(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.

(4) All such doubts as these, however, which are adduced foreign to the purpose, and tend from contraries to contraries, we do not consider as pertinent to the present hypothesis. Hence, as we have shown the unappropriateness of them, we do not think it requisite to discuss them any further, because they are contentiously introduced, and not with philosophical investigation.

(2) Now the reasoning faculty which undertakes this problem is not a unity but a thing of parts; it brings the bodily nature into the enquiry, borrowing its principles from the corporeal: thus it thinks of the Essential Existence as corporeal and as a thing of parts; it baulks at the unity because it does not start from the appropriate principles. We, however, must be careful to bring the appropriately convincing principles to the discussion of the Unity, of perfect Being: we must hold to the Intellectual principles which alone apply to the Intellectual Order and to Real Being.

On the one hand there is the unstable, exposed to all sorts of change, distributed in place, not so much Being as Becoming: on the other, there is that which exists eternally, not divided, subject to no change of state, neither coming into being nor falling from it, set in no region or place or support, emerging from nowhere, entering into nothing, fast within itself.

In dealing with that lower order we would reason from its own nature and the characteristics it exhibits; thus, on a plausible foundation, we achieve plausible results by a plausible system of deduction: similarly, in dealing with the Intellectual, the only way is to grasp the nature of the essence concerned and so lay the sure foundations of the argument, not forgetfully straying over into that other order but basing our treatment on what is essential to the Nature with which we deal.

In every entity the essential nature is the governing principle and, as we are told, a sound definition brings to light many even of the concomitants: where the essential nature is the entire being, we must be all the more careful to keep to that, to look to that, to refer all to that.

(42) In case the opposite of a thing is not known to us, because it has not as yet been discovered by or made known to us, nevertheless in such case we are fully justified in ascribing to the unknown opposite the qualities and characteristics diametrically opposed to the known opposite. The rule is this: "Whatever is affirmed of one of a pair of opposites must be denied to the other"; and " whatever is denied to the one, must be affirmed of the other." So true and infallible is this rule that it may be applied and employed as the basis of logical reasoning from the known to the unknown, for the purpose of discovering the latter.

(25) There are those who lay down four categories and make a fourfold division into Substrates, Qualities, States, and Relative States, and find in these a common Something, and so include everything in one genus.

Against this theory there is much to be urged, but particularly against this posing of a common Something and a single all-embracing genus. This Something, it may be submitted, is unintelligible to themselves, is indefinable, and does not account either for bodies or for the bodiless. Moreover, no room is left for a differentia by which this Something may be distinguished. Besides, this common Something is either existent or non-existent: if existent, it must be one or other of its species;- if non-existent, the existent is classed under the non-existent. But the objections are countless; we must leave them for the present and consider the several heads of the division.

To the first genus are assigned Substrates, including Matter, to which is given a priority over the others; so that what is ranked as the first principle comes under the same head with things which must be posterior to it since it is their principle.

First, then: the prior is made homogeneous with the subsequent. Now this is impossible: in this relation the subsequent owes its existence to the prior, whereas among things belonging to one same genus each must have, essentially, the equality implied by the genus; for the very meaning of genus is to be predicated of the species in respect of their essential character. And that Matter is the basic source of all the rest of things, this school, we may suppose, would hardly deny.

Secondly: since they treat the Substrate as one thing, they do not enumerate the Existents; they look instead for principles of the Existents. There is however a difference between speaking of the actual Existents and of their principles.

If Matter is taken to be the only Existent, and all other things as modifications of Matter, it is not legitimate to set up a single genus to embrace both the Existent and the other things; consistency requires that Being be distinguished from its modifications and that these modifications be duly classified.

Even the distinction which this theory makes between Substrates and the rest of things is questionable. The Substrate is one thing and admits of no differentia- except perhaps in so far as it is split up like one mass into its various parts; and yet not even so, since the notion of Being implies continuity: it would be better, therefore, to speak of the Substrate, in the singular.

(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.

