(44) The same two steps, when referring to things of finer substance, are said to be with, or without, judicial action of the mind.

(103) Of which much were to be written, but [in the present book] you will find it more apprehensibly at the place concerning the creation: For there are to be found living testimonies enough, so that none need doubt whether the things be so or no.

(42) Hence I must show the Ground to them that seek; for the Doctor cannot show it him with his Anatomy, and though he should kill a thousand Men, yet he shall not find that [Ground. They only know that Ground,] that have qbeen upon it.

(6) Self-assertion comes from thinking of the Seer and the instrument of vision as forming one self.

(13) Through this, the inherent character, distinctive marks and conditions of being and powers, according to their development, are made clear.

(7) But this much is enough, since it is impossible for anyone to dispute the nature of the words I have just spoken about the blessed, imperishable, true God. Now, if anyone wants to believe the words set down (here), let him go from what is hidden to the end of what is visible, and this Thought will instruct him how faith in those things that are not visible was found in what is visible. This is a principle of knowledge.

(95) This I set down here only for a manuduction; you will find it demonstrated more at large concerning the creation of this world.

(51) To the wise, whose hearts are enlightened, The mere sound of that voice proves its truth." "When you say to a thirsty man, 'Come quickly; This is water in the cup, take and drink it,' Does the thirsty man say, 'This is a vain pretension; Go, remove yourself from me, O vain pretender, Or proceed to give proofs and evidence That this is generic water, and concrete water thereof'? Or when a mother cries to her sucking babe,

(2) Thus we have even here the means of knowing the nature of the Intellectual-Principle, though, seeing it more closely than anything else, we still see it at less than its worth. We know that it exists but its cause we do not see, or, if we do, we see that cause as something apart. We see a man- or an eye, if you like- but this is an image or part of an image; what is in that Principle is at once Man and the reason of his being; for There man- or eye- must be, itself, an intellective thing and a cause of its being; it could not exist at all unless it were that cause, whereas here, everything partial is separate and so is the cause of each. In the Intellectual, all is at one so that the thing is identical with the cause.

Even here the thing and its cause are often identical- an eclipse furnishes an example- what then is there to prevent other things too being identical with their cause and this cause being the essence of the thing? It must be so; and by this search after the cause the thing's essence is reached, for the essence of a thing is its cause. I am not here saying that the informing Idea is the cause of the thing- though this is true- but that the Idea itself, unfolded, reveals the cause inherent in it.

A thing of inactivity, even though alive, cannot include its own cause; but where could a Forming-Idea, a member of the Intellectual-Principle, turn in quest of its cause? We may be answered "In the Intellectual-Principle"; but the two are not distinct; the Idea is the Intellectual-Principle; and if that Principle must contain the Ideas complete, their cause must be contained in them. The Intellectual-Principle itself contains every cause of the things of its content; but these of its content are identically Intellectual-Principle, each of them Intellectual-Principle; none of them, thus, can lack its own cause; each springs into being carrying with it the reason of its being. No result of chance, each must rise complete with its cause; it is an integral and so includes the excellence bound up with the cause. This is how all participants in the Idea are put into possession of their cause.

In our universe, a coherent total of multiplicity, the several items are linked each to the other, and by the fact that it is an all every cause is included in it: even in the particular thing the part is discernibly related to the whole, for the parts do not come into being separately and successively but are mutually cause and caused at one and the same moment. Much more in the higher realm must all the singles exist for the whole and each for itself: if then that world is the conjoint reality of all, of an all not chance-ruled and not sectional, the cause There must include the causes: every item must hold, in its very nature, the uncaused possession of its cause; uncaused, independent and standing apart from cause, they must be self-contained, cause and all.

Further, since nothing There is chance-sprung, and the multiplicity in each comprehends the entire content, then the cause of every member can be named; the cause was present from the beginning, inherent, not a cause but a fact of the being; or, rather, cause and manner of being were one. What could an Idea have, as cause, over and above the Intellectual-Principle? It is a thought of that Principle and cannot, at that, be considered as anything but a perfect product. If it is thus perfect we cannot speak of anything in which it is lacking nor cite any reason for such lack. That thing must be present, and we can say why. The why is inherent, therefore, in the entity, that is to say in every thought and activity of the Intellectual-Principle. Take for example the Idea of Man; Man entire is found to contribute to it; he is in that Idea in all his fulness including everything that from the beginning belonged to Man. If Man were not complete There, so that there were something to be added to the Idea, that additional must belong to a derivative; but Man exists from eternity and must therefore be complete; the man born is the derivative.

