Heraclitus, not to mention Plato. However, Kant and Hegel are the great masters of modern thought; and although at one time the rising tide of materialism and cruder forms of evolution threatened to obscure it, Karl Pearson's "Grammar of Science," generous as it is in invective against Kant and Hegel, in modern terms clinches Berkeley's and Kant's demonstration of the reality of the super-sensual, thus vindicating Plotinos, and, before him, Numenius.

It must not be supposed that in thus tracing the springs of our modern thought we necessarily approve of all the thought of Plotinos, Numenius or Plato. On the contrary, they were far more likely to have committed logical errors than we are, because they were hypnotized by the glamor of the terms they used, which to us are mere laboratory tools. The best way to prove this will be to appraise at its logical value for us Plotinos's discussion of Matter, elsewhere studied in its value for us.

We have elsewhere pointed out the hopelessness of escaping either aspect of the problem of the One and the Many; and that the attempt of the Stoics to avoid the Platonic dualism by a materialistic monism was merely a change of names, the substance of the dualism remaining as the opposition of the contraries, such as active and passive, male and female, the predominant elements,474 etc. Plotinos, in his abandonment of Numenian dualism, and championing of Stoicism, undertaking the feud with the Gnostics, the successors of Numenius, must therefore have inherited the same difficulties of thought, and we shall see how in spite of his mental agility he is caught in the same traditional meshes, and that these irreducible difficulties occur in each one of his three periods of life, the Eustochian, the Amelian, and the Porphyrian.

In the Amelian, he teaches two matters, the physical and the intelligible, by which device he seeks to avoid the difficulties of dualism, crediting to intelligible matter any necessary form of Being, thus pushing physical matter into the outer darkness of non-being. So intelligible matter is still a form of Being, and we still hold to monism; as intelligible matter may participate in the good; while matter physical remains evil, being a deprivation of good, not possessing it. This, of course is dualism; and he thus has a convenient pun on the word matter, by which he can be monist or dualist, as the fancy takes him, or as exigencies demand. This participation, therefore, does not eliminate the dualism, while formally professing monism. Therefore Plotinos tries to choose between monism and dualism by surreptitiously accepting both.

In the Porphyrian period, he rejected the idea of intelligible matter.475 Forced to fashion entirely new arguments, he seizes as tool the Aristotelian distinction between potentiality and actuality, or energy as dynamic accomplishment.476 But no logical device can help a man to pull himself up by his boot-straps. If by Being you mean existence, then its opposite must be negative, and to speak of real non-being, as something that shares being, is an evasion. To say that matter remains non-being, while having the possibility of future Being, which however can never be actualized, is mere juggling with words. Even if matter is no more than a weak, confused image, it is not non-being. If it is a positive lie, it is not non-being. To talk of a higher degree of Non-being, that is real non-being, is simply to confuse the actuality intended with the thought of non-being, which of course is a thought as actually existing as any other. Moreover if matter is imperishable, it cannot be non-being; and if it possesses Being potentially, it certainly is not non-existence. The Aristotelian potentiality could help to create this evasion, but did not remove its real nature; it merely supplied Plotinos with an intellectual device to characterize something that would not be actually existing as still having the possibility of existence; but this is not non-existence. In another writing477 of this period Plotinos continues his evasions about the origin and nature of matter. First, he grants that it is something that is not original, being later than many earthly, and all intelligible objects; although, if he had returned to the conception of intelligible matter, he would have been at liberty to assert the originality of the latter. Then he holds that Being is common to both form and matter, as to quality, but not as to quantity. Last, he closes the paragraph by saying that perhaps form and matter do not come from the same origin, as there is a difference between them.

In Plotinos's third, or Eustochian period, the same evasions occur. For instance478 he limits Being to goodness. Then he acknowledges the existence of evil things, and derives their evil quality from a primary evil, the "image of essence," the Being of evil. That he is conscious of having strained a point is evident from the fact that he adds the clause, "if there can be a Being of evil." Likewise,479 while discussing evil, which is generally recognized because in our daily lives there is positive pain, and sensations of pain, he defines evil as lack of qualities. To say that evil is not such as to form, but as to nature is opposite to form is nonsense, inasmuch as life is full of positive evils, as Numenius brought out in 16, and Plotinos acknowledged even in spite of his polemic against the Gnostics.

Finally Plotinos takes refuge in a miracle480 as explanation of "unparticipating participation." This is commentary enough; it shows he realized the futility of any arguments. But Plotinos was not alone in despairing of establishing an ironclad system; before him Numenius had, just as pathetically, despaired of a logical dualism, and he acknowledged in fragment 16 that Pythagoras's arguments, however true, were "wonderful and opposed to the belief of a majority of humanity."

In other words, monism is as unsatisfactory to reason as dualism. This was the chief point of agreement between Pythagoras and the Stoics; and Pragmatism has in modern times attempted to show a way out by a higher sanction of another kind.

Perhaps the reader may be interested in a side-light on this subject. Drews is interested in Plotinos only because Plotinos's super-rational divinity furnishes a historical foundation for Edouard Hartmann's philosophy of the Unconscious. It would seem, however, to be a mistake to use the latter term, for it is true only as a doubtful corollary. If the Supreme is super-conscious, it is possible to describe this logically as unconscious. But generally, however, unconsciousness is a term used to denote the sub-conscious, rather than the super-conscious, and the use of that term must inevitably entail misunderstandings. It would be better then to follow Pragmatism into the super-conscious, rather than to sink with Hartmann into the sub-conscious. It was directly from Plotinos481 that Hartmann took his expression "beyond good and evil."

Having watched Numenius, for Platonic dualism; and Plotinos for Stoic monism, both appeal to a miracle as court of last resort, we may now return to that result of Platonism which has left the most vital impress on our civilization, its conception of the divine.

