第289章 THE SIXTH ENNEAD(81)
Nor may we speak of any "conforming to the nature"; this again is of the later; if the term be applicable at all in that realm it applies only to the secondaries- primally to Essential Existence as next to this First.And if a "nature" belongs only to things of time, this conformity to nature does not apply even to Essential Existence.On the other hand, we are not to deny that it is derived from Essential Existence for that would be to take away its existence and would imply derivation from something else.
Does this mean that the First is to be described as happening to be?
No; that would be just as false; nothing "happens" to the First;it stands in no such relationship; happening belongs only to the multiple where, first, existence is given and then something is added.
And how could the Source "happen to be"? There has been no coming so that you can put it to the question "How does this come to be? What chance brought it here, gave it being?" Chance did not yet exist;there was no "automatic action": these imply something before themselves and occur in the realm of process.
9.If we cannot but speak of Happening we must not halt at the word but look to the intention.And what is that? That the Supreme by possession of a certain nature and power is the Principle.
Obviously if its nature were other it would be that other and if the difference were for the worse it would manifest itself as that lesser being.But we must add in correction that, as Principle of All, it could not be some chance product; it is not enough to say that it could not be inferior; it could not even be in some way good, for instance in some less perfect degree; the Principle of All must be of higher quality than anything that follows it.It is therefore in a sense determined- determined, I mean, by its uniqueness and not in any sense of being under compulsion; compulsion did not co-exist with the Supreme but has place only among secondaries and even there can exercise no tyranny; this uniqueness is not from outside.
This, then, it is; This and no other; simply what it must be; it has not "happened" but is what by a necessity prior to all necessities it must be.We cannot think of it as a chance existence; it is not what it chanced to be but what it must be- and yet without a "Must."All the rest waits for the appearing of the king to hail him for himself, not a being of accident and happening but authentically king, authentically Principle, The Good authentically, not a being that acts in conformity with goodness- and so, recognisably, a secondary- but the total unity that he is, no moulding upon goodness but the very Good itself.
Even Being is exempt from happening: of course, anything happening happens to Being, but Being itself has not happened nor is the manner of its Being a thing of happening, of derivation; it is the very nature of Being to be; how then can we think that this happening can attach to the Transcendent of Being, That in whose power lay the very engendering of Being?
Certainly this Transcendent never happened to be what it is; it is so, just as Being exists in complete identity with its own essential nature and that of Intellectual-Principle.Certainly that which has never passed outside of its own orbit, unbendingly what it is, its own unchangeably, is that which may most strictly be said to possess its own being: what then are we to say when we mount and contemplate that which stands yet higher; can we conceivably say "Thus, as we see it, thus has it happened to be"? Neither thus nor in any mode did it happen to be; there is no happening; there is only a "Thus and No Otherwise than Thus." And even "Thus" is false; it would imply limit, a defined form: to know This is to be able to reject both the "Thus" and the "Not-Thus," either of which classes among Beings to which alone Manner of Being can attach.
A "Thus" is something that attaches to everything in the world of things: standing before the indefinable you may name any of these sequents but you must say This is none of them: at most it is to be conceived as the total power towards things, supremely self-concentred, being what it wills to be or rather projecting into existence what it wills, itself higher than all will, will a thing beneath it.In a word it neither willed its own "Thus"- as something to conform to- nor did any other make it "Thus."10.The upholder of Happening must be asked how this false happening can be supposed to have come about, taking it that it did, and haw the happening, then, is not universally prevalent.If there is to be a natural scheme at all, it must be admitted that this happening does not and cannot exist: for if we attribute to chance the Principle which is to eliminate chance from all the rest, how can there ever be anything independent of chance? And this Nature does take away the chanced from the rest, bringing in form and limit and shape.In the case of things thus conformed to reason the cause cannot be identified with chance but must lie in that very reason; chance must be kept for what occurs apart from choice and sequence and is purely concurrent.When we come to the source of all reason, order and limit, how can we attribute the reality there to chance? Chance is no doubt master of many things but is not master of Intellectual-Principle, of reason, of order, so as to bring them into being.How could chance, recognised as the very opposite of reason, be its Author? And if it does not produce Intellectual-Principle, then certainly not that which precedes and surpasses that Principle.Chance, besides, has no means of producing, has no being at all, and, assuredly, none in the Eternal.
Since there is nothing before Him who is the First, we must call a halt; there is nothing to say; we may enquire into the origin of his sequents but not of Himself who has no origin.