(2) But indications of this theory worthy of notice may be mentioned, by which it is possible for you, and those who resemble you, to be conducted by intellect to the essence of [real] beings. And with respect to such things as become known by a reasoning process, we shall leave no one of these without a perfect demonstration. But in all things we shall give to each that which is appropriate. And such questions, indeed, as are theological, we shall answer theologically; such as are theurgic, theurgically; but such as are philosophical, we shall, in conjunction with you, philosophically explore. Of these, also, such as extend to first causes, we shall unfold into light, by following them conformably to first principles. But such as pertain to morals, or to ends, we shall fitly discuss, according to the ethical mode. And, in a similar manner, we shall examine other things methodically and appropriately. Let us, therefore, now betake ourselves to your inquiries.

(2) Thus we may not look for the Intellectual objects outside of the Intellectual-Principle, treating them as impressions of reality upon it: we cannot strip it of truth and so make its objects unknowable and non-existent and in the end annul the Intellectual-Principle itself. We must provide for knowledge and for truth; we must secure reality; being must become knowable essentially and not merely in that knowledge of quality which could give us a mere image or vestige of the reality in lieu of possession, intimate association, absorption.

The only way to this is to leave nothing out side of the veritable Intellectual-Principle which thus has knowledge in the true knowing , cannot forget, need not go wandering in search. At once truth is there, this is the seat of the authentic Existents, it becomes living and intellective: these are the essentials of that most lofty Principle; and, failing them, where is its worth, its grandeur?

Only thus is it dispensed from demonstration and from acts of faith in the truth of its knowledge: it is its entire self, self-perspicuous: it knows a prior by recognising its own source; it knows a sequent to that prior by its self-identity; of the reality of this sequent, of the fact that it is present and has authentic existence, no outer entity can bring it surer conviction.

Thus veritable truth is not accordance with an external; it is self-accordance; it affirms and is nothing other than itself and is nothing other; it is at once existence and self-affirmation. What external, then, can call it to the question, and from what source of truth could the refutation be brought? Any counter affirmation must fall into identity with the truth which first uttered itself; brought forward as new, it has to appear before the Principle which made the earlier statement and to show itself identical with that: for there is no finding anything truer than the true.

(3) the Sanctifying Intelligence, and is the basis of foundation of Primordial Wisdom, which is called the Former of faith, and its roots, Amen; and it is the parent of Faith, from which virtues doth Faith emanate.

(4) That they exist there only in belief, Upon the which is founded the high hope, And hence it takes the nature of a substance. And it behoveth us from this belief To reason without having other sight, And hence it has the nature of evidence." Then heard I: "If whatever is acquired Below by doctrine were thus understood, No sophist's subtlety would there find place." Thus was breathed forth from that enkindled love; Then added: "Very well has been gone over Already of this coin the alloy and weight; But tell me if thou hast it in thy purse?" And I: "Yes, both so shining and so round That in its stamp there is no peradventure." Thereafter issued from the light profound That there resplendent was: "This precious jewel, Upon the which is every virtue founded, Whence hadst thou it?" And I: "The large outpouring Of Holy Spirit, which has been diffused Upon the ancient parchments and the new, A syllogism is, which proved it to me With such acuteness, that, compared therewith, All demonstration seems to me obtuse."

(9) Thus by being set face to face in that detailed manner, those who are destined to be liberated will come to recognize [the Truth]; thereby many will attain Liberation.

(25) For you see, feel, and find, that all these must yet have a higher Root from whence they proceed, which is not visible, but hidden; especially if you look upon the starry Heaven which endures thus unchangeably; therefore you ought to consider from whence it is proceeded, and how it subsists thus, and is not corrupted, nor rises up above, nor falls down beneath, though indeed there is neither above nor beneath there. Now if you consider what preserves all thus, and whence it is, then you find the eternal Birth that has no Beginning, and you find the Original of the eternal Principle, viz. the eternal indissoluble Band: And then, secondly, you see the Separation, in that the material World, with the Stars and Elements, are out of the first Principle, which contains the outward and third Principle in it; for you find in the elementary Kingdom or Dominion, a Cause in every Thing, wherefore it is, generates, and moves as it does: But you find not the first Cause, from whence it is so: There are therefore stwo several Principles; for you find in the visible Things a Corruptibility, and perceive that they must have a Beginning, because they have an End.