Elsewhere we have seen how Numenius waged the traditional Academic feud with the Stoics bravely, but uselessly, inasmuch as it was chiefly a difference of dialects that separated them. In the course of this struggle, Numenius had made certain distinctions within the divinity, which were followed by Amelius, but are difficult to trace in Plotinos because, as a matter of principle, Plotinos482 was averse to thus "dividing the divinity." Why so? Because he was waging a struggle with the Gnostics, who had followed in the footsteps of the Hermetic writings (with their Demiurge and Seven Governors); Philo Judaeus (with his five Subordinate Powers); Numenius and Amelius (with their triply divided First and Second gods);—after which we come to Basilides (with his seven Powers); Saturninus (with his Seven Angels); and Valentinus (with his 33 Aeons).

This new feud between Plotinos and the Gnostics is however just as illusory as the earlier one between Numenius and the Stoics. It was merely a matter of dialects. Plotinos indeed found fault with the Gnostics for making divisions within the Divinity; but wherever he himself is considering the divinity minutely, he, just as much as the Gnostics, is compelled to draw distinctions, even though he avoided acknowledged divisions by borrowing from Plutarch a new, non-Platonic, non-Numenian, but Aristotelian, Stoic (Cornutus and Sextus) and still Alexandrian (Philo, Septuagint, Lucian) term "hypostasis."

The difference he pretended to find between the Gnostic distinctions within the Divinity and his new term hypostasis was that the former introduced manifoldness into the divinity, by splitting Him,483 thus allowing the influence of matter to pervade the pure realm of Being. Hypostasis, on the contrary, wholly existed within the realm of pure Being, and was no more than a trend, a direction, a characterization, a function, a face, or orientation of activity of the unaffected unity of Being. Thus the divinity retained its unity, and still could be active in several directions, without admixture of what philosophy had till then recognized as constituting manifoldness. But reflection shows that this is a mere quibble, an evasion, a paralogism, a quaternio terminorum, a pun. How it came about we shall attempt to show below.

In thus achieving a manifoldness in the divinity without divisions, Plotinos did indeed keep out of the divinity the splitting influence of matter, which it was now possible to banish to the realm of unreality, as a negation, and a lie. Monism was thus achieved ... but at the cost of two errors: denial of the common-sense reality of the phenomenal world,484 and that quibble about three hypostases without manifoldness, genuinely a "distinction without a difference."

This intellectual dishonesty must not however be foisted on Aristotle485 or Plutarch. The latter, for instance,486 adopted this term only to denote the primary and original characteristics (or distinctions within) existing things, from a comparative study of Aristotle's "de Anima," and Plato's "Phaedo."487 These five hypostases were the divinity, mind, soul, forms immanent in inorganic nature, "hexis," in Stoic dialect, and to matter, as apart from these forms.

So important to Neoplatonism did this term seem to Proclus, that he did not hesitate to say that Plutarch, by the use thereof, became "our first forefather." He therefore develops it further. Among the hidden and intelligible gods are three hypostases. The first is characterized by the Good; it thinks the Good itself, and dwells with the paternal Monad. The second is characterized by knowledge, and resides in the first thought; while the third is characterized by beauty, and dwells with the most beautiful of the intelligible. They are the causes from which proceed three monads which are self-existent but under the form of a unity, and as in a germ, in their cause. Where they manifest, they take a distinct form: faith, truth, and love (Cousin's title: "Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien"). This trinity pervades all the divine worlds.

In order to understand the attitude of Plotinos on the subject, we must try to put ourselves in his position. In the first place, on Porphyry's own admission, he had added to Platonism Peripatetic and Stoic views. From Aristotle his chief borrowings were the categories of form and matter, and the distinction between potentiality and actuality,488 as well as the Aristotelian psychology of various souls. To the Stoics he was drawn by their monism, which led him to drop the traditional Academico-Stoic feud, or rather to take the side of the Stoics against Numenius the Platonist dualist and the dualistic successors, the Gnostics. But there was a difference between the Stoics and Plotinos. The Stoics assimilated spirit to matter, while Plotinos, reminiscent of Plato, preferred to assimilate matter to spirit. Still, he used their terminology, and categories, including the conception of a hypostasis, or form of existence. With this equipment, he held to the traditional Platonic trinity of the "Letters," the King, the intellect, and the soul. Philosophically, however, he had received from Numenius the inheritance of a double name of the Divinity, Being and Essence. As a thinker, he was therefore forced to accommodate Numenius to Plato, and by adding to Numenius's name of the divinity, to complete Numenius's theology by Numenius's own cosmology. This then he did by adding as third hypostasis the Aristotelian dynamic energy.

But as Intellect is permanent, how can Energy arise therefrom? Here this eternal puzzle is solved by distinguishing energy into indwelling and out-flowing. As indwelling, Energy constitutes Intellect; but its energetic nature could not be demonstrated except by out-flowing, which produces a distinction.

Similarly, there are two kinds of heat, that of the fire itself, and that emitted by the fire, so that the fire may remain itself while exerting its influence without. It is thus also there: in that it remains itself in its inmost being, and from its own inherent perfection, and energy, the developed energy assumes hypostasis, as if from a Dynamis that is great, nay, greatest; and so it joins the Essence and the Being. For that was beyond all Being, and that was the Dynamis of all things, and already was all things. If then it is all, it must be above all; consequently also above Being. "And if this is all, then the One is before all; not of an essence equal to all, and this must be above Being, as this is above intellect; for there is something above intellect."489

This is the most definite statement of Plotinos's solution of the problem; other references thereto are abundant. So we have a trinity of energy, being and essence,490 and each of us, like the world-Soul has an Eros which is essence and hypostasis.491 Reason is a hypostasis after the nous, and Aphrodite gains an hypostasis in the Ousia.492 The One is intellect, the intelligible, and ousia; or, energy, being, and the intelligible (essence).493 The soul is activity.494 The soul is the third God,495 we are the third rank proceeding from the upper undivided Nature,496 the whole being God, nous, and essence. The Nous is activity, and the First essence. There are three stages of the Good: the King, the nous, and the soul.497 We find energy,498 thinking and being, then499 the soul, the nous, and the One. We find Providence threefold (as in Plutarch)500 and three ranks of Gods, demons and world-life.501 Elsewhere, untheologically, or, rather, merely philosophically, he speaks of the hypostasis of wisdom.502

Chaignet's summary of this is503 that504 Plotinos holds that every force in the intelligible is both Being and Substance simultaneously; and reciprocally that no Being, could be conceived without hypostasis, or directed force. Again,505 the world, the universe of things, contains three natures or divine hypostases, soul, mind and unity; which indeed are found in our own nature, and of which the divinest is unity or divinity.