(533) Dear Glaucon, I said, you will not be able to follow me here, though I would do my best, and you should behold not an image only but the absolute truth, according to my notion. Whether what I told you would or would not have been a reality I cannot venture to say; but you would have seen something like reality; of that I am confident. Doubtless, he replied. But I must also remind you, that the power of dialectic alone can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences. Of that assertion you may be as confident as of the last. And assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending by any regular process all true existence or of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature; for the arts in general are concerned with the desires or opinions of men, or are cultivated with a view to production and construction, or for the preservation of such productions and constructions; and as to the mathematical sciences which, as we were saying, have some apprehension of true being—geometry and the like—they only dream about being, but never can they behold the waking reality so long as they leave the hypotheses which they use unexamined, and are unable to give an account of them. For when a man knows not his own first principle, and when the conclusion and intermediate steps are also constructed out of he knows not what, how can he imagine that such a fabric of convention can ever become science? Impossible, he said. Then dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypotheses in order to make her ground secure; the eye of

(1) Philosophy at a very early stage investigated the number and character of the Existents. Various theories resulted: some declared for one Existent, others for a finite number, others again for an infinite number, while as regards the nature of the Existents- one, numerically finite, or numerically infinite- there was a similar disagreement. These theories, in so far as they have been adequately examined by later workers, may be passed over here; our attention must be directed upon the results of those whose examination has led them to posit on their awn account certain well-defined genera.

These thinkers rejected pure unity on the ground of the plurality observed even in the Intellectual world; they rejected an infinite number as not reconcilable with the facts and as defying knowledge: considering the foundations of being to be "genera" rather than elements strictly so called, they concluded for a finite number. Of these "genera" some found ten, others less, others no doubt more.

But here again there is a divergence of views. To some the genera are first-principles; to others they indicate only a generic classification of the Existents themselves.

Let us begin with the well-known tenfold division of the Existents, and consider whether we are to understand ten genera ranged under the common name of Being, or ten categories. That the term Being has not the same sense in all ten is rightly maintained.

But a graver problem confronts us at the outset: Are the ten found alike in the Intellectual and in the Sensible realms? Or are all found in the Sensible and some only in the Intellectual? All in the Intellectual and some in the Sensible is manifestly impossible.

At this point it would be natural to investigate which of the ten belong to both spheres, and whether the Existents of the Intellectual are to be ranged under one and the same genus with the Existents in the Sensible, or whether the term "Existence" is equivocal as applied to both realms. If the equivocation exists, the number of genera will be increased: if there is no equivocation, it is strange to find the one same "Existence" applying to the primary and to the derivative Existents when there is no common genus embracing both primal and secondary.

These thinkers are however not considering the Intellectual realm in their division, which was not intended to cover all the Existents; the Supreme they overlooked.

(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.

(14) For I must needs say that their scheme of formulation is my master; from it I have the first elements of my knowledge, and it is not my purpose to controvert or amend their formulae (for I cannot do it, neither have I learned them), but rather leave them where they are.

(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.

(4) But this science, this Dialectic essential to all the three classes alike, what, in sum, is it?

It is the Method, or Discipline, that brings with it the power of pronouncing with final truth upon the nature and relation of things- what each is, how it differs from others, what common quality all have, to what Kind each belongs and in what rank each stands in its Kind and whether its Being is Real-Being, and how many Beings there are, and how many non-Beings to be distinguished from Beings.

Dialectic treats also of the Good and the not-Good, and of the particulars that fall under each, and of what is the Eternal and what the not Eternal- and of these, it must be understood, not by seeming-knowledge but with authentic science.

All this accomplished, it gives up its touring of the realm of sense and settles down in the Intellectual Kosmos and there plies its own peculiar Act: it has abandoned all the realm of deceit and falsity, and pastures the Soul in the "Meadows of Truth": it employs the Platonic division to the discernment of the Ideal-Forms, of the Authentic-Existence and of the First-Kinds : it establishes, in the light of Intellection, the unity there is in all that issues from these Firsts, until it has traversed the entire Intellectual Realm: then, resolving the unity into the particulars once more, it returns to the point from which it starts.

