Proposition Clvii.
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Proclus and Taylor, Thomas
PROPOSITION CLVII.
Every paternal cause is the supplier of being to all things, and gives subsistence to the hyparxes of beings. But every thing which is fabricative of the production of form, exists prior to composite natures, and precedes their order, and division according to number, and is also of the same co-ordination with the paternal cause, in the more partial genera of things.
For each of these belongs to the order of bound; since hyparxis also, number and form, have all of them the nature of bound. Hence, in this respect they are co-ordinate with each other. But the demiurgic or fabricative cause indeed, produces fabrication into multitude. And the uniform, or that which has the form of the one supplies the progressions of beings. And the former indeed, is the artificer of form, but the latter produces essence. So far therefore, as these differ from each other, viz. form and being, so far also does the paternal differ from the demiurgic cause. But form is a certain being.[280] Hence the paternal cause is more total and causal, and is beyond the demiurgic genus, in the same manner as being is beyond form.