太子爷小说网 > 英语电子书 > the six enneads >

第107节

the six enneads-第107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!



s can befall a soul which has never deeply penetrated into the body; is not a slave but a sovereign ruling a body of such an order as to have no need and no shortcoming and therefore to give ground for neither desire nor fear。     There is no reason why it should be expectant of evil with regard to such a body nor is there any such preoccupied concern; bringing about a veritable descent; as to withdraw it from its noblest and most blessed vision; it remains always intent upon the Supreme; and its governance of this universe is effected by a power not calling upon act。     3。 The Human Soul; next;     Everywhere we hear of it as in bitter and miserable durance in body; a victim to troubles and desires and fears and all forms of evil; the body its prison or its tomb; the kosmos its cave or cavern。     Now this does not clash with the first theory 'that of the impassivity of soul as in the All'; for the descent of the human Soul has not been due to the same causes 'as that of the All…Soul。'     All that is Intellectual…Principle has its being… whole and all… in the place of Intellection; what we call the Intellectual Kosmos: but there exist; too; the intellective powers included in its being; and the separate intelligences… for the Intellectual…Principle is not merely one; it is one and many。 In the same way there must be both many souls and one; the one being the source of the differing many just as from one genus there rise various species; better and worse; some of the more intellectual order; others less effectively so。     In the Intellectual…Principle a distinction is to be made: there is the Intellectual…Principle itself; which like some huge living organism contains potentially all the other forms; and there are the forms thus potentially included now realized as individuals。 We may think of it as a city which itself has soul and life; and includes; also; other forms of life; the living city is the more perfect and powerful; but those lesser forms; in spite of all; share in the one same living quality: or; another illustration; from fire; the universal; proceed both the great fire and the minor fires; yet all have the one common essence; that of fire the universal; or; more exactly; participate in that from which the essence of the universal fire proceeds。     No doubt the task of the soul; in its more emphatically reasoning phase; is intellection: but it must have another as well; or it would be undistinguishable from the Intellectual…Principle。 To its quality of being intellective it adds the quality by which it attains its particular manner of being: remaining; therefore; an Intellectual…Principle; it has thenceforth its own task too; as everything must that exists among real beings。     It looks towards its higher and has intellection; towards itself and conserves its peculiar being; towards its lower and orders; administers; governs。     The total of things could not have remained stationary in the Intellectual Kosmos; once there was the possibility of continuous variety; of beings inferior but as necessarily existent as their superiors。     4。 So it is with the individual souls; the appetite for the divine Intellect urges them to return to their source; but they have; too; a power apt to administration in this lower sphere; they may be compared to the light attached upwards to the sun; but not grudging its presidency to what lies beneath it。 In the Intellectual; then; they remain with soul…entire; and are immune from care and trouble; in the heavenly sphere; absorbed in the soul…entire; they are administrators with it just as kings; associated with the supreme ruler and governing with him; do not descend from their kingly stations: the souls indeed 'as distinguished from the kosmos' are thus far in the one place with their overlord; but there comes a stage at which they descend from the universal to become partial and self…centred; in a weary desire of standing apart they find their way; each to a place of its very own。 This state long maintained; the soul is a deserter from the All; its differentiation has severed it; its vision is no longer set in the Intellectual; it is a partial thing; isolated; weakened; full of care; intent upon the fragment; severed from the whole; it nestles in one form of being; for this; it abandons all else; entering into and caring for only the one; for a thing buffeted about by a worldful of things: thus it has drifted away from the universal and; by an actual presence; it administers the particular; it is caught into contact now; and tends to the outer to which it has become present and into whose inner depths it henceforth sinks far。     With this comes what is known as the casting of the wings; the enchaining in body: the soul has lost that innocency of conducting the higher which it knew when it stood with the All…Soul; that earlier state to which all its interest would bid it hasten back。     It has fallen: it is at the chain: debarred from expressing itself now through its intellectual phase; it operates through sense; it is a captive; this is the burial; the encavernment; of the Soul。     But in spite of all it has; for ever; something transcendent: by a conversion towards the intellective act; it is loosed from the shackles and soars… when only it makes its memories the starting point of a new vision of essential being。 Souls that take this way have place in both spheres; living of necessity the life there and the life here by turns; the upper life reigning in those able to consort more continuously with the divine Intellect; the lower dominant where character or circumstances are less favourable。     All this is indicated by Plato; without emphasis; where he distinguishes those of the second mixing…bowl; describes them as 〃parts;〃 and goes on to say that; having in this way become partial; they must of necessity experience birth。     Of course; where he speaks of God sowing them; he is to be understood as when he tells of God speaking and delivering orations; what is rooted in the nature of the All is figuratively treated as coming into being by generation and creation: stage and sequence are transferred; for clarity of exposition; to things whose being and definite form are eternal。     5。 It is possible to reconcile all these apparent contradictions… the divine sowing to birth; as opposed to a voluntary descent aiming at the completion of the universe; the judgement and the cave; necessity and free choice… in fact the necessity includes the choice…embodiment as an evil; the Empedoclean teaching of a flight from God; a wandering away; a sin bringing its punishment; the 〃solace by flight〃 of Heraclitus; in a word a voluntary descent which is also voluntary。     All degeneration is no doubt involuntary; yet when it has been brought about by an inherent tendency; that submission to the inferior may be described as the penalty of an act。     On the other hand these experiences and actions are determined by an external law of nature; and they are due to the movement of a being which in abandoning its superior is running out to serve the needs of another: hence there is no inconsistency or untruth in saying that the soul is sent down by God; final results are always to be referred to the starting point even across many intervening stages。     Still there is a twofold flaw: the first lies in the motive of the Soul's descent 'its audacity; its Tolma'; and the second in the evil it does when actually here: the first is punished by what the soul has suffered by its descent: for the faults committed here; the lesser penalty is to enter into body after body… and soon to return… by judgement according to desert; the word judgement indicating a divine ordinance; but any outrageous form of ill…doing incurs a proportionately greater punishment administered under the surveillance of chastising daimons。     Thus; in sum; the soul; a divine being and a dweller in the loftier realms; has entered body; it is a god; a later phase of the divine: but; under stress of its powers and of its tendency to bring order to its next lower; it penetrates to this sphere in a voluntary plunge: if it turns back quickly; all is well; it will have taken no hurt by acquiring the knowledge of evil and coming to understand what sin is; by bringing its forces into manifest play; by exhibiting those activities and productions which; remaining merely potential in the unembodied; might as well never have been even there; if destined never to come into actuality; so that the soul itself would never have known that suppressed and inhibited total。     The act reveals the power; a power hidden; and we might almost say obliterated or nonexistent; unless at some moment it became effective: in the world as it is; the richness of the outer stirs us all to the wonder of the inner whose greatness is displayed in acts so splendid。     6。 Something besides a unity there must be or all would be indiscernibly buried; shapeless within that unbroken whole: none of the real beings 'of the Intellectual Kosmos' would exist if that unity remained at halt within itself: the plurality of these beings; offspring of the unity; could not exist without their own nexts taking the outward path; these are the beings holding the rank of souls。     In the same way

返回目录 上一页 下一页 回到顶部 1 0

你可能喜欢的