Categoria: Tratado 5 (V,9)

XIV. Is this nature, therefore, which comprehends all things in the intelligible, to be considered as the first principle of things ? But how is this possible, since that which is truly the principle is one, and entirely simple, hut multitude subsists in beings ? After what manner, however, this all-comprehending nature subsists besides the…

10. All, then, that is present in the sense realm as Idea comes from the Supreme. But what is not present as Idea, does not. Thus of things conflicting with nature, none is There: the inartistic is not contained in the arts; lameness is not in the seed; for a lame leg is either inborn…

X. Such things, therefore, as are forms in the sensible world, are derived from the intelligible world ; but such things as are not forms do not originate from thence. Hence, nothing preternatural is there; as neither is there in the arts any thing which is a deviation from art, or lameness in the seeds…

1. All human beings from birth onward live to the realm of sense more than to the Intellectual. Forced of necessity to attend first to the material, some of them elect to abide by that order and, their life throughout, make its concerns their first and their last; the sweet and the bitter of sense…

2. What is this other place and how it is accessible? It is to be reached by those who, born with the nature of the lover, are also authentically philosophic by inherent temper; in pain of love towards beauty but not held by material loveliness, taking refuge from that in things whose beauty is of…

3. We will have to examine this Nature, the Intellectual, which our reasoning identifies as the authentically existent and the veritable essential: but first we must take another path and make certain that such a principle does necessarily exist. Perhaps it is ridiculous to set out enquiring whether an Intellectual-Principle has place in the total…

5. This Intellectual-Principle, if the term is to convey the truth, must be understood to be not a principle merely potential and not one maturing from unintelligence to intelligence – that would simply send us seeking, once more, a necessary prior – but a principle which is intelligence in actuality and in eternity. Now a…

6. We take it, then, that the Intellectual-Principle is the authentic existences and contains them all – not as in a place but as possessing itself and being one thing with this its content. All are one there and yet are distinct: similarly the mind holds many branches and items of knowledge simultaneously, yet none…

7. Knowledge in the reasoning soul is on the one side concerned with objects of sense, though indeed this can scarcely be called knowledge and is better indicated as opinion or surface-knowing; it is of later origin than the objects since it is a reflection from them: but on the other hand there is the…

8. If, then, the Intellection is an act upon the inner content (of a perfect unity), that content is at once the Idea (as object: eidos) and the Idea itself (as concept: idea). What, then, is that content? An Intellectual-Principle and an Intellective Essence, no concept distinguishable from the Intellectual-Principle, each actually being that Principle.…

9. What, then, is the content – inevitably separated by our minds – of this one Intellectual-Principle? For there is no resource but to represent the items in accessible form just as we study the various articles constituting one science. This universe is a living thing capable of including every form of life; but its…

11. Now as to the arts and crafts and their productions: The imitative arts – painting, sculpture, dancing, pantomimic gesturing – are, largely, earth-based; on an earthly base; they follow models found in sense, since they copy forms and movements and reproduce seen symmetries; they cannot therefore be referred to that higher sphere except indirectly,…

12. It should however be added that if the Idea of man exists in the Supreme, there must exist the Idea of reasoning man and of man with his arts and crafts; such arts as are the offspring of intellect Must be There. It must be observed that the Ideas will be of universals; not…

13. It remains to decide whether only what is known in sense exists There or whether, on the contrary, as Absolute-Man differs from individual man, so there is in the Supreme an Absolute-Soul differing from Soul and an Absolute-Intellect differing from Intellectual-Principle. It must be stated at the outset that we cannot take all that…

I. Since all men from their birth employ sense prior to intellect, and are necessarily first conversant with sensibles, some proceeding no farther pass through life, considering these as the first and last of things, and apprehending that whatever is painful among these is evil, and whatever is pleasant is good; thus thinking it sufficient…

14. There is, thus, a Nature comprehending in the Intellectual all that exists, and this Principle must be the source of all. But how, seeing that the veritable source must be a unity, simplex utterly? The mode by which from the unity arises the multiple, how all this universe comes to be, why the Intellectual-Principle…

XIII. It remains to consider whether what the sensible world alone contains is in the intelligible world, or whether as man himself is different from the sensible man, so with respect to soul, soul itself is different from the soul which is here, and intellect itself from the human intellect. In the first place, therefore,…

XII. If, however, the idea of man is there, the ideas of the rational and the artificial are also there, and likewise the arts which are the progeny of intellect. It is also requisite to assert, that the forms of universals are there, i.e. not of Socrates, but of man; though it must be considered…

XI With respect, therefore, to things pertaining to the arts, and the arts themselves, the arts that are imitative, such as painting, statuary, dancing and pantomine, since they derive their subsistence from sensibles, and employ and imitate a sensible paradigm, and also transfer (to their originals) the forms, motions and symmetries which they perceive, cannot…