Let us now try to understand the matter. Why should the word hypostasis, which unquestionably in earlier times meant "substance," have later come to mean "distinctions" within the divinity? For "substance," on the contrary, represents to our mind an unity, the underlying unity, and not individual forms of existence. How did the change occur?

Now Plotinos, as we remember, found fault with the Gnostics in that they taught distinctions within the divinity.506 He would therefore be disposed to remove from within the divinity those distinctions of Plotinic, Plutarchian, Numenian, or Gnostic theology; although he himself in early times did not scruple to speak of a hypostasis of wisdom, or of Eros, or other matter he might be considering. Such terms of Numenius or Amelius as he seems to ignore are the various Demiurges; the three Plutarchian Providences he himself still uses. Still, all these terms he would be disposed to eradicate from within the divinity.

As a constructive metaphysician, however, he could not well get along without some titles for the different phases of the divinity; and even if he dispensed with the old names, there would still remain as their underlying support the reality or substance of the distinction. So he removed the offensive, aggressive, historically known and recognized terms, while leaving their underlying substances, or supports. Now "substance" had become "substances," and to differentiate these it was necessary to interpret them as differing forms of existence. The change was most definitely made by Athanasius, who at a synod in Alexandria, in A.D. 362,507 fastened on the church, as synonymous with hypostasis the popular term "prosopon" or "face." That this was an innovation appears from the fact that the Nicene Council had stated that it was heretical to say that Christ was of a hypostasis different from that of the Father, in which case the word evidently meant still the original underlying (singular) substance. With this official definition in vogue, the original (singular) substance became forgotten, and it became possible to speak in the plural, of three faces, as indeed Plotinos had done.

In other words, so necessary were distinctions in the divinity, that the popular mind supplied other individual names to designate the distinctions Plotinos had successfully banished, for Demiurges and Providences no longer return. Thus more manifold differences re-entered into the divinity, than Plotinos had ever emptied out of it, although under a name which the poverty of the Latin language rendered as "persons," which represents to us individual consciousness of a far more distinctive kind than was ever implied in three phases of Providence, or of the Demiurge. Thus the translation into Latin clinched the illicit linguistic process, and the result of Plotinos's attempt to distinguish in the Divinity phases so subtle as not to demand or allow of manifoldness, resulted in the most pronounced differences of personality. This was finally clinched by Plotinos's illustration of the three faces around a single head,508 which established the idea of three "persons" (masks, from "per-sonare") in one God.

Not only in the abstract realm of Metaphysics, therefore, is the world indebted to Greek thought; but even in the realm of religion a Stoic reinterpretation of Platonism, itself reinterpreted in a different language has given a lasting inheritance to the spiritual aspirations of the ages.

Plotinos's date being about A.D. 262, he stands midway between the Christian writings of the New Testament, and the Council of Nicaea, A.D. 325. As a philosopher dealing with the kindred topics—the soul and its salvation,—and deriving terminology and inspiration from the same sources, Platonism and Stoicism, we would expect extensive parallelism and correspondence. Though Plotinos does not mention any contemporaneous writings, we will surely be able to detect indirect references to Old and New Testaments. But what will be of most vital interest will be his anticipations of Nicene formulations, or reflection of current expressions of Christian philosophic comment. While we cannot positively assert this Christian development was exclusively Plotinian, we are justified in saying that the development of Christian philosophy was not due exclusively to the Alexandrian catechetical school; that what later appears as Christian theology was only earlier current Neoplatonic metaphysics, without any exclusive dogmatic connection with the distinctively Christian biography. This avoids the flat assertion of Drews that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was dependent on Plotinos, although it admits Bouillet's more cautious statement that Plotinos was the rationalizer of the doctrine of the Trinity.509 This much is certain, that no other contemporaneous discussion of the trinity has survived, if any ever existed; and we must remember that it was not until the council of Constantinople in A.D. 381, that the Nicene Creed, by the addition of the Filioque clause, became trinitarian in a thoroughgoing way; and not until fifty years later that Augustine, again in the West, fully expressed a philosophy and psychology of the trinity.

To Plotinos therefore is due the historical position of protagonist of trinitarian philosophy.

Christian parallelisms in Plotinos have a historical origin in Christian parallelisms in his sources, namely, Stoicism, Numenius and Plato.

To Christian origins in Plato never has justice been done, not even by Bigg. His suggestion of the crucifixion of the just man, his reference to the son of God are only common-places, to which should be added many minor references.

The Christian origins in Numenius are quite explicit; mention of the Hebrews as among the races whose scriptures are important, of Moses among the great religious teachers, of the Spirit hovering over the waters, of the names of the Egyptian magicians which, together with Pliny, he hands down to posterity. He also was said to have told many stories about Jesus, in an allegorical manner.

