§2.3.1. We have already stated elsewhere1 that the revolution of the stars signifies the future for each thing, but without causing everything to happen, as the masses suppose. And that discussion provided some reasons for confidence, but let us now discuss the matter more carefully and extensively. For it is no small matter to think that things are one way5 or the other.
Now they [astrologers] actually claim that as they move, the planets2 not only produce states of poverty and wealth and health and sickness and such but even ugliness and beauty, and indeed, most importantly, states of vice and virtue; and even the particular actions that stem from these states10 at critical moments, just as if they were angry at human beings for things that these humans did without fault, since they were rendered in such a state by the planets; and that the planets grant the so-called goods not because they are delighted with those who receive them, but because they are themselves either distressed or benefited in accordance with their15 locations in their revolutions, and because they themselves become different in their thoughts when they are at the centres and when they are entering other cadent locations.3 Most importantly, they describe some planets as evil and others as good, and yet the ones that are called evil grant goods, and the ones called good can be maleficent.4
Further, when the planets see one another they cause one thing, and20 if they don’t they cause something else,5 as if they lacked integrity and were altered depending on whether they see each other or not. And if a planet sees one planet, it is good, but if it sees another, it changes. And they see differently depending on the sightline6 from the aspect. And the combination7 of all of these together is different, just as the mixture of25 different fluids is different from its ingredients.8 Since, then, they maintain views such as these, it is fitting for us to examine and discuss each one, and the following would be a fitting starting point.
§2.3.2. We must consider whether these things moving [through heaven] are ensouled or without souls. For if, on the one hand, they are without souls, they furnish nothing other than heat and cold – if, that is, we actually conclude that any of the stars are cold. But then their contribution5 will be limited to the nature of our bodies, namely, when their corporeal influence reaches us;9 and the resulting variation in the bodies here will not be great, given that the flux10 from each of the heavenly bodies actually remains the same and especially that they are all mixed together into one on earth, so that the only differences concern our own locations resulting from our relative distances to the stars, with the cold heavenly body contributing to the difference in the same way.10
But how does this account for the fact that some people are wise, others uneducated, others literate, and some are rhetoricians, others cithara-players and others pursue other skills, and further that some are wealthy and others poor? And how does it account for all the other things whose causes of their coming to be are not attributable to the mixture of the elements in the body? I mean, for example, having this kind of brother, father, son and wife, and being prosperous now, and15 becoming a general or king?
If, on the other hand, they are ensouled and do these things by choice, what have they suffered at our hands such that they willingly do us harm, even though they are situated in a divine region and are themselves divine? For the things that make us human beings become evil do not pertain to them, nor does it make any difference to them one way or the20 other whether we are doing well or poorly.
§2.3.3. But [they will say] the planets are not doing this willingly; rather, they are forced to do so by their locations and configurations.11 But if they were forced, all of them would surely be causing the identical effects when they come to be in the identical places and configurations. But in fact, what change has this planet experienced when it passes by this or again that section of the zodiac?5 For, it does not actually even come to be in the zodiac itself, as it is situated rather far beneath the zodiac, and regardless of which section it should come to be in, it is still in heaven.
In fact, it is ridiculous for some planet to become different and to provide different gifts depending on which particular section it passes by, and to become different when it is on the ascendant and when it is at10 a centre and when it is declining from a centre. For it is not delighted at one time, namely, when it is at the centre, but at other times is in pain, namely, when it is declining, or else is idle,12 nor again is one planet angry when it is ascending, but gentle when it is declining, while another of them fares even better when it is descending.15
Surely, each of them is always at the centre13 for some locations on earth and declining for others, and if it is declining for some it is at the centre for others, and the identical planet is surely not rejoicing and distressed and angry and gentle all at the same time. And surely it is unreasonable to say that some of the planets rejoice in the descendants while others rejoice in the ascendant positions? For in this way, a planet20 will end up being simultaneously delighted and distressed.
Next, why should their pain cause us harm? In general, one should not grant that they are either distressed or delighted at select moments, but that they are always propitious and delight in the goods that they have and in the goods that they see. For each has a life by itself, and the good life for each lies in its activity, which has nothing to do with us.25 And because they are living beings14 that do not associate with us, their relationship to us is accidental and not their primary activity. And if – as with birds – they accidentally provide us with signs, their works are still not directed at us in the least.15
§2.3.4. This claim is also unreasonable – that this planet delights in seeing that one, but when another planet sees that one the opposite happens. After all, what animosity is there between them, and concerning what? And why is the same planet differently disposed when it sees a planet in a triangular aspect, and when it sees it in the opposite sign or in a quartile aspect? And, if it sees a certain planet in one configuration, why does it not5 see it when it is in the next sign and even closer to it?16 And in general, in what manner will they cause what they are said to cause? How does each do so independently, and further how do all of them together cause another effect collectively? For it is certainly not by forming agreements with one another and in this way acting on us as they agreed to, with each giving up some of its effect, nor again is it by compulsion that one planet10 prevents another’s gift from coming about, nor again is it by persuasion that one gives in and allows another to act. And if one planet delights in coming to be in the [regions] of the other, then why doesn’t the other behave similarly when it comes to be in that one’s [regions], as if someone supposing that two men are mutual friends should then say that the one15 man is friends with the other, but the other for his part hates the first man?
