§3.3.1. So, what is our view on these issues?
In fact, it is that the universal expressed principle contains both wicked and good deeds and includes even the former as its parts. The universal expressed principle does not, of course, generate evils but accompanies them. For the expressed principles are an activity of a universal Soul, the parts an activity of parts.2 And the expressed5 principles are analogous to one Soul which has different parts so that their deeds, too, which are their final products, are different from each other.
But souls are concordant with each other and so, too, are their deeds. And they are concordant insofar as unity derives from them even if it comes from contraries. For when all things are set in motion from a single principle they come together in a unity by natural necessity so10 that although things grow different and become contraries, they are still drawn together into a single structured order by the fact that they originate from a unity. For just as, among the species of animal, there is one genus for horses, whether they fight, bite each other, want to gain victory over each other and are subject to jealous anger, and similarly all the other animals that can be said to form single genera, so must we15 certainly suppose the same to apply to human beings, too. So, we must again bring all these species back together under the one ‘living being’ as their genus.
Next, those that are not living beings must be classed by their species, and then into the single genus of ‘non-living beings’.
Next, you can put both together, if you wish, under existence, and then under what provides existence. And when you have attached everything to this one genus, descend again by dividing them and seeing the20 unity dissipated by reaching out to all things and embracing them together in a single order so that it is a single diverse multiple living being in which each of the parts acts out its own nature while still remaining in the whole itself; for example, fire burns, a horse performs horse deeds, and each human being acts in the way he is naturally25 disposed and different ones do different things; and their living, both good and bad, follows from their natures and their deeds.3
§3.3.2. Chance circumstances are of prime importance for the good life, yet even they follow from what has gone before and run their course interwoven into what follows. The ruling principle weaves all together, each side making its contribution in accord with nature, just as in armies5 the general is the one who rules while the soldiers in the ranks breathe in unison.4 Everything has been arranged by the general’s providence which keeps an eye on actions and experiences and what must be there, food and drink and indeed all the weapons and mechanical aids; and all that flows from the interweaving of these activities has been foreseen so that their consequences have their place in good organization;10 and every order comes from the general in a well-planned way, although what his opponents were intending to do is outside his control. But if he was able to control the enemy camp as well, if he were actually the ‘great leader’5 whose sway is over everything, what would be left unorganized, what would not be fitted into his plan?15
§3.3.3. What if someone says ‘I am in control of choosing this or that’? But what you are going to choose has already been planned because your choice is not just something adventitious to the whole but you have been counted just as you are.
But what is the source of a human being as he is? There are two questions which our enquiry must explore: whether one should trace the5 cause of the quality of each person’s moral character back to the creator,6 if there is one, or to the product itself, or whether one should not assign blame at all, as one doesn’t in the case of the generation of plants for their not having sense-perception or in the case of the other living beings for their not having [the same faculties] as humans. For it is identical to asking ‘why do human beings not have the same faculties as gods?’ For why is it reasonable in these cases to blame neither the10 creatures themselves nor the one who has created them, but to do so in the case of human beings because they are not better than they are?
For if we assume that it was possible for a human being to become more beautiful than he was,7 then if it was from his own efforts of adding something to himself that he became better, the man who didn’t do this would be himself responsible for his own state. But if the addition had to come not from himself but externally from the one who generated him,15 it would be odd to demand from him more than he had been given, just as it would be to make the same demand in the case of the other living beings and plants, too. For one must not try to find out if one is inferior to another but if a thing is sufficient as it is. For all things did not have to be equal.
Did the creator, then, measure them out with the intention that all things should not be equal? Absolutely not. But it was natural that20 things should be so. For the expressed principle of the universe is dependent on another Soul, this Soul is dependent on Intellect and the Intellect is not any one of the things here, but all things. And all things are many; and since they are many and not identical, some are going to be first in worth, too, some second, and some following after these.
So, living beings that come into being are not only souls, but25 diminutions of souls, a sort of trickling away as they proceed ever further. For the expressed principle of the living being, even if it has a soul, is a different soul and not the one from which the expressed principle came. And this whole expressed principle does indeed become less as it hastens into matter and what is produced from it is more imperfect. Look carefully at how far the product has distanced itself30 and is still something amazing.
