(2) In souls, however, which rule over bodies, and precedaneously pay attention to them, and which, prior to generation, have by themselves a perpetual arrangement, essential good is not present, nor the cause of good, which is prior to essence; but to these a certain participation and habit, proceeding from essential good, accedes; just as we see that the participation of beauty and virtue is very different [in these souls] from that which we behold in men. For the latter is ambiguous, and accedes to composite natures as something adventitious. But the former has an immutable and never failing establishment in souls, and neither itself ever departs from itself, nor can be taken away by any thing else. Such, therefore, being the beginning and end in the divine genera, conceive two media between these extreme boundaries, viz. the order of heroes, which has an arrangement more elevated than that of souls, in power and virtue, in beauty and magnitude, and in all the goods which subsist about souls, and which, though it entirely transcends the psychical order, yet, at the same time, is proximately conjoined to it, through the alliance of a similar formed life. But the other medium, which is suspended from the Gods, though it is far inferior to them, is that of dæmons, which is hot of a primarily operative nature, but is subservient to, and follows the beneficent will of the Gods.

(7) Now the choosing of the Better not only proves a lot most fair for him who makes the choice, seeing it makes the man a God, but also shows his piety to God. Whereas the [choosing] of the Worse, although it doth destroy the "man", it doth only disturb God's harmony to this extent, that as processions pass by in the middle of the way, without being able to do anything but take the road from others, so do such men move in procession through the world led by their bodies' pleasures.

(5) But if the presiding Spirit and the conditions of life are chosen by the Soul in the overworld, how can anything be left to our independent action here?

The answer is that very choice in the over-world is merely an allegorical statement of the Soul's tendency and temperament, a total character which it must express wherever it operates.

But if the tendency of the Soul is the master-force and, in the Soul, the dominant is that phase which has been brought to the fore by a previous history, then the body stands acquitted of any bad influence upon it? The Soul's quality exists before any bodily life; it has exactly what it chose to have; and, we read, it never changes its chosen spirit; therefore neither the good man nor the bad is the product of this life?

Is the solution, perhaps, that man is potentially both good and bad but becomes the one or the other by force of act?

But what if a man temperamentally good happens to enter a disordered body, or if a perfect body falls to a man naturally vicious?

The answer is that the Soul, to whichever side it inclines, has in some varying degree the power of working the forms of body over to its own temper, since outlying and accidental circumstances cannot overrule the entire decision of a Soul. Where we read that, after the casting of lots, the sample lives are exhibited with the casual circumstances attending them and that the choice is made upon vision, in accordance with the individual temperament, we are given to understand that the real determination lies with the Souls, who adapt the allotted conditions to their own particular quality.

The Timaeus indicates the relation of this guiding spirit to ourselves: it is not entirely outside of ourselves; is not bound up with our nature; is not the agent in our action; it belongs to us as belonging to our Soul, but not in so far as we are particular human beings living a life to which it is superior: take the passage in this sense and it is consistent; understand this Spirit otherwise and there is contradiction. And the description of the Spirit, moreover, as "the power which consummates the chosen life," is, also, in agreement with this interpretation; for while its presidency saves us from falling much deeper into evil, the only direct agent within us is some thing neither above it nor equal to it but under it: Man cannot cease to be characteristically Man.

(6) In all this there is no sin- there is only matter of discipline- but our concern is not merely to be sinless but to be God.

As long as there is any such involuntary action, the nature is twofold, God and Demi-God, or rather God in association with a nature of a lower power: when all the involuntary is suppressed, there is God unmingled, a Divine Being of those that follow upon The First.

For, at this height, the man is the very being that came from the Supreme. The primal excellence restored, the essential man is There: entering this sphere, he has associated himself with the reasoning phase of his nature and this he will lead up into likeness with his highest self, as far as earthly mind is capable, so that if possible it shall never be inclined to, and at the least never adopt, any course displeasing to its overlord.

What form, then, does virtue take in one so lofty?

It appears as Wisdom, which consists in the contemplation of all that exists in the Intellectual-Principle, and as the immediate presence of the Intellectual-Principle itself.

And each of these has two modes or aspects: there is Wisdom as it is in the Intellectual-Principle and as in the Soul; and there is the Intellectual-Principle as it is present to itself and as it is present to the Soul: this gives what in the Soul is Virtue, in the Supreme not Virtue.