§2.3.5. When they say that one of them is cold17 and that it is better for us when it comes to be farther away from us, they are locating its harmfulness towards us in its coldness. And yet it should be good for us when it is in the opposite signs of the zodiac.18 And when a cold planet comes to be in5 opposition to a hot one, both are said to become terrible. And yet there should be some blending of their powers. And they say that this planet delights in the daytime and is good towards us when it is warmed, while that planet delights in the night time,19 even though it is fiery, as if it were not always daytime – I mean light outside – for them, or as if the latter could be overtaken by the night although it is far beyond the shadow of the earth!10
And regarding their claim that the moon’s coming together with this or that planet is good if it is indeed full but bad if it is waning, if anything the reverse should be true. For when it is full from our perspective, it would be completely dark to that planet, which is on the other side of the moon and exposed to its other hemisphere, and when it is waning for us, to that planet it appears full. Therefore, when the moon is waning for us,15 it should be doing the opposite, since it is seeing that planet with its light. It should, then, make no difference to the moon itself what phase it is in, since it always has one hemisphere illuminated. It might perhaps make a difference to the planet if it is warmed, as they claim, but it should be warmed when the moon is completely dark in relation to us. If it is good in relation to the other planet during its darkest phase in relation to us,20 this is when it is full in relation to that other planet.
[12.12]20 But the darkest phase of the moon in relation to us is directed at the living beings on earth and does no harm to what is above it. And since that other planet is making no contribution21 to us on account of its great distance, the absence of the moon’s light seems even worse, whereas when the moon is full, its light [12.15] suffices for the things beneath it, even if that planet is far away.
But with respect to the fiery planet [Mars], it has been thought22 to be beneficial for the moon to have its dark side facing us, since then the moon’s cooling effect counteracts the23 effect of that planet, which is more fiery than it can stand. Yet the bodies of the ensouled things moving through heaven differ from each other in terms of being more or less hot, but none of them is cold, [so this appeal to counteracting is not well-founded]. And their [12.20] location is evidence of this. The one which they call ‘Zeus’ [Jupiter] is composed of fire in a well-balanced mixture, and so, too, the Morning Star [Venus]. For this reason, these are thought to be harmonious on account of their sameness, but they are thought to be unfavourably disposed to the Fiery Star [Mars] on account of its mixture and to Kronos [Saturn] on account of its distance. And Hermes [Mercury] is indifferent to all of them, as they think, being the same as all of them. [12.24 continued in chapter 12.]
§2.3.6. And to call this planet ‘Ares’ [Mars] and that planet Aphrodite [Venus] and to claim they cause acts of adultery24 if they should be in such and such a position, as if from the licentiousness of human beings they were satisfying their mutual needs, how is this not total nonsense? And how could anyone accept that if they should see each other in such and such a position that this sight that they have of one another is5 pleasurable to them, but that otherwise25 nothing is [pleasurable] to them? And given the uncountably many living beings that exist and are coming to be, what kind of life would the planets have if for each living10 being the planets had to always grant the fulfilment of life’s details – bestowing reputations on them, making them wealthy and poor and licentious, and granting the fulfilment of the activities of each? Indeed, how is it even possible for them to cause so much to happen?
And the view that the planets are awaiting the ascension of the signs of the zodiac and only then granting the fulfilment of these things, and that the number of years they have to wait26 corresponds to the number of degrees they have ascended – as if they were counting on their fingers when they are to act and it was impossible for them to act before these times; and in general, not to assign the sovereignty over the administration15 of the cosmos to any single principle and to attribute everything to the planets – as if one principle were not in charge from which the universe is suspended and which grants to each to achieve fulfilment in accordance with its own nature and to perform its own actions, in union with that principle – these are the views of one who is ignorant of the nature of the cosmos and does away with it when, in fact, it does have20 a principle and a first cause that reaches all things.
§2.3.7. How, then, could these not be signs by analogy?27 But if these planets are signalling future events – just as we say many other things are indicative of the future – what would be the agent responsible for this? And how does this system arise? For the planets could not signal the future if individual events did not come to pass in a systematic manner.