So, if what is produced is inferior, that which precedes it does not have to be like this. For it is superior to everything that comes into being, is beyond reproach, and is the more to be admired because it has allowed something to be after it and its traces are of such a wondrous kind. But if it has actually given more than they can take hold of, that is35 all the greater reason for acknowledging it. So, it turns out that blame should rest on people who have come into being and that the work of providence is greater than this.
§3.3.4. Now if a human being is simple – by ‘simple’ I mean that he is just that which he has been created to be, and acts and experiences accordingly – he would bear no responsibility in terms of moral opprobrium just as in the case of the other living beings.8 But as it is, only5 a human being, when he is bad, is deserving of blame and this is, I think, reasonable. For he is not only what he has been made to be but he possesses another principle which is free although it is not outside providence or the expressed principle of the whole cosmos.9 For what is there is not separated from what is here, but the superior illuminates the inferior and the superior is perfect providence.
And there is one expressed principle which is productive, and another10 which connects what is superior with the world of becoming; and what is higher is identical with the providence which acts from above, but there is another providence which is derived from the one above; and the one expressed principle is connected with the other,10 and the whole product of interweaving and providence in its entirety come about from both. Human beings, then, have another principle, although not all human beings use everything they possess, but some use one principle,15 others another or different ones that are inferior. Those higher principles, too, are present to them even if not acting on them, although they are not in themselves in any way inactive. For each of them performs its own function.
But, someone might say, what is responsible for them not acting on these human beings when they are present? Or are they not present? Yet we affirm that they are present everywhere and that nothing is deprived20 of them.
In fact, they are not present in those cases in which they do not act. Why, then, do they not act on all human beings, if indeed they are also parts of them? I mean the principle [of freedom] which we have been talking about. It is because in the case of the other living beings, this principle does not belong to them, while in human beings it does not belong to all of them.
Is this, then, not the only principle that does not belong to all of25 them? Why should it not be the only one? In those who are its sole possessors, life is lived in conformity with it while the rest is as necessity requires. For whether a human being’s constitution is such as to cast him, in a way, into troubled waters, or his appetites control him, we must still say that the cause lies in the substrate. At first sight, however, it will appear to be no longer in the expressed30 principle but rather in matter; and matter, not the expressed principle, will dominate and the substrate will be next insofar as it has been shaped.
In fact, the substrate of the principle [of freedom] is the expressed principle and what comes from the expressed principle and is in accordance with it. Thus, it will not be matter which dominates and the shaping comes next.
And one might trace back an individual’s character to his previous35 life,11 his expressed principle becoming, in a way, dim in comparison with his former expressed principle as a result of his actions in the previous life, as though the soul had become weaker. But it will shine forth again later. And let us assert that the expressed principle also has in it the expressed principle of matter and by this it will fashion matter giving it quality in accordance with itself or finding it already consonant.40 For it is not the case that the expressed principle of the ox is imposed on any other matter than that of the ox. Hence, Plato12 says that a soul enters into other living beings, in a sense becoming different and its expressed principle altered, so that what had before been a human being might become the soul of an ox. And so the inferior human being justly [becomes an ox].
But why did the inferior human being come to be inferior from the45 beginning and how did he fall? We have often said13 that not all things are first, but that what come second and third14 have a nature inferior to that of those before them, and a small inclination suffices to divert something from its straight course. And the interweaving of one thing with another is like a blending where a third thing comes into being from both and it is not the case that the third thing existed first and was50 then diminished. Rather, its inferiority was there from the beginning and what it has become, inferior, is in accord with its own nature. And if it experiences the consequences [of its own nature], it experiences what it deserves. And it is to the events of previous lives that we must trace back the calculation insofar as what happens subsequently depends on them.
§3.3.5. So, providence comes about from its beginning to its end in a descent from above15 which is not equal in a numerical sense, but proportionately different in each place like a single living being which depends on its principle to its end, each part having its own function, the5 better part having the better part of its activity, while the part directed below is already both active in its own way and experiences the affections appropriate to it with respect both to itself and to its coordination with anything else.
Moreover, if they are struck16 in a certain way, the speaking parts utter an appropriate sound while the other parts experience it in silence and the resulting effects are set in motion;17 and from all the sounds,10 affections, and results of the acts there is produced in the living being a single voice, in a way, a single life and way of living. For the parts are different and have different activities; the feet do one thing, the eyes, discursive thinking, and intellect other things.