In the Supreme, then, what is it?

Its proper Act and Its Essence.

That Act and Essence of the Supreme, manifested in a new form, constitute the virtue of this sphere. For the Supreme is not self-existent justice, or the Absolute of any defined virtue: it is, so to speak, an exemplar, the source of what in the soul becomes virtue: for virtue is dependent, seated in something not itself; the Supreme is self-standing, independent.

But taking Rectitude to be the due ordering of faculty, does it not always imply the existence of diverse parts?

No: There is a Rectitude of Diversity appropriate to what has parts, but there is another, not less Rectitude than the former though it resides in a Unity. And the authentic Absolute-Rectitude is the Act of a Unity upon itself, of a Unity in which there is no this and that and the other.

On this principle, the supreme Rectitude of the Soul is that it direct its Act towards the Intellectual-Principle: its Restraint (Sophrosyne) is its inward bending towards the Intellectual-Principle; its Fortitude is its being impassive in the likeness of That towards which its gaze is set, Whose nature comports an impassivity which the Soul acquires by virtue and must acquire if it is not to be at the mercy of every state arising in its less noble companion.

(2) Since, however, of the parts of the soul, one is the leader, but the other follows, and the virtues and the vices subsist about these, and in these; it is evident that with respect to the virtues also, some are leaders, others are followers, and others, are composed from these. And the leaders, indeed, are such as prudence; but the followers are such as fortitude and temperance; and the composites from these, are such as justice. The passions, however, are the matter of virtue; for the virtues subsist about, and in these. But of the passions, one is voluntary, but another is involuntary. And the voluntary, indeed, is pleasure; but the involuntary is pain. Men also, who have the political virtues, give intension and remission to these, co-harmonizing the other parts of the soul, to that part which possesses reason.

But the boundary of this co-adaptation, is for intellect not to be prevented from accomplishing its proper work, either by indigence, or excess. For that which is less excellent, is co-arranged for the sake of that which is more excellent. Thus in the world, every part that is always passive, subsists for the sake of that which is always moved. And in the conjunction of animals, the female subsists for the sake of the male. For the latter sows, generating a soul; but the former alone imparts matter to that which is generated. In the soul however, the irrational subsists for the sake of the rational part. For anger and desire are co-arranged in subserviency to the first part of the soul; the former as a certain satellite, and guardian of the body; but the latter as a dispensator and provident curator of necessary wants.

But intellect being established in the highest summit of the body, and having a prospect in that which is on all sides splendid and transparent, investigates the wisdom of [real] beings. And this is the work of it according to nature, viz. having investigated, and obtained the possession [of truth] to follow those beings who are more excellent and more honorable than itself. For the knowledge of things divine and most honorable, is the principle, cause, and rule of human blessedness .

(2) Because, likewise, they are excluded, through certain defilements, from an association with pure spirits, they become connected with evil spirits, are filled from them with the worst kind of inspiration, are rendered depraved and unholy, become replete with intemperate pleasures, and every kind of vice, are emulous of manners foreign to the Gods, and, in short, become similar to the depraved dæmons, with whom they are connascent. These, therefore, being full of passions and vice, attract to themselves, through alliance, depraved spirits, and are excited by them to every kind of iniquity. They are also increased in wickedness by each other, like a circle conjoining the beginning to the end, and similarly making an equal compensation. Hence deeds which are the nefarious offences of impiety, which are introduced into sacred works in a disorderly manner, and which are also confusedly performed by those who betake themselves to such works, and at one time, as it seems, cause one divinity to be present instead of another, and again, introduce depraved dæmons instead of Gods, whom they call equal to the Gods ( αντιθεους )—such deeds as these you should never adduce in a discourse concerning sacerdotal divination. For good is more contrary to evil than to that which is not good.

(3) Whereas in man by greater or less of bad is good determined. For what is not too bad down here, is good, and good down here is the least part of bad. It cannot, therefore, be that good down here should be quite clean of bad, for down here good is fouled with bad; and being fouled, it stays no longer good, and staying not it changes into bad. In God alone, is, therefore, Good, or rather Good is God Himself. So then, Asclepius, the name alone of Good is found in men, the thing itself nowhere [in them], for this can never be. For no material body doth contain It - a thing bound on all sides by bad, by labors, pains, desires and passions, by error and by foolish thoughts. And greatest ill of all, Asclepius, is that each of these things that have been said above, is thought down here to be the greatest good. And what is still an even greater ill, is belly-lust, the error that doth lead the band of all the other ills - the thing that makes us turn down here from Good.

