the six enneads-第86节
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!
the heavenly bodies is the more clearly an unbroken unity。 9。 But Zeus… ordering all; governor; guardian and disposer; possessor for ever of the kingly soul and the kingly intellect; bringing all into being by his providence; and presiding over all things as they come; administering all under plan and system; unfolding the periods of the kosmos; many of which stand already accomplished… would it not seem inevitable that; in this multiplicity of concern; Zeus should have memory of all the periods; their number and their differing qualities? Contriving the future; co…ordinating; calculating for what is to be; must he not surely be the chief of all in remembering; as he is chief in producing? Even this matter of Zeus' memory of the kosmic periods is difficult; it is a question of their being numbered; and of his knowledge of their number。 A determined number would mean that the All had a beginning in time 'which is not so'; if the periods are unlimited; Zeus cannot know the number of his works。 The answer is that he will know all to be one thing existing in virtue of one life for ever: it is in this sense that the All is unlimited; and thus Zeus' knowledge of it will not be as of something seen from outside but as of something embraced in true knowledge; for this unlimited thing is an eternal indweller within himself… or; to be more accurate; eternally follows upon him… and is seen by an indwelling knowledge; Zeus knows his own unlimited life; and; in that knowledge knows the activity that flows from him to the kosmos; but he knows it in its unity not in its process。 10。 The ordering principle is twofold; there is the principle known to us as the Demiurge and there is the Soul of the All; we apply the appellation 〃Zeus〃 sometimes to the Demiurge and sometimes to the principle conducting the universe。 When under the name of Zeus we are considering the Demiurge we must leave out all notions of stage and progress; and recognize one unchanging and timeless life。 But the life in the kosmos; the life which carries the leading principle of the universe; still needs elucidation; does it operate without calculation; without searching into what ought to be done? Yes: for what must be stands shaped before the kosmos; and is ordered without any setting in order: the ordered things are merely the things that come to be; and the principle that brings them into being is Order itself; this production is an act of a soul linked with an unchangeably established wisdom whose reflection in that soul is Order。 It is an unchanging wisdom; and there can therefore be no changing in the soul which mirrors it; not sometimes turned towards it; and sometimes away from it… and in doubt because it has turned away… but an unremitting soul performing an unvarying task。 The leading principle of the universe is a unity… and one that is sovereign without break; not sometimes dominant and sometimes dominated。 What source is there for any such multiplicity of leading principles as might result in contest and hesitation? And this governing unity must always desire the one thing: what could bring it to wish now for this and now for that; to its own greater perplexing? But observe: no perplexity need follow upon any development of this soul essentially a unity。 The All stands a multiple thing no doubt; having parts; and parts dashing with parts; but that does not imply that it need be in doubt as to its conduct: that soul does not take its essence from its ultimates or from its parts; but from the Primals; it has its source in the First and thence; along an unhindered path; it flows into a total of things; conferring grace; and; because it remains one same thing occupied in one task; dominating。 To suppose it pursuing one new object after another is to raise the question whence that novelty comes into being; the soul; besides; would be in doubt as to its action; its very work; the kosmos; would be the less well done by reason of the hesitancy which such calculations would entail。 11。 The administration of the kosmos is to be thought of as that of a living unit: there is the action determined by what is external; and has to do with the parts; and there is that determined by the internal and by the principle: thus a doctor basing his treatment on externals and on the parts directly affected will often be baffled and obliged to all sorts of calculation; while Nature will act on the basis of principle and need no deliberation。 And in so far as the kosmos is a conducted thing; its administration and its administrator will follow not the way of the doctor but the way of Nature。 And in the case of the universe; the administration is all the less complicated from the fact that the soul actually circumscribes; as parts of a living unity; all the members which it conducts。 For all the Kinds included in the universe are dominated by one Kind; upon which they follow; fitted into it; developing from it; growing out of it; just as the Kind manifested in the bough is related to the Kind in the tree as a whole。 What place; then; is there for reasoning; for calculation; what place for memory; where wisdom and knowledge are eternal; unfailingly present; effective; dominant; administering in an identical process? The fact that the product contains diversity and difference does not warrant the notion that the producer must be subject to corresponding variations。 On the contrary; the more varied the product; the more certain the unchanging identity of the producer: even in the single animal the events produced by Nature are many and not simultaneous; there are the periods; the developments at fixed epochs… horns; beard; maturing breasts; the acme of life; procreation… but the principles which initially determined the nature of the being are not thereby annulled; there is process of growth; but no diversity in the initial principle。 The identity underlying all the multiplicity is confirmed by the fact that the principle constituting the parent is exhibited unchanged; undiminished; in the offspring。 We have reason; then; for thinking that one and the same wisdom envelops both; and that this is the unalterable wisdom of the kosmos taken as a whole; it is manifold; diverse and yet simplex; presiding over the most comprehensive of living beings; and in no wise altered within itself by this multiplicity; but stably one Reason…Principle; the concentrated totality of things: if it were not thus all things; it would be a wisdom of the later and partial; not the wisdom of the Supreme。 12。 It may be urged that all the multiplicity and development are the work of Nature; but that; since there is wisdom within the All; there must be also; by the side of such natural operation; acts of reasoning and of memory。 But this is simply a human error which assumes wisdom to be what in fact is unwisdom; taking the search for wisdom to be wisdom itself。 For what can reasoning be but a struggle; the effort to discover the wise course; to attain the principle which is true and derives from real…being? To reason is like playing the cithara for the sake of achieving the art; like practising with a view to mastery; like any learning that aims at knowing。 What reasoners seek; the wise hold: wisdom; in a word; is a condition in a being that possesses repose。 Think what happens when one has accomplished the reasoning process: as soon as we have discovered the right course; we cease to reason: we rest because we have come to wisdom。 If then we are to range the leading principle of the All among learners; we must allow it reasonings; perplexities and those acts of memory which link the past with the present and the future: if it is to be considered as a knower; then the wisdom within it consists in a rest possessing the object 'absolved; therefore; from search and from remembrance'。 Again; if the leading principle of the universe knows the future as it must… then obviously it will know by what means that future is to come about; given this knowledge; what further need is there of its reasoning towards it; or confronting past with present? And; of course; this knowledge of things to come… admitting it to exist… is not like that of the diviners; it is that of the actual causing principles holding the certainty that the thing will exist; the certainty inherent in the all…disposers; above perplexity and hesitancy; the notion is constituent and therefore unvarying。 The knowledge of future things is; in a word; identical with that of the present; it is a knowledge in repose and thus a knowledge transcending the processes of cogitation。 If the leading principle of the universe does not know the future which it is of itself to produce; it cannot produce with knowledge or to purpose; it will produce just what happens to come; that is to say by haphazard。 As this cannot be; it must create by some stable principle; its creations; therefore; will be shaped in the model stored up in itself; there can be no varying; for; if there were; there could also be failure。 The produced universe will contain difference; but its diversities spring not from its own action but from its obedience to superior principles which; again; spring from the creating power; so that all is guided by Reaso