§3.1.1. All things that come into being and all Beings either come into being – those that come into being – or exist – those that are Beings – through a cause,1 or both are without a cause. Or, for each case, some are caused, others not caused. Or the things which come into being are all caused, while of Beings some are caused, others not. Or none of them is5 caused. Or, conversely, all Beings are caused, while of the things that come into being some are caused, others not caused, or none of them is caused.
Now in the case of eternal Beings,2 it is not possible to trace those of them that are first to other causes, since they are the first, whereas we10 grant that those which depend on the firsts3 have their existence from them. And when we assign each of their activities, we should refer them back to their Substantiality since the assignation of a particular activity is a thing’s essence.4
But in the case of things that come into being or exist always but do not always perform the identical activity we should say that they are all15 caused and should not admit an absence of cause, by granting any room either for meaningless ‘inclinations’5 or the sudden motion of bodies which comes about through no preceding cause or for a capricious impulse of the soul, when nothing has moved it, to do something which it was not doing before.
In fact, the absence of causality of this sort involves the soul in the20 even greater necessity of not belonging to itself but being borne along in motions of a kind that are unwilled and uncaused. For what is willed – whether this is either inside or outside the soul – or what is desired moved it. Or if there was nothing which it desired to move it, it wouldn’t have been moved at all.6
But if all things come to be because of a cause, it is easy to grasp the25 immediate causes or to trace them back to these, for example, the cause of going to the agora is the thought that one must see someone or collect a debt.7 And, in general, the cause of choosing this or that and of going for a particular thing is that it seemed good to this individual to do this. And the cause of some things can be traced back to particular crafts; the30 cause of being healthy is medicine and the doctor, of being wealthy, the discovery of treasure, a gift from someone, through work or the application of a craft. The cause of the child is the father and any other external contributory factor towards procreation coming from elsewhere, such as particular food or, a little more remotely, seed which is easy flowing for procreation or a woman suited to childbirth.8 And in general the cause may be traced back to nature.
§3.1.2. If someone gives up after going only so far and is unwilling to go higher, it is probably a sign that he is lazy and paying no attention to those who ascend to the primary and transcendent causes. For why is it that when the identical conditions are present, for example, if there is5 a clear moon, one man steals and another does not? And when the same influences come from the environment, one man falls ill and another not? And one man becomes rich, another poor from the identical activities? And different behaviour, characters, and fortunes do indeed require us to go to more remote causes.
And it is actually for this very reason that [philosophers] have never stopped just there. Some9 have posited corporeal causes, such as atoms,10 through whose motion, collisions, and conjunctions they make individual things both be and become how they are in accordance with the way the atoms come together, act and are acted upon, and they make our own impulses and dispositions be in whatever state those motions make them, and so introduce into beings the sort of necessity which is also15 a product of the atomic motions. And anyone who suggests other bodies10 as principles and that everything comes into being from them is making beings subservient to the necessity derived from them.
Others11 who go back to the principle of the universe and derive everything from it, saying that it permeates everything as a cause which not only moves but also produces each thing, claim that this is fate and20 the principal cause and is itself all things. And they say that not only the other things that come into being but also our thoughts come from its motions, just as each of the parts of a living being is moved not by itself25 but by the controlling principle in each living being.
Others,12 claiming that the motion of the universe contains and produces everything by means of its motion and the patterns and mutual relationships of the planets and fixed stars to each other, think that these are the cause of things coming into being, since they trust in the predictions coming from them.30
Further, anyone13 who maintains the interweaving of causes with each other, the chain of causation coming from above, that what comes later always follows from what is before and that they can be traced back to what comes before, since they come into being through them and wouldn’t come into being without them, and that the consequents are always subservient to what goes before, is clearly introducing fate in35 another way.
One would not be too far from the truth in dividing all these philosophers in turn into two groups, for some of them derive everything from a single principle, others do not. But we will discuss this later.14 For the moment we must turn our discussion to the first group we mentioned. After that we must examine the theories of the others in order.
§3.1.3. To entrust everything to bodies, then, whether atoms or the so-called elements and to generate order, reason, and the rational soul through the disorderly motion which derives from them is in both cases absurd and impossible; but more impossible, if one may say so,5 in the case of derivation from atoms. Many true statements have already been made about these. But if one actually posits principles of this kind, universal necessity or fate in any other sense would not, even so, necessarily follow.