So, let us suppose that the stars are like letters always being written in5 heaven – or rather, already written and set in motion. They would be performing some other function, but let the significations that they give follow from this function, just as from a single principle in a single living being one might understand one part from another part. For one might even know someone’s character, and the dangers he presents as well as means of guarding against them, by looking at his eyes or some other part of the body.28 The stars, then, are parts, and we are, too. Some10 parts, then, will be understood by means of other parts. Everything is full of signs, and the one who understands one thing on the basis of another is a wise man of sorts. There are at present many things that happen routinely which are known to all.
What, then, is this single system? For the existence of a single system makes reasonable the prediction by means of birds and all the other15 living beings by which we predict individual events. All things must indeed depend on one another – and29 it is not only in the unified whole of particular living beings that one finds what has been nicely called ‘a single united breath’,30 but especially and in a prior manner in the universe – and a single principle must make the universe a complex unitary living being, one from all.31 And just as in an individual unified20 living whole the parts have each received some single function to perform, so, too, must the parts in the universe each have individual functions to perform; this is even more true of the universe to the extent that its parts are not merely parts but also wholes and greater. Each thing proceeds from a single principle while performing its own work, with one contributing to the work of the other. For they are not cut off from the whole.25
Moreover, they act on and suffer at the hands of others, and one approaches and causes pain or pleasure to the other.32 But they do not proceed from this single principle randomly or by chance. For something else comes to be from them, and next another thing, in accordance with nature.
§2.3.8. And the soul has indeed been set in motion to perform its own function – for soul, having the status of a principle,33 produces everything – and it may keep its course or be diverted – and in the universe justice follows upon the actions performed, since otherwise the universe would be dissolved.34 But the universe remains since the whole of it is always being set straight by the systematic order and power of the ruling5 principle. And the stars, being contributing factors to the whole, are no small parts of the heaven and so they are conspicuous and suited for giving signs.35 They signal, then, everything that happens in the sensible world, but they are causing other things, whatever it is that they may be observed to be causing. And we naturally perform the soul’s functions as10 long as we have not stumbled amidst the multiplicity of the universe, and once we have stumbled, we pay the just price both in the fall itself and in experiencing a worse fate afterwards.
Wealth and poverty, then, are due to the chance encounter of external factors, but what about virtues and vices? Virtues are due to the ancient state of soul,36 but vices to the soul’s chance encounter with15 external factors. But we have already discussed these issues elsewhere.37
§2.3.9. But now, let us recall ‘the Spindle’,38 which for the ancients was spun by the Fates, though for Plato the Spindle is both the wandering component and the unwandering component of the revolution, and the Fates and their mother Necessity turn the Spindle and spin a fate when5 each living being comes to be, and it is by going through Necessity39 that the engendered enter the domain of generation. And in Timaeus the god who is the producer of the cosmos provided ‘the soul’s principle’, and the gods moving in heaven provided the ‘terrible and necessary passions, anger’ and appetites and ‘pleasures’ and ‘pains’, and ‘another form of soul’ from which these passions stem.40 These principles bind10 us to the stars, since we receive soul from them, and they subject us to necessity when we come to the sensible world. So, our characters derive from the stars as do our characteristic actions and passions that stem from a passionate disposition.41
And so what is left, which is ‘we’?
In fact, ‘we’ are what we truly are, the ones to whom nature provided15 the possibility of ruling over our passions.42 For even among these evils that we have received through the body, god has nevertheless provided for ‘virtue to have no master’.43 For it is not when we are in a tranquil state that we require virtue, but whenever there is a danger, in the absence of virtue, of being among evils. For this reason, ‘we must fly20 from here’44 and ‘separate’45 ourselves from our accretions46 and not be the ensouled composite body, in which the nature of body, which has received a trace of soul,47 is more in command, since the life common to body and soul belongs more to the body. For everything that belongs to this common life is related to the body.
But to the other soul that is outside the body belongs the motion to the25 higher world and to what is beautiful and what is divine, of which no one is master. Either one makes use of it in order to be it himself and, having withdrawn from the sensible world, to live by it; or else, if one comes to be bereft of this soul, one lives in the domain of fate, in which case the stars do not merely signify for this person; rather, he himself becomes a part, in a way, and complies with the whole of which he is a part.30
For each of us is double; one is a sort of complex, and the other is the self.48 And the cosmos as a whole, too; the one cosmos is the complex of body and some soul that has been bound to body, and the other is the soul of the universe which is not in body but which shines forth a trace of itself to the soul in body.49 And the sun and the other heavenly bodies are actually also double like this; they allow nothing objectionable to reach their other, pure soul, but what comes into the universe is from35 them in so far as the star’s body, though ensouled, is still a part of the universe, and the body50 gives as one part to another, while the star’s power of choice, that is, its genuine soul, is looking towards what is best.