The Christian origins in Stoicism have been widely discussed; for instance, by Chaignet. But it is likely that this influence affected Christianity indirectly through Plotinos, along with the other Christian ideas we shall later find. At any rate Plotinos is the philosopher who uses the term "spiritual body" most like the Christians.510 The soul is a slave to the body,511 and has a celestial body512 as well as a spiritual body.513 Within us are two men opposing each other,514 the better part often being mastered by the worse part, as thought St. Paul,515 in the struggle between the inner and outer man.516

With Plotinos the idea of "procession" is not only cosmic but psychological. In other words, when Plotinos speaks of the "procession" of the God-head, he is not, as in Christian doctrine, depicting something unique, which has no connection with the world. He is only referring to the cosmic aspect of an evolution which, in the soul, appears as educational development.517 As the opposite of the soul's procession upwards, there is the soul's descent into hell,518 or, in other words, the soul's descent and ascension.519 This double aspect of man's fate upward or downward is referred to by Plotinos in the regular Christian term "sin," as consisting in missing one's aim.520 The soul repents,521 and its duty is conversion.522 As a result of this conversion comes forgiveness.523

The famous "terrors of Jeremiah"524 might have come mediately through the Gnostics, who indeed may have been the persons referred to as Christians.525 More direct no doubt was God admiring his handiwork526 and the soul breathing the spirit of life into animals.527 God is called both the "I am what I am"528 and "He is what He ought to be."528 He sits above the world,529 as the king of kings.530

Plotinos says that it would be a poor artist who would conceive of an animal as all covered with eyes. There is hardly such a reference outside of Revelations,531 to which we must also look for a new heaven and a new earth.532 Then we have practically a quotation of the Johannine prologue "In the beginning was the Logos," and by him were all things made.533 Light was in the beginning.534 We are told not to leave the world, but not to be of it.535 The divinity prepares mansions in heaven for good souls.536

Pauline references seem to be that sin exists because of the law.537 God is above all height or depth.538 The vulgar who attend mystery-banquets only to gorge are condemned.539 There are several heavens.540 The beggarly principles and elements towards which some turn, are mentioned.541 The genealogies of the Gnostics are held up to ridicule.542 General references are numerous. Diseases are caused by evil spirits.543 We must cut off any offending member.544 Thus we are saved.545 In him we breathe and move and have our being.546 The higher divinity begets a Son, one among many brethren.547 As the father of intelligence, God is the father of lights.548

However, the most interesting incident is that scriptural text which, to the reflecting, is always so much of a puzzle: "If the light that is in them be darkness," etc.549 This is explained by the Platonic theory550 that we see because of a special light that is within the eye.

General theological references may be grouped under three heads: the soul's salvation, the procession of the divinity, and the trinity.

As to the soul's salvation, God is the opposite of the evil of beings,551 which, when created in honor of the divinity552 is the image of the Word, the interpreter of the One,553 and is composed of several elements;554 but it is a fall from God,555 and its fate is connected with the "parousia."556

This going forth of the soul from God, when considered cosmically, becomes the "procession of the soul."557 This is the "eternal generation,"558 whereby the Son is begotten from eternity,559 so that there could be no (Arian) "ên hote ouk ên," or, "time when he was not."560 This is expressed as "light of light,"561 and explained by the Athanasian light and ray simile.562 We find even the Johannine and Philonic distinction between God and the Good.563 The world is the first-begotten,564 and the Intelligence is the logos of the first God,565 as the hypostasis of wisdom is "ousia," or "being,"566 and it is the "universal reason."567

As to the trinity, Plotinos is the first and chief rationalizer of the cosmic trinity, which he continuously and at length discusses.568 God is father and son,569 and they are "homoousian," or "consubstantial."570 The human soul (as image of the cosmic divinity), is one nature in three powers.571 Elsewhere we have discussed the history of the term "persons," but we may understand the result of that process best by Plotinos's simile of the trinity as one head with three faces,572 in which the "persons" bear out their original meaning of masks, "personare." Henceforward the trinity was an objective idea.

Although mentioned above, special attention should be given to the parable of the vine and the branches (iii. 3.7.—48, 1088 with Jno. xv. 1–8), and the divinity's begetting a Son (v. 8.12—31, 571). The significant aspect of this is that it is represented as being the content of the supreme ecstatic vision; what you might call the crown of Plotinos' message. "He tells us that he has seen the divinity beget an offspring of an incomparable beauty, producing everything in Himself, and without pain preserving within Himself what He has begotten.... His Son has manifested Himself externally. By Him, as by an image (Col. i. 15), you may judge of the greatness of His Father ... enjoying the privilege of being the image of His eternity."

We have, elsewhere, pointed out the historic connections between Numenius and Plotinos. Here, it may be sufficient to recall that Amelius, native of Numenius's home-town of Apamea, and who had copied and learned by heart all the works of Numenius, and who later returned to Apamea to spend his declining days, bequeathing his copy of Numenius's works to his adopted son Gentilianus Hesychius, was the companion and friend of Plotinos during his earliest period, editing all Plotinos's books, until displaced by Porphyry. We remember also that Porphyry was Amelius's disciple, before his spectacular quarrel with Amelius, later supplanting him as editor of the works of Plotinos. Plotinos also came from Alexandria, where Numenius had been carefully studied and quoted by Origen and Clement of Alexandria. Further, Porphyry records twice that accusations were popularly made against Plotinos, that he had plagiarized from Numenius. In view of all this historical background, we have the prima-facie right to consider Plotinos chiefly as a later re-stater of the views of Numenius, at least during his earlier or Amelian period. Such a conception of the state of affairs must have been in the mind of that monk who, in the Escoreal manuscript, substituted the name of Numenius for that of Plotinos on that fragment573 about matter, which begins directly with Numenius's name of the divinity, "being and essence."574

Let us compare with this historical evidence, that which supports the universally admitted dependence of Plotinos on his teacher Ammonius. We have only two witnesses: Hierocles and Nemesius; and the latter attributes the argument for the immateriality of the soul to Ammonius and Numenius jointly. No doubt, Ammonius may have taught Plotinos in his youth; but so no doubt did other teachers; and of Ammonius the only survivals are a few pages preserved by Nemesius. The testimony for Plotinos's dependence on Numenius is therefore much more historical, as well as significant, in view of Numenius having left written records that were widely quoted. The title of "Father of Neo-platonism," therefore, if it must at all be awarded, should go to Numenius, who had written a "History of the Platonic Succession," wherein he attempts to restore "original" Platonism. This fits the title "Neo-platonism," whereas the philosophy of Ammonius, would be better described as an eclectic synthesis of Platonism and Aristotelianism.

