§3.2.1. Handing over the substantiality and constitution of this universe to spontaneity or to chance is irrational and is indicative of a man who uses neither the intellect nor the faculty of sense-perception that he possesses.1 So much is clear, I think, even before we begin our discourse and has been demonstrated by many adequate arguments that have been published.2 But there is an issue about the way in which individual5 things come into being and are produced which presents a problem about providence in the universe when some things do not turn out properly; it occurs to some to say that there is no providence,3 while others say the universe has been made by an evil Demiurge.4 We ought to investigate this by starting our treatment right from the beginning.10 So, let us leave aside the kind of providence concerned with the individual, the sort which is a kind of calculative reasoning before action as to how something is likely to turn out or not turn out in the case of things that aren’t likely to be done or how we might attain or not attain something. Rather, let us place before ourselves for discussion the kind of providence which we say is universal, and piece together its15 implications.
If we said that the universe came into being at a particular time without pre-existing, we would have posited in our definition the identical kind of providence as we said occurs in the case of particulars, a sort of divine foreseeing and calculative reasoning as to how this universe would be and how it might be as good as possible. But since20 we claim5 that this universe always existed and there never was a time when it was not, we would be correct and logical in saying that universal providence consists in the existence of the universe in accordance with Intellect and that Intellect is prior to it, not being prior in time but because its existence depends on Intellect and Intellect is prior by nature and is its cause. Intellect is, in a way, an archetype and model of this universe which is an image that always25 really exists because of it in the following way.6
The nature of Intellect and Being is the true and primary cosmos, one that is not separated from itself and is not weak because of division nor deficient, even with respect to its parts, inasmuch as each part is not torn30 off from the whole. But the entire life of this true cosmos and Intellect entire, since it lives and thinks together in unity, ensures that the part is the whole and everything is in friendship with itself without one thing being cut off from another or becoming different in isolation and estranged from the rest. Hence, one does not commit injustice against another even if they are opposites.
And since it is everywhere one and perfect at every point, it remains35 stable and does not entertain any alteration. For it does not produce in the manner of one thing acting on another. For what reason would it have to produce anything when it is not in any way deficient? Why would an expressed principle fashion another expressed principle or an intellect another intellect? Rather, the ability to produce something by itself belongs to what is not completely in a satisfactory state but produces and moves itself precisely where it is itself inferior.40 Indeed, for those that are entirely blessed, it is totally sufficient to remain in themselves and to be that which they are, whereas officious interference is dangerous since it deflects them away from themselves. For the [true cosmos] is blessed precisely because it achieves great things by not producing, and produces no small contribution by remaining in itself.
§3.2.2. It is from that true and one cosmos that this cosmos, which is not truly one, comes into existence. It is in fact multiple and divided into a multiplicity, one thing separated from another and becoming different; and there is no longer only friendship, but also hostility because of5 separation; and one thing is of necessity at war with another due to their deficiency. For the part is not sufficient to itself; rather, because it is preserved by another, it is at war with that other to which it owes its preservation.
And this universe has come to be not through any calculative reasoning that it must come to be, but because there had to be a secondary nature; for that true universe was not such as to be the last among10 Beings; for it was primary [among Beings] and in possession of much, indeed all power – a power, then, to produce something else without seeking to produce it.7 For, if it were to seek, by that very fact it would not have the power of itself, nor would it come from its own substantiality, but it would be like a craftsman who does not have the power of producing from himself but from outside, as something he15 has acquired from learning. So, Intellect, while giving something of itself to matter, fashioned everything while remaining undisturbed and quiet. And what it gives is the expressed principle which flows from Intellect, for that which flows from Intellect is an expressed principle; and it is always flowing as long as Intellect remains present among Beings.
But just as in the expressed principle in a seed everything is together in the identical place, and nothing is vying or at odds with20 or hindering anything else, yet once something develops into a mass, different parts could be in different places and one part could actually hinder another, and one thing could consume something else, so, too, this universe has actually arisen from a single Intellect and the expressed principle which flows from it and has been divided, of25 necessity some things friendly and well-disposed, others hostile and at war, some willingly, others even unwillingly harming each other, some things destroyed to effect the generation of others;8 and yet the universe imposes a single harmony on the things that are producing and undergoing these effects as each of them utter its own notes and30 the expressed principle effects harmony on them and a unified order on the totality.
For this universe is not like Intellect and the expressed principle there, but something that shares in Intellect and the expressed principle. For this reason, it had need of the harmony produced by the coming together of ‘Intellect and necessity’, the latter, inasmuch as it is not can expressed principle, dragging it towards what is inferior and leading it to irrationality, while Intellect still manages to control35 necessity.9 For the intelligible universe is only an expressed principle and there could not be any other universe that is only an expressed principle. But if something else exists it must be less than it and not an expressed principle, nor again a sort of matter. For matter is unordered. The universe is, therefore, a mixture. It ends up by being matter and an expressed principle and starts from soul which supervises the40 mixture, soul which one should not think of as suffering harm but as organizing this universe with great ease by a kind of presence.10
§3.2.3. And it isn’t reasonable for anyone to find fault even with this world as not being beautiful or the best of things that are accompanied by body or again to be critical of that which caused it to exist, when, first, it exists of necessity and did not come into being as a result of calculative reasoning, but was generated in a natural process by a better nature to be5 the same as itself.11
Next, even if what produced it was a process of calculative reasoning, it will not be ashamed of what has been produced. For it has produced something which is beautiful in every way, self-sufficient, and friends with itself and with its parts, both the more important and the lesser which are equally appropriate.