And a sequence of other consequences necessarily follows for it, or40 rather not for it, but for its environment, just as heat from fire goes out to the whole environment, and perhaps something passes from one soul to another soul that is akin to it. But the disagreeable consequences are due to the mixture. For ‘the nature of the sensible universe is indeed mixed’,51 and if someone were to separate the separable soul from the45 universe, what remained would not be much. This universe, then, is a god when that soul is taken into account, but the remainder,52 as Plato says, is a ‘great daemon’,53 and the passions that take place in it are those of a daemon.
§2.3.10. If this is so, then we must admit even now that the stars signify the future.
As far as causal powers are concerned, we should not grant these to them in all ways nor to them in their entireties; rather, only the affections of all things in the universe are caused by them and even these are caused only by their [lower] remainder. And we must admit that the soul, even before it entered the world of becoming, arrived bearing something from itself. For it would not go into body unless it had5 some large component subject to affections. And we must admit that acts of chance affect the soul that is entering the world of becoming, and we must also admit that the revolution of the universe acts of itself, as it is a contributing factor and is filling in on its own what the universe must complete, with each of the bodies in motion having received the role of10 a part in the system.
§2.3.11. And we must take this, too, to heart; how the influences coming from the stars are not received in the way that they are sent forth. For example, if it is fire, the fire here is dim in comparison, and if it is a disposition to friendship, it becomes weak in the one who received it and the friendship it produces is not particularly beautiful, and indeed,5 spiritedness, not being received in due measure so that one becomes courageous, produces either rage or faintheartedness,54 and the disposition of being in love with honour and concerned with its beauty produces a desire for things that appear beautiful, and what flows out from intellect produces clever trickery. For even clever trickery wants to be10 intellect, but it is not able to achieve what it desires. Each of these dispositions, then, comes to be bad in us, although they were not bad in the heavenly region. For not only are they not what they were there, they do not even remain such as they were when they arrived, since they become mixed with bodies and matter and one another.
§2.3.12. Moreover, the influences of the stars actually combine into a single whole, and each of the living beings that come to be acquires something from this concoction, so that what it already is becomes something of a certain quality, too. For the heavenly bodies do not produce the horse, but they do give something to the horse. For horses come from horses, and human beings from human beings.55 Yet the5 sun is a contributing factor. The human being comes into being from the human being’s expressed principle, but sometimes the external influence harms or helps. For the offspring is like the father, but the external factors often combine for the better, though sometimes for the worse. Yet they do not make it depart from its underlying nature. But when the matter dominates, the nature of the offspring does not,10 so that the offspring does not become perfect, as its form has been compromised. [12.12–24 translated in chapter 5] [24] But all [parts] contribute to the whole.
It follows that they contribute to one another in the way that they25 contribute to the whole, just as each of the parts in an individual living being is observed to do. For the components of the body are most of all for the sake of this whole – bile, for example, contributes to the whole and is directed to what is next to it.56 For it has to stir up our faculty of spiritedness and keep both the whole and its neighbour from excess. And indeed in the body of the universe something like bile is required as30 is something else that is excited to produce something pleasurable. And other things must serve as its eyes. But their analogous role57 to individual living beings makes clear that they are all subject to cosmic sympathy. For this is how there is one [living being and one unifying harmony].
§2.3.13. So, since some things derive from the revolutions of heaven and other things do not, we must divide and distinguish them and say in general what the source of each thing is.
And this should be our starting point: Soul is certainly managing this sensible universe in accordance with a rational plan;58 just as in the individual living being there is the internal principle from which the5 parts of the living being are each formed and organized in relation to the whole whose parts they are – and this principle is entirely present in the whole, whereas in the parts it is present proportionately to each. And concerning the things added to the individual living being from the outside, some oppose the will of nature while others are amenable to it.10 But all things, inasmuch as they are parts of the whole, have been organized for the whole,59 since they have received the nature that the universe has and yet by an impulse of their own fill in the details of the universe’s whole life.60 Of the things in the universe, then, the ones without soul are entirely instruments and are, in a way, pushed towards action from outside. The others are ensouled, and of these some have an15 undetermined manner of motion – like horses pulling a chariot before the charioteer has determined their course for them inasmuch as they are actually ‘driven with his whip’.61
But the nature [i.e. soul] of the rational living being has its charioteer from itself.62 And if it has one who is in possession of scientific understanding it goes straight, otherwise, it often goes in random directions. But both are within the universe and contribute to the whole. And those20 of them that are greater and in a position of greater dignity perform many great actions and help perfect the life of the whole, as they have a role in the system that is more active than passive. Others continue passively63 having little power to act. And still others are between these two, being affected passively by some things but performing many25 actions themselves and having from themselves a principle for action and production.
And the universe attains a perfect life when its best [parts] are performing the best activities, insofar as the best part is in each of them. And each must actually place its best part under the command of the commander of the universe, like soldiers under the command of30 a general,64 and these beings are indeed said to be ‘following Zeus’65 as he hastens towards the intelligible nature.