(1) We shall collect, therefore, what happens from these conclusions. For if certain invocators employ the physical or corporeal powers of the universe, an involuntary gift of energy [from these powers], and which is without vice, takes place. He, likewise, who uses this gift [sometimes] perverts it to things of a contrary nature, and to base purposes. And the gift, indeed, is moved contrarily together with the passions, and sympathetically through similitude; but he who uses the thing which is imparted, deliberately draws it, contrary to justice, to what is evil and base. And the gift, indeed, causes things which are most remote to cooperate through the one harmony of the world. But if some one understanding this to be the case should iniquitously endeavour to draw certain portions of the universe to other parts, these parts are not the cause of the evil that ensues; but the audacity of men, and the transgression of the order in the world, pervert things that are beautiful and legal. Hence neither do the Gods effect what appears to be base, but this is accomplished by the natures and bodies that proceed from them; nor do these very natures and bodies impart improbity from themselves, as it is thought they do; but they send their proper effluxions to places about the earth, for the salvation of wholes, and those who receive them transmute them by their commixture and perversion, and transfer what is given to a purpose different from that for which it was imparted. From all these particulars, therefore, it is demonstrated that a divine nature is not the cause of evils and unjust deeds.

(3) Thus are the primeval spirits who as a pair (combining their opposite strivings), and (yet each) independent in his action, have been famed (of old). (They are) a better thing, they two, and a worse , as to thought, as to word, and as to deed. And between these two let the wisely acting choose aright. (Choose ye ) not (as) the evil-doers !

(17) The nature of the Reason-Principle is adequately expressed in its Act and, therefore, the wider its extension the nearer will its productions approach to full contrariety: hence the world of sense is less a unity than is its Reason-Principle; it contains a wider multiplicity and contrariety: its partial members will, therefore, be urged by a closer intention towards fullness of life, a warmer desire for unification.

But desire often destroys the desired; it seeks its own good, and, if the desired object is perishable, the ruin follows: and the partial thing straining towards its completing principle draws towards itself all it possibly can.

Thus, with the good we have the bad: we have the opposed movements of a dancer guided by one artistic plan; we recognize in his steps the good as against the bad, and see that in the opposition lies the merit of the design.

But, thus, the wicked disappear?

No: their wickedness remains; simply, their role is not of their own planning.

But, surely, this excuses them?

No; excuse lies with the Reason-Principle- and the Reason-Principle does not excuse them.

No doubt all are members of this Principle but one is a good man, another is bad- the larger class, this- and it goes as in a play; the poet while he gives each actor a part is also using them as they are in their own persons: he does not himself rank the men as leading actor, second, third; he simply gives suitable words to each, and by that assignment fixes each man's standing.

Thus, every man has his place, a place that fits the good man, a place that fits the bad: each within the two orders of them makes his way, naturally, reasonably, to the place, good or bad, that suits him, and takes the position he has made his own. There he talks and acts, in blasphemy and crime or in all goodness: for the actors bring to this play what they were before it was ever staged.

In the dramas of human art, the poet provides the words but the actors add their own quality, good or bad- for they have more to do than merely repeat the author's words- in the truer drama which dramatic genius imitates in its degree, the Soul displays itself in a part assigned by the creator of the piece.

As the actors of our stages get their masks and their costume, robes of state or rags, so a Soul is allotted its fortunes, and not at haphazard but always under a Reason: it adapts itself to the fortunes assigned to it, attunes itself, ranges itself rightly to the drama, to the whole Principle of the piece: then it speaks out its business, exhibiting at the same time all that a Soul can express of its own quality, as a singer in a song. A voice, a bearing, naturally fine or vulgar, may increase the charm of a piece; on the other hand, an actor with his ugly voice may make a sorry exhibition of himself, yet the drama stands as good a work as ever: the dramatist, taking the action which a sound criticism suggests, disgraces one, taking his part from him, with perfect justice: another man he promotes to more serious roles or to any more important play he may have, while the first is cast for whatever minor work there may be.

Just so the Soul, entering this drama of the Universe, making itself a part of the Play, bringing to its acting its personal excellence or defect, set in a definite place at the entry and accepting from the author its entire role- superimposed upon its own character and conduct- just so, it receives in the end its punishment and reward.

