(13) The relation of the cause sine qua non is held by the brass in reference to the production of the statue; and likewise it is a [true] cause. For everything without which the effect is incapable of being produced, is of necessity a cause; but a cause not absolutely. For the cause sine qua non is not Synectic, but Co-operative. And everything that acts produces the effect, in conjunction with the aptitude of that which is acted on. For the cause disposes. But each thing is affected according to its natural constitution; the aptitude being causative, and occupying the place of causes sine qua non. Accordingly, the cause is inefficacious without the aptitude; and is not a cause, but a co-efficient. For all causation is conceived in action. Now the earth could not make itself, so that it could not be the cause of itself. And it were ridiculous to say that the fire was not the cause of the burning, but the logs, - or the sword of the cutting, but the flesh, - or the strength of the antagonist the cause of the athlete being vanquished, but his own weakness.

(12) Besides, what does not hinder is separated from what takes place; but the cause is related to the event. That, therefore, which does not hinder cannot be a cause. Wherefore, then, it is accomplished, because that which can hinder is not present. Causation is then predicated in four ways: The efficient cause, as the statuary; and the material, as the brass; and the form, as the character; and the end, as the honour of the Gymnasiarch.

(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.

(7) The cause of things is predicated in a threefold manner. One, What the cause is, as the statuary; a second, Of what it is the cause of becoming, a statue; and a third, To what it is the cause, as, for example, the material: for he is the cause to the brass of becoming a statue. The being produced, and the being cut, which are causes to what they belong, being actions, are incorporeal.

(3) That which Timaeus argues of the soul Doth not resemble that which here is seen, Because it seems that as he speaks he thinks. He says the soul unto its star returns, Believing it to have been severed thence Whenever nature gave it as a form. Perhaps his doctrine is of other guise Than the words sound, and possibly may be With meaning that is not to be derided. If he doth mean that to these wheels return The honour of their influence and the blame, Perhaps his bow doth hit upon some truth. This principle ill understood once warped The whole world nearly, till it went astray Invoking Jove and Mercury and Mars. The other doubt which doth disquiet thee Less venom has, for its malevolence Could never lead thee otherwhere from me. That as unjust our justice should appear In eyes of mortals, is an argument Of faith, and not of sin heretical. But still, that your perception may be able To thoroughly penetrate this verity, As thou desirest, I will satisfy thee.

(1) Omitting, therefore, these things, we may reasonably adduce a second cause, assigned by you, of the above mentioned particulars: viz. “ that the soul says and imagines these things, and that they are the passions of it, excited from small incentives .” Neither, however, does nature possess these passions, nor does reason admit them. For every thing which is generated is generated from a certain cause, and that which is of a kindred nature derives its completion from a kindred nature. But a divine work is neither casual, for a thing of this kind is without a cause, and is not entirely arranged, nor is it produced by a human cause. For this is a thing foreign and subordinate; but that which is more perfect cannot be produced from the imperfect. All works, therefore, which have a similitude to divinity germinate from a divine cause. For the human soul is contained by one form, and is on all sides darkened by body, which he who denominates the river of Negligence, or the water of Oblivion, or ignorance and delirium, or a bond through passions, or the privation of life, or some other evil, will not by such appellations sufficiently express its turpitude.

(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.

(1) But neither must we admit that cause of the distinction of these genera which you subjoin, viz. “ that it is an arrangement with reference to different bodies; as, for instance, of Gods to etherial bodies, but of dæmons to aerial bodies, and of souls to such as are terrene .” For such an arrangement as this, which resembles that of Socrates to a tribe, when he is a senator, is unworthy of the divine genera, because all of them are essentially unrestrained and free. To which may be added, that it is dreadfully absurd to ascribe to bodies a principal power of giving a specific distinction to the first causes of themselves. For bodies are in servile subjection to these causes, and are ministrant to generation. And farther still, the genera of the more excellent natures are not in bodies, but the former externally rule over the latter. Hence they are not changed in conjunction with bodies. Again, they impart from themselves to bodies every such good as they are able to receive, but they themselves receive nothing from bodies; so that neither will they derive from them certain peculiarities.

(12) At this point I have just recollected the following. In the end of the Timoeus he says: "You must necessarily assimilate that which perceives to that which is perceived, according to its original nature; and it is by so assimilating it that you attain to the end of the highest life proposed by the gods to men, for the present or the future time." For those have equal power with these. He, who seeks, will not stop till he find; and having found, he will wonder; and wondering, he will reign; and reigning, he will rest. And what? Were not also those expressions of Thales derived from these? The fact that God is glorified for ever, and that He is expressly called by us the Searcher of hearts, he interprets. For Thales being asked, What is the divinity? said, What has neither beginning nor end. And on another asking, "If a man could elude the knowledge of the Divine Being while doing aught?" said, "How could he who cannot do so while thinking?"