And the living beings that have been furnished with a lesser nature are of second rank in the universe, just like the second-ranking parts of soul in us. And the other living beings in the universe are analogous to our parts. For not even in us are all parts of equal rank. All living beings, then, follow the universe’s comprehensive plan – both all those in35 heaven and all the others that are dispersed in the whole – and none of these parts, not even a great part, has the power to effect an essential alteration in the expressed principles or in the living beings that come to be in accordance with these expressed principles. It can effect a qualitative change in both directions – for the worse and for the better – but it cannot make anything depart from its own nature.40 It makes it worse either by giving weakness to the body, or by becoming an accidental cause of badness in the soul that is in sympathy with it and that was sent into the lower world by it, or if the body is poorly constructed by impeding via the body the soul’s activity66 that is directed towards it. It is like a lyre that has not been constructed in such a way45 that it can receive precise attunement for the rendering of musical sounds.
§2.3.14. And what about poverty, wealth, reputation, and positions of power?
In fact, if the wealth comes from the parents, the stars signify the wealthy man, just as they only reveal the noble man who comes from noble parents and owes his reputation to his family. But if the wealth comes from manly virtue, then, if the body was a contributing factor,5 and those who provided the body’s strength made a contribution – this is primarily the parents, and next, if the body has derived anything from its locations, the heavenly bodies and the earth. But if virtue is responsible without the body, then we must grant the majority of the credit to virtue alone, and whatever comes from those who rewarded this virtue was a contributing factor. And if those who gave the rewards were good,10 then the case must be referred back to virtue and thus virtue is the cause. But if the givers were bad and yet gave the rewards justly, then this occurred because it was the best part in them that was acting.
If, though, the man who became wealthy was wicked, then his wickedness and whatever67 caused him to be wicked are the principal cause, and to this one must add that those who gave the wealth are likewise contributing causes. And if the wealth comes from hard work,15 for example, from farming, then the cause is to be referred to the farmer, with the environment being a contributing factor. And if he discovered a buried treasure, then something from the universe must have contributed, and if so, it is signalled by the stars. For everything [in the universe] is without exception connected. For this reason, everything is without exception signalled by the stars.
And if someone loses his wealth, then, if the wealth was stolen, the20 cause is referred to the one who stole it, and this person is in turn referred to his own principle. But if the wealth was lost at sea, then the circumstances were responsible. And fame can come about justly or not. In the former case, then, the fame is due to one’s works and to the better part in those who hold him in high esteem. But if he is not justly famous, his fame is due to the injustice of those who honour him.
And the identical account applies to positions of power. For these25 were either bestowed fittingly or not. In the former case, the position is to be referred to the better part of those who selected him or to him himself for what he had accomplished; in the latter case, the position was achieved by favouritism or in some other manner.68 And concerning marriages, it is either choice or chance and circumstance deriving from the universe. And the generation of children follows upon marriages, and the body of the child was either formed according to their expressed30 principle [in the seed] if nothing got in its way, or else it was worse if there was some internal impediment, either because of the woman herself who was pregnant with this child or else because the environment was disposed in a way that was incongruous with this particular pregnancy.
§2.3.15. Prior to the revolution of the Spindle, Plato had given the souls lots and choices, and he subsequently gave them the beings on the Spindle as contributors in order to bring the souls’ choices to accomplishment without exception. For the daemon, too, is a contributor to the fulfilment of these choices.695
But what are these ‘lots’? Well, coming to be when the universe is such as it was when the soul went into the body, and going into this body and having these parents and coming to be in such places and in general, as we said,70 the external factors. And that all things are connected and, in a way, spun together, is revealed through one of the so-called Fates10 [Clotho], both in the case of individuals and in the case of the whole. Lachesis reveals the lots, and Atropos necessarily brings these circumstances about without exception. And some human beings give themselves over to these external factors deriving from the universe, as if under their spell,71 and are hardly, if at all, themselves. But other human beings get the upper hand over these factors and transcend them with their15 heads, in a way, directed at the upper world,72 and they keep the best part of their soul, that is, the ancient part of its substance, outside.73
For we must certainly not think that Soul is such as to have as its nature whatever should affect it from outside, and that it alone of all things does not have its own nature. Rather, Soul must be much prior to20 the rest, inasmuch as it has the rank of a principle,74 and it must have many faculties of its own for its natural activities. For, being a substance, it would actually be impossible for a soul not to possess, along with its existence, desires and actions and an orientation towards its own well-being. Since, then, the complex derives from the complex nature, it is of25 a certain sort and has certain sorts of functions. But if there is a soul that separates itself,75 it performs its proper and separate activities, and does not consider the affections of the body as belonging to it, inasmuch as it immediately sees that these are two distinct things.