So, the person who finds fault with the whole because of the parts would be off target in his criticism. For one must look at the parts in the10 context of the whole to see if they are consonant and fit in with it,12 and when considering the whole one must not look at a few small parts. For this would be to criticize not the cosmos but a few parts of it taken in isolation, as if one were to take a hair of an entire living being or a single15 toe without looking at the whole human being, and regard it as some extraordinary sight, or by Zeus, to take the meanest of living beings while putting aside the rest or to let pass by an entire genus, for example, of human beings, and put Thersites centre stage.
Since, then, what has come to be is the cosmos as a whole, when20 considering it you might perhaps hear it saying: ‘A god made me and I came forth from him perfect, comprised of all living beings,13 complete in myself, self-sufficient, and lacking in nothing because everything is within me: plants and animals, the nature of all things that come into being, many gods and races of daemons, good souls and human25 beings blessed by virtue.
For indeed it is not the case that earth has been adorned with every plant and all kinds of animals and the power of Soul has reached the sea, while the whole air, aether, and heaven do not share in Soul; there, too, are all good souls which give life to the stars and to well-ordered heaven30 and to the eternal motion of heaven which wisely circles around everlastingly in the identical course in imitation of Intellect. Do not search beyond this. Everything in me desires the Good and each thing attains it in proportion to its own power. For the whole heaven depends on the Good, as does my entire soul and the gods in my parts; and every animal35 and plant and anything that appears to be soulless are within me.14 Some seem to share in existence alone, some in life, others more in the life of sense-perception while others again possess reason, and others have life in its entirety.15 For you must not expect equal attributes in things that are not equal. For you don’t ask a finger to see. This belongs to the eye.40 You ask something else of a finger, namely, to be what a finger is, that is, to have its own identity.’
§3.2.4. But don’t be surprised if fire is extinguished by water and another element destroyed by fire. For it is something else that brought it into existence; it is not that it brings itself into existence but is destroyed by another; and it came into existence through the destruction of another element; and its destruction, since it happens in this way,5 does not bring anything terrible to fire: there is another fire that takes the place of the fire that has been destroyed. For in the heaven that is incorporeal each part remains, while in this heaven the whole, that is, all the beautiful and important parts, lives everlastingly, but souls change their bodies and appear in different forms at different times;16 and, whenever it can, a soul takes a stand outside the process of becoming10 and is with universal Soul.17
But bodies, too, continue to live as species as well as individual bodies when they remain integrated in the whole, if living beings are indeed to come from them and be sustained by them; for life in the sensible world is in motion, but in the intelligible world it is unmoved. But motion must come from absence of motion and from that life which exists in absence of motion the life which comes from it has become another life,15 a sort of breathing and gently moving life, the breath of that life which is in repose.
These attacks on and destructions of animals of each other are necessary, for they did not come into being forever but came into being because an expressed principle embraced the whole of matter and contained everything in itself, since they are there in the higher heaven.18 For where would they have come from if they were not there?20 Human injustices against each other, however, might have as their cause the desire for the Good, when through their inability to attain it, human beings turn against other human beings. But the evildoers pay the penalty when they are corrupted in their souls by their vicious actions and are assigned to an inferior place; for nothing can ever escape what is25 laid down within the law of the universe.19
For order does not exist because of disorder nor law because of lawlessness, as one philosopher thinks,20 so that they come into being and appear because of what is inferior, but they do so because of order which is something brought in from outside. And disorder exists because there is order; and it is because of law and reason, that is,30 because reason exists, that lawlessness and irrationality exist; it is not that the better has made the worse, but those things that ought to receive what is better are not able to receive it because of their own nature or chance or by others preventing them. For what enjoys order from outside might not achieve it either because of itself by its own agency or because of something else through that thing’s action. For35 many things are affected by others even when their actions are not voluntary and are aimed at another purpose. But living beings which have autonomous motion can incline sometimes towards the better, sometimes towards the worse.
And it is perhaps not worth enquiring further into the origin of21 the autonomous turn to the worse, for what is at the beginning a slight tendency, as it progresses in the identical direction, makes the moral40 error ever greater or bigger;22 and the body accompanies it and appetites, too, must follow. And the sudden start if overlooked and not immediately corrected even produces a choice of that into which a person has fallen. Of course, retribution follows.23 And it is not unjust that someone who has become that kind of person should suffer the45 consequences of his disposition; nor should those people demand to have happiness who have done nothing to be worthy of happiness. Only the good are happy and it is for the same reason that the gods, too, are happy.
§3.2.5. So, although it is possible for souls to be happy in this universe, if some are not happy, one should not blame their environment but their own weaknesses which make them unable to compete properly where the prizes for virtue are actually set before them. And if5 they have not become divine, why is it so terrible that they do not have a divine way of life? Poverty and illness are nothing to good men; to evildoers they are an advantage,24 and those who have a body must encounter illness.
And not even these things are completely useless in the structural ordering and completion of the universe. For just as when some things have been destroyed, the expressed principle of the universe has made10 use of what has been destroyed for the birth of other things – for nothing ever escapes being taken hold of by it – so, too, when a body has been wasted and a soul weakened by such experiences, what has been taken hold of by disease and vice is subsumed under another chain of events and another order; and some things, such as poverty and illness, make15 a positive contribution to the very people who suffer, whereas vice supplies something useful for the whole by becoming an example of retribution and by directly providing much that is of use. For it keeps men awake and awakens the intellect and comprehension of those who are opposed to the ways of wickedness and also makes them learn what a good thing20 virtue is by comparison with the evils which the wicked endure. And, as we have just stated, evils did not come about for these reasons; rather, when they do occur, the cosmic expressed principle makes use of them for some needful purpose;25 and that this is the sign of the greatest power, to be able to make good use even of evils and be capable of utilizing what has become formless to fashion into other forms.25
In general, then, evil must be considered to be a lack of goodness, but the lack of goodness must be here because the good is in another. This other [matter], then, in which the good is, since it is other than the good, produces the lack. For it is not good. For this reason, ‘evils will not be done away with’;26 both because some things are less than30 others in respect of the nature of good and these other things which have the cause of their real existence from the Good are different from it and have actually become what they are because of their distance from it.27
§3.2.6. When it comes to what is contrary to one’s deserts, when good men experience evils and bad men the opposite, just to say that no harm occurs to the good man and equally no good to the bad man is a correct way of putting it. But why does what is contrary to nature happen to the good man and what is in accord with nature to the bad man? How can5 this really be a proper sort of distribution? But if what is according to nature makes no addition to happiness nor equally what is contrary to nature takes nothing away from the evil found in bad men, what difference does it make whether it happens this way or that? Just as it makes no difference even if the bad man is handsome in body and the good man is ugly. But the fitting, proportionate, and dignified thing would be the10 situation which does not now obtain. That would be a mark of the finest providence.
