友情提示:如果本网页打开太慢或显示不完整,请尝试鼠标右键“刷新”本网页!阅读过程发现任何错误请告诉我们,谢谢!! 报告错误
飞读中文网 返回本书目录 我的书架 我的书签 TXT全本下载 进入书吧 加入书签

the six enneads-第142章

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!



re stands the ideal…form received; but this recipient; Matter to the Supreme Intelligence; is also noble as being at once informed by divine intellect and uncompounded。     What the Intellectual…Principle must be is carried in the single word that Soul; itself so great; is still inferior。     4。 But there is yet another way to this knowledge:     Admiring the world of sense as we look out upon its vastness and beauty and the order of its eternal march; thinking of the gods within it; seen and hidden; and the celestial spirits and all the life of animal and plant; let us mount to its archetype; to the yet more authentic sphere: there we are to contemplate all things as members of the Intellectual… eternal in their own right; vested with a self…springing consciousness and life… and; presiding over all these; the unsoiled Intelligence and the unapproachable wisdom。     That archetypal world is the true Golden Age; age of Kronos; who is the Intellectual…Principle as being the offspring or exuberance of God。 For here is contained all that is immortal: nothing here but is Divine Mind; all is God; this is the place of every soul。 Here is rest unbroken: for how can that seek change; in which all is well; what need that reach to; which holds all within itself; what increase can that desire; which stands utterly achieved? All its content; thus; is perfect; that itself may be perfect throughout; as holding nothing that is less than the divine; nothing that is less than intellective。 Its knowing is not by search but by possession; its blessedness inherent; not acquired; for all belongs to it eternally and it holds the authentic Eternity imitated by Time which; circling round the Soul; makes towards the new thing and passes by the old。 Soul deals with thing after thing… now Socrates; now a horse: always some one entity from among beings… but the Intellectual…Principle is all and therefore its entire content is simultaneously present in that identity: this is pure being in eternal actuality; nowhere is there any future; for every then is a now; nor is there any past; for nothing there has ever ceased to be; everything has taken its stand for ever; an identity well pleased; we might say; to be as it is; and everything; in that entire content; is Intellectual…Principle and Authentic Existence; and the total of all is Intellectual…Principle entire and Being entire。 Intellectual…Principle by its intellective act establishes Being; which in turn; as the object of intellection; becomes the cause of intellection and of existence to the Intellectual…Principle… though; of course; there is another cause of intellection which is also a cause to Being; both rising in a source distinct from either。     Now while these two are coalescents; having their existence in common; and are never apart; still the unity they form is two…sided; there is Intellectual…Principle as against Being; the intellectual agent as against the object of intellection; we consider the intellective act and we have the Intellectual…Principle; we think of the object of that act and we have Being。     Such difference there must be if there is to be any intellection; but similarly there must also be identity 'since; in perfect knowing; subject and object are identical。'     Thus the Primals 'the first 〃Categories〃' are seen to be: Intellectual…Principle; Existence; Difference; Identity: we must include also Motion and Rest: Motion provides for the intellectual act; Rest preserves identity as Difference gives at once a Knower and a Known; for; failing this; all is one; and silent。     So too the objects of intellection 'the ideal content of the Divine Mind'… identical in virtue of the self…concentration of the principle which is their common ground… must still be distinct each from another; this distinction constitutes Difference。     The Intellectual Kosmos thus a manifold; Number and Quantity arise: Quality is the specific character of each of these ideas which stand as the principles from which all else derives。     5。 As a manifold; then; this God; the Intellectual…Principle; exists within the Soul here; the Soul which once for all stands linked a member of the divine; unless by a deliberate apostasy。     Bringing itself close to the divine Intellect; becoming; as it were; one with this; it seeks still further: What Being; now; has engendered this God; what is the Simplex preceding this multiple; what the cause at once of its existence and of its existing as a manifold; what the source of this Number; this Quantity?     Number; Quantity; is not primal: obviously before even duality; there must stand the unity。     The Dyad is a secondary; deriving from unity; it finds in unity the determinant needed by its native indetermination: once there is any determination; there is Number; in the sense; of course; of the real 'the archetypal' Number。 And the soul is such a number or quantity。 For the Primals are not masses or magnitudes; all of that gross order is later; real only to the sense…thought; even in seed the effective reality is not the moist substance but the unseen… that is to say Number 'as the determinant of individual being' and the Reason…Principle 'of the product to be'。     Thus by what we call the Number and the Dyad of that higher realm; we mean Reason Principles and the Intellectual…Principle: but while the Dyad is; as regards that sphere; undetermined… representing; as it were; the underly 'or Matter' of The One… the later Number 'or Quantity'… that which rises from the Dyad 'Intellectual…Principle' and The One… is not Matter to the later existents but is their forming…Idea; for all of them take shape; so to speak; from the ideas rising within this。 The determination of the Dyad is brought about partly from its object… The One… and partly from itself; as is the case with all vision in the act of sight: intellection 'the Act of the Dyad' is vision occupied upon The One。     6。 But how and what does the Intellectual…Principle see and; especially; how has it sprung from that which is to become the object of its vision?     The mind demands the existence of these Beings; but it is still in trouble over the problem endlessly debated by the most ancient philosophers: from such a unity as we have declared The One to be; how does anything at all come into substantial existence; any multiplicity; dyad; or number? Why has the Primal not remained self…gathered so that there be none of this profusion of the manifold which we observe in existence and yet are compelled to trace to that absolute unity?     In venturing an answer; we first invoke God Himself; not in loud word but in that way of prayer which is always within our power; leaning in soul towards Him by aspiration; alone towards the alone。 But if we seek the vision of that great Being within the Inner Sanctuary… self…gathered; tranquilly remote above all else… we begin by considering the images stationed at the outer precincts; or; more exactly to the moment; the first image that appears。 How the Divine Mind comes into being must be explained:     Everything moving has necessarily an object towards which it advances; but since the Supreme can have no such object; we may not ascribe motion to it: anything that comes into being af
返回目录 上一页 下一页 回到顶部 0 0
未阅读完?加入书签已便下次继续阅读!
温馨提示: 温看小说的同时发表评论,说出自己的看法和其它小伙伴们分享也不错哦!发表书评还可以获得积分和经验奖励,认真写原创书评 被采纳为精评可以获得大量金币、积分和经验奖励哦!