There is, though, a unity arising from all of them and a single15 providence. Fate commences from the inferior part while what is above is just providence.18 For everything in the intelligible universe is an expressed principle and beyond an expressed principle; for Intellect and Soul are pure. But what derives from there to this sensible cosmos, insofar as it comes from there, is providence, including what is in pure Soul and whatever comes from there to living beings. But an expressed20 principle when apportioned does not come equally to all. And so it does not make things equal, as in the case of individual living beings.
The consequence is that here actions result from providence and follow from it whenever anyone does what is pleasing to the gods. For the expressed principle of providence is pleasing to god. And so evil deeds19 are linked with good ones, but are not brought about by25 providence. If, though, any good turns out in the things that have happened, whether they have happened through human beings or through anything which is either a living being or soulless, it is subsumed again under providence, so that virtue everywhere is in control since what has gone wrong is changed and encounters correction, just as in a single body when health has been bestowed through providence’s30 care of the living being, when there is a cut or wound of any kind the expressed principle which organizes it once more fixes, brings together, heals, and rights the painful part.
The result is that evil deeds are the consequences [not of providence but] of necessity. For they come from us as their cause, not as compelled by providence, but we ourselves link our deeds with the deeds of35 providence and those which derive from providence although we are not able to link what follows with the will of providence but with that of those who act or with some other thing in the universe which has acted or produced some state in us which is not in accord with providence. For40 everything does not have the identical effect on everything else with which it comes in contact, but the identical thing has a different effect on different things.
For example, Helen’s beauty had one effect on Paris, whereas Idomeneus did not experience the identical thing;20 and a handsome person who is licentious has one effect when he meets his like and the handsome person who is self-controlled has a different effect on his like,45 or the self-controlled handsome person has one effect on his opposite, and the licentious handsome person again a different effect on his opposite. And the action which comes from the licentious person is done neither by providence nor according to providence, whereas the deed of the self-controlled person is not done by providence, because it is done by him himself, though it is done according to providence. For it is consonant with the expressed principle, just as what a human being50 does to maintain his health he does according to the instructions21 of the doctor. For this is something the doctor has given him from his medical expertise which deals with sickness and health. But whenever a human being does something which does not promote his health, he does it himself and has acted contrary to the doctor’s providence.
§3.3.6. What, then, is the cause of diviners also foretelling adverse events and foretelling them by looking at the motion of the universe in addition to other forms of prophecy?
In fact, it is clear that it is because all contraries, such as form and matter, are woven together. For example, in the case of a living being5 which is a composite, it is clear that22 one who sees the form and the expressed principle also sees the thing that is formed. For one does not see an intelligible living being and a composite living being in the same way, but one sees the expressed principle in the composite shaping what is inferior. Since the universe is actually a living being, one who looks at things generated in it sees simultaneously what it is made of and the10 providence expended on it. The latter is actually extended over the entire universe including the things that come to be; and these things that come to be consist both of living beings and their actions and mixed dispositions, ‘reason mingled with necessity’.23 And so he sees what is mingled and is continually being mingled. And he is by his own efforts unable to distinguish clearly providence itself from what is according to providence, nor, too, the substrate from the contribution it makes from15 itself to what rests on it.24
A man cannot distinguish these, unless he is wise and god-like.
In fact, one might say ‘only a god could have this privilege’.25 For it is not the role of the diviner to indicate the cause, but only the fact that something is so. And his skill consists in reading the letters written in nature, which indicate an order and never deviate into disorder or, to be20 more precise, in reading the motion of heaven which bears witness to and brings to light the nature of each person and their actions even before they are made manifest by themselves. For things here are carried along with heavenly phenomena and the latter with things here as they simultaneously contribute to the formation and eternity of the universe, but for the observer it is by correspondence that the one provides signs25 of the other, since the other forms of divination also operate by correspondence. For all things must not be separated from each other, but they had to be assimilated to each other in some way.