But these actors, Souls, hold a peculiar dignity: they act in a vaster place than any stage: the Author has made them masters of all this world; they have a wide choice of place; they themselves determine the honour or discredit in which they are agents since their place and part are in keeping with their quality: they therefore fit into the Reason-Principle of the Universe, each adjusted, most legitimately, to the appropriate environment, as every string of the lyre is set in the precisely right position, determined by the Principle directing musical utterance, for the due production of the tones within its capacity. All is just and good in the Universe in which every actor is set in his own quite appropriate place, though it be to utter in the Darkness and in Tartarus the dreadful sounds whose utterance there is well.

This Universe is good not when the individual is a stone, but when everyone throws in his own voice towards a total harmony, singing out a life- thin, harsh, imperfect, though it be. The Syrinx does not utter merely one pure note; there is a thin obscure sound which blends in to make the harmony of Syrinx music: the harmony is made up from tones of various grades, all the tones differing, but the resultant of all forming one sound.

Similarly the Reason-Principle entire is One, but it is broken into unequal parts: hence the difference of place found in the Universe, better spots and worse; and hence the inequality of Souls, finding their appropriate surroundings amid this local inequality. The diverse places of this sphere, the Souls of unequal grade and unlike conduct, are wen exemplified by the distinction of parts in the Syrinx or any other instrument: there is local difference, but from every position every string gives forth its own tone, the sound appropriate, at once, to its particular place and to the entire plan.

What is evil in the single Soul will stand a good thing in the universal system; what in the unit offends nature will serve nature in the total event- and still remains the weak and wrong tone it is, though its sounding takes nothing from the worth of the whole, just as, in another order of image, the executioner's ugly office does not mar the well-governed state: such an officer is a civic necessity; and the corresponding moral type is often serviceable; thus, even as things are, all is well.

(1) Moreover, that which purifies souls is perfect in the Gods; but in archangels it is anagogic. Angels alone dissolve the bond of generation. Dæmons draw souls down into nature; but heroes lead them to a providential attention to sensible works. Archons either deliver to them the government of mundane concerns, or the inspection of material natures. And souls, when they become apparent, tend in a certain respect to generation. Farther still, consider this, also, that you should attribute everything which is pure and stable in the visible image to the more excellent genera. Hence, you should ascribe to the Gods that which in the image is transcendently splendid, and which is firmly established in itself. That which is splendid, but is established as in another thing, you should give to archangels; but that which remains in another to angels. To all these, therefore, you should oppose, that which is rashly borne along, is unestablished, and filled with foreign natures, the whole of which is adapted to inferior orders.

(1) The order of the soul subsists in such a way, that one part of it is the reasoning power, another is anger, and another is desire. And the reasoning power, indeed, has dominion over knowledge; anger over impetus; and desire intrepidly rules over the appetitions of the soul. When therefore these three parts pass into one, and exhibit one appropriate composition, then virtue and concord are produced in the soul. But when they are divulsed from each other by sedition, then vice and discord are produced in the soul. It is necessary, however, that virtue should have these three things, viz. reason, power, and deliberate choice. The virtue, therefore, of the reasoning power of the soul is prudence; for it is a habit of judging and contemplating.

But the virtue of the irascible part, is fortitude; for it is a habit of resisting, and enduring things of a dreadful nature. And the virtue of the epithymetic or appetitive part is temperance; for it is a moderation and detention of the pleasures which arise through the body. But the virtue of the whole soul is justice. For men indeed become bad, either through vice, or through incontinence, or through a natural ferocity. But they injure each other, either through gain, or through pleasure, or through ambition. Vice, therefore, more appropriately belongs to the reasoning part of the soul. For prudence indeed is similar to art; but vice to pernicious art. For it invents contrivances for the purpose of acting unjustly.

But incontinence rather pertains to the appetitive part of the soul. For continence consists in subduing, and incontinence in not subduing pleasures. And ferocity pertains to the irascible part of the soul. For when some one, through acting ill from desire, is gratified not as a man should be, but as a wild beast, then a thing of this kind is denominated ferocity. The effects also of these dispositions are consequent to the things for the sake of which they are performed. For avarice is consequent to vice; but vice is consequent to the reasoning part of the soul. And ambition, indeed, follows from the irascible part; and this becoming excessive, generates ferocity. Again, pleasure pertains to the appetitive part; but this being sought after more vehemently, generates incontinence. Hence, since the acting unjustly is produced from so many causes, it is evident that acting justly is effected through an equal number of causes. For virtue, indeed, is naturally beneficent and profitable; but vice is productive of evil, and is noxious.

