§5.7.1. Is there an Idea of each individual?
In fact, there is, if I and everyone else have a means of ascent to the intelligible, and the principle for each of us is in the intelligible world. If Socrates, that is, the soul of Socrates, is eternal, there will be a Socrates Itself,1 insofar as each individual is its soul and, as was just said, the 5principle for each of us is in the intelligible world.2 If the principle does not always exist, but the soul that was at one time Socrates comes to be different individuals at different times, say, Pythagoras or someone else, the individual soul will no longer be in the intelligible world.
If, though, the soul of each contains the expressed principles3 of all those it will successively enter, then, again, all will be in the intelligible world. And we do say that such expressed principles as the cosmos contains, each soul also contains. If, then, the cosmos contains the 10expressed principles not only of human beings but also of individual animals, so, too, does the soul. There will be, then, an unlimited number of expressed principles, unless the cosmos is recycled periodically, in which case the unlimitedness will reach a limit when the identical things recur.
If, then, in general, the things that come to be are more in number than their paradigms, why should there be expressed principles or 15paradigms for all of the things that come to be in one period? For one Human Being would be sufficient for all human beings, just as a limited number of souls produce an unlimited number of human beings.
In fact, it is not the case that there is the identical expressed principle for different individuals, nor is the identical Human Being sufficient as20 paradigm of human beings differing from each other not only in matter, but in thousands of unique ways. For it is not the case that they are related to their Form [Human Being] as images of Socrates are related to their archetype; rather, the production of different human beings results from different expressed principles.4 The entire periodic cycle contains all the expressed principles, and with the next one the identical things are produced again according to the identical expressed 25principles.5 We need not fear this unlimitedness in the intelligible world, for everything there is in an indivisible whole and when it acts, it in a way proceeds [to division].
§5.7.2. But if it is the mixtures of the expressed principles of male and female that produce different offspring, there will no longer be an expressed principle for each one that comes to be. Rather, one of the parents, say the father, will produce, not according to different expressed principles, but according to one that is his own or his father’s.5
In fact, nothing prevents the father from producing according to different expressed principles as well, by having all of them, with different ones always available.6
What happens when there are different offspring from the identical parents?7
In fact, it is because of the parents’ unequal dominance. But there is this: it is not the case, even if it appears so, that sometimes most of the expressed principles come from the male and sometimes from the 10female or from each in equal parts; rather, each insists on giving the whole lot and they are all present but only part of one or the other dominates the matter.8
Why are people in different places different? Is it, then, the matter that causes the difference since it is not dominated in the same way? In that case, all people but one would be contrary to nature. If the difference is mainly with respect to beauty, then the Form is not one. 15But only ugliness should be attributed to matter and even there, while the complete expressed principles have been concealed, they have been given as a whole.
But let the expressed principles be different. Why should there be as many as there are individuals that come to be in one period if indeed it is possible that with one9 identical expressed principle, there appear external differences? But haven’t we already granted that the expressed 20principles are given as a whole, whereas the question is whether the individuals differ when the identical expressed principles dominate? Is it the case, then, that the identical individual can exist in different periods, but cannot be identical with anything else in its own period?10
§5.7.3. How, then, will we be able to say that the expressed principles are different in the case of many twins? And what if one considers other living beings, in particular, ones that have multiple births?
In fact, in cases in which there are no differences, there is one expressed principle. But if this is so, then the number of expressed principles does not correspond to the number of individuals. But they 5are as many as the different individuals where the differences do not occur by a defect in form.
In fact, what is it that prevents there being different expressed principles in individuals who are not different?
Suppose, generally, that there are cases of individuals that are completely indistinguishable. Now just as with the craftsman who, even if he makes things that are indistinguishable from each other, must nevertheless grasp what is identical in them along with a logical difference, which enables him to make them distinct by importing some10 kind of difference in addition to what is identical in them, so in nature where things do not come to be by calculative reasoning but only by expressed principles, the difference must be joined with the form. We, however, are unable to grasp the difference.
But if the production is of an indeterminate number of individuals, the account will be otherwise, whereas if the number is measured, then their limited number will be determined by the unrolling 15and unfolding of all the expressed principles, so that whenever everything stops, there will be another beginning. For the extent of the cosmos, that is, the number of individuals that will pass through it in its life will reside in that which has the expressed principles at the beginning.
In the case of other living beings, then, are we to suppose that, when there is a multiplicity of offspring at one birth, there are a corresponding 20number of expressed principles? Now, we should not fear an unlimited number in the seeds and in the expressed principles, since Soul contains them all. And in Intellect, as in Soul, the unlimited number of these is, again, available in the intelligible world for use.11
1 The word Αὐτοσωκράτης refers to a Form of Socrates, but it is not yet clear what the inferential connection is between the eternal soul that is Socrates and this Form. Cf. 5.9.12.1–4.
2 A reference to our undescended intellects. Cf. 3.4.3.24; 4.3.5.6, 12.3–4; 4.7.10.32–33, 13.1–3; 4.8.4.31–35, 8.8; 6.4.14.16–22; 6.7.5.26–29, 17.26–27; 6.8.6.41–43.
3 Correcting the typographical error λολους to λόγους.
4 Cf. infra 3.7–13.
5 This would be an identical soul in a numerically different body.
6 Cf. 5.9.12.4–11.
7 See Ar., GA 4.3.768b5–769b3.
8 Cf. 6.7.7.6–15.
9 Reading ἑνὶ with the mss.
10 See SVF 2.395 (= Simplicius, In De an. 217.36) on the doctrine of ἰδιω̑ς ποι̑*ον.
11 Cf. 3.8.8.40; 6.2.21.6–11.