Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato

by Thomas Taylor

From this truly ineffable principle, exempt from all essence, power, and energy, a multitude of divine natures, according to Plato, immediately proceeds. That this must necessarily be the case, will be admitted by the reader who understands what has been already discussed, and is fully demonstrated by Plato in the Parmenides, as will be evident to the intelligent from the notes on that Dialogue. In addition therefore to what I have staid on this subject, I shall further observe at present that this doctrine, which is founded in the sublimest and most scientific conceptions of the human mind, may be clearly shown to be a legitimate dogma of Plato from what is asserted by him in the sixth book of his Republic. For he there affirms, in the most clear and unequivocal terms, that the good, or the ineffable principle of things is superessential, and shows by the analogy of the sun to the good, that what light and sight are in the visible, that truth and intelligence are in the intelligible world. As light therefore, immediately proceeds from the sun, and wholly subsists according to a solar idiom or property, so truth or the immediate progeny of the good, must subsist according to a superessential idiom. And as the good, according to Plato, is the same with the one, as is evident from the Parmenides, the immediate progeny of the one will be the same as that of the good. But, the immediate offspring of the one cannot be any thing else than unities. And, hence we necessarily infer that according to Plato, the immediate offspring of the ineffable principle of things are superessential unities. They differ however from their immense principle in this, that he is superessential and ineffable, without any addition; but this divine multitude is participated by the several orders of being, which are suspended from and produced by it. Hence, in consequence of being connected with multitude through this participation, they are necessarily subordinate to the one.

No less admirably, therefore, than Platonically does Simplicius, in his Commentary of Epictetus, observe on this subject as follows: "The fountain and principle of all things is the good: for that which all things desire, and to which all things are extended, is the principle and the end of all things. The good also produces from itself all things, first, middle, and last. But it produces such as are first and proximate to itself, similar to itself; one goodness, many goodnesses, one simplicity and unity which transcends all others, many, unities, and one principle many principles. For the one, the principle, the good, and deity, are the same: for deity is the first and the cause of all things. But it is necessary that the first should also be most simple; since whatever is a composite and has multitude is posterior to the one. And multitude and things, which are not good desire the good as being above them: and in short, that which is not itself the principle is from the principle.

But it is also necessary that the principle of all things should possess the highest, and all, power. For the amplitude of power consists in producing all things from itself, and in giving subsistence to similars, prior to things which are dissimilar. Hence the one principle produces many principles, many simplicities, and many goodnesses, proximately from itself. For since all things differ from each other, and are multiplied with their proper differences, each of these multitudes is suspended from its one proper principle. Thus, for instance, all beautiful things, whatever and wherever they may be, whether in souls or in bodies, are suspended from one fountain of beauty. Thus too, whatever possesses symmetry, and whatever is true, and all principles, are in a certain respect, connate with the first principle, so far as they are principles and fountains and goodnesses, with an appropriate subjection and analogy. For what the one principle is to all beings, that each of the other principles is to the multitude comprehended under the idiom of its principle. For it is impossible, since each multitude is characterized by a certain difference, that it should not be extended to its proper principle, which illuminates one and the same form to all the individuals of that multitude. For the one is the leader of every multitude; and every peculiarity or idiom in the many is derived to the many from the one. All partial principles therefore are established in that principle which ranks as a whole, and are comprehended in it, not with interval and multitude, but as parts in the whole, as multitude in the one, and number in the monad. For this first principle is all things prior to all: and many principles are multiplied about the one principle, and in the one goodness, many goodnesses are established. This too, is not a certain principle like each of the rest: for of these, one is the principle of beauty, another of symmetry, another of truth, and another of something else, but it is simply principle. Nor is it simply the principles of beings, but it is the principle of principles. For it is necessary that the idiom of principle, after the same manner as other things, should not begin from multitude, but should be collected into one monad as a summit, and which is the principle of principles.

