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CLASSICAL ESSAY |
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by Plotinus
All things that exist do so by virtue of "unity" -- in so far as they exist in any ultimate sense and in so far as they may be said to be real. For what would anything be if it were not "one"? Without the unity of which we speak things do not exist. There can be no army which is not a unit, nor a chorus, nor herd, unless each is "one." Neither is there a household or ship without unity; for the house is a unit and the ship is a unit, and if one took away the unity the household would no longer be a household nor the ship a ship. Continuous magnitudes would not exist if there were no unity to them. When divided, in so far as they lose unity they lose existence. So also with the bodies of plants and animals, each of which is a unit, if unity is lost -- being broken up into multiplicity -- they lose the being which they had, and no longer continue as they were. And they become other things even then only in so far as these have unity. Similarly there is health when the body is harmonized into unity, and beauty when the essence of unity controls the parts, and virtue in the soul when it is unified and brought into a single harmonious whole. There must be something prior to all, simple, and different from the things which are posterior to it, self-existent, unmingled with the things which come from it, and yet able in another way to be present with the others, being really one, not something else first then secondarily one of which it is false even that it is one; but of this One no description nor scientific knowledge is possible. Indeed it must be said to be beyond "being"; for if it were not simple, without any composition and synthesis, and really one, it would not be a first principle. And it is wholly self-sufficient by virtue of its being simple and prior to all things. What is not first needs that which is prior to itself, and that which is not simple demands those simple elements which are within it, that it may be composed of them. Such a One must be unique, for if there were another such both together would constitute a larger unit. For we hold that they are not two bodies nor is the Primary One a body. For no body is simple, and a body is subject to generation; it is not an ultimate principle. The ultimate principle is unoriginated, and being incorporeal and really one it is able to stand first. Since substances which have an origin are of some form (for no one could say anything else of what is generated from the One), and since it is not any particular form but all, without exception, the first principle must be formless. And being formless it is not substance; for substance must be particular; and a particular is determinate. But this can not be regarded as particular, for it would not be a principle, but merely that particular thing which you may have called it. If then all things are included among what are generated, which of them will you say is the first principle? Only what is none of them could be said to stand above the rest. But these constitute existing things and Being in general. The First Principle then is beyond Being. To say that it is beyond Being does not assert it to be any definite thing. It does not define it. Nor does it give it a name. It applies to it only the appellation "not-this." In doing so it nowhere sets limits to it. It would be absurd to seek to delimit such a boundless nature. He who wishes to do this prevents himself from getting upon its track in any wise, even little by little. But just as he who wishes to see the Intelligible must abandon all imagery of the perceptible in order to contemplate what is beyond the perceptible, so he who wishes to contemplate what is beyond the Intelligible will attain the contemplation of it by letting go everything intelligible, through this means learning that it is, abandoning the search for what it is. To tell what it is would involve a reference to what it is not, for there is no quality in what has no particular character. But we are in painful doubt as to what we should say of it; so we speak of the ineffable and give it a name, meaning to endow it with some significance to ourselves so far as we can. Perhaps this name "The One" implies merely opposition to plurality. . . . But if The One were given positive content, a name and signification, it would be less appropriately designated than when one does not give any name. It may be said that description of it is carried thus far in order that he who seeks it beginning with that which indicates the simplicity of all things may end by negating even this, on the ground that it was taken simply as the most adequate and the nearest description possible for him who used it, but not even this is adequate to the revelation of that nature, because it is inaudible, not to be understood through hearing, and if by any sense at all by vision alone. But if the eye that sees seeks to behold a form it will not descry even this.
Excerpted from The Enneads, by Plotinus |
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