§2.3.16. But what is mixed and what is not mixed,76 and what is separable and inseparable, when the soul is in the body? And in general what is the living being? We must examine these questions later, by taking up another starting point.77 For not all men have the identical opinion on this matter. But at present let us say what we mean when we assert that ‘the soul administers the universe in accordance with an expressed principle’.78 Is it that (1), the soul produces each [species] in sequence,5 in a way – human being, next horse, and some other living being including even wild animals, but fire and earth beforehand – and then watches these things interact as they destroy one another or even benefit one another, simply watching the tapestry being woven from them and10 the subsequent events that are always coming about, but not itself contributing anything else to what follows, except by again producing the generations of the original species of living beings and giving them over to what they experience at each other’s hands? Or else (2), do we mean that soul is also a cause of what occurs in this manner, because it is things generated by soul that produce the subsequent effects? Or (3),15 does the expressed principle even include the fact that this individual does or experiences this – not randomly nor by chance nor under these conditions, but rather as a matter of necessity?
Are, then, the expressed principles themselves doing these things? No, rather there are expressed principles, though they are not there as productive agents but as knowers, or rather it is the soul that possesses the generative expressed principles that knows what comes about from20 all its works. For when the identical things happen or come about, it is entirely fitting that the identical effects be produced. Indeed, the soul, either taking these things in or foreseeing them, completes the subsequent effects and connects the latter to the former, so antecedents and25 consequences are completely connected, and to these the soul completes and connects the subsequent effects as antecedents to further consequences, starting from the present conditions.
And perhaps because of this, the subsequent effects are always worse. For example, men today differ from the men of old, because the expressed principles give way to the affections of matter on account of the distance between the men of old and us and ever-present necessity.79 The soul, then, always inspecting different things and being consciously30 aware of the misfortunes of its works, has a corresponding kind of life and is not delivered from fretting about its work, as it would be had it brought its work to a close, once and for all fixing things so that they will be in good order; it is rather like some farmer who, having sown seeds or even planted a tree, is always setting all the things right that winter rains35 and sustained frosts and wind-storms have damaged.80
But if this is absurd, then must we say that the destruction and the effects deriving from vice were already known or even contained within the expressed principles? But if so, then we will end up saying that the expressed principles produce these vices, even though in the crafts and in their expressed principles there are no errors,81 nor is there what is40 contrary to the craft, nor the destruction of what is in accordance with the craft.
But at this point someone will object that there is nothing that is contrary to nature or bad for the whole universe, though he will nevertheless concede that there is better and worse. Why, then, if what is worse also makes a contribution to the whole universe, shouldn’t we say that everything is good? For even the contraries help towards completion,45 and there would be no cosmos without them. For this is also how things stand with particular living beings. The expressed principle forms and compels the better things to exist, but whatever is not such lies potentially in the expressed principles but actually among the things that come to be. And soul no longer needs to produce nor stir up its50 expressed principles since matter is already making the things that derive from it, that is, the worse things, due to the shaking that results from the antecedent expressed principles,82 and yet matter is nonetheless dominated for the better. And so there is ‘one from all’,83 where all come to be as either better or worse things, but exist again in a different manner in the expressed principles.
§2.3.17. Are these expressed principles in the soul thoughts? But how will the soul produce according to its thoughts? For the expressed principle produces in the matter, and the principle that produces in the manner of nature is not intellection nor even seeing, but a power to manipulate matter, and it does not know what it is doing but simply does5 it, like an impression or a figure in water, where something other than the so-called faculty of growth and generation puts into it what is needed to do this.84 If so, then the controlling principle in the soul will produce by manipulating the enmattered and generative soul.
Will it, then, manipulate by having previously engaged in acts of calculative reasoning? But if it did do so, it will have made a prior reference either to something else or to what is in it. But since it is10 referring to what is in it, there is no need of calculative reasoning. For it will not be acts of calculative reasoning that manipulate but the faculty of the soul that has the expressed principles. For this is more powerful and is able to produce in the soul. The soul, therefore, makes in accordance with Forms. So, it must be that it, too, gives what it has received from Intellect.
Indeed, Intellect gives to the soul of the universe, and Soul – the one15 after Intellect – gives from itself to the soul that comes after it by illuminating it and impressing form upon it, and this soul immediately produces as if under orders. It makes some things without hindrance, while in making others it is obstructed.85 But inasmuch as its power to produce is derived and it is filled with expressed principles that are not the primary ones, it will produce living beings not only in accordance20 with the form that it has received, but something will also come to be from soul itself, and this thing is clearly worse. This thing [that comes from soul itself] is indeed a living being, but a rather imperfect one, and one which finds its own life disgusting inasmuch as it is the worst, ill-conditioned and savage, made of worse matter, this matter being a sort of sediment of the prior realities, bitter and embittering.86 And the soul25 provides this to the whole universe itself.