And this is perhaps the meaning of the saying26 that proportionality holds everything together. And proportionality is the following sort of thing: the inferior is related to the inferior as the better is to the30 better; for example, as eye is to eye, so is foot to foot, one thing to the other, and, if you wish, as virtue is to justice, so is vice to injustice. So, if there is proportionality in the universe, it is possible to foretell events. And if heaven acts upon things here, it does so in the way that the parts in every living being act on each other, not as one thing35 generating another – for they are generated simultaneously – but each thing experiences in accordance with its own nature whatever contributes to its own nature and because a thing has a particular nature, what it experiences is of this nature, too. For in this way the expressed principle, too, remains one.
§3.3.7. And because there are better things, there are also worse. How could there be something worse in what has many forms unless there was something better and how could there be something better if there was not something worse? And so we must not criticize the inferior element in the better but embrace the better because it has given something of itself to the worse. And, in general, those who think it right to5 remove the worse in the entire universe are getting rid of providence itself. For what would be the object of providence? Certainly, not itself nor what is better, since even when we are referring to the higher providence we are speaking of its relation to what is below.27 For the bringing together of all things into a unity is the principle in which everything is together and all are a whole.
And as it is, all individual things proceed from this principle while it10 remains within, as though from a single root which itself remains established in itself. And they blossomed forth into a divided multiplicity, each one bearing an image of the higher principle and when they came to be in the sensible world each was in a different place, some near to the root, others going forth and splitting up even so far as to form, in15 a way, branches, twigs, fruit, and leaves. And while some of them always remained, others, the fruit and leaves, were always coming into being.28 And those that were always coming into being have within them the expressed principles of the things above as though they want to be miniature trees. And if they produced before they were destroyed, they only produced something near to them. And the spaces between20 the branches were filled by secondary shoots which also grew from the root even if they grew in a different way. And the tips of the branches were affected by these in a way that makes one think that the affection came only from what is close. But in accordance with the principle, one was affected and the other acted and the principle, too, was itself dependent on something else. For the things which act on each other25 are different because they come from afar, but in the beginning they are from the identical source, like brothers who have an influence on each other because they are the same as each other having sprung from identical parents.
1 This treatise, which is clearly a continuation of the previous one, was set off by Porphyry to fit into his ninefold division of each Ennead.
2 Cf. 4.3.2.55–59.
3 A sketch of Plato’s method of collection and division. Cf. 1.3.4.10–19.
4 See Ar., Meta. 12.10.1075a14–16; Ar. [?], De mun. 6.399a35–b10.
5 See Pl., Phdr. 246E4.
6 See Pl., Lg. 904B6–D4.
7 Reading τούτου with Heintz and Kalligas.
8 The human being is, in fact, not simple but complex, including undescended intellect, embodied soul, and body. Cf. 1.1.10.5–10; 2.3.9.30–31.
9 This is the hypostasis Soul, the expressed principle of Intellect.
10 Lit. ‘and the other expressed principle is connected with that’. It is disputed what ‘that’ refers to.
11 Cf. 3.2.8.28–31, 13.1–17.
12 See Pl., Tim. 42C2–D2.
13 Cf. supra 3.23–24.
14 See Pl., Tim. 41D7.
15 I.e., from Soul and Intellect.
16 Reading πληγέντος with HS5.
17 See Pl., Tim. 64Aff.
18 Cf. 3.4.6.31–36; 4.3.15.10–15. See Ps.-Plutarch, De fato 572f–573b; Apuleius, De Plat. 1.12.
19 Reading τὰ μὴ τοιαῦτα with HS5 following Heintz and Harder.
20 See Homer, Il. 3.230–233.
21 The meaning of λόγος here.
22 Reading ὄντος ὅτι <ὁ> following Creuzer where, as HS3 notes, ὅτι (= δῆλον ὅτι).
23 See Pl., Tim. 47E5–48A1.
24 Reading ὅσα <τε> δίδωσιν εἰς τὸ ἐπικείμενον παρ᾽αὐτοῦ with HS3.
25 See Simonides, fr. 4.7 Diehl cited by Pl., Protag. 341E3; Ar., Meta. 1.2.982b28–31.
26 See Pl., Tim. 31C3, 32C2.
27 See SVF 2.1169 (= Gellius, Noctes Atticae 8.1), 1170 (= Gellius, Noctes Atticae 7.1.7).
28 See Pl., Tim. 27D6–28A1.