贝壳电子书 > 英文原著电子书 > the six enneads >

第69章

the six enneads-第69章

小说: the six enneads 字数: 每页4000字

按键盘上方向键 ← 或 → 可快速上下翻页,按键盘上的 Enter 键可回到本书目录页,按键盘上方向键 ↑ 可回到本页顶部!
————未阅读完?加入书签已便下次继续阅读!



d even to arise there。     If Matter were participant and received Reality to the extent which we are apt to imagine; it would be penetrated by a Reality thus sucked into its constitution。 But we know that the Entrant is not thus absorbed: Matter remains as it was; taking nothing to itself: it is the check to the forthwelling of Authentic Existence; it is a ground that repels; it is a mere receptacle to the Realities as they take their common path and here meet and mingle。 It resembles those reflecting vessels; filled with water; which are often set against the sun to produce fire: the heat rays… prevented; by their contrary within; from being absorbed… are flung out as one mass。     It is in this sense and way that Matter becomes the cause of the generated realm; the combinations within it hold together only after some such reflective mode。     15。 Now the objects attracting the sun…rays to themselves… illuminated by a fire of the sense…order… are necessarily of the sense…order; there is perceptibility because there has been a union of things at once external to each other and continuous; contiguous; in direct contact; two extremes in one line。 But the Reason…Principle operating upon Matter is external to it only in a very different mode and sense: exteriority in this case is amply supplied by contrariety of essence and can dispense with any opposite ends 'any question of lineal position'; or; rather; the difference is one that actually debars any local extremity; sheer incongruity of essence; the utter failure in relationship; inhibits admixture 'between Matter and any form of Being'。     The reason; then; of the immutability of Matter is that the entrant principle neither possesses it nor is possessed by it。 Consider; as an example; the mode in which an opinion or representation is present in the mind; there is no admixture; the notion that came goes in its time; still integrally itself alone; taking nothing with it; leaving nothing after it; because it has not been blended with the mind; there is no 〃outside〃 in the sense of contact broken; and the distinction between base and entrant is patent not to the senses but to the reason。     In that example; no doubt; the mental representation… though it seems to have a wide and unchecked control… is an image; while the Soul 'Mind' is in its nature not an image 'but a Reality': none the less the Soul or Mind certainly stands to the concept as Matter; or in some analogous relation。 The representation; however; does not cover the Mind over; on the contrary it is often expelled by some activity there; however urgently it presses in; it never effects such an obliteration as to be taken for the Soul; it is confronted there by indwelling powers; by Reason…Principles; which repel all such attack。     Matter… feebler far than the Soul for any exercise of power; and possessing no phase of the Authentic Existents; not even in possession of its own falsity… lacks the very means of manifesting itself; utter void as it is; it becomes the means by which other things appear; but it cannot announce its own presence。 Penetrating thought may arrive at it; discriminating it from Authentic Existence; then; it is discerned as something abandoned by all that really is; by even the dimmest semblants of being; as a thing dragged towards every shape and property and appearing to follow… yet in fact not even following。     16。 An Ideal…Principle approaches and leads Matter towards some desired dimension; investing this non…existent underlie with a magnitude from itself which never becomes incorporate… for Matter; if it really incorporated magnitude; would be a mass。     Eliminate this Ideal…Form and the substratum ceases to be a thing of magnitude; or to appear so: the mass produced by the Idea was; let us suppose; a man or a horse; the horse…magnitude came upon the Matter when a horse was produced upon it; when the horse ceases to exist upon the Matter; the magnitude of the horse departs also。 If we are told that the horse implies a certain determined bulk and that this bulk is a permanent thing; we answer that what is permanent in this case is not the magnitude of the horse but the magnitude of mass in general。 That same Magnitude might be fire or earth; on their disappearance their particular magnitudes would disappear with them。 Matter; then; can never take to itself either pattern or magnitude; if it did; it would no longer be able to turn from being fire; let us say; into being something else; it would become and be fire once for all。     In a word; though Matter is far extended… so vastly as to appear co…extensive with all this sense…known Universe… yet if the Heavens and their content came to an end; all magnitude would simultaneously pass from Matter with; beyond a doubt; all its other properties; it would be abandoned to its own Kind; retaining nothing of all that which; in its own peculiar mode; it had hitherto exhibited。     Where an entrant force can effect modification it will inevitably leave some trace upon its withdrawal; but where there can be no modification; nothing can be retained; light comes and goes; and the air is as it always was。     That a thing essentially devoid of magnitude should come to a certain size is no more astonishing than that a thing essentially devoid of heat should become warm: Matter's essential existence is quite separate from its existing in bulk; since; of course; magnitude is an immaterial principle as pattern is。 Besides; if we are not to reduce Matter to nothing; it must be all things by way of participation; and Magnitude is one of those all things。     In bodies; necessarily compounds; Magnitude though not a determined Magnitude must be present as one of the constituents; it is implied in the very notion of body; but Matter… not a Body… excludes even undetermined Magnitude。     17。 Nor can we; on the other hand; think that matter is simply Absolute Magnitude。     Magnitude is not; like Matter; a receptacle; it is an Ideal…Principle: it is a thing standing apart to itself; not some definite Mass。 The fact is that the self…gathered content of the Intellectual Principle or of the All…Soul; desires expansion 'and thereby engenders secondaries': in its images… aspiring and moving towards it and eagerly imitating its act… is vested a similar power of reproducing their states in their own derivatives。 The Magnitude latent in the expansive tendency of the Image…making phase 'of Intellect or All…Soul' runs forth into the Absolute Magnitude of the Universe; this in turn enlists into the process the spurious magnitude of Matter: the content of the Supreme; thus; in virtue of its own prior extension enables Matter… which never possesses a content… to exhibit the appearance of Magnitude。 It must be understood that spurious Magnitude consists in the fact that a thing 'Matter' not possessing actual Magnitude strains towards it and has the extension of that straining。 All that is Real Being gives forth a reflection of itself upon all else; every Reality; therefore; has Magnitude which by this process is communicated to the Universe。     The Magnitude inherent in each Ideal…Principle… that of a horse or of anything else… combines with Magnitude the Absolute with the result that; irradiated by that Absolute; Matter entire takes Magnitude and every particle of it becomes a mass; in this way; by virtue at once of the totality of Idea with its inherent magnitude and of each several specific Idea; all things appear under mass; Matter takes on what we conceive as extension; it is compelled to assume a relation to the All and; gathered under this Idea and under Mass; to be all things… in the degree in which the operating power can lead the really nothing to become all。     By the conditions of Manifestation; colour rises from non…colour '= from the colourless prototype of colour in the Ideal Realm'。 Quality; known by the one name with its parallel in the sphere of Primals; rises; similarly; from non…quality: in precisely the same mode; the Magnitude appearing upon Matter rises from non…Magnitude or from that Primal which is known to us by the same name; so that material things become visible through standing midway between bare underlie and Pure Idea。 All is perceptible by virtue of th

返回目录 上一页 下一页 回到顶部 0 0

你可能喜欢的