Further, it is not fitting that the good are slaves, the others are masters and that evil men are in charge of cities and respectable men their slaves, even if this makes no contribution to their acquisition of good and evil. And yet the wicked ruler can commit the most lawless15 crimes; and evil men have power in wars and what shameful acts they commit when they have taken prisoners. Yes, all these things make one question how this can be so if there is providence. For, if someone is going to produce something, even if he has to look to the whole,28 he, nevertheless, still has the parts as well to order correctly in their20 proper place, especially when they are ensouled, have life, and even reason; and providence also reaches over all and its very task is to neglect nothing. If we claim, then, that this universe depends on Intellect and that Intellect’s power has found its way into everything, we must attempt to show how each of these things in the universe is well-ordered.
§3.2.7. So, we must first grasp the fact that in searching for the well-ordered in a mixture we must not demand all the good order that is found in what is unmixed nor look for what comes second in what is first; rather, since the mixture has a body, we should agree that something29 comes from this into the universe, too, and demand from5 the expressed principle only what the mixture is capable of receiving, assuming there is nothing deficient in it. For example, if someone was looking at the most handsome human being in the sensible world, he would not, of course, think he was identical to the Human Being in Intellect, but would, nevertheless, accept him from the creator if, despite being a thing of flesh, sinews, and bones, he had fashioned him with form in such a way as to make these things beautiful, too, and the10 form capable of blossoming on matter.
So, once we have accepted these principles, we must take the next step for what we are seeking. For it is most likely in them that we will discover the wondrous power of providence from which this universe15 came into existence. It is, then, not appropriate that we who allow that ‘responsibility lies with the chooser’30 should demand an explanation or an accounting for all the deeds of souls that actually remain in them when they do evil, for example the harm evil souls do to others and to each other, unless providence is even to be held responsible for them being wicked in the first place. For we have said31 that souls must have20 their own motions and that they are not only souls but already living beings, and that, moreover, it is not surprising that they have a way of life that is appropriate to them. For they have not come here because there was a universe, but before the universe existed, they were able both to care for it and to bring it into existence, organize it, and make it the25 way it is, whether by standing over it and giving something of themselves or by descending in different ways.32 For the point now is not in regard to these details, but that providence should not be blamed for these things however they might turn out.
But what about when one considers the assignment of evils to men of opposite kinds, the good being poor, the wicked rich, and the bad having30 more of those things that those who are human beings ought to have and being in power and in charge of nations and cities? Can it then be that providence does not reach as far as the earth?33 But that it also reaches the earth is attested by the expressed principle of the other things that come about. For animals and plants both share in this expressed principle,35 and in soul and life. But what if it reaches the earth but does not dominate? But since the universe is a single living being, it would be as if one were to say that the head and face of a human being came about through nature and an expressed principle which was in control, but the rest were ascribed to other causes, that is, chance events or necessities,40 and were created inferior because of this or because of a weakness in nature. But it is neither pious nor respectful to blame the product by conceding that some of its parts are not well-ordered.34
§3.2.8. It but remains to enquire how these things are well-ordered and how they share in order or in what way they do not.
In fact, they are not ordered badly. Indeed, in every animal the higher parts, face and head, are more beautiful, the middle and lower parts not to an equal degree. Human beings are located in the middle and lower part of the universe, heaven and the gods in it are above. And the most5 extensive part of the universe, the gods and the entirety of heaven, are in a circle, while earth is just like a central point even in comparison with one of the stars. Injustice is a source of amazement among human beings because they think that the human being is the valuable thing in the universe since nothing is wiser.
But the reality is that he lies between gods and beasts, and inclines in10 both directions, and some assimilate themselves to one, some to the other, while the rest, the majority, are in between. Those that are actually reduced to becoming like non-rational living beings or beasts drag down the middle ones and lay violent hands on them. While these are better than those who violate them, they are still overcome by the worse types because they are themselves worse and are not good, nor15 have they prepared themselves not to succumb to affections. Wouldn’t it, then, be a laughable situation if youths who exercised their bodies but had become inferior in their souls compared to their physical condition due to their lack of education, should defeat in a wrestling match those who had exercised neither their bodies nor their souls, and stole their food as well as taking their fine garments?20
In fact, it would be right for a lawgiver to agree that they suffer this as paying the penalty for their laziness and indulgence,35 youths who, after being shown what exercises they should do,25 looked idly by as they became fattened lambs, the prey of wolves, as a result of their laziness and their soft and listless living. But the first punishment of those who behave in this way is to become wolves36 and ill-starred men.
Next, there also lies before them the prospect which such men must endure; for it is not the end of the story for those who have become evil to die in the sensible world, but reasonable and natural consequences30 follow for ever from what has gone before, worse things for those who are worse and better for those who are better.37
But these consequences have nothing to do with the gymnasium;38 for what goes on there is child’s-play. For if both sets of boys grew bigger while retaining their folly, they would straightaway have to gird themselves and take their weapons, and the spectacle would be finer than that afforded to someone exercising them in wrestling. But35 the situation now is that one side is unarmed, the other armed and dominant. In this situation, a god must not fight in person for the unwarlike. For the law says that those who are brave, not those who pray, are to come out safe from wars. For it is not those who pray but those who take care of the land who harvest the fruits, nor do those40 remain healthy who do not take care of their health. And one should not also be annoyed if the wicked get larger harvests or if things should go better in general for those who work their land more.