Of course we shall admit that there are differences between Plotinos and Numenius, at least during his Porphyrian period; this was inevitable while dismissing his Numenian secretary Amelius,575 a friend "who had become imbued with" such doctrines before becoming the friend of Plotinos, who persevered in them, and wrote in justification thereof. We find that the book chronologically preceding this one is v. 5, on the very subject at issue between Amelius and Porphyry. Plotinos took his stand with the latter, and therefore against the former, and through him, against Numenius; and indeed we find him opposing several Gnostic opinions which can be substantiated in Numenius: the creation by illumination or emanation,576 the threefoldness of the creator,577 and the pilot's forgetting himself in his work.578

But, after all, these points are not as important as they might seem; for in a very little while we find Plotinos himself admitting the substance of all of these ideas, except the verbiage; he himself uses the light and ray simile, the "light of light;"579 he himself distinguishes various phases of the allegedly single intelligence,580 and the soul, as pilot of the body incarnates by the very forgetfulness by which the creator created.581

Further, as we shall show, during his last or Eustochian period after Porphyry had taken a trip to Sicily to avoid suicide, he himself was to return to Numenian standpoints. This may be shown in a general way as follows. Of the nine Eustochian essays582 only two583 betray no similarities to Numenian ideas, while seven584 do. On the contrary, in the Amelio-Porphyrian period,585 written immediately on Amelius's dismissal, only six586 are Numenian, and six587 are non-Numenian. In the succeeding wholly Porphyrian period,588 we have the same equal number of Numenian589 and non-Numenian590 books. An explanation of this reversion to Numenian ideas has been attempted in the study of the development in Plotinos's views. On the whole, therefore, Plotinos's opposition to Numenius may be considered no more than episodic.

As Plotinos was in the habit of not even putting his name to his own notes; as even in the times of Porphyry the actual authorship of much that he wrote was already disputed; as even Porphyry acknowledges principles and quotations were borrowed, we must discover Numenian passages by their content, rather than by any external indications. As the great majority of Numenius's works are irretrievably lost, we may never hope to arrive at a final solution of the matter; and we shall have to restrict ourselves to that which, in Plotinos, may be identified by what Numenian fragments remain. What little we can thus trace definitely will give us a right to draw the conclusion to much more, and to the opinion that, especially in his Amelian period, Plotinos was chiefly indebted to Numenian inspiration. We can consider591 the mention of Pythagoreans who had treated of the intelligible as applying to Numenius, whose chief work was "On the Good," and on the "Immateriality of the Soul."

The first class of passages will be such as bear explicit reference to quotation from an ancient source. Of such we have five: "That is why the Pythagoreans were, among each other, accustomed to refer to this principle in a symbolic manner, calling him 'A-pollo,' which name means a denial of manifoldness."592 "That is the reason of the saying, 'The ideas and numbers are born from the indefinite doubleness, and the One;' for this is intelligence."593 "That is why the ancients said that ideas are essences and beings."594 "Let us examine the (general) view that evils cannot be destroyed, but are necessary."595 "The Divinity is above being."596

A sixth case is, "How manifoldness is derived from the First."597 A seventh case is the whole passage on the triunity of the divinity, including the term "Father."598

Among doctrines said to be handed down from the ancient philosophers599 are the ascents and descents of souls600 and the migrations of souls into bodies other than human.601 The soul is a number.602

Moreover, Plotinos wrote a book on the Incorruptibility of the soul,603 as Numenius had done;604 and both authors discuss the incorporeity of qualities.605

Besides these passages where there is a definite expression of dependence on earlier sources, there are two in which the verbal similarity606 is striking enough to justify their being considered references: "Besides, no body could subsist without the power of the universal Soul." "Because bodies, according to their own nature, are changeable, inconstant, and infinitely divisible, and nothing unchangeable remains in them, there is evidently need of a principle that would lead them, gather them, and bind them fast together; and this we name soul."607 This similarity is so striking that it had already been observed and noted by Bouillet. Compare "We consider that all things called essences are composite, and that not a single one of them is simple," with "Numenius, who believes that everything is thoroughly mingled together, and that nothing is simple."608

As Plotinos does not give exact quotations and references, it is difficult always to give their undoubted source. As probably Platonic we may mention the passage about the universal Soul taking care of all that is inanimate;609 and "When one has arrived at individuals, they must be abandoned to infinity."610 Also other quotations.611 The line "It might be said that virtues are actualizations,"612 might be Aristotelian. We also find:613 "Thus, according to the ancient maxim, 'Courage, temperance, all the virtues, even prudence, are but purifications.'" "That is the reason that it is right to say that the 'soul's welfare and beauty lie in assimilating herself to the divinity.'" This sounds Platonic, but might be Numenian.

In this connection it might not be uninteresting to note passages in Numenius which are attributed to Plato, but which are not to be identified: "O Men, the Mind which you dimly perceive is not the First Mind; but before this Mind is another one, which is older and diviner." "That the Good is One."614

We turn now to thoughts found identically in Plotinos and Numenius, although no textual identity is to be noted. We may group these according to the subject, the universe, and the soul.

God is supreme king.615 Eternity is now, but neither past nor future.616 The King in heaven is surrounded by leisure.617 The Good is above Being;618 the divinity is the unity above the "Being and Essence;619 and connected with this is the unitary interpretation of the name A-pollo,620 following in the footsteps of Plutarch. Nevertheless, the inferior divinity traverses the heavens,621 in a circular motion.622 While Numenius does not specify this motion as circular,623 it is implied, inasmuch as the creator's passing through the heavens must have followed their circular course. With this perfect motion is connected the peculiar Numenian doctrine of inexhaustible giving,624 which gave a philosophical basis for the old simile of radiation of light,625 so that irradiation is the method of creation,626 and this is not far removed from emanationism. This process consists of the descent of the intelligible into the material, or, as Numenius puts it, that both the intelligible and the perceptible participate in the ideas.627 Thus intelligence is the uniting principle that holds together the bodies whose tendency is to split up, and scatter,628 making a leakage or waste,629 which process invades even the divinity.630 This uniting of scattering elements produces a mixture or mingling,608 of matter and reason,631 which, however, is limited to the energies of the existent, not to the existent itself.632 All things are in a flow,633 and the whole all is in all.634 The divinity creates by glancing at the intelligence above,635 as a pilot.636 The divinity is split by over-attention to its charges.637

