第 174 节
作者:
卖吻 更新:2021-08-28 17:09 字数:9322
permitted to its nature is among real beings which keep pace with its movement; but it is always itself; this is a stationary wandering; a wandering within the Meadow of Truth from which it does not stray。 It holds and covers the universe which it has made the space; so to speak; of its movement; itself being also that universe which is space to it。 And this Meadow of Truth is varied so that movement through it may be possible; suppose it not always and everywhere varied; the failing of diversity is a failure of movement; failure in movement would mean a failing of the Intellectual Act; halting; it has ceased to exercise its Intellectual Act; this ceasing; it ceases to be。 The Intellectual…Principle is the Intellectual Act; its movement is complete; filling Being complete; And the entire of Being is the Intellectual Act entire; comprehending all life and the unfailing succession of things。 Because this Principle contains Identity and Difference its division is ceaselessly bringing the different things to light。 Its entire movement is through life and among living things。 To a traveller over land; all is earth but earth abounding in difference: so in this journey the life through which Intellectual…Principle passes is one life but; in its ceaseless changing; a varied life。 Throughout this endless variation it maintains the one course because it is not; itself; subject to change but on the contrary is present as identical and unvarying Being to the rest of things。 For if there be no such principle of unchanging identity to things; all is dead; activity and actuality exist nowhere。 These 〃other things〃 through which it passes are also Intellectual…Principle itself; otherwise it is not the all…comprehending principle: if it is to be itself; it must be all…embracing; failing that; it is not itself。 If it is complete in itself; complete because all…embracing; and there is nothing which does not find place in this total; then there can be nothing belonging to it which is not different; only by difference can there be such co…operation towards a total。 If it knew no otherness but was pure identity its essential Being would be the less for that failure to fulfil the specific nature which its completion requires。 14。 On the nature of the Intellectual…Principle we get light from its manifestations; they show that it demands such diversity as is compatible with its being a monad。 Take what principle you will; that of plant or animal: if this principle were a pure unity and not a specifically varied thing; it could not so serve as principle; its product would be Matter; the principle not having taken all those forms necessary if Matter is to be permeated and utterly transformed。 A face is not one mass; there are nose and eyes; and the nose is not a unity but has the differences which make it a nose; as bare unity it would be mere mass。 There is infinity in Intellectual…Principle since; of its very nature; it is a multiple unity; not with the unity of a house but with that of a Reason…Principle; multiple in itself: in the one Intellectual design it includes within itself; as it were in outline; all the outlines; all the patterns。 All is within it; all the powers and intellections; the division is not determined by a boundary but goes ever inward; this content is held as the living universe holds the natural forms of the living creatures in it from the greatest to the least; down even to the minutest powers where there is a halt at the individual form。 The discrimination is not of items huddled within a sort of unity; this is what is known as the Universal Sympathy; not of course the sympathy known here which is a copy and prevails amongst things in separation; that authentic Sympathy consists in all being a unity and never discriminate。 15。 That Life; the various; the all…including; the primal and one; who can consider it without longing to be of it; disdaining all the other? All other life is darkness; petty and dim and poor; it is unclean and polluting the clean for if you do but look upon it you no longer see nor live this life which includes all living; in which there is nothing that does not live and live in a life of purity void of all that is ill。 For evil is here where life is in copy and Intellect in copy; There is the archetype; that which is good in the very Idea… we read… as holding The Good in the pure Idea。 That Archetype is good; Intellectual…Principle is good as holding its life by contemplation of the archetype; and it sees also as good the objects of its contemplation because it holds them in its act of contemplating the Principle of Good。 But these objects come to it not as they are There but in accord with its own condition; for it is their source; they spring thence to be here; and Intellectual…Principle it is that has produced them by its vision There。 In the very law; never; looking to That; could it fail of Intellectual Act; never; on the other hand; could it produce what is There; of itself it could not produce; Thence it must draw its power to bring forth; to teem with offspring of itself; from the Good it takes what itself did not possess。 From that Unity came multiplicity to Intellectual…Principle; it could not sustain the power poured upon it and therefore broke it up; it turned that one power into variety so as to carry it piecemeal。 All its production; effected in the power of The Good; contains goodness; it is good; itself; since it is constituted by these things of good; it is Good made diverse。 It might be likened to a living sphere teeming with variety; to a globe of faces radiant with faces all living; to a unity of souls; all the pure souls; not faulty but the perfect; with Intellect enthroned over all so that the place entire glows with Intellectual splendour。 But this would be to see it from without; one thing seeing another; the true way is to become Intellectual…Principle and be; our very selves; what we are to see。 16。 But even there we are not to remain always; in that beauty of the multiple; we must make haste yet higher; above this heaven of ours and even that; leaving all else aside we ask in awe 〃Who produced that realm and how?〃 Everything There is a single Idea in an individual impression and; informed by The Good; possesses the universal good transcendent over all。 Each possessing that Being above; possesses also the total Living…Form in virtue of that transcendent life; possesses; no doubt; much else as well。 But what is the Nature of this Transcendent in view of which and by way of which the Ideas are good? The best way of putting the question is to ask whether; when Intellectual…Principle looked towards The Good; it had Intellection of that unity as a multiplicity and; itself a unity; plied its Act by breaking into parts what it was too feeble to know as a whole。 No: that would not be Intellection looking upon the Good; it would be a looking void of Intellection。 We must think of it not as looking but as living; dependent upon That; it kept itself turned Thither; all the tendance taking place There and upon That must be a movement teeming with life and must so fill the looking Principle; there is no longer bare Act; there is a filling to saturation。 Forthwith Intellectual…Principle becomes all things; knows that fact in virtue of its self…knowing and at once becomes Intellectual…Principle; filled so as to hold within itself that object of its vision; seeing all by the light from the Giver and bearing that Giver with it。 In this way the Supreme may be understood to be the cause at once of essential reality and of the knowing of reality。 The sun; cause of the existence of sense…things and of their being seen; is indirectly the cause of sight; without being either the faculty or the object: similarly this Principle; The Good; cause of Being and Intellectual…Principle; is a light appropriate to what is to be seen There and to their seer; neither the Beings nor the Intellectual…Principle; it is their source and by the light it sheds upon both makes them objects of Intellection。 This filling procures the existence; after the filling; the being; the existence achieved; the seeing followed: the beginning is that state of not yet having been filled; though there is; also; the beginning which means that the Filling Principle was outside and by that act of filling gave shape to the filled。 17。 But in what mode are these secondaries; and Intellectual…Principle itself; within the First? They are not in the Filling Principle; they are not in the filled since before that moment it did not contain them。 Giving need not comport possessing; in this order we are to think of a giver as a greater and of a gift as a lower; this is the meaning of origin among real Beings。 First there must be an actualized thing; its laters must be potentially their own priors; a first must transcend its derivatives; the giver transcends the given; as a superior。 If therefore there is a prior to actuality; that prior transcends Activity and so transcends Life。 Our sphere containing life; there is a Giver of Life; a principle of greater good; of greater worth than Life; this possessed Life and had no need to look for it to any giver in possession of Life's variety。 But the L