Of phenomena of this sphere some derive from the Kosmic CIRCUIT and some not: we must take them singly and mark them off, assigning to each its origin. Enneads II,3,13
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. Enneads III,1,2
But, if all this be true, how can evil fall within the scope of seership? The predictions of the seers are based on observation of the Universal CIRCUIT: how can this indicate the evil with the good? Clearly the reason is that all contraries coalesce. Take, for example, Shape and Matter: the living being (of the lower order) is a coalescence of these two; so that to be aware of the Shape and the Reason-Principle is to be aware of the Matter on which the Shape has been imposed. Enneads III,3,6
And here we have, incidentally, lighted upon the cause of the CIRCUIT of the All; it is a movement which seeks perpetuity by way of futurity. Enneads III,7,4
But, if the reference is to the CIRCUIT of the heavenly system (it is not strictly continuous, or equable, since) the time taken in the return path is not that of the outgoing movement; the one is twice as long as the other: this Movement of the All proceeds, therefore, by two different degrees; the rate of the entire journey is not that of the first half. Enneads III,7,8
The extent of the Movement of the All, then? The Celestial CIRCUIT may, no doubt, be thought of in terms of quantity. It answers to measure – in two ways. First there is space; the movement is commensurate with the area it passes through, and this area is its extent. But this gives us, still, space only, not Time. Secondly, the circuit, considered apart from distance traversed, has the extent of its continuity, of its tendency not to stop but to proceed indefinitely: but this is merely amplitude of Movement; search it, tell its vastness, and, still, Time has no more appeared, no more enters into the matter, than when one certifies a high pitch of heat; all we have discovered is Motion in ceaseless succession, like water flowing ceaselessly, motion and extent of motion. Enneads III,7,8
The Spheral CIRCUIT, then, performed in Time, indicates it: but when we come to Time itself there is no question of its being “within” something else: it must be primary, a thing “within itself.” It is that in which all the rest happens, in which all movement and rest exist smoothly and under order; something following a definite order is necessary to exhibit it and to make it a subject of knowledge – though not to produce it – it is known by order whether in rest or in motion; in motion especially, for Movement better moves Time into our ken than rest can, and it is easier to estimate distance traversed than repose maintained. This last fact has led to Time being called a measure of Movement when it should have been described as something measured by Movement and then defined in its essential nature; it is an error to define it by a mere accidental concomitant and so to reverse the actual order of things. Possibly, however, this reversal was not intended by the authors of the explanation: but, at any rate, we do not understand them; they plainly apply the term Measure to what is in reality the measured and leave us unable to grasp their meaning: our perplexity may be due to the fact that their writings – addressed to disciples acquainted with their teaching – do not explain what this thing, measure, or measured object, is in itself. Enneads III,7,13
Upon the point of the means by which it is known, he remarks that the CIRCUIT advances an infinitesimal distance for every infinitesimal segment of Time so that from that observation it is possible to estimate what the Time is, how much it amounts to: but when his purpose is to explain its essential nature he tells us that it sprang into Being simultaneously with the Heavenly system, a reproduction of Eternity, its image in motion, Time necessarily unresting as the Life with which it must keep pace: and “coeval with the Heavens” because it is this same Life (of the Divine Soul) which brings the Heavens also into being; Time and the Heavens are the work of the one Life. Enneads III,7,13
They will object that parts must necessarily fall under one ideal-form with their wholes. And they will adduce Plato as expressing their view where, in demonstrating that the All is ensouled, he says “As our body is a portion of the body of the All, so our soul is a portion of the soul of the All.” It is admitted on clear evidence that we are borne along by the CIRCUIT of the All; we will be told that – taking character and destiny from it, strictly inbound with it – we must derive our souls, also, from what thus bears us up, and that as within ourselves every part absorbs from our soul so, analogically, we, standing as parts to the universe, absorb from the Soul of the All as parts of it. They will urge also that the dictum “The collective soul cares for all the unensouled,” carries the same implication and could be uttered only in the belief that nothing whatever of later origin stands outside the soul of the universe, the only soul there can be there to concern itself with the unensouled. Enneads IV,3,1
We have always admitted that as members of the universe we take over something from the All-Soul; we do not deny the influence of the Kosmic CIRCUIT; but against all this we oppose another soul in us (the Intellectual as distinguished from the merely vitalizing) proven to be distinct by that power of opposition. Enneads IV,3,7
It is abundantly evident that the CIRCUIT is a cause; it modifies, firstly, itself and its own content, and undoubtedly also it tells on the terrestrial, not merely in accordance with bodily conditions but also by the states of the soul it sets up; and each of its members has an operation upon the terrestrial and in general upon all the lower. Enneads IV,4,31
We take the question back to the initial act of causation. It cannot be admitted that either heat or cold and the like what are known as the primal qualities of the elements – or any admixture of these qualities, should be the first causes we are seeking; equally inacceptable, that while the sun’s action is all by heat, there is another member of the CIRCUIT operating wholly by cold – incongruous in the heavens and in a fiery body – nor can we think of some other star operating by liquid fire. Enneads IV,4,31
The CIRCUIT does not go by chance but under the Reason-Principle of the living whole; therefore there must be a harmony between cause and caused; there must be some order ranging things to each other’s purpose, or in due relation to each other: every several configuration within the CIRCUIT must be accompanied by a change in the position and condition of things subordinate to it, which thus by their varied rhythmic movement make up one total dance-play. Enneads IV,4,33