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第126章

the six enneads-第126章

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 myth proceeds; Kronos engenders Zeus; who already exists as the 'necessary and eternal' outcome of the plenty there; in other words the offspring of the Divine Intellect; perfect within itself; is Soul 'the life…principle carrying forward the Ideas in the Divine Mind'。     Now; even in the Divine the engendered could not be the very highest; it must be a lesser; an image; it will be undetermined; as the Divine is; but will receive determination; and; so to speak; its shaping idea; from the progenitor。     Yet any offspring of the Intellectual…Principle must be a Reason…Principle; the thought of the Divine Mind must be a substantial existence: such then is that 'Soul' which circles about the Divine Mind; its light; its image inseparably attached to it: on the upper level united with it; filled from it; enjoying it; participant in its nature; intellective with it; but on the lower level in contact with the realm beneath itself; or; rather; generating in turn an offspring which must lie beneath; of this lower we will treat later; so far we deal still with the Divine。     8。 This is the explanation of Plato's Triplicity; in the passage where he names as the Primals the Beings gathered about the King of All; and establishes a Secondary containing the Secondaries; and a Third containing the Tertiaries。     He teaches; also; that there is an author of the Cause; that is of the Intellectual…Principle; which to him is the Creator who made the Soul; as he tells us; in the famous mixing bowl。 This author of the causing principle; of the divine mind; is to him the Good; that which transcends the Intellectual…Principle and transcends Being: often too he uses the term 〃The Idea〃 to indicate Being and the Divine Mind。 Thus Plato knows the order of generation… from the Good; the Intellectual…Principle; from the Intellectual…Principle; the Soul。 These teachings are; therefore; no novelties; no inventions of today; but long since stated; if not stressed; our doctrine here is the explanation of an earlier and can show the antiquity of these opinions on the testimony of Plato himself。     Earlier; Parmenides made some approach to the doctrine in identifying Being with Intellectual…Principle while separating Real Being from the realm of sense。     〃Knowing and Being are one thing he says; and this unity is to him motionless in spite of the intellection he attributes to it: to preserve its unchanging identity he excludes all bodily movement from it; and he compares it to a huge sphere in that it holds and envelops all existence and that its intellection is not an outgoing act but internal。 Still; with all his affirmation of unity; his own writings lay him open to the reproach that his unity turns out to be a multiplicity。     The Platonic Parmenides is more exact; the distinction is made between the Primal One; a strictly pure Unity; and a secondary One which is a One…Many and a third which is a One…and…many; thus he too is in accordance with our thesis of the Three Kinds。     9。 Anaxagoras; again; in his assertion of a Mind pure and unmixed; affirms a simplex First and a sundered One; though writing long ago he failed in precision。     Heraclitus; with his sense of bodily forms as things of ceaseless process and passage; knows the One as eternal and intellectual。     In Empedocles; similarly; we have a dividing principle; 〃Strife;〃 set against 〃Friendship〃… which is The One and is to him bodiless; while the elements represent Matter。     Later there is Aristotle; he begins by making the First transcendent and intellective but cancels that primacy by supposing it to have self…intellection。 Further he affirms a multitude of other intellective beings… as many indeed as there are orbs in the heavens; one such principle as in… over to every orb… and thus his account of the Intellectual Realm differs from Plato's and; failing reason; he brings in necessity; though whatever reasons he had alleged there would always have been the objection that it would be more reasonable that all the spheres; as contributory to one system; should look to a unity; to the First。     We are obliged also to ask whether to Aristotle's mind all Intellectual Beings spring from one; and that one their First; or whether the Principles in the Intellectual are many。     If from one; then clearly the Intellectual system will be analogous to that of the universe of sense…sphere encircling sphere; with one; the outermost; dominating all… the First 'in the Intellectual' will envelop the entire scheme and will be an Intellectual 'or Archetypal' Kosmos; and as in our universe the spheres are not empty but the first sphere is thick with stars and none without them; so; in the Intellectual Kosmos; those principles of Movement will envelop a multitude of Beings; and that world will be the realm of the greater reality。     If on the contrary each is a principle; then the effective powers become a matter of chance; under what compulsion are they to hold together and act with one mind towards that work of unity; the harmony of the entire heavenly system? Again what can make it necessary that the material bodies of the heavenly system be equal in number to the Intellectual moving principles; and how can these incorporeal Beings be numerically many when there is no Matter to serve as the basis of difference?     For these reasons the ancient philosophers that ranged themselves most closely to the school of Pythagoras and of his later followers and to that of Pherekudes; have insisted upon this Nature; some developing the subject in their writings while others treated of it merely in unwritten discourses; some no doubt ignoring it entirely。     10。 We have shown the inevitability of certain convictions as to the scheme of things:     There exists a Principle which transcends Being; this is The One; whose nature we have sought to establish in so far as such matters lend themselves to proof。 Upon The One follows immediately the Principle which is at once Being and the Intellectual…Principle。 Third comes the Principle; Soul。     Now just as these three exist for the system of Nature; so; we must hold; they exist for ourselves。 I am not speaking of the material order… all that is separable… but of what lies beyond the sense realm in the same way as the Primals are beyond all the heavens; I mean the corresponding aspect of man; what Plato calls the Interior Man。     Thus our soul; too; is a divine thing; belonging to another order than sense; such is all that holds the rank of soul; but 'above the life…principle' there is the soul perfected as containing Intellectual…Principle with its double phase; reasoning and giving the power to reason。 The reasoning phase of the soul; needing no bodily organ for its thinking but maintaining; in purity; its distinctive Act that its thought may be uncontaminated… this we cannot err in placing; separate and not mingled into body; within the first Intellectual。 We may not seek any point of space in which to seat it; it must be set outside of all space: its distinct quality; its separateness; its immateriality; demand that it be a thing alone; untouched by all of the bodily order。 This is why we read of the universe that the Demiurge cast the soul around it from without… understand that phase of soul which is permanently seated in the Intellectual… and of ourselves that the charioteer's head reaches upwards towards the heights。     The admonition to sever soul from body is not; of course; to be understood spatially… that separation stands made in Nature… the reference is to holding our rank; to use of our thinking; to an attitude of alienation from the body in the effort to lead up and attach to the over…world; equally with the other; that phase of soul seated here and; alone; having to do with body; creating; moulding; spending its care upon it。     11。 Since there is a Soul which reasons upon the right and good… for reasoning is an enquiry into the rightness and goodness of this rather than that… there must exist some permanent Right; the source and foundation of this reasoning in our soul; how; else; could any such discussion be held? Further; since the soul's attention to these matters is intermittent; there must be within us an Intellectual…Principle acquainted with tha

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