(18) Souls vary in worth; and the difference is due, among other causes, to an almost initial inequality; it is in reason that, standing to the Reason-Principle, as parts, they should be unequal by the fact of becoming separate.

We must also remember that every Soul has its second grade and its third, and that, therefore, its expression may take any one of three main forms. But this point must be dealt with here again: the matter requires all possible elucidation.

We may perhaps think of actors having the right to add something to the poet's words: the drama as it stands is not perfectly filled in, and they are to supply where the Author has left blank spaces here and there; the actors are to be something else as well; they become parts of the poet, who on his side has a foreknowledge of the word they will add, and so is able to bind into one story what the actors bring in and what is to follow.

For, in the All, the sequences, including what follows upon wickedness, become Reason-Principles, and therefore in right reason. Thus: from adultery and the violation of prisoners the process of nature will produce fine children, to grow, perhaps, into fine men; and where wicked violence has destroyed cities, other and nobler cities may rise in their place.

But does not this make it absurd to introduce Souls as responsible causes, some acting for good and some for evil? If we thus exonerate the Reason-Principle from any part in wickedness do we not also cancel its credit for the good? Why not simply take the doings of these actors for representative parts of the Reason-Principle as the doings of stage-actors are representative parts of the stage-drama? Why not admit that the Reason-Principle itself includes evil action as much as good action, and inspires the precise conduct of all its representatives? Would not this be all the more Plausible in that the universal drama is the completer creation and that the Reason-Principle is the source of all that exists?

But this raises the question: "What motive could lead the Logos to produce evil?"

The explanation, also, would take away all power in the Universe from Souls, even those nearest to the divine; they would all be mere parts of a Reason-Principle.

And, further- unless all Reason-Principles are Souls- why should some be souls and others exclusively Reason-Principles when the All is itself a Soul?

(1) Moreover, it is necessary to add the causes whence evils sometimes arise, and to show how many and of what kind they are. For the form of them is not simple; but, being various, is the leader of the generation of various evils. For if what we a little before said, concerning images and evil dæmons, who assume the appearance of Gods and good dæmons, is true, an abundant evil-producing tribe, about which a contrariety of this kind usually happens, will from hence appear to flow. For an evil dæmon requires that his worshipper should be just, because he assumes the appearance of one belonging to the divine genus; but he is subservient to what is unjust, because he is depraved. The same thing, likewise, that is said of good and evil may be asserted of the true and the false. As, therefore, in divinations we attribute true predictions to the Gods alone, but when we detect any falsehood in predictions we refer this to another genus of cause, viz. that of dæmons; thus, also, in things just and unjust, the beautiful and the just are to be alone ascribed to Gods and good dæmons; but such dæmons as are naturally depraved, perpetrate what is unjust and base. And that, indeed, which consents and accords with itself, and always subsists with invariable sameness, pertains to more excellent natures; but that which is hostile to itself, which is discordant, and never the same, is the peculiarity in the most eminent degree of dæmoniacal dissension, about which it is not at all wonderful that things of an opposing nature should subsist; but perhaps the very contrary, that this should not be the case, would be more wonderful.

(2) Let us begin with virtue and vice in the Soul. What has really occurred when, as we say, vice is present? In speaking of extirpating evil and implanting goodness, of introducing order and beauty to replace a former ugliness, we talk in terms of real things in the Soul.

Now when we make virtue a harmony, and vice a breach of harmony, we accept an opinion approved by the ancients; and the theory helps us decidedly to our solution. For if virtue is simply a natural concordance among the phases of the Soul, and vice simply a discord, then there is no further question of any foreign presence; harmony would be the result of every distinct phase or faculty joining in, true to itself; discord would mean that not all chimed in at their best and truest. Consider, for example, the performers in a choral dance; they sing together though each one has his particular part, and sometimes one voice is heard while the others are silent; and each brings to the chorus something of his own; it is not enough that all lift their voices together; each must sing, choicely, his own part to the music set for him. Exactly so in the case of the Soul; there will be harmony when each faculty performs its appropriate part.

