第 118 节
作者:
卖吻 更新:2021-08-28 17:09 字数:9322
ed; that first act 'as motionless and without intelligence' was incomplete; nothing more than a tendency。 And what can we imagine it lights upon to become the object of such a tendency? The only reasonable explanation of act flowing from it lies in the analogy of light from a sun。 The entire intellectual order may be figured as a kind of light with the One in repose at its summit as its King: but this manifestation is not cast out from it: we may think; rather; of the One as a light before the light; an eternal irradiation resting upon the Intellectual Realm; this; not identical with its source; is yet not severed from it nor of so remote a nature as to be less than Real…Being; it is no blind thing; but is seeing and knowing; the primal knower。 The One; as transcending Intellect; transcends knowing: above all need; it is above the need of the knowing which pertains solely to the Secondary Nature。 Knowing is a unitary thing; but defined: the first is One; but undefined: a defined One would not be the One…absolute: the absolute is prior to the definite。 13。 Thus The One is in truth beyond all statement: any affirmation is of a thing; but the all…transcending; resting above even the most august divine Mind; possesses alone of all true being; and is not a thing among things; we can give it no name because that would imply predication: we can but try to indicate; in our own feeble way; something concerning it: when in our perplexity we object; 〃Then it is without self…perception; without self…consciousness; ignorant of itself〃; we must remember that we have been considering it only in its opposites。 If we make it knowable; an object of affirmation; we make it a manifold; and if we allow intellection in it we make it at that point indigent: supposing that in fact intellection accompanies it; intellection by it must be superfluous。 Self…intellection… which is the truest… implies the entire perception of a total self formed from a variety converging into an integral; but the Transcendent knows neither separation of part nor any such enquiry; if its intellectual act were directed upon something outside; then; the Transcendent would be deficient and the intellection faulty。 The wholly simplex and veritable self…sufficing can be lacking at no point: self…intellection begins in that principle which; secondarily self…sufficing; yet needs itself and therefore needs to know itself: this principle; by its self…presence; achieves its sufficiency in virtue of its entire content 'it is the all': it becomes thus competent from the total of its being; in the act of living towards itself and looking upon itself。 Consciousness; as the very word indicates; is a conperception; an act exercised upon a manifold: and even intellection; earlier 'nearer to the divine' though it is; implies that the agent turns back upon itself; upon a manifold; then。 If that agent says no more than 〃I am a being;〃 it speaks 'by the implied dualism' as a discoverer of the extern; and rightly so; for being is a manifold; when it faces towards the unmanifold and says; 〃I am that being;〃 it misses both itself and the being 'since the simplex cannot be thus divided into knower and known': if it is 'to utter' truth it cannot indicate by 〃being〃 something like a stone; in the one phrase multiplicity is asserted; for the being thus affirmed… 'even' the veritable; as distinguished from such a mere container of some trace of being as ought not to be called a being since it stands merely as image to archetype… even this must possess multiplicity。 But will not each item in that multiplicity be an object of intellection to us? Taken bare and single; no: but Being itself is manifold within itself; and whatever else you may name has Being。 This accepted; it follows that anything that is to be thought of as the most utterly simplex of all cannot have self…intellection; to have that would mean being multiple。 The Transcendent; thus; neither knows itself nor is known in itself。 14。 How; then; do we ourselves come to be speaking of it? No doubt we deal with it; but we do not state it; we have neither knowledge nor intellection of it。 But in what sense do we even deal with it when we have no hold upon it? We do not; it is true; grasp it by knowledge; but that does not mean that we are utterly void of it; we hold it not so as to state it; but so as to be able to speak about it。 And we can and do state what it is not; while we are silent as to what it is: we are; in fact; speaking of it in the light of its sequels; unable to state it; we may still possess it。 Those divinely possessed and inspired have at least the knowledge that they hold some greater thing within them though they cannot tell what it is; from the movements that stir them and the utterances that come from them they perceive the power; not themselves; that moves them: in the same way; it must be; we stand towards the Supreme when we hold the Intellectual…Principle pure; we know the divine Mind within; that which gives Being and all else of that order: but we know; too; that other; know that it is none of these; but a nobler principle than any…thing we know as Being; fuller and greater; above reason; mind and feeling; conferring these powers; not to be confounded with them。 15。 Conferring… but how? As itself possessing them or not? How can it convey what it does not possess; and yet if it does possess how is it simplex? And if; again; it does not; how is it the source of the manifold? A single; unmanifold emanation we may very well allow… how even that can come from a pure unity may be a problem; but we may always explain it on the analogy of the irradiation from a luminary… but a multitudinous production raises question。 The explanation is that what comes from the Supreme cannot be identical with it and assuredly cannot be better than it… what could be better than The One or the utterly transcendent? The emanation; then; must be less good; that is to say; less self…sufficing: now what must that be which is less self…sufficing than The One? Obviously the Not…One; that is to say; multiplicity; but a multiplicity striving towards unity; that is to say; a One…that…is…many。 All that is not One is conserved by virtue of the One; and from the One derives its characteristic nature: if it had not attained such unity as is consistent with being made up of multiplicity we could not affirm its existence: if we are able to affirm the nature of single things; this is in virtue of the unity; the identity even; which each of them possesses。 But the all…transcendent; utterly void of multiplicity; has no mere unity of participation but is unity's self; independent of all else; as being that from which; by whatever means; all the rest take their degree of unity in their standing; near or far; towards it。 In virtue of the unity manifested in its variety it exhibits; side by side; both an all…embracing identity and the existence of the secondary: all the variety lies in the midst of a sameness; and identity cannot be separated from diversity since all stands as one; each item in that content; by the fact of participating in life; is a One…many: for the item could not make itself manifest as a One…and…all。 Only the Transcendent can be that; it is the great beginning; and the beginning must be a really existent One; wholly and truly One; while its sequent; poured down in some way from the One; is all; a total which has participation in unity and whose every member is similarly all and one。 What then is the All? The total of which the Transcendent is the Source。 But in what way is it that source? In the sense; perhaps; of sustaining things as bestower of the unity of each single item? That too; but also as having established them in being。 But how? As having; perhaps; contained them previously? We have indicated that; thus; the First would be a manifold。 May we think; perhaps; that the First contained the universe as an indistinct total whose items are elaborated to distinct existence within the Second by the Reason…Principle there? That Second is certainly an Activity; the Transcendent would contain only the potentiality of the universe to come。 But the nature of this contained potentiality would have to be explained: it cannot be that of Matter; a receptivity; for thus the Source becomes passive… the very negation of production。 How then does it produce what it does not contain? Certainly not at haphazard and certainly not by selection。 How then? We have observed that anything that may spring from the One must be different from it。 Differing; it is not One; since then it would be the Source。 If unity has given place to duality; from that moment there is multiplicity; for here is variety side by side with identity; and this imports quality and all the rest。 We may take it as proved that the emanation of the Transcendent must be a Not…One something other than pure unity; but that it is a multiplicity; and especially that it is such a multiplicity as is exhibited in the sequent universe; this is a statement worthy of deliberation: some further enquiry must be made; also; as to the necessity of any sequel to the First。 16。 We have; of co