(1) These same are what is known, what is to be known, and what is unknown. Whatever is known is a form of Speech, for Speech is known. Speech, having become this, helps him [L e. man].

(7) But Matter, it may be contended, is the source of existence to the Sensible things implanted in it. From what source, then, we retort, does Matter itself derive existence and being?

That Matter is not a Primary we have established elsewhere. If it be urged that other things can have no subsistence without being implanted in Matter, we admit the claim for Sensible things. But though Matter be prior to these, it is not thereby precluded from being posterior to many things-posterior, in fact, to all the beings of the Intellectual sphere. Its existence is but a pale reflection, and less complete than that of the things implanted in it. These are Reason-Principles and more directly derived from Being: Matter has of itself no Reason-Principle whatever; it is but a shadow of a Principle, a vain attempt to achieve a Principle.

But, our critic may pursue, Matter gives existence to the things implanted in it, just as Socrates gives existence to the whiteness implanted in himself? We reply that the higher being gives existence to the lower, the lower to the higher never.

But once concede that Form is higher in the scale of Being than Matter, and Matter can no longer be regarded as a common ground of both, nor Substance as a genus embracing Matter, Form and the Couplement. True, these will have many common properties, to which we have already referred, but their being will nonetheless be different. When a higher being comes into contact with a lower, the lower, though first in the natural order, is yet posterior in the scale of Reality: consequently, if Being does not belong in equal degrees to Matter, to Form and to the Couplement, Substance can no longer be common to all three in the sense of being their genus: to their posteriors it will bear a still different relation, serving them as a common base by being bound up with all alike. Substance, thus, resembles life, dim here, clearer there, or portraits of which one is an outline, another more minutely worked. By measuring Being by its dim manifestation and neglecting a fuller revelation elsewhere, we may come to regard this dim existence as a common ground.

But this procedure is scarcely permissible. Every being is a distinct whole. The dim manifestation is in no sense a common ground, just as there is no common ground in the vegetal, the sensory and the intellectual forms of life.

We conclude that the term "Being" must have different connotations as applied to Matter, to Form and to both conjointly, in spite of the single source pouring into the different streams.

Take a second derived from a first and a third from the second: it is not merely that the one will rank higher and its successor be poorer and of lower worth; there is also the consideration that, even deriving from the same source, one thing, subjected in a certain degree to fire, will give us an earthen jar, while another, taking less of the heat, does not produce the jar.

Perhaps we cannot even maintain that Matter and Form are derived from a single source; they are clearly in some sense different.

(2) In the first place, therefore, we shall divide the genera of the proposed problems, in order that we may know the quantity and quality of them. And, in the next place, we shall show from what theologies the doubts are assumed, and according to what sciences they are investigated. For some things that are badly confused, require a certain distinction; others are conversant with the cause through which they subsist, and are apprehended; others, which we propose according to a certain contrariety, draw our decision on both sides; and some things require from us the whole development of mystic doctrines. Such, therefore, being the nature of the subjects of discussion, they are assumed from many places, and from different sciences. For some things introduce animadversions from what the wise men of the Chaldeans have delivered; others produce objections from what the prophets of the Egyptians teach; and there are some that, adhering to the theory of philosophers, make inquiries conformably to them. There are now likewise some, that from other opinions, which do not deserve to be mentioned, elicite a certain dubitation; and others originate from the common conceptions of mankind. These things, therefore, are of themselves variously disposed, and are multiformly connected with each other. Hence, through all these causes, a certain discussion is requisite for the management of them in a becoming manner.

(36) If we would exactly and fundamentally know how, in the deep of this world, the birth or beginning is of the planets and stars, and of the essence of all beings, we must accurately consider the instant or innate birth, or the beginning of life, in man.

(510) but they begin with them, and go on until they arrive at last, and in a consistent manner, at their conclusion? Yes, he said, I know. And do you not know also that although they make use of the visible forms and reason about them, they are thinking not of these, but of the ideals which they resemble; not of the figures which they draw, but of the absolute square and the absolute diameter, and so on—the forms which they draw or make, and which have shadows and reflections in water of their own, are converted by them into images, but they are really seeking to behold the things themselves, which can only be seen with the eye of the mind? That is true. And of this kind I spoke as the intelligible, although in the search after it the soul is compelled to use hypotheses; not ascending to a first principle, because she is unable to rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and therefore a higher value.