Yes: but this very harmony constituting the virtue of the Soul must depend upon a previous virtue, that of each several faculty within itself; and before there can be the vice of discord there must be the vice of the single parts, and these can be bad only by the actual presence of vice as they can be good only by the presence of virtue. It is true that no presence is affirmed when vice is identified with ignorance in the reasoning faculty of the Soul; ignorance is not a positive thing; but in the presence of false judgements- the main cause of vice- must it not be admitted that something positive has entered into the Soul, something perverting the reasoning faculty? So, the initiative faculty; is it not, itself, altered as one varies between timidity and boldness? And the desiring faculty, similarly, as it runs wild or accepts control?

Our teaching is that when the particular faculty is sound it performs the reasonable act of its essential nature, obeying the reasoning faculty in it which derives from the Intellectual Principle and communicates to the rest. And this following of reason is not the acceptance of an imposed shape; it is like using the eyes; the Soul sees by its act, that of looking towards reason. The faculty of sight in the performance of its act is essentially what it was when it lay latent; its act is not a change in it, but simply its entering into the relation that belongs to its essential character; it knows- that is, sees- without suffering any change: so, precisely, the reasoning phase of the Soul stands towards the Intellectual Principle; this it sees by its very essence; this vision is its knowing faculty; it takes in no stamp, no impression; all that enters it is the object of vision- possessed, once more, without possession; it possesses by the fact of knowing but "without possession" in the sense that there is no incorporation of anything left behind by the object of vision, like the impression of the seal on sealing-wax.

And note that we do not appeal to stored-up impressions to account for memory: we think of the mind awakening its powers in such a way as to possess something not present to it.

Very good: but is it not different before and after acquiring the memory?

Be it so; but it has suffered no change- unless we are to think of the mere progress from latency to actuality as change- nothing has been introduced into the mind; it has simply achieved the Act dictated by its nature.

It is universally true that the characteristic Act of immaterial entities is performed without any change in them- otherwise they would at last be worn away- theirs is the Act of the unmoving; where act means suffering change, there is Matter: an immaterial Being would have no ground of permanence if its very Act changed it.

Thus in the case of Sight, the seeing faculty is in act but the material organ alone suffers change: judgements are similar to visual experiences.

But how explain the alternation of timidity and daring in the initiative faculty?

Timidity would come by the failure to look towards the Reason-Principle or by looking towards some inferior phase of it or by some defect in the organs of action- some lack or flaw in the bodily equipment- or by outside prevention of the natural act or by the mere absence of adequate stimulus: boldness would arise from the reverse conditions: neither implies any change, or even any experience, in the Soul.

So with the faculty of desire: what we call loose living is caused by its acting unaccompanied; it has done all of itself; the other faculties, whose business it is to make their presence felt in control and to point the right way, have lain in abeyance; the Seer in the Soul was occupied elsewhere, for, though not always at least sometimes, it has leisure for a certain degree of contemplation of other concerns.

Often, moreover, the vice of the desiring faculty will be merely some ill condition of the body, and its virtue, bodily soundness; thus there would again be no question of anything imported into the Soul.

(5) There is, then a Providence, which permeates the Kosmos from first to last, not everywhere equal, as in a numerical distribution, but proportioned, differing, according to the grades of place- just as in some one animal, linked from first to last, each member has its own function, the nobler organ the higher activity while others successively concern the lower degrees of the life, each part acting of itself, and experiencing what belongs to its own nature and what comes from its relation with every other. Strike, and what is designed for utterance gives forth the appropriate volume of sound while other parts take the blow in silence but react in their own especial movement; the total of all the utterance and action and receptivity constitutes what we may call the personal voice, life and history of the living form. The parts, distinct in Kind, have distinct functions: the feet have their work and the eyes theirs; the understanding serves to one end, the Intellectual Principle to another.

But all sums to a unity, a comprehensive Providence. From the inferior grade downwards is Fate: the upper is Providence alone: for in the Intellectual Kosmos all is Reason-Principle or its Priors-Divine Mind and unmingled Soul-and immediately upon these follows Providence which rises from Divine Mind, is the content of the Unmingled Soul, and, through this Soul, is communicated to the Sphere of living things.

This Reason-Principle comes as a thing of unequal parts, and therefore its creations are unequal, as, for example, the several members of one Living Being. But after this allotment of rank and function, all act consonant with the will of the gods keeps the sequence and is included under the providential government, for the Reason-Principle of providence is god-serving.