For, first of all, grant that atoms exist; so, some will move in10 a downward direction – granted that there is a down – others sideways in a random way, others in other ways. Nothing indeed will move in an ordered way, since there is no order, yet the world that is produced, once it is produced, is entirely ordered! On this view, neither prophecy nor mantic could exist at all, nor what is produced from a craft – for how15 could there be craft in things that have no order? – nor what is produced by divine possession and inspiration;15 for in these cases, too, the future must be determined.
And while bodies will of necessity be affected as they are struck by the atoms whatever effect the atoms may have on them, to what motions of20 atoms is one actually going to trace back the actions and affections of the soul? For with what blow of the atoms whether in a downward motion or colliding in some way will the soul find itself involved in particular acts of calculative reasoning or impulses or in a general way in acts of calculative reasoning, impulses or motions that are necessary or just generally in acts of calculative reasoning, impulses or motions? And what about when the soul actually opposes the affections of the body?16 By what motion of atoms is a man compelled to be a geometer, another25 to study arithmetic and astronomy, and another to be a philosopher? For our own function and our essence as a living being will be altogether destroyed as we are carried along where these bodies push and drive us like soulless bodies.17
And the identical objections can also be made against those who posit30 different bodies as the causes of everything and that these can make us hot and cold and can destroy what is weaker than them, whereas none of the things that the soul can do could come from them; rather, these must come from another principle.
§3.1.4. But does a single soul permeate everything as it moves through the universe, while each thing is moved by it as a part in the way in which the whole leads it? And if the subsequent causes come from it, must we call the consequent continuous chain of causes fate, just as if5 one were to say that when a plant has its starting point from the root, the directing power which originates in the root and spreads to every part of the plant and the power that binds the parts to each other, both in their actions and affections, is a single directing power and a sort of fate for the plant?
But firstly this extreme form of necessity or of fate described in these10 terms itself does away with fate and the chain and interweaving of causes. For since it is illogical to say that our own parts when moved by our controlling part are moved by fate – for there is no difference between the instigator of motion and that which receives it and makes15 use of the impulse from it, but the controlling part is what directly moves the leg – in the identical manner, if in the case of the universe, too, that which moves it and undergoes motion is to be one and not one thing from another in a relationship of causes that can be continuously traced back to something else, it will not actually be true that everything comes about through causes, but everything will be one. And in this case20 neither will we be ourselves nor will any deed be ours.
Nor [on this view] do we engage in calculative reasoning ourselves; rather, our considered views are the acts of calculative reasoning belonging to something else. Nor is it we who act just as it is not our feet that kick, but we who kick by means of our feet which are parts of ourselves. But the truth is that each thing must be separate and our own actions and acts of thinking must exist; and both the good and bad25 actions of each person come from each individual himself; at least, one should not trace back to the universe the producing of shameful actions.
§3.1.5. But perhaps individual things are not brought about in this way and the motion which directs the universe and the revolution of the stars arranges each thing in accordance with their relationship to each other brought about by their aspects and risings, settings and conjunctions. It is from these that they give prophecies through divination about what5 is going to happen in the universe as well as to each individual, what sort of fortune, and even what sort of thoughts he is going to have.18 They say they can see other animals, too, and plants growing and diminishing as a result of their sympathy with the stars and being affected by them in other ways, and that the regions of the earth differ from each other10 according to their relationship to the universe and particularly to the sun; that it is not only the rest of animals and plants that accord with their region but also the form, stature, colour, dispositions, desires, practices, and characters of human beings. Therefore, the revolution15 of the universe is sovereign over everything.
In answer to this, it has first to be said that the one who claims this, too, though in a different way, attributes to these principles what belongs to us, our wishes, affections, vices and impulses, and by allowing us nothing leaves us to be stones that are rolled along rather than human beings whose function has its source in themselves and their own nature.20 But we must grant to ourselves what is ours while admitting that some things come from the universe into what is ours, which is already something and is our own; and we must distinguish what we do ourselves, what we undergo as a result of necessity, and not ascribe everything to the stars.
We admit also that things come to us from regions and differences of25 environment, for example, heat and cold in our constitution, and also from our parents. For we are at least the same as our parents in many respects such as our external appearances, as well as in certain aspects of the soul’s non-rational affections. But yet, even if they are the same in appearance corresponding to their regions, a very great diversity is30 observed in their characters and thoughts, so that this sort of thing comes from a principle. Acts of resistance to our corporeal constitution and to our appetites could properly be mentioned here, too. But if they conclude that events are caused by the stars from the fact that they foretell what happens to individuals by looking at the relationship of the stars, birds, too, would be causes of what they signify and all the things35 which the diviners look to when they make their forecasts.