(16) Every cause, apprehended by the mind as a cause, is occupied with something, and is conceived in relation to something; that is, some effect, as the sword for cutting; and to some object, as possessing an aptitude, as the fire to the wood. For it will not burn steel. The cause belongs to the things which have relation to something. For it is conceived in its relation to another thing. So that we apply our minds to the two, that we may conceive the cause as a cause.

(2) For, let “ ignorance and deception be error and impiety ,” yet it does not follow that, on this account, things which are offered to the Gods, and divine works, are false. For a conception of the mind does not conjoin theurgists with the Gods; since, if this were the case, what would hinder those who philosophize theoretically, from having a theurgic union with the Gods? Now, however, in reality, this is not the case. For the perfect efficacy of ineffable works, which are divinely performed in a way surpassing all intelligence, and the power of inexplicable symbols, which are known only to the Gods, impart theurgic union. Hence, we do not perform these things through intellectual perception; since, if this were the case, the intellectual energy of them would be imparted by us; neither of which is true. For when we do not energize intellectually, the synthemata themselves perform by themselves their proper work, and the ineffable power of the Gods itself knows, by itself, its own images. It does not, however, know them, as if excited by our intelligence; for neither is it natural that things which comprehend should be excited by those that are comprehended, nor perfect by imperfect natures, nor wholes by parts. Hence, neither are divine causes precedaneously called into energy by our intellections; but it is requisite to consider these, and all the best dispositions of the soul, and also the purity pertaining to us, as certain concauses; the things which properly excite the divine will being divine synthemata themselves. And thus, things pertaining to the Gods, are moved by themselves, and do not receive from any inferior nature a certain principle in themselves of their own proper energy.

(1) I do not know, O excellent Titus, whether the holy Timothy departed, deaf to some of the theological symbols which were explained by me. But, in the Symbolic Theology, we have thoroughly investigated for him all the expressions of the Oracles concerning God, which appear to the multitude to be monstrous. For they give a colour of incongruity dreadful to the uninitiated souls, when the Fathers of the unutterable wisdom explain the Divine and Mystical Truth, unapproachable by the profane, through certain, certainly hidden and daring enigmas. Wherefore also, the many discredit the expressions concerning the Divine Mysteries. For, we contemplate them only through the sensible symbols that have grown upon them. We must then strip them, and view them by themselves in their naked purity. For, thus contemplating them, we should reverence a fountain of Life flowing into Itself--viewing It even standing by Itself, and as a kind of single power, simple, self-moved, and self-worked, not abandoning Itself, but a knowledge surpassing every kind of knowledge, and always contemplating Itself, through Itself. We thought it necessary then, both for him and for others, that we should, as far as possible, unfold the varied forms of the Divine" representations of God in symbols. For, with what incredible and simulated monstrosities are its external, forms filled? For instance, with regard to the superessential Divine generation, representing a body of God corporally generating God; and describing a word flowing out into air from a man's heart, which eructates it, and a breath, breathed forth from a mouth; and celebrating God-bearing bosoms embracing a son of God, bodily; or representing these things after the manner of plants, and producing certain trees, and branches, and flowers and roots, as examples; or fountains of waters y, bubbling forth; or seductive light productions of reflected splendours; or certain other sacred representations which explain superessential descriptions of God; but with regard to the intelligible providences of Almighty God, either gifts, manifestations, or powers, or properties, or repose, or abidings, or progressions, or distinctions, or unions, clothing Almighty God in human form, and in the varied shape of wild beasts and other living creatures, and plants, and stones; and attributing to Him ornaments of women, or weapons of savages; and assigning working in clay, and in a furnace, as it were to a sort of artisan; and placing under Him, horses and chariots and thrones; and spreading before Him certain dainty meats delicately cooked; and representing Him as drinking, and drunken, and sleeping, and suffering from excess. What would any one say concerning the angers, the griefs, the various oaths, the repentances, the curses, the revenges, the manifold and dubious excuses for the failure of promises, the battle of giants in Genesis, during which He is said to scheme against those powerful and great men, and this when they were contriving the building, not with a view to injustice towards other people, but on behalf of their own safety? And that counsel devised in heaven to deceive and mislead Achab; and those mundane and meritricious passions of the Canticles; and all the other sacred compositions which appear in the description of God, which stick at nothing, as projections, and multiplications of hidden things, and divisions of things one and undivided, and formative and manifold forms of the shapeless and unformed; of which, if any one were able to see their inner hidden beauty, he will find every one of them mystical and Godlike, and filled with abundant theological light. For let us not think, that the appearances of the compositions have been formed for their own sake, but that they shield the science unutterable and invisible to the multitude, since things all-holy are not within the reach of the profane, but are manifested to those only who are genuine lovers of piety, who reject all childish fancy respecting the holy symbols, and are capable to pass with simplicity of mind, and aptitude of contemplative faculty, to the simple and supernatural and elevated truth of the symbols. Besides, we must also consider this, that the teaching, handed down by the Theologians is two-fold--one, secret and mystical--the other, open and better known--one, symbolical and initiative--the other, philosophic and demonstrative;--and the unspoken is intertwined with the spoken. The one persuades, and desiderates the truth of the things expressed, the other acts and implants in Almighty God, by instructions in mysteries not learnt by teaching. And certainly, neither our holy instructors, nor those of the law, abstain from the God-befitting symbols, throughout the celebrations of the most holy mysteries. Yea, we see even the most holy Angels, mystically advancing things Divine through enigmas; and Jesus Himself, speaking the word of God in parables, and transmitting the divinely wrought mysteries, through a typical spreading of a table. For, it was seemly, not only that the Holy of holies should be preserved undefiled by the multitude, but also that the Divine knowledge should illuminate the human life, which is at once indivisible and divisible, in a manner suitable to itself; and to limit the passionless part of the soul to the simple, and most inward visions of the most godlike images; but that its impassioned part should wait upon, and, at the same time, strive after, the most Divine coverings, through the pre-arranged representations of the typical symbols, as such (coverings) are, by nature, congenial to it. And all those who are hearers of a distinct theology without symbols, weave in themselves a sort of type, which conducts them to the conception of the aforesaid theology.