All such right-doing, then, is linked to Providence; but it is not therefore performed by it: men or other agents, living or lifeless, are causes of certain things happening, and any good that may result is taken up again by Providence. In the total, then, the right rules and what has happened amiss is transformed and corrected. Thus, to take an example from a single body, the Providence of a living organism implies its health; let it be gashed or otherwise wounded, and that Reason-Principle which governs it sets to work to draw it together, knit it anew, heal it, and put the affected part to rights.

In sum, evil belongs to the sequence of things, but it comes from necessity. It originates in ourselves; it has its causes no doubt, but we are not, therefore, forced to it by Providence: some of these causes we adapt to the operation of Providence and of its subordinates, but with others we fail to make the connection; the act instead of being ranged under the will of Providence consults the desire of the agent alone or of some other element in the Universe, something which is either itself at variance with Providence or has set up some such state of variance in ourselves.

The one circumstance does not produce the same result wherever it acts; the normal operation will be modified from case to case: Helen's beauty told very differently on Paris and on Idomeneus; bring together two handsome people of loose character and two living honourably and the resulting conduct is very different; a good man meeting a libertine exhibits a distinct phase of his nature and, similarly, the dissolute answer to the society of their betters.

The act of the libertine is not done by Providence or in accordance with Providence; neither is the action of the good done by Providence- it is done by the man- but it is done in accordance with Providence, for it is an act consonant with the Reason-Principle. Thus a patient following his treatment is himself an agent and yet is acting in accordance with the doctor's method inspired by the art concerned with the causes of health and sickness: what one does against the laws of health is one's act, but an act conflicting with the Providence of medicine.

(10) To sum the results of our argument: All things and events are foreshown and brought into being by causes; but the causation is of two Kinds; there are results originating from the Soul and results due to other causes, those of the environment.

In the action of our Souls all that is done of their own motion in the light of sound reason is the Soul's work, while what is done where they are hindered from their own action is not so much done as suffered. Unwisdom, then, is not due to the Soul, and, in general- if we mean by Fate a compulsion outside ourselves- an act is fated when it is contrary to wisdom.

But all our best is of our own doing: such is our nature as long as we remain detached. The wise and good do perform acts; their right action is the expression of their own power: in the others it comes in the breathing spaces when the passions are in abeyance; but it is not that they draw this occasional wisdom from outside themselves; simply, they are for the time being unhindered.

(4) If man were all of one piece- I mean, if he were nothing more than a made thing, acting and acted upon according to a fixed nature- he could be no more subject to reproach and punishment than the mere animals. But as the scheme holds, man is singled out for condemnation when he does evil; and this with justice. For he is no mere thing made to rigid plan; his nature contains a Principle apart and free.

This does not, however, stand outside of Providence or of the Reason of the All; the Over-World cannot be dependent upon the World of Sense. The higher shines down upon the lower, and this illumination is Providence in its highest aspect: The Reason-Principle has two phases, one which creates the things of process and another which links them with the higher beings: these higher beings constitute the over-providence on which depends that lower providence which is the secondary Reason-Principle inseparably united with its primal: the two- the Major and Minor Providence- acting together produce the universal woof, the one all-comprehensive Providence.

Men possess, then, a distinctive Principle: but not all men turn to account all that is in their Nature; there are men that live by one Principle and men that live by another or, rather, by several others, the least noble. For all these Principles are present even when not acting upon the man- though we cannot think of them as lying idle; everything performs its function.

"But," it will be said, "what reason can there be for their not acting upon the man once they are present; inaction must mean absence?"

We maintain their presence always, nothing void of them.

But surely not where they exercise no action? If they necessarily reside in all men, surely they must be operative in all- this Principle of free action, especially.

First of all, this free Principle is not an absolute possession of the animal Kinds and is not even an absolute possession to all men.

So this Principle is not the only effective force in all men?

There is no reason why it should not be. There are men in whom it alone acts, giving its character to the life while all else is but Necessity .

For whether it is that the constitution of the man is such as to drive him down the troubled paths or whether the desires have gained control, we are compelled to attribute the guilt to the substratum . We would be naturally inclined to say that this substratum must be Matter and not, as our argument implies, the Reason-Principle; it would appear that not the Reason-Principle but Matter were the dominant, crude Matter at the extreme and then Matter as shaped in the realized man: but we must remember that to this free Principle in man the Substratum is the Reason-Principle itself with whatever that produces and moulds to its own form, so that neither crude Matter nor Matter organized in our human total is sovereign within us.

