THE SIX ENNEADS [164]
such ideal-forms we may affirm complete partibility. But, on the other hand, that first utterly indivisible Kind must be accompanied by a subsequent Essence, engendered by it and holding indivisibility from it but, in virtue of the necessary outgo from source, tending firmly towards the contrary, the wholly partible; this secondary Essence will take an intermediate Place between the first substance, the undivided, and that which is divisible in material things and resides in them. Its presence, however, will differ in one respect from that of colour and quantity; these, no doubt, are present identically and entire throughout diverse material masses, but each several manifestation of them is as distinct from every other as the mass is from the mass. The magnitude present in any mass is definitely one thing, yet its identity from part to part does not imply any such community as would entail common experience; within that identity there is diversity, for it is a condition only, not the actual Essence. The Essence, very near to the impartible, which we assert to belong to the Kind we are now dealing with, is at once an Essence and an entrant into body; upon embodiment, it experiences a partition unknown before it thus bestowed itself. In whatsoever bodies it occupies- even the vastest of all, that in which the entire universe is included- it gives itself to the whole without abdicating its unity. This unity of an Essence is not like that of body, which is a unit by the mode of continuous extension, the mode of distinct parts each occupying its own space. Nor is it such a unity as we have dealt with in the case of quality. The nature, at once divisible and indivisible, which we affirm to be soul has not the unity of an extended thing: it does not consist of separate sections; its divisibility lies in its presence at every point of the recipient, but it is indivisible as dwelling entire in the total and entire in any part. To have penetrated this idea is to know the greatness of the soul and its power, the divinity and wonder of its being, as a nature transcending the sphere of Things. Itself devoid of mass, it is present to all mass: it exists here and yet is There, and this not in distinct phases but with unsundered identity: thus it is "parted and not parted," or, better, it has never known partition, never become a parted thing, but remains a self-gathered integral, and is "parted among bodies" merely in the sense that bodies, in virtue of their own sundered existence, cannot receive it unless in some partitive mode; the partition, in other words, is an occurrence in body not in soul. 2. It can be demonstrated that soul must, necessarily, be of just this nature and that there can be no other soul than such a being, one neither wholly partible but both at once. If it had the nature of body it would consist of isolated members each unaware of the conditions of every other; there would be a particular soul- say a soul of the finger- answering as a distinct and independent entity to every local experience; in general terms, there would be a multiplicity of souls administering each individual; and, moreover, the universe would be governed not by one soul but by an incalculable number, each standing apart to itself. But, without a dominant unity, continuity is meaningless. The theory that "Impressions reach the leading-principle by progressive stages" must be dismissed as mere illusion. In the first place, it affirms without investigation a "leading" phase of the soul. What can justify this assigning of parts to the soul, the distinguishing one part from another? What quantity, or what difference of quality, can apply to a thing defined as a self-consistent whole of unbroken unity? Again, would perception be vested in that leading principle alone, or in the other phases as well? If a given experience bears only on that "leading principle," it would not be felt as lodged in any particular members of the organism; if, on the other hand, it fastens on some other phase of