And you could investigate this subject in yet greater depth from the following considerations, too. What one can foretell by looking at the spatial relations which the stars exhibit when an individual was born,40 also derives, they say, from the stars, which not only signify, but also act as causes. So, whenever they say of nobility that it comes from famous fathers and mothers, how is it possible to say that these things are caused by the stars when they pre-exist in the parents before the particular spatial relations from which they make the prophecy have come about?45
Further, they speak of the fortunes of parents from the birth of their children and the sort of dispositions the children will have and the fortunes they will encounter from their fathers, speaking of children not yet born; and they foretell the deaths of men from the horoscopes of their brothers and the fate of husbands from the horoscopes of their wives and, vice versa, the fate of wives from their husbands’ horoscopes.50 How, then, could the particular spatial relations of stars at the birth of each individual cause what is already admitted will be the case as a result of their fathers’ horoscopes? For either the prior astrological relations will be the causes, or if they are not, the ones at the birth of the child will not be either.
Further, the sameness in external appearances to the parents suggests that beauty and ugliness come from the family and not from the motion of the stars. It is also reasonable to suppose that all kinds of animals and55 human beings are born at the identical times or simultaneously. And all that are born under the identical arrangement of stars must share the identical fate. How then could men and the animals be born simultaneously due to the causation of the arrangement of stars?
§3.1.6. Indeed, individual things come about through their own natures; a horse comes into being because it comes from a horse, a human being because it comes from a human being, and each particular kind of thing because it comes from that kind.19 We grant that the revolution of the universe can also cooperate – even though it concedes most of its contribution to the parents;20 granted, too, that the stars contribute5 physically to most aspects of the body, heat and cold and the consequent corporeal mixtures, how, then, do we account for characters and practices and particularly those things that don’t seem to be subservient to corporeal mixture, such as a person being literate, a geometer, a dice-player,21 or a discoverer of these skills? And how could wickedness of10 character be an endowment from divine beings? And, in general, how could the evil influences come about which they are said to give when they are ill-disposed because they are setting and going under the earth, as if they undergo some remarkable experience when they set in relation to us and are not always making their way through the heavenly spheres and maintaining the identical relationship to the earth?15
Nor must we say that when one god sees another in a different spatial relation, he becomes better or worse, so that when they are in a good state they benefit us and if the opposite do us harm. We should rather say that their motion contributes to the preservation of the universe as a whole as well as providing another service, that of enabling those who20 look at them like letters and who know this kind of writing to read the future from their configurations and trace what they signify by analogy, for example, if one said that when a bird is flying high, it signifies some lofty actions.22
§3.1.7. It remains to look at the principle, assumed to be one, which interweaves and in a way links together all things with each other and brings about the state of each thing, and from which everything is brought about in accordance with the seminal principles.23 This belief, too, is close to the one which states that every motion and relation, both5 of ourselves and of everything else, comes from the soul of the universe, even if the intention is to allow to ourselves as individuals something that enables us to do something on our own initiative. It entails the notion of universal necessity and, since all the causes are contained in it, it is not possible for each particular thing not to happen. For there is10 nothing to prevent a thing or make it happen in a different way, if all causes are included in fate.
And if all things are such as to spring from a single principle there will be left to us nothing but to be carried along wherever they propel us. For even our imaginative representations will depend on antecedent causes and our impulses in turn on them; and something being ‘up to us’ will be15 just words.24 For an action will no more be ours just because we are the ones who act if the impulse is generated in accordance with antecedent causes. And any act of ours will be like that of other living beings and of children who proceed by blind impulse, and even like that of people out of their mind; for they, too, act on impulse. And, by Zeus, fire, too, has20 such impulses and all the things which are subservient to their own constitution are moved in accordance with it. Besides, everyone sees this and does not dispute it, but looks for other causes of this sort of impulse and does not stop here as though this were the only cause.
§3.1.8. What other cause, then, occurs to us besides these causes, which leaves nothing uncaused, preserves consequence and order, and allows us to be something without abolishing prophecy and divination? Now Soul is indeed another principle which we must add to Beings, not only5 the soul of the universe, but the individual soul in partnership with this, as a principle of no small importance; and one which weaves everything together, without itself coming into being from ‘seeds’ like other things, but which is a cause that acts in a primary way.25 When it is without body it is most in control of itself, free and outside the influence of10 cosmic causality; but when it is carried into body it is no longer in control of everything insofar as it is linked with other things.
