with the highest only through the intermediate ones, andean return to the higher only through that which is intermediate. Every multitude, in a certain way. par- takes of unity, and everything which becomes one, be- comes so by partaking of the one (Inst, Theol. c. 3). Ev- ery object is a union of the one and the many: that which unites the one and the many is nothing else than the pure, absolute one — the essential one, which makes everything else partake of unity. Proclus argued that linn i- either one priucipiiun. or many priucipia. If the latter, the principia must he either finite or infinite in number. If infinite, what is derived from them must lie infinite, so that we should have a double infinite, or
else finite. Put the finite can be derived only fr the
finite, so that the priucipia must hi' finite in number. There would then be a definite number of them. But number presupposes unity. Unity w'rar) is conse- quently the principium of priucipia. and the cause of the finite multiplicity and of the being of all things (Theol. Plat. ii. I). Then' is therefore one principium which is incorporeal, for the corporeal consists of parts. Ii is immovable and unchangeable, for everything that moves, moves towards some object or end, which it seeks after. If the principium were movable it must be in want of the good, and there must be something desirable outside of it. Put this i- impossible, for the principium has need of nothing, and is itself the end towards which everything else strives. The princi- pium, or first cause of all things, is superior to all ac- tual being (ovoici). and separated from it. and cannot even have it as an attribute | /. e.). The absolutely one is not an object of cognition to any existing thing, nor can il be named (I. c. p. 95). But in contemplating the emanation of things from the one and their return into it we arrive at two words, the good, and the one, of which the first is analogical and positive, the latter negative only (7. c. p. 96). The absolutely one has produced not only earth and heaven, but all the gods which are above the world and in the world: it is the god of all gods, the unity of all unities (/. c. ii. 110). Everything which is perfect strives to produce some- thing else; the full seeks to impart its fulness. Still more must this be the case with the absolute uo.nl. though in connection with that we must not conceive of any creative power or energy, for that would he to make the one imperfect and not simple, not fruitful through its very perfection (7. c. p. 101). Every ema- nation i- less perfect than that from which it emanates i hut. Theol. C 7), bui has a certain similarity with it, and, so far as this similarity goes, remains in it. depart- ing from it so far as it is unlike, but as far as possible being onewith it. and remaining in it (ibid. :'>1 1. What is produced from the absolutely one is produced as unity, or of the nature of unity. Thus the lirsi pro- duced things are independent unities (awroreX«c <■')•</- Stg). Of these independent unities some are simple, others more composite. The nearer the unities are to the absolute unity the simpler they are. but the gn ati t is the sphere of their operation and their productive power. Thus out of unity there arise a multitude of things which depart further and further from the sim- plicity of the absolute one; and as the producing power diminishes, ii introduces more and more conditions into things, while it diminishes their universality and sim- plicity. His whole system of emanations seems, in fact, to be a realization of the logical subordination of ideas.
The simplest ideas which are contained in those which
are composite being regarded by him as the principles of things."
Ihi- emanations proceeded in a curious triadic man- ner. That which precedes ad power, and emanates immediately from the primal cause of all things, is limit. Unity, duality, he considered as identical with
limitation (wepae) and boundlessness (airtipta), and
from the mixed compound of these two priucipia arises a third, a compound of the tvro—substana (as a sort of
genus of all substances), that which in itself is abso-
PROCLUS
619
PROCLUS
lutely an existing thing and nothing more (Theol. riat. iii, 133 sq.). Everything, according to Proclus, con- tains in itself heing (ovaia), life (siuij), ami intelligence (vovg). Tlie life is the centre of the thing, for it is both an object of thought and exists. The intelligence is the limit of the thing, for the intellect {vovq) is in that which is the object of intellect (votjtov), and the latter in the former; but the intellect or thought ex- ists in the thing thought of objectively, and the thing thought of exists in the intellect productively (votpwg). This accordingly is the first triad — limit, infinitude, and the compound of the two. Proclus distinguished the divinities (making these also descend from unity and give birth to triads) into intelligible and intelligent, su- pernatural and natural; attributed a supernatural effi- cacy to the name of the Supreme Being, and, like his predecessors, exalted theurgy above philosophy. The tirst triad — viz. the limit — Proclus taught, is the deity who advances to the extreme verge of the conceivable from the inconceivable, primal deity, measuring and de- fining all things, and establishes the paternal, concate- nating, and immaculate race of gods. The infinite is the inexhaustible power of this deity. The " mixed" is the first and highest world of gods, which in a concealed manner comprehends everything within itself. Out of this first triad springs the second. As the first of the unities produces the highest existing thing, the inter- mediate unity produces the intermediate existent thing, in which there is something lirst — unity, divinity, real- ity; something intermediate — power; and something- last —the existence in the second grade, conceivable life (vonri) Ci»ii) ; for there is in everything which is the object of thought being (to uvea), life (to U)v), and thought, (to votiv). The third of the unities, the "mixed," produces the third triad, in which the intelli- gence or thinking power (vovg) attains to its subsist- ence. This thinking power is the limit and completion of everything which can be the object of thought. The first triad contains the principle of union ; the second of multiplicity and increase by means of continuous motion or life, for motion is a 6pecies of life; the third, the principle of the separation of the manifold, and of formation by means of limit.