(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.

(34) For ourselves, while whatever in us belongs to the body of the All should be yielded to its action, we ought to make sure that we submit only within limits, realizing that the entire man is not thus bound to it: intelligent servitors yield a part of themselves to their masters but in part retain their personality, and are thus less absolutely at beck and call, as not being slaves, not utterly chattels.

The changing configurations within the All could not fail to be produced as they are, since the moving bodies are not of equal speed.

Now the movement is guided by a Reason-Principle; the relations of the living whole are altered in consequence; here in our own realm all that happens reacts in sympathy to the events of that higher sphere: it becomes, therefore, advisable to ask whether we are to think of this realm as following upon the higher by agreement, or to attribute to the configurations the powers underlying the events, and whether such powers would be vested in the configurations simply or in the relations of the particular items.

It will be said that one position of one given thing has by no means an identical effect- whether of indication or of causation- in its relation to another and still less to any group of others, since each several being seems to have a natural tendency of its own.

The truth is that the configuration of any given group means merely the relationship of the several parts, and, changing the members, the relationship remains the same.

But, this being so, the power will belong, not to the positions but to the beings holding those positions?

To both taken together. For as things change their relations, and as any one thing changes place, there is a change of power.

But what power? That of causation or of indication?

To this double thing- the particular configuration of particular beings- there accrues often the twofold power, that of causation and that of indication, but sometimes only that of indication. Thus we are obliged to attribute powers both to the configuration and to the beings entering into them. In mime dancers each of the hands has its own power, and so with all the limbs; the relative positions have much power; and, for a third power, there is that of the accessories and concomitants; underlying the action of the performers' limbs, there are such items as the clutched fingers and the muscles and veins following suit.

(3) For the theft which reached men then, had some advantage; not that he who perpetrated the theft had utility in his eye, but Providence directed the issue of the audacious deed to utility. I know that many are perpetually assailing us with the allegation, that not to prevent a thing happening, is to be the cause of it happening. For they say, that the man who does not take precaution against a theft, or does not prevent it, is the cause of it: as he is the cause of the conflagration who has not quenched it at the beginning; and the master of the vessel who does not reef the sail, is the cause of the shipwreck. Certainly those who are the causes of such events are punished by the law. For to him who had power to prevent, attaches the blame of what happens. We say to them, that causation is seen in doing, working, acting; but the not preventing is in this respect inoperative. Further, causation attaches to activity; as in the case of the shipbuilder in relation to the origin of the vessel, and the builder in relation to the construction of the house. But that which does not prevent is separated from what takes place. Wherefore the effect will be accomplished; because that which could have prevented neither acts nor prevents. For what activity does that which prevents not exert? Now their assertion is reduced to absurdity, if they shall say that the cause of the wound is not the dart, but the shield, which did not prevent the dart from passing through; and if they blame not the thief, but the man who did not prevent the theft. Let them then say, that it was not Hector that burned the ships of the Greeks, but Achilles; because, having the power to prevent Hector, he did not prevent him; but out of anger (and it depended on himself to be angry or not) did not keep back the fire, and was a concurring cause. Now the devil, being possessed of free-will, was able both to repent and to steal; and it was he who was the author of the theft, not the Lord, who did not prevent him. But neither was the gift hurtful, so as to require that prevention should intervene.