§2.3.18. Are, then, the evils in the universe necessary because they follow from antecedent causes?
In fact, it is because, if these evils did not exist, the universe would also be incomplete.87 For many or even all of them provide some benefit to the universe – poisonous snakes do, for example, though in most cases why they benefit the universe escapes us.88 For even vice itself is of great5 use and is productive of many beautiful things, for example, all craft beauty,89 and it moves us towards practical wisdom, since it does not allow one to sit back and relax in safety.
If what has been said is actually right, then the soul of the universe must contemplate the best objects [of thought], always hastening10 towards the intelligible nature and god, and as it is being filled – indeed, has been filled, in a way, right up to the brim – its reflection and final projection proceeds from it to what is below, and this is the productive principle. This, then, is the last producer. And over this is the part of soul that is primarily filled from Intellect, and over all things is Intellect,15 the Demiurge, which gives to the Soul coming after it, and traces of these [gifts] are in the third principle.90 This cosmos, then, is plausibly said to be an image, always remaining dependent on its source.91 The first and the second principles are at rest, and the third is itself at rest but is also accidentally in motion in the matter. For as long as20 Intellect and Soul exist, the expressed principles will flow out into this form of soul;92 in the same way that, as long as the sun exists, there will be all the light that flows out from it.
1 Cf. 3.1.5–6. Also 2.9.13.20–25; 4.3.12.22–24; 4.4.31.33–58, 33.26–34.27, 39.17–23.
2 ‘Planets’ here and in what follows refers to the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. As these are the ‘wandering’ stars, Plotinus also refers to them as ‘stars’.
3 See Sext. Emp., M. 5.14. The four centres or angles are the ascendant, midheaven, descendant, and anti-midheaven. Our thanks to Dorian Gieseler Greenbaum for many helpful suggestions on the translation of astrological terminology here and throughout this treatise.
4 See Sext. Emp., M. 5.29–30; Ptolemy, Apotelesmatica 1.5; Paul of Alexandria, Elementa Apotelesmatica 34.90.1–91.23.
5 See Paul of Alexandria, Elementa Apotelesmatica 8.21.5.
6 The term σχῆμα is used technically by astrologers for the geometrical arrangements of the zodiac.
7 See D.L., 1.11.
8 Cf. 4.4.38.7–13; 39.28–29.
9 Cf. 4.4.31.22–48.
10 See Ptolemy, Apotelesmatica 1.2.3.
11 Cf. 4.4.34–35.
12 See Sext. Emp., M. 5.15. Idleness obtains when the planet is in a place that makes no aspect to the ascendant (the sixth or seventh place).
13 See Sext. Emp., M. 5.40.
14 Literally, ‘animals’ (τὰ ζῷα).
15 Cf. supra 1.8–19; 3.1.5.33–37, 6.18–24; 4.4.8.16–54.
16 Plotinus is questioning why one planet’s being two (quartile aspect), three (triangular aspect), or five (opposite sign) zodiacal signs away from another is supposed to be astrologically significant, but not being one or four signs away.
17 See Paul of Alexandria, Elementa Apotelesmatica 6.19.12–13.
18 See Paul of Alexandria, Elementa Apotelesmatica 25.72.19.
19 See Paul of Alexandria, Elementa Apotelesmatica 6.19.12–13.
20 We follow Ficino and many editors in taking 12.12ff. to be a direct continuation of the discussion in §5 and therefore include it in the translation here. Unlike others, however, we believe that 12.24–32 should be kept as part of §12.
21 See Paul of Alexandria, Elementa Apotelesmatica 24, 68.3.
22 Cf. supra 5.19–20.
23 Reading τῷ in l. 17 with Beutler-Theiler.
24 See Vettius Valens, 2.37.118.10–11.
25 Reading πέρα with Igal and HS4.
26 Reading ἀναμονῆς for ἀναφορᾶς with HS4.
27 This sentence appears in the manuscripts at the end of §5, but nearly all editors agree that it seems to belong at the beginning of §7.
28 See VP 11.1–8; 4.3.18.19–20.
29 Following the punctuation of HS4.
30 See Ps.-Hippocrates, De alimento 23; Galen, De fac. nat. 1.13 (2.39 Kühn); SVF 2.543 (= D.L., 7.140). Plotinus is here referring to what he elsewhere calls ‘cosmic sympathy’.