Such things therefore as are first produced by the first good, in consequence of being connascent with it, do not recede from essential goodness, since they are immovable and unchanged, and are eternally established in the same blessedness. They are likewise not indigent of the good, because they are goodnesses themselves. All other natures however, being produced by the one good, and many goodnesses, since they fall off from essential goodness, and are not immovably established in the hyparxis of divine goodness, on this account they possess the good according to participation."

From this sublime theory the meaning of that ancient Egyptian dogma, that God is all things, is at once apparent. For the first principle,[6] as Simplicius in the above passage justly observes, is all things prior to all; i.e. he comprehends all things causally, this being the most transcendent mode of comprehension. As all things therefore, considered as subsisting causally in deity, are transcendently more excellent than they are when considered as effects preceding from him, hence that mighty and all-comprehending whole, the first principle, is said to be all things prior to all; priority here denoting exempt transcendency. As the monad and the centre of a circle are images from their simplicity of this greatest of principles, so likewise do they perspicuously shadow forth to us its causal comprehension of all things. For all number may be considered as subsisting occultly in the monad, and the circle in the centre; this occult being the same in each with causal subsistence.

————————- [6] By the first principle here, the one is to be understood for that arcane nature which is beyond the one, since all language is subverted about it, can only, as we have already observed, be conceived and venerated in the most profound silence. ————————-

That this conception of causal subsistence is not an hypothesis devised by the latter Platonists, but a genuine dogma of Plato, is evident from what he says in the Philebus: for in that Dialogue he expressly asserts that in Jupiter a royal intellect, and a royal soul subsist according to cause. Pherecydes Syrus, too, in his Hymn to Jupiter, as cited by Kercher (in Oedip. Egyptiac.), has the following lines: [Greek: O theos esti kuklos, tetragonos ede trigonos, Keinos de gramme, kentron, kai panta pro panton.]

i.e. Jove is a circle, triangle and square, centre and line, and all things before all. From which testimonies the antiquity of this sublime doctrine is sufficiently apparent.

And here it is necessary to observe that nearly all philosophers: prior to Jamblichus (as we are informed by Damascius) asserted indeed, that there is one superessential God, but that the other gods had an essential subsistence, and were deified by illuminations from the one. They likewise said that there is a multitude of super-essential unities, who are not self-perfect subsistences, but illuminated unions with deity, imparted to essences by the highest Gods. That this hypothesis, however, is not conformable to the doctrine of Plato is evident from his Parmenides, in which he shows that the one does not subsist in itself. (See vol. iii, p. 133). For as we have observed from Proclus, in the notes on that Dialogue, every thing which is the cause of itself and is self-subsistent, is said to be in itself. Hence as producing power always comprehends, according to cause that which it produces, it is necessary that whatever produces itself should comprehend itself so far as it is a cause, and should be comprehended by itself so far as it is caused; and that it should be at once both cause and the thing caused, that which comprehends, and that which is comprehended. If therefore a subsistence in another signifies, according to Plato, the being produced by another more excellent cause (as we have shown in the note to p. 133, vol. iii), a subsistence in itself must signify that which is self- begotten, and produced by itself. If the one therefore is not self-sub- sistent as even transcending this mode of subsistence, and if it be necessary that there should be something self-subsistent, it follows that this must be the characteristic property of that which immediately proceeds from the ineffable. But that there must be something self- subsistent is evident, since unless this is admitted there will not be a true sufficiency in any thing.

Besides, as Damascius well observes, if that which is subordinate by nature is self-perfect, such as the human soul, much more will this be the case with a divine soul. But if with soul, this also will be true of intellect. And if it be true of intellect, it will also be true of life: if of life, of being likewise; and if of being, of the unities above being. For the self-perfect, the self-sufficient, and that which is established in itself, will much more subsist in superior than in subordinate natures. If therefore, these are in the latter, they will also be in the former. I mean the subsistence of a thing by itself, and essentialized in itself; and such are essence and life, intellect, soul, and body. For body, though it does not subsist from, yet subsists by itself; and through this belongs to the genus of substance, and is contra-distinguished from accident, which cannot exist independent of a subject.