This leads us over to consideration of the soul. The chief effort of Numenius is a polemic against the materialism of the Stoics, and to it Plotinos devotes a whole book.638 All souls, even the lowest, are immortal.639 Even qualities are incorporeal.640 The soul, therefore, remains incorporeal.641 The soul, however, is divisible.642 This explains the report that Numenius taught not various parts of the soul,643 but two souls, which would be opposed by Plotinos in his polemic against the Stoics,644 but taught in another place.645 Such divisibility is indeed implied in the formation of presentation as a by-product,646 or a "common part."647 Moreover, the soul has to choose its own demon, or guardian divinity.648 Salvation as a goal appears in Numenius,649 but not in Plotinos, who opposes the Gnostic idea of the "saved souls,"650 though elsewhere he speaks of the paths of the musician,651 lover652 and philosopher653 in reaching ecstasy.654 Still both Gnostics and Plotinos insisted on the need of a savior.655 Memory is actualization of the soul.656 In the highest ecstasy the soul is alone with the alone.657

This comparison of philosophy would have been much stronger had we added thereto the following points in which we find similar terms and ideas, but which are applied differently. The soul is indissolubly united to intelligence according to Plotinos, but to its source with Numenius.658 Plotinos makes discord the result of their fall, while with Numenius it is its cause.659 Guilt is the cause of the fall of souls, with Plotinos,660 but with Numenius it is impulsive passion. The great evolution or world-process is by Plotinos called the "eternal procession," while with Numenius it is progress.661 The simile of the pilot is by Plotinos applied to the soul within the body; while with Numenius, it refers to the logos, or creator in the universe,662 while in both cases the cause,—of creation for the creator,663 and incarnation for the soul664—is forgetfulness. There is practically no difference here, however. Doubleness is, by Plotinos, predicated of the sun and stars, but by Numenius, of the demiurge himself,665 which Plotinos opposes as a Gnostic teaching.666 The Philonic term "legislator" is, by Plotinos, applied to intelligence, while Numenius applies it to the third divinity, and not the second.667 Plotinos extends immortality to animals, but Numenius even to the inorganic realm, including everything.668 While Numenius seems to believe in the Serapistic and Gnostic demons,669 Plotinos opposes them,670 although in his biography671 he is represented as taking part in the evocation of his guardian spirit in a temple of Isis.

We thus find a tolerably complete body of philosophy shared by Plotinos and Numenius, out of the few fragments of the latter that have come down to us. It would therefore be reasonable to suppose that if Numenius's complete works had survived we could make out a still far stronger case for Plotinos's dependence on Numenius. At any rate, the Dominican scribe at the Escoreal who inserted the name of Numenius in the place of that of Plotinos in the heading of672 the fragment about matter, must have felt a strong confusion between the two authors.

To begin with, we have the controversy with the Stoics, which, though it appears in the works of both, bears in each a different significance. While with Numenius it absorbed his chief controversial efforts,673 with Plotinos674 it occupied only one of his many spheres of interest; and indeed, he had borrowed from them many terms, such as "pneuma," the spiritual body, and others, set forth elsewhere. Notable, however, was the term "hexis," habituation, or form of inorganic objects,675 and the "phantasia," or sense-presentation.676 Like, them, the name A-pollo is interpreted as a denial of manifoldness.677

Next in importance, as a landmark, is Numenius's chief secret, the name of the divinity, as "being and essence," which reappears in Plotinos in numberless places.678 Connected with this is the idea that essence is intelligence.679

It is a common-place that Numenius was a Pythagorean, or at least was known as such, for though he reverenced Pythagoras, he conceived of himself as a restorer of true Platonism. It will, therefore, be all the more interesting to observe what part numbers play in their system, especially in that of Plotinos, who made no special claim to be a Pythagorean disciple. First, we find that numbers and the divine ideas are closely related.680 Numbers actually split the unity of the divinity.681 The soul also is considered as a number,682 and in connection with this we find the Pythagorean sacred "tetraktys."683 Thus numbers split up the divinity,684 though it is no more than fair to add that elsewhere Plotinos contradicts this, and states that the multiplicity of the divinity is not attained by division;685 still, this is not the only case in which we will be forced to array Plotinos against himself.

The first effect of the splitting influence of numbers will be doubleness,686 which, though present in intelligence,687 nevertheless chiefly appears in matter,688 as the Pythagorean "indefinite dyad."689 Still, even the Supreme is double.690 So we must not be surprised if He is constituted by a trinity,691 in connection with which the Supreme appears as grandfather.692

If then both Numenius and Plotinos are really under the spell of Pythagoras, it is pretty sure they will not be materialist, they will believe in the incorporeality of the divinity,693 of qualities;694 and of the soul695 which will be invisible696 and possess no extension.697 A result of this will be that the soul will not be located in the body, or in space, but rather the body in the soul.698

From this incorporeal existence,699 there is only a short step to unchangeable existence,700 or eternity.701 This, to the soul, means immortality,702 one theory of which is reincarnation.703 To the universe, however, this means harmony.704

There are still other Pythagorean traces in common between Numenius and Plotinos. The cause that the indeterminate dyad split off from the divinity is "tolma," rashness, or boldness.705 Everything outside of the divinity is in a continual state of flux.706 Evil is then that which is opposed to good.707 It also is therefore unavoidable, inasmuch as suppression of its cosmic function would entail cosmic collapse.708 The world stands thus as an inseparable combination of intelligence and necessity, or chance.709

Platonic traces, there would naturally be; but it will be noticed that they are far less numerous than the Pythagorean. To begin with, we find the reverent spirit towards the divinities, which prays for their blessing at the inception of all tasks.710 To us who live in these latter days, such a prayer seems out of place in philosophy; but that is only because we have divorced philosophy from theology; in other words, because our theology has left the realm of living thought, and, being fixed once for all, we are allowed to pursue any theory of existence we please as if it had nothing whatever to do with any reality; in other words, we are deceiving ourselves. On the contrary, in those days, every philosophical speculation was a genuine adventure in the spiritual world, a magical operation that might unexpectedly lead to the threshold of the cosmic sanctuary. Wise, indeed, therefore, was he who began it by prayer.