Next, it would be ridiculous for people to do everything else in their life in accordance with their own ideas, even if they don’t do it in the way that pleases the gods, but to be saved by the gods only when45 they are not doing the very things which the gods order them to do in order to be saved. So, death would be better for them than continuing to be alive in the way that the laws of the universe do not want them to live. So, if the opposite happened and peace was preserved amidst every kind of folly and vice, the role of a providence50 which allowed what is worse to be really dominant would be one of neglect. The wicked only rule because of the cowardice of those who allow themselves to be ruled by them.39 For this is right, the reverse is not.
§3.2.9. Providence must certainly not exist in such a way that we are of no account. And if providence was everything and there was nothing but providence, providence, too, would not exist. For what would it still have to provide for? Only the divine would, then, exist. But this does exist right now. And it has gone out towards what is other than it, not in5 order to destroy that other, but when another approaches it, a human being, for example, it stood over it protecting the human being that it is. And this is what living by the law of providence means, actually doing what its law dictates.
And it dictates that those who are good will have a good life, established now and for the future, while those who are bad will have the10 opposite. And it is not right that those who are bad should expect others to be their saviours and sacrifice themselves when they offer up prayers. So, it is not right for them to expect gods to rule over every aspect of their lives and abandon their own lives, nor even to expect good men, who are living a life superior to that of human rule, to be their rulers.15 This is so because they didn’t even themselves ever go to the trouble of ensuring that there were good rulers for their other fellow men to take care of their well-being while resenting it when anyone becomes good by his own efforts. For more people would have become good, if they had made good people their leaders.
So, although men are not the best of living beings40 but possess and20 have chosen a middle rank, still the human race is not allowed by providence to be destroyed in the place in which it finds itself but is always being raised upwards to higher levels by all kinds of expedients which the divine employs to make virtue more influential;41 and human beings have not lost their power of being rational, but continue to have25 a share, even if not an elevated one, in wisdom, intellect, craft, and justice, each at least in the kind of justice that involves mutual relationships. And those they wrong they think they are wronging in accordance with justice, for they think they deserve it.
So, a human being is a beautiful production insofar as he can be beautiful and, being woven into the universe, has a portion better than30 that of all other living beings on earth. For besides, no one with sense finds fault with the other living beings inferior to human beings which adorn the earth. For it would be ridiculous for someone to find fault with them because they bite human beings as if they had to live their lives asleep.42 But these living beings have to exist. And there are some35 benefits which derive from them that are obvious, others which are not obvious are revealed over time. So, no aspect of their lives is in vain even for human beings.43 It is also ridiculous that human beings blame many of them for being savage, when even human beings become savage. And if they don’t trust human beings but defended themselves in their distrust, what is so surprising about that?40
§3.2.10. But [one might argue] if human beings are unwillingly bad44 and are the kind of persons they are not willingly, it would be wrong to accuse them of being unjust and to claim that those who suffer wrong suffer it because of them. Indeed, if it is necessary that they are bad in this way, whether this is brought about by the heavenly motion or a first5 principle which supplies its own consequences, it would be happening naturally. But if an expressed principle itself actually makes them bad, how would such a thing not be unjust?
But the fact that human beings act unwillingly is due to their moral error being something involuntary. This does not, however, abrogate the fact that they are the ones who themselves acted of themselves; but because they acted themselves, for this reason they also are the ones who10 erred.
In fact, if they did not themselves do it, they would not have erred at all.
The factor of necessity does not imply that an action is caused from outside, but only that it is universally the case.
And the motion of heaven does not result in nothing being up to us. For if every aspect of an action depends on what is outside, it would be just as those who themselves made it wanted it to be. So, if the gods made it to be thus, human beings, even impious ones, could do nothing15 opposed to them. But in fact the power of performing the action comes from them.
And if it is granted that there is a first principle, the consequences follow and include in their sequence even those which are themselves principles. And human beings, too, are principles.45 They are moved at least to what is beautiful by their own nature and this principle in them is autonomous.
§3.2.11. Are individual things the way they are because of physical necessities and consequences and are they as well as they can be?
In fact, they are not; rather, an expressed principle produces everything like this by ruling it and wants it to be so and itself produces in accordance with reason what we call evils since it does not want everything to be good, just as a craftsman does not fashion every part of the living beings as eyes. And so an expressed principle, too,5 did not fashion everything as gods, but some things as gods, others as daemons, a secondary nature, next human beings and other animals in sequence, not because of grudging but because an expressed principle contains a variegated intellectual world.46
But we, like those unskilled in the craft of painting, find fault when10 the colours are not beautiful all over, whereas the craftsman has, because of his skill, assigned what is appropriate to each place.47 Cities, too, are not composed of citizens who are equal, even those who enjoy a good constitution.
In fact, if someone were to criticize a play because not all of the characters in it are heroes, but one is a servant, one a country fellow who also speaks in a sloppy way, it wouldn’t be a good play, if one expels the15 inferior characters, since they, too, contribute to its completeness.
§3.2.12. If, then, the expressed principle itself, fitting itself to matter, has fashioned these things, being the thing it is, and not being the same in its parts – a characteristic it has taken from what went before it – this cosmos, too, which has come into being in the way it has come into being could not have another more beautiful than itself. The expressed5 principle could not have been composed of parts entirely the same or nearly so; this would have been a mode of being to find fault with. Since it is all things, it is different in each part.