Now rests: instructed and satisfied as to the Being in that sphere, it is no longer busy about many things: it has arrived at Unity and it contemplates: it leaves to another science all that coil of premisses and conclusions called the art of reasoning, much as it leaves the art of writing: some of the matter of logic, no doubt, it considers necessary- to clear the ground- but it makes itself the judge, here as in everything else; where it sees use, it uses; anything it finds superfluous, it leaves to whatever department of learning or practice may turn that matter to account.

(6) The theorems of philosophy are to be enjoyed as much as possible, as if they were ambrosia and nectar . For the pleasure arising from them is genuine, incorruptible, and divine. They are also capable of producing magnanimity; and though they cannot make us eternal beings, yet they enable us to obtain a scientific knowledge of eternal natures.

(20) We may thus distinguish two phases of Intellect, in one of which it may be taken as having no contact whatever with particulars and no Act upon anything; thus it is kept apart from being a particular intellect. In the same way science is prior to any of its constituent species, and the specific science is prior to any of its component parts: being none of its particulars, it is the potentiality of all; each particular, on the other hand, is actually itself, but potentially the sum of all the particulars: and as with the specific science, so with science as a whole. The specific sciences lie in potentiality in science the total; even in their specific character they are potentially the whole; they have the whole predicated of them and not merely a part of the whole. At the same time, science must exist as a thing in itself, unharmed by its divisions.

So with Intellect. Intellect as a whole must be thought of as prior to the intellects actualized as individuals; but when we come to the particular intellects, we find that what subsists in the particulars must be maintained from the totality. The Intellect subsisting in the totality is a provider for the particular intellects, is the potentiality of them: it involves them as members of its universality, while they in turn involve the universal Intellect in their particularity, just as the particular science involves science the total.

The great Intellect, we maintain, exists in itself and the particular intellects in themselves; yet the particulars are embraced in the whole, and the whole in the particulars. The particular intellects exist by themselves and in another, the universal by itself and in those. All the particulars exist potentially in that self-existent universal, which actually is the totality, potentially each isolated member: on the other hand, each particular is actually what it is , potentially the totality. In so far as what is predicated of them is their essence, they are actually what is predicated of them; but where the predicate is a genus, they are that only potentially. On the other hand, the universal in so far as it is a genus is the potentiality of all its subordinate species, though none of them in actuality; all are latent in it, but because its essential nature exists in actuality before the existence of the species, it does not submit to be itself particularized. If then the particulars are to exist in actuality- to exist, for example, as species- the cause must lie in the Act radiating from the universal.

(9) "There is nothing under the canopy of heaven greater than the tip of an autumn spikelet. A vast mountain is a small thing. Neither is there any age greater than that of a child cut off in infancy. P'êng Tsu himself died young. The universe and I came into being together; and I, and everything therein, are One. "If then all things are One, what room is there for Speech? On the other hand, since I can utter these words, how can Speech not exist? "If it does exist, we have One and Speech = two; and two and one = three. From which point onwards even the best mathematicians will fail to reach: how much more then will ordinary people fail? "Hence, if from nothing you can proceed to something, and subsequently reach three, it follows that it would be still more easy if you were to start from something. To avoid such progression, you must put yourself into subjective relation with the external. "Before conditions existed, Tao was. Before definitions existed, Speech was. Subjectively, we are conscious of certain delimitations which are,— Right and Left Relationship and Obligation Division and Discrimination Emulation and Contention These are called the Eight Predicables. For the true Sage, beyond the limits of an external world, they exist, but are not recognised. By the true Sage, within the limits of an external world, they are recognised, but are not assigned. And so, with regard to the wisdom of the ancients, as embodied in the canon of Spring and Autumn, the true Sage assigns, but does not justify by argument. And thus, classifying he does not classify; arguing, he does not argue." "How can that be?" asked Tzŭ Yu.

