THE SIX ENNEADS [277]
good and not good cannot be the purely good, the primarily good; the primarily good must be that principle in which the better element has more effectively participated and so attained its goodness. Any good thing has become so by communion; but that in which it has communion is not a thing among the things of the all; therefore the Good is not a thing of the All. Since there is this Good in any good thing- the specific difference by which the combination becomes good- it must enter from elsewhere than the world of things: that source must be a Good absolute and isolated. Thus is revealed to us the Primarily existent, the Good, above all that has being, good unalloyed, containing nothing in itself, utterly unmingling, all-transcending, cause of all. Certainly neither Being nor Beauty springs from evil or from the neutral; the maker, as the more consummate, must surpass the made. SIXTH TRACTATE.
THAT THE PRINCIPLE TRANSCENDING BEING HAS NO INTELLECTUAL ACT. WHAT BEING HAS INTELLECTION PRIMALLY AND WHAT BEING HAS IT SECONDARILY.
1. There is a principle having intellection of the external and another having self-intellection and thus further removed from duality. Even the first mentioned is not without an effort towards the pure unity of which it is not so capable: it does actually contain its object, though as something other than itself. In the self-intellective, there is not even this distinction of being: self-conversing, the subject is its own object, and thus takes the double form while remaining essentially a unity. The intellection is the more profound for this internal possession of the object. This principle is the primally intellective since there can be no intellection without duality in unity. If there is no unity, perceiving principle and perceived object will be different, and the intellection, therefore, not primal: a principle concerned with something external cannot be the primally intellective since it does not possess the object as integrally its own or as itself; if it does possess the object as itself- the condition of true intellection- the two are one. Thus [in order to primal intellection] there must be a unity in duality, while a pure unity with no counterbalancing duality can have no object for its intellection and ceases to be intellective: in other words the primally intellective must be at once simplex and something else. But the surest way of realizing that its nature demands this combination of unity and duality is to proceed upwards from the Soul, where the distinction can be made more dearly since the duality is exhibited more obviously. We can imagine the Soul as a double light, a lesser corresponding to the soul proper, a purer representing its intellective phase; if now we suppose this intellective light equal to the light which is to be its object, we no longer distinguish between them; the two are recognised as one: we know, indeed, that there are two, but as we see them they have become one: this gives us the relation between the intellective subject and the object of intellection [in the duality and unity required by that primal intellection]: in our thought we have made the two into one; but on the other hand the one thing has become two, making itself into a duality at the moment of intellection, or, to be more exact, being dual by the fact of intellection and single by the fact that its intellectual object is itself. 2. Thus there is the primally intellective and there is that in which intellection has taken another mode; but this indicates that what transcends the primarily intellective has no intellection; for, to have intellection, it must become an Intellectual-Principle, and, if it is to become that, it must possess an intellectual object and, as primarily intellective, it must possess that intellectual object as something within itself. But it is not inevitable that every intellectual object should both possess the intellective principle in itself
THAT THE PRINCIPLE TRANSCENDING BEING HAS NO INTELLECTUAL ACT. WHAT BEING HAS INTELLECTION PRIMALLY AND WHAT BEING HAS IT SECONDARILY.
1. There is a principle having intellection of the external and another having self-intellection and thus further removed from duality. Even the first mentioned is not without an effort towards the pure unity of which it is not so capable: it does actually contain its object, though as something other than itself. In the self-intellective, there is not even this distinction of being: self-conversing, the subject is its own object, and thus takes the double form while remaining essentially a unity. The intellection is the more profound for this internal possession of the object. This principle is the primally intellective since there can be no intellection without duality in unity. If there is no unity, perceiving principle and perceived object will be different, and the intellection, therefore, not primal: a principle concerned with something external cannot be the primally intellective since it does not possess the object as integrally its own or as itself; if it does possess the object as itself- the condition of true intellection- the two are one. Thus [in order to primal intellection] there must be a unity in duality, while a pure unity with no counterbalancing duality can have no object for its intellection and ceases to be intellective: in other words the primally intellective must be at once simplex and something else. But the surest way of realizing that its nature demands this combination of unity and duality is to proceed upwards from the Soul, where the distinction can be made more dearly since the duality is exhibited more obviously. We can imagine the Soul as a double light, a lesser corresponding to the soul proper, a purer representing its intellective phase; if now we suppose this intellective light equal to the light which is to be its object, we no longer distinguish between them; the two are recognised as one: we know, indeed, that there are two, but as we see them they have become one: this gives us the relation between the intellective subject and the object of intellection [in the duality and unity required by that primal intellection]: in our thought we have made the two into one; but on the other hand the one thing has become two, making itself into a duality at the moment of intellection, or, to be more exact, being dual by the fact of intellection and single by the fact that its intellectual object is itself. 2. Thus there is the primally intellective and there is that in which intellection has taken another mode; but this indicates that what transcends the primarily intellective has no intellection; for, to have intellection, it must become an Intellectual-Principle, and, if it is to become that, it must possess an intellectual object and, as primarily intellective, it must possess that intellectual object as something within itself. But it is not inevitable that every intellectual object should both possess the intellective principle in itself