For the most part, chance events direct the environment into the midst of which the soul has fallen on its arrival, so that it does some things because of these and directs other things where it wants when it is itself in control. The superior soul controls more, the inferior less; for15 when the soul yields something to the corporeal mixture, it is forced to act on the basis of appetite or anger, to be pitiful in poverty, proud when wealthy or tyrannical in its exercise of power. But the soul which displays resilience in the identical circumstances, the soul which is naturally good, manages even to change them rather than be changed so that it changes some things and yields to others when it can do so without20 falling into vice.
§3.1.9. Those things that come about through a mixture of choice and chance events are, then, necessary. What else could they be? And when all the causes are taken together, everything comes about altogether by necessity. Even if something is brought to completion as a result of the revolution [of the cosmos], it is to be included in external causes. And so whenever the soul does something when changed by external things and5 moves under impulse engaging in a kind of blind motion, one must not claim that its action and disposition are voluntary. The same is also true whenever it becomes worse through its own action when it employs impulses that are not altogether correct and guided by reason. But when its impulses are due to its having as its own a controlling principle that is pure and unaffected, only then can you say that its impulse is ‘up to us’,10 that is, voluntary. And only then can you say that this is our own action, one that does not come from any other source but from within, from a soul that is pure, from a principle that plays a primary, controlling, and authoritative role rather than from ignorance which undergoes error or subjection at the violent hands of desires which approach, lead and drag15 it off, and no longer permit it to be the source of deeds but rather only of affections.
§3.1.10. The conclusion of this account certainly tells us that everything is presaged and comes about through causes, but that these are twofold: some are caused by the soul, others by causes in the world around us; that when souls act, whatever actions they do in accordance with right reason they do of themselves, when they do them, but since5 they are hindered in anything else they do, they are passive rather than active.26 And so there are causes other than the soul for not thinking properly. And it is perhaps right to say that they do this in accordance with fate, at least in the eyes of those who think that fate is an external cause.
But the best actions come from us; for this is our nature when we are10 alone. And virtuous people at least perform beautiful deeds that are up to them, whereas the rest of people perform beautiful deeds when they have a breathing space and are allowed to, but don’t actively acquire their thinking from some other source, when they do think, but by15 simply not being hindered.27
1 See Pl., Tim. 28A4–5.
2 ‘Eternal Beings’ (τὰ αἴδια), include both things that have no beginning or end in time and are indestructible (e.g. the heavenly bodies) and things that are outside of time altogether (e.g. Forms).
3 The use of the plural here may be hypothetical. For Plotinus, the One is uniquely ‘first’.
4 This is the ‘primary’ ἐνέργεια τῆς οὐσίας from which follows the ‘secondary’ ἐνέργεια ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας. The essence (τὸ εἶναι with a pronoun in the dative) of intelligibles is virtually identical to their Substantiality (οὐσία). Cf. 5.1.6.30–39; 5.4.1.27.34, etc.
5 Or ‘swerves’. See Philodemus, De signis 36.13; Epicurus, fr. 280.
6 See Ar., DA 3.10.433a27–28; Meta. 12.7.1072a26–27; De motu an. 8.700b23–24.
7 See Ar., Phys. 2.5.196b33–34.
8 See Pl., Lg. 740D6.
9 E.g., Epicureans. See Epicurus, Ep. Hdt. (= D.L., 10.41). Also, Lucretius, De re. nat. 2.84–94, 98–104, 241–242.
10 E.g., the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water.
11 E.g., Stoics. See SVF 2.945 (= Alex. Aphr., De fato 191.30–192.26).
12 Certain astrologers. See Ptolemy, Apot. 1.1.1–2.
13 See Heraclitus, fr. 22 A 8 DK.
14 Cf. infra 7.
15 See Pl., Phdr. 244C.
16 See Pl., Phd. 94C1.
17 See Ar., Phys. 8.2.252b21–24.
18 See Ptolemy, Apot. 1.3.10–12.
19 See Ar., Phys. 2.7.198a26–27; Meta. 7.7.1032a25–26.
20 Reading τοῖς γειναμένοις with HS4.
21 See Pl., Rep. 374C6.
22 Cf. 3.3.6.17–38.
23 Cf. 4.4.39.5–11. See SVF 2.1027 (= Aëtius, Plac. 1.7.33).
24 See Alex. Aphr., De fato 182.20–24.
25 See Pl., Phdr. 245C9–D7; Lg. 896E8–897B3.
26 Cf. 5.9.6.5; 6.8.6. See Pl., Tim. 46D7–E2.
27 Cf. 3.8.6.32–36.