(344) Is the attempt to determine the way of man’s life so small a matter in your eyes—to determine how life may be passed by each one of us to the greatest advantage? And do I differ from you, he said, as to the importance of the enquiry? You appear rather, I replied, to have no care or thought about us, Thrasymachus—whether we live better or worse from not knowing what you say you know, is to you a matter of indifference. Prithee, friend, do not keep your knowledge to yourself; we are a large party; and any benefit which you confer upon us will be amply rewarded. For my own part I openly declare that I am not convinced, and that I do not believe injustice to be more gainful than justice, even if uncontrolled and allowed to have free play. For, granting that there may be an unjust man who is able to commit injustice either by fraud or force, still this does not convince me of the superior advantage of injustice, and there may be others who are in the same predicament with myself. Perhaps we may be wrong; if so, you in your wisdom should convince us that we are mistaken in preferring justice to injustice. And how am I to convince you, he said, if you are not already convinced by what I have just said; what more can I do for you? Would you have me put the proof bodily into your souls? Heaven forbid! I said; I would only ask you to be consistent; or, if you change, change openly and let there be no deception. For I must remark, Thrasymachus, if you will

(381) Then everything which is good, whether made by art or nature, or both, is least liable to suffer change from without? True. But surely God and the things of God are in every way perfect? Of course they are. Then he can hardly be compelled by external influence to take many shapes? He cannot. But may he not change and transform himself? Clearly, he said, that must be the case if he is changed at all. And will he then change himself for the better and fairer, or for the worse and more unsightly? If he change at all he can only change for the worse, for we cannot suppose him to be deficient either in virtue or beauty. Very true, Adeimantus; but then, would any one, whether God or man, desire to make himself worse? Impossible. Then it is impossible that God should ever be willing to change; being, as is supposed, the fairest and best that is conceivable, every God remains absolutely and for ever in his own form. That necessarily follows, he said, in my judgment. Then, I said, my dear friend, let none of the poets tell us that ‘The gods, taking the disguise of strangers from other lands, walk up and down cities in all sorts of forms 13 ;’ and let no one slander Proteus and Thetis, neither let any one, either in tragedy or in any other kind of poetry, introduce Here disguised in the likeness of a priestess asking an alms ‘For the life-giving daughters of Inachus the river of Argos;’

(368) Seeing then, I said, that we are no great wits, I think that we had better adopt a method which I may illustrate thus; suppose that a short-sighted person had been asked by some one to read small letters from a distance; and it occurred to some one else that they might be found in another place which was larger and in which the letters were larger—if they were the same and he could read the larger letters first, and then proceed to the lesser—this would have been thought a rare piece of good fortune. Very true, said Adeimantus; but how does the illustration apply to our enquiry? I will tell you, I replied; justice, which is the subject of our enquiry, is, as you know, sometimes spoken of as the virtue of an individual, and sometimes as the virtue of a State. True, he replied. And is not a State larger than an individual? It is. Then in the larger the quantity of justice is likely to be larger and more easily discernible. I propose therefore that we enquire into the nature of justice and injustice, first as they appear in the State, and secondly in the individual, proceeding from the greater to the lesser and comparing them. That, he said, is an excellent proposal. And if we imagine the State in process of creation, we shall see the justice and injustice of the State in process of creation also. I dare say. When the State is completed there may be a hope that the object of our search will be more easily discovered.

(367) we shall think that you are only exhorting us to keep injustice dark, and that you really agree with Thrasymachus in thinking that justice is another’s good and the interest of the stronger, and that injustice is a man’s own profit and interest, though injurious to the weaker. Now as you have admitted that justice is one of that highest class of goods which are desired indeed for their results, but in a far greater degree for their own sakes—like sight or hearing or knowledge or health, or any other real and natural and not merely conventional good—I would ask you in your praise of justice to regard one point only: I mean the essential good and evil which justice and injustice work in the possessors of them. Let others praise justice and censure injustice, magnifying the rewards and honours of the one and abusing the other; that is a manner of arguing which, coming from them, I am ready to tolerate, but from you who have spent your whole life in the consideration of this question, unless I hear the contrary from your own lips, I expect something better. And therefore, I say, not only prove to us that justice is better than injustice, but show what they either of them do to the possessor of them, which makes the one to be a good and the other an evil, whether seen or unseen by gods and men. I had always admired the genius of Glaucon and Adeimantus, but on hearing these words I was quite delighted, and said:

(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.