31 See Pl., Tim. 30D3–31A1; Heraclitus, 22 B 10 DK.
32 Cf. 4.4.32.32–52.
33 Cf. infra 15.20–21. See Pl., Phdr. 245C–D.
34 See Pl., Tim. 41A8.
35 See Homer, Il. 8.555–556.
36 Cf. 4.7.9.28; 6.5.1.16; 6.9.8.14–15. See Pl., Symp. 192E9; Rep. 611D2; Tim. 90D5.
37 Cf. 1.8.12.5–7.
38 See Pl., Rep. 616C4.
39 See Pl., Rep. 620E7.
40 See Pl., Tim. 69C5–D3. This is the mortal part of the soul.
41 Cf. 2.1.5.18–20; 2.3.13.40–45; 4.3.27.1–3; 4.4.32.9–11, 34.1–3, 43.1–5; 4.9.3.23–29; 6.3.15.8–17.
42 Cf. 1.1.7.14–18, 10.5–10.
43 See Pl., Rep. 617E3.
44 See Pl., Tht. 176A8–B1.
45 See Pl., Phd. 67C6.
46 See Pl., Rep. 611D4.
47 Cf. 4.4.18.1–4, 29.50–55; 6.4.15.15–18.
48 Cf. 1.1.10.5–10; 3.3.4.1–4.
49 Cf. infra 18.9–22. A distinction between the higher soul of the cosmos and nature, the lower soul.
50 HS5 marks this text as nondum sanatum. The translation follows the suggestion advanced in HS3.
51 Cf. 1.8.7.4–5; 3.3.6.12. See Pl., Tim. 47E5–48A1.
52 The expression τὸ λοιπόν (‘remainder’), here and in 10.3, refers to the body plus the lower parts of the soul.
53 See Pl., Symp. 212D13.
54 See Pl., Rep. 411B–C.
55 Cf. 3.1.6.1–4. See Ar., Phys. 2.2.194b13; Meta. 9.8.1049b25–26, 12.5.1071a13–16.
56 See Pl., Tim. 71B–D.
57 See Pl., Tim. 32C2. Reading ἀναλόγῳ of HS4.
58 See Pl., Phdr. 246C1–2.
59 Reading τῷ δὲ ὁλῷ <τὰ> πάντα ἅτε μέρη ὄντα αὐτοῦ [τὰ πάντα] with the corrections of HS4.
60 Cf. 3.2.2.23–33; 4.4.38.14–39.2.
61 See Heraclitus, 12 B 11 DK.
62 See Pl., Phdr. 246A–B, 253C–255E.
63 See Pl., Tim. 77B6–7.
64 Cf. 3.3.2.3–15. See Ar. [?], De mun. 6.399a35–b10, 400b6–8.
65 See Pl., Phdr. 246E6.
66 See Pl., Phd. 65A10.
67 Reading καὶ <ὅ> τι with HS4.
68 Reading διαπραξάμενον, <ἕτερον δ᾽> ἑταίρων with HS4.
69 See Pl., Rep. 617D–E, 620D–E.
70 Cf. 12.5–7, 13.8–10.
71 Cf. 4.3.17.26–28; 4.4.40.1–6, 43.18–24, 44.25–37.
72 See Pl., Phdr. 248A2.
73 Cf. supra 8.13–15. See Pl., Rep. 611D2.
74 Cf. 3.1.8.4–8; 3.3.4.6–7; 4.7.9.6–13.
75 See Ar., DA 1.1.403a11.
76 Cf. supra 9.43.
77 A reference to the subsequent treatise 1.1 [53].
78 Cf. supra 13.3–4. See Pl., Phdr. 246C1–2.
79 See Philo, De opif. mun. 140–141; Pl., Phil. 16C7–8; Porphyry, De abs. 4.2.
80 See Pl., Tim. 43C3.
81 See Pl., Rep. 342B3.
82 See Pl., Tim. 52E1–5 and 88D6–E3; Alcinous, Didask. 169.4–15.
83 See Heraclitus, 22 B 10 DK.
84 HS4 cautions: locus fortasse nondum sanatum.
85 Deleting χείρω with Müller. Cf. supra 13.40–45; 14.30–33; 4.3.10.22–24.
86 Perhaps a reference to bile. Cf. supra 8.35; 12.27. See Pl., Phd. 109C2; SVF 1.105 (= Schol. in Hes., Theog. 117).
87 Cf.1.8.7.17–23. Following the punctuation of HS5.
88 See SVF 2.1172 (= Lactantius, De ira 13); 2.1152 (= Porphyry, De abs. 3.20); 2.1163 (= Plutarch, De St. repug. 1044c).
89 See Pl., Rep. 604D8–E6. Based on the reference to Rep., Plotinus seems to be thinking of the utility of the representation of vice in drama.
90 Presumably, a reference to nature.
91 Cf. 2.9.4.25–26, 2.9.8.16–18, 28–29; 5.8.12.11–22; 6.4.10. See Pl., Tim. 92C7.
92 See Pl., Tim. 69B7.