The quality now manifested may be probably referred to the conduct of a former life; we may suppose that previous actions have made the Reason-Principle now governing within us inferior in radiance to that which ruled before; the Soul which later will shine out again is for the present at a feebler power.

And any Reason-Principle may be said to include within itself the Reason-Principle of Matter which therefore it is able to elaborate to its own purposes, either finding it consonant with itself or bestowing upon it the quality which makes it so. The Reason-Principle of an ox does not occur except in connection with the Matter appropriate to the ox-Kind. It must be by such a process that the transmigration, of which we read takes place; the Soul must lose its nature, the Reason-Principle be transformed; thus there comes the ox-soul which once was Man.

The degradation, then, is just.

Still, how did the inferior Principle ever come into being, and how does the higher fall to it?

Once more- not all things are Firsts; there are Secondaries and Tertiaries, of a nature inferior to that of their Priors; and a slight tilt is enough to determine the departure from the straight course. Further, the linking of any one being with any other amounts to a blending such as to produce a distinct entity, a compound of the two; it is not that the greater and prior suffers any diminution of its own nature; the lesser and secondary is such from its very beginning; it is in its own nature the lesser thing it becomes, and if it suffers the consequences, such suffering is merited: all our reasonings on these questions must take account of previous living as the source from which the present takes its rise.

(8) Soul, then, in the same way, is intent upon a task of its own; alike in its direct course and in its divagation it is the cause of all by its possession of the Thought of the First Principle: thus a Law of Justice goes with all that exists in the Universe which, otherwise, would be dissolved, and is perdurable because the entire fabric is guided as much by the orderliness as by the power of the controlling force. And in this order the stars, as being no minor members of the heavenly system, are co-operators contributing at once to its stately beauty and to its symbolic quality. Their symbolic power extends to the entire realm of sense, their efficacy only to what they patently do.

For our part, nature keeps us upon the work of the Soul as long as we are not wrecked in the multiplicity of the Universe: once thus sunk and held we pay the penalty, which consists both in the fall itself and in the lower rank thus entailed upon us: riches and poverty are caused by the combinations of external fact.

And what of virtue and vice?

That question has been amply discussed elsewhere: in a word, virtue is ours by the ancient staple of the Soul; vice is due to the commerce of a Soul with the outer world.

(2) Moreover, of perfect men there are two differences. For some of them are naturally perfect; but others are perfect according to life. And those indeed alone that are good, are naturally perfect. But these are such as possess virtue. For the virtue of the nature of every thing is a summit and perfection. Thus the virtue of the eye is the summit and perfection of the nature of the eye. But the virtue of man is the summit and perfection of the nature of man. Those also are perfect according to life, who are not only good, but happy. For felicity, indeed, is the perfection of human life. But human, life is a system of actions: and: felicity gives completion to the actions.

Virtue also and fortune give completion to actions; virtue, indeed, according to use; but good fortune according to prosperity. God therefore is neither good through learning virtue from any one, nor is he happy through being attended by good fortune. For he is good by nature, and happy by nature, and always was and will be, and will never cease to be, such; since he is incorruptible, and naturally good. But man is neither happy nor good by nature, but requires discipline and providential care. And in order to become good, indeed; he requires virtue; but in order to become happy, good fortune. On this account, human felicity summarily consists of these two things, viz. of praise, and the predication of beatitude.

Of praise indeed, from virtue; but of the predication of beatitude, from prosperity. It possesses virtue therefore, through a divine destiny, but prosperity through a mortal allotment. But mortal are suspended from divine concerns, and terrestrial from such as are celestial. Things subordinate, also, are suspended from such as are more excellent. And on this account, the good man who follows the Gods is happy; but he who follows mortal natures is miserable. For to him who possesses wisdom, prosperity is good and useful. It is good, indeed, through his knowledge of the use of it; but it is useful, through his co-operating with actions. It is beautiful, therefore, when prosperity is present with intellect, and when sailing as it were with a prosperous wind, actions are performed looking to virtue; just as a pilot looks to the motions of the stars. For thus, he who does this will not only follow God, but will also co-arrange human with divine good.