But if the expressed principle had brought into the world other things from outside itself, such as souls, and had forcibly fitted them to its production against their nature, many to their detriment, how could that be right? Rather, we must admit that souls are, in a way, parts of it10 and it fits them in not by making them worse, but by assigning them to places befitting them according to their worth.
§3.2.13. We must, then, also not disregard the argument that states that an expressed principle does not look in each case to the present, but to previous periods and to the future as well, so as to assess their worth from these and make slaves of those who were previously masters if they5 were bad masters, and that it is to their advantage for this to happen to them, and to make poor those who misused their wealth – poverty is not a disadvantage for good men – and if they previously killed people unjustly, to be killed in turn, an unjust action on the part of the assassin, but one justly deserved by the victim; and an expressed principle brings10 into contact the one who is going to suffer with the one who has the opportunity to inflict what the former must endure.
It is certainly not by chance that a person becomes a slave nor does one just happen to become a prisoner or be abused physically for no reason, but a person who was once the perpetrator of what he now finds himself suffering. Someone who once murdered his mother will become a woman and be murdered by her child48 and one who has15 violated a woman will become a woman to be violated in turn. Hence, we have the name ‘Adrasteia’49 by divine decree. For this ordering of things is truly Adrasteia and truly justice and a most wondrous wisdom.
From what we see in the universe, we must conclude that the everlasting order of everything is something of the kind to extend to everything and to the most minute thing, and its craftsmanship is most20 wondrous not only in divine things but also in the things which one might have supposed providence would disdain as being insignificant, for example, the wonderful variegation in every living being one encounters and the beauty of form extending down to the fruits and even the leaves of plants and the effortless beauty of their flowers, their delicacy, and variegation.5025
And we must conclude that these have not been produced just once and for all and then ceased but are always being produced while the powers above [the stars] vary their revolutions in relation to them. So, the things that change do not change by changing in a random way nor by taking other forms but in accordance with beauty and as is fitting for divine powers to produce them. For all that is divine produces in accord30 with its own nature. And its nature is in accord with its substantiality which brings forth at the same time in its activities what is beautiful and just. For if these were not in it, where would they be?
§3.2.14. So, the ordering of the universe comes about through Intellect in such a way that it is done without calculative reasoning and is such that if someone could apply calculative reasoning in the best way he would be amazed that it could not have discovered a way of producing it in any other way; some aspect of this is seen in the nature of individuals,5 which have been brought to an order which is always more intellectual than any order devised by calculative reasoning.
In the case of each kind of thing, then, that continually comes into being, it is not possible to find fault with the expressed principle which creates them, unless one thinks that each must be like the things which have not come into being but are eternal and always the same both in the intelligible and sensible worlds, and demands a constant increase in10 goodness rather than thinking that the form given to each is sufficient, for example, that this particular one does not have horns, thus failing to realize that it is impossible for the expressed principle to reach everything, but that the lesser have to exist in the greater, parts in the whole and it is not possible for them to be equal; otherwise, they would not be15 parts. For in the higher world, everything is all, but in this world each thing is not everything.
Indeed, a human being, too, since he is a part, is an individual and not every human being. But if there happens to be among some parts something else which is not a part, that thing is all, too, because of this.51 But a human being cannot be expected to be perfect and reach the summit of excellence. For he would then immediately no longer be20 a part. But the whole would not bear a grudge against the part that achieved greater worth by being better ordered. For it also makes the whole more beautiful when it has become embellished with a greater worth. For a thing acquires this character when it is made to be the same as the whole and is, in a way, permitted to be like it and be aligned with it, that something in it might also shine forth in the region where25 a human being is, too, like the stars in divine heaven. From here we may perceive a sort of great and beautiful statue,52 whether it has come into being as something ensouled or by Hephaestus’ craftsmanship, which has scintillating stars on its face and others on its breast and a setting of stars poised where they are going to be seen.
§3.2.15. This, then, is how things are when considered each on their own. But the interweaving of these things that have been created and are forever coming into being can present us with difficulty and confusion by the fact that animals eat each other and human beings attack each5 other, that war goes on forever and never takes a respite or pause; and it is a real difficulty if the expressed principle has produced such things, and that this is why they are said to be in order. For this explanation is no longer very helpful to those who make the argument that the cosmos is as good as it can be, though it is in its present state of being less than10 good because of matter and ‘evils [that] cannot be done away with’,53 since it really had to be like this and it is good for it to be so; and it is not that matter came along and took control, but matter was introduced for it to be how it is or more precisely matter itself existed the way it does through the agency of an expressed principle. And so an expressed principle is a principle that is everything,54 both the things which come to be according to it and the things that, having come to be, are15 in their entirety arranged by it.
Why, then, must there be this undeclared war among animals and among human beings?
In fact, this eating of each other is necessary. These transformations from one animal to another come about because they would be unable to continue on in existence the way they are, even if no one were to kill them. And if at the time when they leave the world, they leave it in such20 a way that others find some use from them, why must we begrudge that? What does it matter if they are consumed to be born as other living beings?
It is just as on the stage when one of the actors who has been murdered changes his costume for a new one and enters again as a different character.55 But this person56 has really died. If his death;25 too, then is a change of body like the change of costume on stage, or even for some like the casting away of costumes at the final exit of the actor from the stage when he will come back again for another competition, what would be so terrible for animals to be changing into each other, which is much better than their never existing in the first place? For the latter situation would mean the absence of life and the30 impossibility of life existing in something else. But the real situation is that the life of the universe in its multiplicity produces all things and in its living variegates them and never ceases making beautiful and shapely living toys.57
And when human beings, as mere mortals, take up arms against each other and fight in well-ordered ranks and do the kind of things they play35 at in war dances, they prove that every human concern is childlike and indicate to us that death is nothing terrible and that if they die in war they anticipate in battle just a little what will happen to them in old age, and that they leave and return again more quickly. If human beings are deprived of property during their life, they might realize that it did not40 really belong to them before and that its possession by those who stole it is laughable when others take it away from them in turn. And even for those who have not had anything taken away from them, their possession of property is worse than its removal. We must look upon murders45 and every kind of death, and the capture and plundering of cities as though they were on theatre stages; all of them are transitions, changes of costume, enactments of dirges and lamentations.
