Categoria: Tratado 5 (V,9)

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.…

VI. Let, therefore, intellect be (real) beings, and possess all things in itself, not as in place but as itself, and as being one with them. But all things there subsist collectively at once, and yet nevertheless they are separated from each other; since the soul also which has many sciences in itself simultaneous, possesses…

V. It is necessary, however, to consider intellect truly so called neither as intellect in capacity, nor as proceeding from the privation to the possession of intellect. For if we do not, we must again investigate another intellect prior to this. But we must assume intellect in energy, and and which is always intellect. If…

III. This nature, however, of intellect must be considered, which reason announces to be truly being, and true essence, previously confirming, by proceeding in another way, (what we have before asserted) that it is necessary there should be a certain nature of this kind. Perhaps, therefore, it is ridiculous to investigate whether intellect ranks in…

II. What then is this place ? And how may some one arrive at it? He, indeed, will arrive thither, who is by nature amatory, and who is truly a philosopher in disposition from the beginning. For as being amatory, he will be parturient about the beautiful, yet will not be satisfied with the beauty…

THE SENSUAL MAN. THE MORAL. AND THE SPIRITUAL. 1. From their birth, men exercise their senses, earlier than their intelligence, and they are by necessity forced to direct their attention to sense-objects. Some stop there, and spend their life without progressing further. They consider suffering as evil, and pleasure as the good, judging it to…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…