Of other technical Platonic terms there are quite a few. The lower is always the image of the higher.711 So the world might be considered the statue of the Divinity.712 The ideas are in a realm above the world.713 The soul here below is as in a prison.714 There is a divinity higher than the one generally known.715 The divinity is in a stability resultant of firmness and perfect motion.716 The perfect movement, therefore, is circular.717 This inter-communion of the universe therefore results in matter appearing in the intelligible world as "intelligible matter."718 By dialectics, also called "bastard reasoning,"719 we abstract everything720 till we reach the thing-in-itself,721 or, in other words, matter as a substrate of the world.722 Thus we metaphysically reach ineffable solitude.723

The same goal is reached psychologically, however, in the ecstasy.724 This idea occurred in Plato only as a poetic expression of metaphysical attainment; and in the case of Plotinos at least may have been used as a practical experience chiefly to explain his epileptic attacks; and this would be all the more likely as this disease was generally called the "sacred disease." Whether Numenius also was an epileptic, we are not told; it is more likely he took the idea from Philo, or Philo's oriental sources; at least Numenius seems to claim no personal ecstatic experiences such as those of Plotinos.

We have entered the realm of psychology; and this teaches us that that in which Numenius and Plotinos differ from Plato and Philo is chiefly their psychological or experimental application of pure philosophy. No body could subsist without the soul to keep it together.725 Various attempts are made to describe the nature of the soul; it is the extent or relation of circumference to circle.726 Or it is like a line and its divergence.727 In any case, the divinity and the soul move around the heavens,728 and this may explain the otherwise problematical progress or evolution ("prosodos" or "stolos") of ours.729

There are many other unclassifiable Numenian traces in Plotinos. Two of them, however, are comparatively important. First, is a reaffirmation of the ancient Greek connection between generation, fertility of birth of souls and wetness,730 which is later reaffirmed by Porphyry in his "Cave of the Nymphs." Plotinos, however, later denies this.731 Then we come to a genuine innovation of Numenius's; his theory of divine or intelligible giving. Plato had, of course, in his genial, casual way, sketched out a whole organic system of divine creation and administration of this world. The conceptions he needed he had cheerfully borrowed from earlier Greek philosophy without any rigid systematization, so that he never noticed that the hinge on which all was supposed to turn was merely the makeshift of an assumption. This capital error was noticed by Numenius, who sought to supply it by a psychological observation, namely, that knowledge may be imparted without diminution. Plotinos, with his winning way of dispensing with quotation-marks, appropriated this,732 as also the idea that life streams out upon the world in the glance of the divinity, and as quickly leaves it, when the Divinity turns away His glance.733

Other less important points of contact are: the Egyptian ship of souls;734 the Philonic distinction between "the" God as supreme, and "god" as subordinate;735 the hoary equivocation on "kosmos;"736 and the illustration of the divine Logos as the pilot of the world.737

We must focus our observations on Plotinos as a philosopher. To begin with, we should review his successors, Porphyry, Jamblichus, Sallust, Proclus, Hierocles, Simplicius;738 Macrobius;739 Priscus; Olympicdorus and John Philoponus.740

Among the Arabian philosophers that follow in his steps are Maimonides and Ibn Gebirol.741

Of the Christian fathers we first have two who paraphrased, rather than quoted him.

St. Augustine by name quotes i. 6; iii. 2; iv. 3, and v. 1; he paraphrases parts of i. 2; ii. 1; iii. 6, 7; iv. 2, 7; vi. 5, 6.742 St. Basil so closely paraphrases parts of Plotinos in his treatise on the Holy Spirit,743 his letter on the Monastic Life,744 and his Hexameron,745 that Bouillet prints the passage in question in deadly parallel.

Other Christian Plotonic students were Gregory of Nyssa, Synesius, Dionysius the Areopagite, Theodorus, Aeneas of Gaza, Gennadius;746 Victorinus;747 Nicephorus Chumnus;748 and Cassiodorus.749

Thomas Aquinas also was much indebted to Plotinos; and after him came Boethius, Fénélon, Bossnet and Leibnitz (all quoted in Bouillet's work).

We have frequently pointed out that Plotinos' "bastard reasoning" process of reaching the intelligible was practically paraphrased by Kant's dialectical path to the "thing-in-itself." This dialetic, of course, was capitalized by Hegel.

Drews has shown that Edouard von Hartmann used Plotinos' semi-devotional ecstasy as a metaphysical basis for his philosophy of the Unconscious.

It is, of course, among mystics that Plotinos has been accorded the greater honor. His practical influence descended through the visions and ecstasies of the saints down to Swedenborg, who attempted to write the theology of the ecstasy; and the relation between these two, Swedenborg and Plotinos should prove a fertile field for investigation.

Summarizing, he formed a bridge between the pagan world, with its Greco-Roman civilization, and the modern world, in three departments: Christianity, philosophy, and mysticism. So long as the traditional Platonico-Stoical feud persisted there was no hope of progress; because it kept apart two elements that were to fuse into the Christian philosophy. Numenius was the last Platonist, as Posidonius was the last Stoic combatant. However, if reports are to be trusted, Ammonius was an eclecticist, who prided himself on combining Plato with Aristotle. If Plotinos was indeed his disciple, it was the theory eclecticism that he took from his reputed teacher. Practically he was to accomplish it by his dependence on the Numenian Amelius, the Stoic Porphyry, and the negative Eustochius. It will be seen therefore that his chief importance was not in spite of his weakness, but most because of it. By repeatedly "boxing the compass" he thoroughly assimilated the best of the conflicting schools, and became of interest to a sufficiency of different groups (Christian, philosophical and mystical) to insure preservation, study and quotation. His habit of omitting credit to any but ancient thinkers left his own work, to the uninformed—who constituted all but a minimal number—as a body of original thought. Thus he remains to us the last light of Greece, speaking a language with which we are familiar, and leaving us quotations that are imperishable.