For in the sensible world in each aspect of our lives, it is not the inner soul but the outer shadow of a human being that wails and laments and does everything on the stage which is this whole earth as we set up our50 individual stages in many a place. For these are the deeds of the human being who knows how to live only the lower and external life and does not realize that even when his tears are serious he is still just playing. For only the serious person can be serious in doing serious deeds, whereas the other human being is a plaything.58 And even playthings are taken55 seriously by those who do not know how to be really serious and are themselves playthings. But anyone who joins in their play and has that kind of experience, should know that he has fallen into a child’s game and has put aside the garment in which he is clothed. And even if Socrates, too, should join in the game, it is the outer Socrates who is playing. And we should also bear in mind that one should not take tears60 and lamentation as evidence for evils, since children, too, actually weep and lament over what are not evils.
§3.2.16. But if all this is right, how can there still be wickedness? Where is injustice? And moral error, where is that? For if everything happens in a proper way, how can those who act commit injustice or morally err? And how could men be ill-fated, if they do not morally err or commit injustice? How are we going to maintain that some things are in5 accordance with nature, while other things are contrary to nature, when everything that happens and is done is according to nature? How could anyone be irreverent even towards the divine, when what is done would be according to nature? It would be as if a poet created an actor in one of his plays who insulted and ran down the author of10 the play.
So, let us once more state more clearly what the expressed principle is and that it is reasonable for it to be as it is. This expressed principle, then – we must dare to state it, for we might just manage to hit on the right description – is not pure intellect nor is it ‘intellect itself’59 or even the nature of pure soul, but depends on the latter and is an illumination coming from both Intellect and Soul – Soul disposed according to15 Intellect – which generated this expressed principle as a life in quiet possession of an expressed principle.60
All life is activity,61 even life on a low level; not an activity in the way fire acts, but its activity, even if there is no sense-perception in it, is a motion that is not random. To any of those things which at least share to some degree in the presence of life,62 reason is immediately introduced,20 that is, they are formed, since the activity which is in accord with reason is able to form and to move things in such a way as to form them. So, the activity of life is craftlike, just as someone dancing could be said to be in motion. For the dancer is himself like life which is craftlike in25 this way and his craft moves him and moves him in such a way because life itself is in some way like this. We have said enough then to show how we should think of any sort of life.
So, this expressed principle, which has come from a single Intellect and a single life, each of which is complete, is neither a single life nor30 a single Intellect nor complete in every aspect; nor does it give itself whole and entire to those to which it does give itself. And by setting the parts in opposition to each other and making them deficient, it has fashioned a structure and process which are characterized by war and struggle, and this is the way in which it is one single whole, even if it is not one single thing. For although it is at war with itself through its parts, it is one and harmonious as the plot of a play can be; the plot of the35 play is one though it contains in itself many conflicts. And so the play brings the elements of conflict into a single harmony by creating a kind of entire symphonic narrative of the conflicts.
In the universe, however, the conflict of disparate elements comes from a single expressed principle. And so it would be better to compare40 it to the harmony which is produced from conflicting notes, and then to enquire after why the conflicts are present in the musical keys. If in music the keys produce high and low notes which come together into a unity, which then, because they are principles of harmony, come together as harmony itself which is another and greater principle, while they remain subordinates and parts, and if in the universe, too,45 we see contraries like white and black, hot and cold, and indeed winged and not winged, with and without feet, rational and non-rational, and all the parts of a single whole animal, and that the whole agrees with itself while its parts are everywhere in conflict, and yet the totality is in accord with an expressed principle, then this single expressed principle must50 also be a single expressed principle made from contraries, since it is this kind of contrariety which provides its structure and what we might call its substantiality. For if it was not multiple, it would neither be all nor an expressed principle. But since it is an expressed principle, it contains differences within itself and the most extreme form of difference is contrariety.63 And if it makes things different from each other at all, it55 will also produce extreme difference and not just difference to a lesser degree. So, in causing extreme difference it will necessarily produce contraries and will be perfect not merely by making itself differentiated but also by making itself consist of contraries.
§3.2.17. Indeed, since its nature corresponds to its creative activity in every respect, the greater its internal differences, the more will it make its products as contraries. And the visible universe is less united than its expressed principle, so that it is both more of a many64 and there is greater contrariety and each thing has a greater desire to live and5 a greater love of unification. But those that love also destroy what they love, when they are perishable, as they hasten towards their good; and the desire of the part for the whole draws into itself what it can. And so there are good and bad people, just like the contrary motions of a dancer10 who derives both from the identical craft. We say that there is one part that is ‘good’ and the other ‘bad’, and this combination makes it a good performance.
But, then, the wicked are no longer wicked.
In fact, their being wicked is not done away with, but only that they are not wicked of themselves. Perhaps, though, the wicked may be forgiven. But it is the expressed principle that causes our forgiveness15 or not, and the expressed principle does not cause us to be forgiving in such cases.
But if one part is a good man and the other a wicked man, and the wicked man extends over more parts, it will be just as in a play where the author assigns some characteristics to the actors, but also uses them just as they are. He does not appoint them as leading actor, second or third20 actor, but by giving each of them appropriate words has already given to each the place to which he must be assigned. In the same way, then, there is a place for each, one for the good man, and another that fits the bad man. Each of them, corresponding to his own nature and the expressed principle, goes to his own proper place which he has25 chosen.65 Then, he begins to utter words and perform deeds, one man irreverent words and wicked deeds, the other the opposite. For even before the play, they were actors of a particular kind when they gave themselves to the play.
