The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna

no cold comes from them : the nature of the space in which they have their being is voucher for that.

The star known as Jupiter includes a due measure of fire (and warmth), in this resembling the Morning-star and therefore seeming to be in alliance with it. In aspect with what is known as the Fiery Star,

Jupiter is beneficent by virtue of the mixing of influences : in aspect with Saturn unfriendly by dint of distance. Mercury, it would seem, is (in itself) indifferent whatever stars it be in aspect with ; for it adopts any and every character.

But (again, the truth is that) all the stars are serviceable to the Universe, and therefore can stand to each other only as the service of the Universe demands, in a harmony like that observed in the members of any one animal form. They exist essentially for the purpose of the Universe, just as the gall exists for the purposes of the body as a whole not less than for its own immediate function : it is to be the inciter of the animal spirits but without allowing the entire organism and its own especial region to run riot. Some such balance of function was indispensable in the All — bitter with sweet. There must be differentiation — eyes and so forth — but all the members will be in sympathy with the entire animal frame to which they belong. Only so can there be a unity and a total harmony.

And in such a total, analogy will make every part a Sign.

6.

But that this same Mars, or Aphrodite, in certain aspects should cause adulteries — as if they could thus, through the agency of human incontinence, satisfy their own mutual desires — is not such a notion the height of unreason ? And who could accept the fancy that their happiness comes from their seeing each other in this or that relative position and not from their own settled nature ?

Again : countless myriads of living beings are bom and continue to be : to minister continuously to every separate one of these ; to make them famous, rich, poor, lascivious ; to shape the active tendencies of every single one — what kind of life is this for the stars, how could they possibly handle a task so huge ?

They are to watch, we must suppose, the rising of each several constellation and upon that signal to act ; such a one, they see, has risen by so many degrees, representing so many of the periods of its upward path ; they reckon on their fingers at what moment they must n-3- 7]

take the action which, executed prematurely, would be out of order : and in the sum, there is no One Being controlling the entire 2he periods of its upward path ; they reckon on their fingers at what moment they must n-3- 7]

take the action which, executed prematurely, would be out of order : and in the sum, there is no One Being controlling the entire scheme ; all is made over to the stars singly, as if there were no Sovereign Unity, standing as source of all the forms of Being in subordinate association with it, and delegating to the separate members, in their appropriate Kinds, the task of accomplishing its purposes and bringing its latent potentiality into act.

This is a separatist theory, tenable only by minds ignorant of the nature of a Universe which has a ruling principle and a first cause operative downwards through every member.

7-

But, if the stars announce the future — as we hold of many other things also — what explanation of the cause have we to offer ? What explains the purposeful arrangement thus implied ? Obviously, unless the particular is included under some general principle of order, there can be no signification.

We may think of the stars as letters perpetually being inscribed on the heavens or inscribed once for all and yet moving as they pursue the other tasks allotted to them : upon these main tasks will follow the quality of signifying, just as the one principle underlying any living unit enables us to reason from member to member, so that for example we may judge of character and even of perils and safeguards by indications in the eyes or in some other part of the body. If these parts of us are members of a whole, so are we : in different ways the one law applies.

All teems with symbol ; the wise man is the man who in any one thing can read another, a process familiar to all of us in not a few examples of everyday experience.

But what is the comprehensive principle of co-ordination ? Establish this and we have a reasonable basis for the divination, not only by stars but also by birds and other animals, from which we derive guidance in our varied concerns.

All things must be enchained ; and the sympathy and correspondence obtaining in any one closely knit organism must exist, first, and most i66

intensely, in the All. There must be one principle constituting this unit of many forms of life and enclosing the several members within the unity, while at the same time, precisely as in each thing of detail the parts too have each a definite function, so in the All (the higher All) each several member must have its own task — but more markedly so since in this case the parts are not merely members but 3le at the same time, precisely as in each thing of detail the parts too have each a definite function, so in the All (the higher All) each several member must have its own task — but more markedly so since in this case the parts are not merely members but themselves Alls, members of the loftier Kind.

Thus each entity takes its origin from one Principle and, therefore, while executing its own function, works in with every other member of that All from which its distinct task has by no means cut it off : each performs its act, each receives something from the others, every one at its own moment bringing its touch of sweet or bitter. And there is nothing undesigned, nothing of chance, in all the process : all is one scheme of differentiation, starting from the Firsts and working itself out in a continuous progression of Kinds.

8.

Soul, then, in the same way, is intent upon a task of its own ; alike in its direct course (its tendence towards the divine ?) and in its divagation (its activity towards the lower ?) it is the cause of all by its possession of the Thought of the First Principle ; thus a Law of Justice goes with all that exists in the Universe which, otherwise, would be dissolved, and is perdurable because the entire fabric is guided as much by the orderliness as by the power of the controlling force. And in this order the stars, as being no minor members of the heavenly system, are co-operators contributing at once to its stately beauty and to its symbolic quality. Their symbolic power extends to the entire realm of sense, their efficacy only to what they patently do.

For our part, nature keeps us upon the work of the Soul as long as we are not wrecked in the multiplicity of the Universe : once thus sunk and held we pay the penalty, which consists both in the fall itself and in the lower rank thus entailed upon us : riches and poverty are caused (not by the stars but) by the combinations of external fact.

And what of virtue and vice ?

That question has been amply discussed elsewhere : in a word, virtue is ours by the ancient staple of the Soul ; vice is due to the commerce of a Soul with the outer world.

9-

This brings us to the Spindle-destiny, spun according to the ancients by the Fates. To Plato the Spindle represents the co-operation of the moving and the stable elements of the kosmic circuit : the Fates with Necessity, Mother of the Fates, manipulate it and spin at the birth of every being, so that all comes into existence through Necessity.