While therefore providentially Plotinos has ever been of great importance theologically, philosophically and mystically, we cannot leave him without honestly facing the question of his value as an original thinker. It is evident that his success was in inverse ratio to originality; but we can also see that he could not have held together those three spheres of interest without the momentum of a wonderful personality. This will be evident at a glance to any reader of his biography. But after all we are here concerned not so much with his personality as with his value as an original thinker. This question is mooted by, and cannot be laid aside because of its decisive influence on the problem of his dependence of Numenius. The greater part of the latter's works being irretrievably lost, we can judge only from what we have; and as to the rest, we must ask ourselves, was Plotinos the kind of a man who would have depended on some other man's thoughts? Is he likely to have sketched out a great scheme and filled it in; or rather, was he likely to depend on personal suggestion, and embroider on it, so to speak. Elsewhere we have demonstrated a development of his opinions, for instance, about matter. Was this due to progressiveness, or to indefiniteness? The reader must judge for himself.

His epilepsy naturally created an opportunity for, and need of a doctrine of ecstasy; which for normal people should be no more than a doctrine, or at least be limited to conscious experiences. Even his admirer, Porphyry, acknowledges that he spelled and pronounced incorrectly.750 He acknowledged that without Porphyry's objections he would have nothing to say. He refrained from quoting his authorities, and Porphyry acknowledged that his writings contained many Stoic and Aristotelian doctrines. It was generally bruited around that his doctrines were borrowed from Numenius,751 to the extent that his disciples held controversies, and wrote books on the subject. His style is enigmatic, and the difficulty of understanding him was discussed even in his own day. He was dependent on secretaries or editors; first on Amelius, later on Porphyry, who does not scruple to acknowledge he added many explanations.752 Later, Plotinos sent his books to Porphyry in Sicily to edit. No doubt the defectiveness of his eyesight made both reading and writing difficult, and explains his failure to put titles to his works; though, as in the case of Virgil, such hesitation may have been the result of a secret consciousness of his indebtedness to others.

Punning has of course a hoary antiquity, and even the revered Plato was an adept at it—as we see in his Cratylos. Moreover, not till a man's work is translated can we uncover all the unconscious cases of "undistributed middle." Nevertheless, in an inquiry as to the permanent objective validity of a train of reasoning, we are compelled to note extent and scope of his tendency. So he puns on aeons;753 on science and knowledge;754 on "agalmata";755 on Aphrodite, as "delicate";756 on Being;757 on "koros," as creation or adornment";758 on difference in others;759 on idea;760 on heaven, world, universe, animal and all;761 on Vesta, and standing;762 on Hexis;763 on inclination;764 on doxa;765 on love and vision;766 on "einai" and "henos;"767 on "mous," "noêsis," and to "noêfon";768 on paschein;769 on Poros;770 on Prometheus and Providence;771 on reason and characteristic;772 on "schesis" and "schema";773 and "soma" and "sozesthai";"774 on suffering;775 on thinking, thinkable, and intellection;776 on "timely" and "sovereign."777 It will be noted that these puns refer to some of the most important conceptions, and are found in all periods of his life. We must therefore conclude that his was not a clear thinking ability; that he depended on accidental circumstances, and may not always have been fully conscious how far he was following others. This popular judgment that he was revamping Numenius's work may then not have been entirely unfounded, as we indeed have shown.

Nevertheless, he achieved some permanent work, that will never be forgotten; for instance:

1. His description of the ecstatic state.

2. His polemic against the Aristotelian and Stoic categories.

3. His establishment of his own categories.

4. His allegoric treatment of the birth of love, the several Eroses, Poros and Penia, and other myths.

5. His building of a Trinitarian philosophy.

6. His threefold spheres of existence, underlying Swedenborgian interpretation.

7. His aesthetic theories.

8. His ethical studies of virtues and happiness.

9. His restatement of Numenius's arguments for the immateriality of the soul.

The reader may be interested in a few maxims selected from Plotinos' works which may be of general interest.

1. We develop toward ecstasy by simplification of Soul.

2. We rise by the flight of the Single to the Single, face to face.

3. We contain something of the Supreme.

4. The Soul becomes what she remembers and sees.

5. Everything has a secret power.

6. The best men are those who have most intimacy with themselves.

7. The touch of the good man is the greatest thing in the world.

8. Every being is its best, not when great or numerous, but when it belongs to itself.

9. There are two men in us, the better and the worse.

10. The secret of life is to live simultaneously with others and yourself.

11. God is the author of liberty.

12. Concerning what would it be most worth while to speak, except the Soul? Let us therefore know ourselves.

13. Without virtue, God is but a name.

14. The object of virtue is to separate the soul from the body.

15. We can never become perfect, because he who thinks himself so has already forgotten the supreme divinity towards which he must hasten.

16. The world was created by a concurrence of intelligence and necessity.

17. The Soul is the image, word, and interpreter of the One.

18. The divinities though present to many human beings often reveal themselves only to some one person, because he alone is able to contemplate them.

19. To act without suffering is the sign of a great power.

20. Only virtue is independent.

21. We are beautiful when we know ourselves.

22. The Soul is the child of the universal Father.

23. True happiness is being wise, and exercising this within oneself.

24. To become again what one was originally is to live in the Superior world.

25. The desired goal is not to cease failing, but to grow divine.

26. Virtue demands preliminary purification.

27. Our effort at assimilation should be directed not at mere respectability, but at the gods themselves.

28. One should study mathematics in order to accustom oneself to think of incorporeal things, and to believe in their existence.

29. Soul is not in body, but body in Soul.

30. The Soul's higher part remains in heaven.

31. We should not leave the earth, but not be of it.

32. The object of life is not to avoid evil, or copy the good, but to become good.

33. Dying, to Eustochius: "I am awaiting you, in order to draw the divine in me to the divine in all."

Of the two numbers in the parenthesis, the first is the chronological book number, the second is the reference's page in this translation.