In human dramas, then, the author provides the words while each of the actors has it from himself to perform well or badly. For this is their30 task after the words have been provided by the author. But in the real drama of life, which human beings with the gift of poetry imitate in a limited way, it is the soul which acts out the part it has received from the author to act; just as the actors in the play take their masks,35 garments, saffron robes, and rags, so, too, the soul itself takes up its fortunes but not in a random way. These, too, are in accordance with the expressed principle. And when the soul has harmonized these aspects of fortune, it becomes attuned to the play and has inserted itself into its structure and into the whole rational plan [for the play].
Next, it gives utterance, in a way, to its actions and the other things40 that a soul can do according to its character, like a sort of ode. And the sound and deportment of the actor are good or bad and either embellish the play or, by adding the faultiness of his own voice, he reveals how ungainly he is though it does not make the play other than it was; the45 playwright, performing the act of a good critic, rightly lowers his assessment of the bad actor and dismisses him, but introduces the good actor to higher honours and, if they are available, to finer plays, and the bad actor to any inferior plays he might have. This is the way in50 which the soul enters this universal production, making itself a part of it and bringing to it its own personal skills and weaknesses in acting. Once assigned its place on its entrance [to the world stage] and in receipt of everything except its own nature and its own deeds, it has its appropriate rewards and punishments.
And there are further considerations regarding these actors inasmuch as they are acting in a greater environment than on the limited55 dimensions of a stage; and the playwright of everything has put them in control of all their actions66 and their capacity for going to many different kinds of place is greater; and they define their own rewards and punishments because they themselves assist in the rewards and punishments; each place suits their characteristics since it agrees with the expressed principle of the universe, and each of them is brought60 into harmony in a just way with the parts which have received them, just as each chord is arranged in its proper and appropriate position in accordance with the laws of sound as far as each is able to fulfil these. For the fitting and beautiful is found in the whole if each is placed65 where he should be, including the one who will be in darkness and Tartarus if he utters ill sounds. For it is there that these sounds are beautiful.
And this whole universe is beautiful, not if each of us is a Linus,67 but if each by contributing his own voice helps to bring to perfection a single harmony, giving vocal expression to his own life, which is inferior,70 worse, and less perfect. It is like the pan-pipes where there is not one single note but also a note that is worse and less clear that contributes to the perfection of the harmony in the whole instrument, because harmony is divided into unequal parts and all the sounds are unequal, the single complete sound being composed of all of them. Moreover, the universal expressed principle is actually one, but is divided into parts75 that are not equal.
Hence, there are also different places in the universe, some better and some worse, and souls are not all equal and fit into places which are not equal. And here, too, it happens that places are not all the same and souls are not identical but in their inequality occupy places that are also not the same like the absence of sameness of the pan-pipe or any other80 musical instrument, and are in places which are themselves different from each other as each in its own place gives voice to its own music in harmony with those places and with the whole.
And their discordant sounds are subsumed in the beauty of the whole and what is contrary to nature will be in accordance with nature in the whole even though the individual sound will be an inferior one. But85 the emission of such a sound has not made the whole worse, just as the public executioner, to use another image, though he is a rogue, does not make a well-ordered city worse. For this person, too, is needed in the city – there is also often need of a person of this kind – and he, too, is part of the good order.
§3.2.18. Some souls are better and worse for various reasons, others are, in a way, not all equal from the start. For they, too, analogously to the expressed principle, are unequal parts, since they have separated themselves. We must consider, as well, the second and third68 elements of soul and the fact that the soul does not always act with5 all its parts.
But we must say again, on the other hand, as follows, for the argument calls for a great deal more clarity. We must certainly not introduce the kind of actors who utter words other than those of the playwright as though they were themselves completing some10 inadequacy in the play which in itself is incomplete and the writer had left empty sections in the middle of his play, with the result that the actors will no longer be actors but a part of the playwright who knows in advance what they are going to say so as in this way to be able to attach together the rest of the play and its consequences. For in the universe, the expressed principles bring together the consequences and what follows evils in deeds and do15 so in a planned way. For example, from adultery there may come children in the course of nature and, perhaps, better men, or from the leading away of captives other cities better than those that have been plundered by wicked men.
If the introduction of souls, some of which will actually do wicked deeds, some beautiful deeds, is not69 absurd – in fact, if we deprive the20 expressed principle of wicked deeds we will be depriving it of good ones, too – what is to prevent us making the performances of the actors into parts of the universal expressed principle, just as on stage they may be made into parts of the play, and include in it performing well or badly, so that to each of the actors there comes much more25 from the expressed principle itself as the universal drama is more perfect [than the human play] and everything comes from the expressed principle?
But what is the purpose for doing evil? And will the more divine souls be of no further account in the universe, but all just parts of the expressed principle? And, then, either the expressed principles are all souls or why should some be souls and others just expressed principles when every one of them belongs to a soul?
1 See Ar., Phys. 2.4.195b31; Meta. 1.3.984b14–18.
2 Perhaps a reference to the Stoics.
3 E.g., the Epicureans. Cf. 2.9.15.8.
4 E.g., the Gnostics. Cf. 2.9.
5 Cf. 2.9.3.7–14; 3.7.6.50–54; 5.8.12.19–21.
6 Cf. 2.3.18.16–17; 2.9.4.25–26; 4.3.9.12–19; 5.8.12.11–22; 6.4.10. See Pl., Tim. 28C–29D, 92C7.
7 Cf. 2.9.3.7–12, 8.21–26.
8 Reading γένεσιν ἄλλοις with HS3 and Harder.
9 See Pl., Tim. 48A1–2.
10 The soul of the universe or cosmos is meant. Cf. 4.3.9.22–36.
11 Cf. 5.9.9.8–16.
12 See Pl., Lg. 903B4–904A4.
13 See Pl., Tim. 30C7–31A1. The term is ζῴων, which usually means ‘animals’; here it is used generically for all living things as the following line shows. See Pl. [?], Epin. 981C5ff.
