太子爷小说网 > 英语电子书 > the six enneads >

第160节

the six enneads-第160节

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!



fferentiation; and difference is no bar to coexistence; witness soul and Intellectual…Principle: similarly our own knowledge; the trivial next the gravest; one and the same object yields colour to our sight; fragrance to smell; to every sense a particular experience; all presented simultaneously。     But would not this indicate that the Authentic is diverse; multiple?     That diversity is simplex still; that multiple is one; for it is a Reason…Principle; which is to say a unity in variety: all Being is one; the differing being is still included in Being; the differentiation is within Being; obviously not within non…Being。 Being is bound up with the unity which is never apart from it; wheresoever Being appears; there appears its unity; and the unity of Being is self…standing; for presence in the sensible does not abrogate independence: things of sense are present to the Intellectual… where this occurs… otherwise than as the Intellectual is present within itself; so; too; body's presence to soul differs from that of knowledge to soul; one item of knowledge is present in a different way than another; a body's presence to body is; again; another form of relation。     12。 Think of a sound passing through the air and carrying a word; an ear within range catches and comprehends; and the sound and word will strike upon any other ear you may imagine within the intervening void; upon any that attends; from a great distance many eyes look to the one object and all take it fully; all this; because eye and ear exist。 In the same way; what is apt for soul will possess itself of soul; while from the one identical presence another will derive something else。     Now the sound was diffused throughout the air not in sections but as one sound; entire at every point of that space。 So with sight: if the air carries a shape impressed upon it this is one undivided whole; for; wherever there be an eye; there the shape will be grasped; even to such as reject this particular theory of sight; the facts of vision still stand as an example of participation determined by an identical unity。     The sound is the clearer illustration: the form conveyed is an entirety over all the air space; for unless the spoken word were entire at every point; for every ear to catch the whole alike; the same effect could not be made upon every listener; the sound; evidently; is not strung along the air; section to section。 Why; then; need we hesitate to think of soul as a thing not extended in broken contact; part for part; but omnipresent within the range of its presence; indwelling in totality at every point throughout the All?     Entered into such bodies as are apt to it; the soul is like the spoken sound present in the air; before that entry; like the speaker about to speak… though even embodied it remains at once the speaker and the silent。     No doubt these illustrations are imperfect; but they carry a serviceable similitude: the soul belongs to that other Kind; and we must not conceive a part of it embodied and a part intact; it is at once a self…enclosed unity and a principle manifested in diversity。     Further; any newcoming entity achieving soul receives mysteriously that same principle which was equally in the previously ensouled; for it is not in the dispensation that a given part of soul situate at some given point should enter here and there; what is thought of as entering was always a self…enclosed entire and; for all the seeming entry; so remains; no real entry is conceivable。 If; then; the soul never entered and yet is now seen to be present… present without waiting upon the participant… clearly it is present; here too; without breach of its self…inclusion。 This can mean only that the participant came to soul; it lay outside the veritable reality but advanced towards it and so established itself in the kosmos of life。 But this kosmos of life is a self…gathered entire; not divisible into constituent masses but prior to mass; in other words; the participation is of entire in entire。 Any newcomer into that kosmos of life will participate in it entire。 Admitting; then; that this kosmos of life is present entire in the universe; it must be similarly entire in each several entity; an identity numerically one; it must be an undivided entire; omnipresent。     13。 But how account; at this; for its extension over all the heavens and all living beings?     There is no such extension。 Sense…perception; by insistence upon which we doubt; tells of Here and There; but reason certifies that the Here and There do not attach to that principle; the extended has participated in that kosmos of life which itself has no extension。     Clearly no participant can participate in itself; self…participation would be merely identity。 Body; then; as participant does not participate in body; body it has; its participation must be in what is not body。 So too magnitude does not participate in magnitude; it has it: not even in addition of quantity does the initial magnitude participate in magnitude: the two cubits do not themselves become three cubits; what occurs is that an object totalling to a certain quantity now totals to another: for magnitude to participate in magnitude the actual two cubits must themselves become the new three 'which cannot occur'。     If; then; the divided and quantitatively extended is to participate in another Kind; is to have any sort of participation; it can participate only in something undivided; unextended; wholly outside of quantity。 Therefore; that which is to be introduced by the participation must enter as itself an omnipresent indivisible。     This indivisibility must; of course; not be taken in any sense of littleness: littleness would be still divisible; could not cover the extension of the participant and could not maintain integral presence against that expansion。 Nor is it the indivisibility of a geometric point: the participant mass is no single point but includes an infinity of points; so that on the theory this principle must be an infinity of points; not a simultaneous entire; and so; again; will fail to cover the participant。     If; then; the participant mass in its entirety is to contain that principle entire; the universe must hold that one soul present at its every point。     14。 But; admitting this one soul at every point; how is there a particular soul of the individual and how the good soul and the bad?     The one soul reaches to the individual but nonetheless contains all souls and all intelligences; this; because it is at once a unity and an infinity; it holds all its content as one yet with each item distinct; though not to the point of separation。 Except by thus holding all its content as one…life entire; soul entire; all intelligence… it could not be infinite; since the individualities are not fenced off from each other; it remains still one thing。 It was to hold life not single but infinite and yet one life; one in the sense not of an aggregate built up but of the retention of the unity in which all rose。 Strictly; of course; it is a matter not of the rising of the individuals but of their being eternally what they are; in that order; as there is no beginning; so there is no apportioning except as an interpretation by the recipient。 What is of that realm is the ancient and primal; the relation to it of the thing of process must be that of approach and apparent merging with always dependence。     But we ourselves; what are We?     Are we that higher or the participant newcomer; the thing of beginnings in time?     Before we had our becoming Here we existed There; men other than now; some of us gods: we were pure souls; Intelligence inbound with the entire of reality; members of the Intellectual; not fenced off; not cut away; integral to that All。 Even now; it is true; we are not put apart; but upon that primal Man there has intruded another; a man seeking to come into being and finding us there; for we were not outside of the universe。 This other has wound himself about us; foisting himself upon the Man that each of us was at first。 Then it was as if one voice sounded; one word was uttered; and from every side an ear attended and received and there was an effective hearing; possessed through and through of what was present and active upon it: now we have lost that first simplicity; we are become the dual thing; sometimes indeed no more than that later foisting; with the primal nature dormant and in a sense no longer present。     15。 But how did this intruder find entrance?     It had a certain aptitude and it grasped at that to which it was apt。 In its nature it was capable of soul: but what is unfitted to receive soul entire… present entire but not for it… takes what share it may; such are the members of the animal and vegetal order。 Similarly; of a significant sound; some forms of being take sound and significance together; others only the sound; the blank impact。     A living thing comes into existence containing soul; present to it from the Authentic; and by soul is inbound with Reality entire; it possesses also a body; but this body is not a husk having no part in soul; not a thing that earlier lay away in the soulless; the body had its aptitude and by this draws near: now it is not body merely; but living body。 By this neighboring i

返回目录 上一页 下一页 回到顶部 1 0

你可能喜欢的