(15) The further question, therefore, is raised whether boundlessness and indetermination are things lodging in something other than themselves as a sort of attribute and whether Privation is also an attribute residing in some separate substratum.

Now all that is Number and Reason-Principle is outside of boundlessness: these bestow bound and settlement and order in general upon all else: neither anything that has been brought under order nor any Order-Absolute is needed to bring them under order. The thing that has to be brought under order is other than the Ordering Principle which is Limit and Definiteness and Reason-Principle. Therefore, necessarily, the thing to be brought under order and to definiteness must be in itself a thing lacking delimitation.

Now Matter is a thing that is brought under order- like all that shares its nature by participation or by possessing the same principle- therefore, necessarily, Matter is The Undelimited and not merely the recipient of a nonessential quality of Indefiniteness entering as an attribute.

For, first, any attribute to any subject must be a Reason-Principle; and Indefiniteness is not a Reason-Principle.

Secondly, what must a thing be to take Indefiniteness as an attribute? Obviously it must, beforehand, be either Definiteness or a defined thing. But Matter is neither.

Then again Indefiniteness entering as an attribute into the definite must cease to be indefinite: but Indefiniteness has not entered as an attribute into Matter: that is, Matter is essentially Indefiniteness.

The Matter even of the Intellectual Realm is the Indefinite, ; it must be a thing generated by the undefined nature, the illimitable nature, of the Eternal Being, The One illimitableness, however, not possessing native existence There but engendered by The One.

But how can Matter be common to both spheres, be here and be There?

Because even Indefiniteness has two phases.

But what difference can there be between phase and phase of Indefiniteness?

The difference of archetype and image.

So that Matter here would be less indefinite?

On the contrary, more indefinite as an Image-thing remote from true being. Indefiniteness is the greater in the less ordered object; the less deep in good, the deeper in evil. The Indeterminate in the Intellectual Realm, where there is truer being, might almost be called merely an Image of Indefiniteness: in this lower Sphere where there is less Being, where there is a refusal of the Authentic, and an adoption of the Image-Kind, Indefiniteness is more authentically indefinite.

But this argument seems to make no difference between the indefinite object and Indefiniteness-essential. Is there none?

In any object in which Reason and Matter co-exist we distinguish between Indeterminateness and the Indeterminate subject: but where Matter stands alone we make them identical, or, better, we would say right out that in that case essential Indeterminateness is not present; for it is a Reason-Principle and could not lodge in the indeterminate object without at once annulling the indeterminateness.

Matter, then, must be described as Indefinite of itself, by its natural opposition to Reason-Principle. Reason is Reason and nothing else; just so Matter, opposed by its indeterminateness to Reason, is Indeterminateness and nothing else.

(511) they start from hypotheses and do not ascend to a principle, those who contemplate them appear to you not to exercise the higher reason upon them, although when a first principle is added to them they are cognizable by the higher reason. And the habit which is concerned with geometry and the cognate sciences I suppose that you would term understanding and not reason, as being intermediate between opinion and reason. You have quite conceived my meaning, I said; and now, corresponding to these four divisions, let there be four faculties in the soul—reason answering to the highest, understanding to the second, faith (or conviction) to the third, and perception of shadows to the last—and let there be a scale of them, and let us suppose that the several faculties have clearness in the same degree that their objects have truth. I understand, he replied, and give my assent, and accept your arrangement.

(5) Those to whom existence comes about by chance and automatic action and is held together by material forces have drifted far from God and from the concept of unity; we are not here addressing them but only such as accept another nature than body and have some conception of soul.

Soul must be sounded to the depths, understood as an emanation from Intellectual-Principle and as holding its value by a Reason-Principle thence infused. Next this Intellect must be apprehended, an Intellect other than the reasoning faculty known as the rational principle; with reasoning we are already in the region of separation and movement: our sciences are Reason-Principles lodged in soul or mind, having manifestly acquired their character by the presence in the soul of Intellectual-Principle, source of all knowing.