14 See Ar., Meta. 12.7.1072b14; DC 1.9. 279a28–30.
15 This last class is perhaps a reference to the heavenly bodies.
16 See Pl., Phdr. 246B6–C4. The incorporeal heaven is the intelligible world and ‘this’ heaven is the sensible world.
17 I.e., the hypostasis Soul. Cf. 3.3.1–4; 4.8.4.5–7.
18 I.e., the intelligible world.
19 See Pl., Lg. 905A–C.
20 I.e., Epicurus.
21 Reading παρά του with HS3.
22 Cf. 6.8.3.10–24. See Ar., DC 1.5.271b8–13.
23 See Pl., Lg. 716A2.
24 See Theognis, 526: ‘poverty is advantageous to the evil person’.
25 See SVF 2.1170 (= Gellius, Noctes Atticae 7.1.7); 1181 (= Plutarch, De St. repug. 1050f.).
26 See Pl., Tht. 176A5.
27 Cf. 1.8.7; 3.3.3.20–37.
28 See Pl., Lg. 903E4–5.
29 Reading ἰέναι <τι> with HS3.
30 See Pl., Rep. 617E4.
31 Cf. supra 4.36f.
32 Cf. 4.3.2.8–10, 4.14–21; 4.7.2.20–21; 4.8.2.24–26; 6.7.26.7–12.
33 The Peripatetic position. See D.L., 5.32.
34 Cf. 2.9.16.1–16.
35 Intellect is the lawgiver here. Cf. 5.9.5.26–28. See Pl., Lg. 900E10.
36 See Pl., Rep. 566A4.
37 Cf. 3.4.2.11–30; 6.7.7.1–6.
38 Reading παλαίστρας with Igal and HS5.
39 See Pl., Symp. 182D2.
40 Cf. supra 3.21.
41 See Pl., Lg. 904B3–6.
42 See SVF 2.1163 (= Plutarch, De St. repug. 1044c).
43 See Ar., DA 3.9.432b21, 12.434a31; DC 2.11.291b13–14; SVF 2.1140 (= Alex. Aphr., De fato 179.24).
44 See Pl., Ap. 37A5; Men. 77B6–E4; Gorg. 488A3; Prot. 345D8, 358C7; Rep. 589C6; Soph. 228D10–11; Tim. 86D7–E1; Lg. 731C1–2.
45 Cf. 3.1.8.4–8.
46 The word is νοεράν (‘intellectual’) rather than the more typical νοητόν (‘intelligible’) presumably because Plotinus is here thinking of the ‘intellectual’ endowment of Soul and the soul of the cosmos rather than the ‘intelligible’ domain of Intellect. I.e., providence involves more than contemplation; it requires active involvement. Cf., e.g., 5.1.3.12.
47 See Pl., Rep. 420C4–D5.
48 See Pl., Lg. 872E2–10.
49 The word ἀδράστος means ‘inescapable’ or ‘ineluctable’. See Pl., Phdr. 248C2.
50 Cf. 2.9.8.10–20, 16.48–56; 4.8.6.23–28.
51 A very compressed line, probably meaning that for embodied human beings, their intellects or undescended intellects, their true selves, make each of these human beings an ‘all’ analogous to the way that Intellect is an all in l. 15. Cf. 2.2.2.3–5.
52 See Pl., Tim. 37C7.
53 See Pl., Tht. 176A5.
54 See Ar., PA 1.1.639b15.
55 See Pl., Lg. 817B1–8.
56 If, as HS2 have it, οὗτος refers to a person in the real world, then the text can stand. If, as some, e.g., Igal, argue, it must refer to the actor, then ἀλλὰ in l. 24 must be modified to read ἀλλ᾽ οὐ.
57 See Pl., Lg. 644D7–9, 803C4–5.
58 The word ὁ σπουδαῖος, usually translated as ‘virtuous person’, is here used in contrast to the frivolous person who does not take life seriously. The closeness of the two senses is reflected in the Latin gravitas.
59 Cf. 5.9.13.3. The term αὐτονοῦς (and the parallel term καθαρὰ ψυχή) appear to indicate a nature or essence distinct from its ontological status, e.g., the nature of a Form distinct from the Form. Plotinus wants to show that a λόγος (‘expressed principle’) is not just the nature of intellect or soul even though Intellect exists as a λόγος of the One and Soul is a λόγος of Intellect.
60 Plotinus is here apparently identifying the expressed principle of Intellect and Soul with the soul of the cosmos. I.e., the life of the cosmos is the expressed principle, the expression of Intellect and Soul at the cosmic level.
61 Cf. 1.4.3.15–24; 3.7.3.12–23. See Ar., EN 10.4.1175a12–13; Meta. 12.7.1072b24–28. The primary activity of Intellect is Life, so whatever partakes of Intellect partakes of Life to some extent.
62 Reading ἐὰν ζωὴ παρῇ with HS3 which follows MacKenna.
63 See Ar., Meta. 10.4.1055a4–5.
64 Intellect is a one-many; Soul is a one and many; the visible universe is more of a many than its soul.
65 See Pl., Rep. 617E; Lg. 904C–E.
66 Reading τοῦ ποιητοῦ <του̑> παντὸς ποιοῦντος κυρίους according to the conjecture of Creuzer which avoids putting human beings in control of the cosmos.
67 A mythical figure, said to be a son of Apollo, associated particularly with a certain type of ritual music.
68 See Pl., Tim. 41D7.
69 Reading εἰ <οὐκ> ἄτοπος with HS3.