Forming Idea

Anaxagoras, in identifying his “primal-combination” with Matter – to which he allots no mere aptness to any and every nature or quality but the effective possession of all – withdraws in this way the very Intellectual-Principle he had introduced; for this Mind is not to him the bestower of shape, of FORMING IDEA; and it is co-aeval with Matter, not its prior. But this simultaneous existence is impossible: for if the combination derives Being by participation, Being is the prior; if both are Authentic Existents, then an additional Principle, a third, is imperative (a ground of unification). And if this Creator, Mind, must pre-exist, why need Matter contain the Forming-Ideas parcel-wise for the Mind, with unending labour, to assort and allot? Surely the undetermined could be brought to quality and pattern in the one comprehensive act? As for the notion that all is in all, this clearly is impossible. Enneads II,4,7