Thus we come to see Intellectual-Principle almost as an object of sense: the Intellectual Kosmos is perceptible as standing above soul, father to soul: we know Intellectual-Principle as the motionless, not subject to change, containing, we must think, all things; a multiple but at once indivisible and comporting difference. It is not discriminate as are the Reason-Principles, which can in fact be known one by one: yet its content is not a confusion; every item stands forth distinctly, just as in a science the entire content holds as an indivisible and yet each item is a self-standing verity.

Now a plurality thus concentrated like the Intellectual Kosmos is close upon The First- and reason certifies its existence as surely as that of soul- yet, though of higher sovereignty than soul, it is not The First since it is not a unity, not simplex as unity, principle over all multiplicity, must be.

Before it there is That which must transcend the noblest of the things of Being: there must be a prior to this Principle which aiming towards unity is yet not unity but a thing in unity's likeness. From this highest it is not sundered; it too is self-present: so close to the unity, it cannot be articulated: and yet it is a principle which in some measure has dared secession.

That awesome Prior, The Unity, is not a being, for so its unity would be vested in something else: strictly no name is apt to it, but since name it we must there is a certain rough fitness in designating it as unity with the understanding that it is not the unity of some other thing.

Thus it eludes our knowledge, so that the nearer approach to it is through its offspring, Being: we know it as cause of existence to Intellectual-Principle, as fount of all that is best, as the efficacy which, self-perduring and undiminishing, generates all beings and is not to be counted among these its derivatives, to all of which it must be prior.

This we can but name The Unity, indicating it to each other by a designation that points to the concept of its partlessness while we are in reality striving to bring our own minds to unity. We are not to think of such unity and partlessness as belong to point or monad; the veritable unity is the source of all such quantity which could not exist unless first there existed Being and Being's Prior: we are not, then, to think in the order of point and monad but to use these- in their rejection of magnitude and partition- as symbols for the higher concept.

(2) But to halt at these nearest determinants, not to be willing to penetrate deeper, indicates a sluggish mind, a dullness to all that calls us towards the primal and transcendent causes.

How comes it that the same surface causes produce different results? There is moonshine, and one man steals and the other does not: under the influence of exactly similar surroundings one man falls sick and the other keeps well; an identical set of operations makes one rich and leaves another poor. The differences amongst us in manners, in characters, in success, force us to go still further back.

Men therefore have never been able to rest at the surface causes.

One school postulates material principles, such as atoms; from the movement, from the collisions and combinations of these, it derives the existence and the mode of being of all particular phenomena, supposing that all depends upon how these atoms are agglomerated, how they act, how they are affected; our own impulses and states, even, are supposed to be determined by these principles.

Such teaching, then, obtrudes this compulsion, an atomic Anagke, even upon Real Being. Substitute, for the atoms, any other material entities as principles and the cause of all things, and at once Real Being becomes servile to the determination set up by them.

Others rise to the first-principle of all that exists and from it derive all they tell of a cause penetrating all things, not merely moving all but making each and everything; but they pose this as a fate and a supremely dominating cause; not merely all else that comes into being, but even our own thinking and thoughts would spring from its movement, just as the several members of an animal move not at their own choice but at the dictation of the leading principle which animal life presupposes.

Yet another school fastens on the universal Circuit as embracing all things and producing all by its motion and by the positions and mutual aspect of the planets and fixed stars in whose power of foretelling they find warrant for the belief that this Circuit is the universal determinant.

Finally, there are those that dwell on the interconnection of the causative forces and on their linked descent- every later phenomenon following upon an earlier, one always leading back to others by which it arose and without which it could not be, and the latest always subservient to what went before them- but this is obviously to bring in fate by another path. This school may be fairly distinguished into two branches; a section which makes all depend upon some one principle and a section which ignores such a unity.

Of this last opinion we will have something to say, but for the moment we will deal with the former, taking the others in their turn.

(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].