WHY FROM UNITY THIS MANIFOLD WORLD WAS ABLE TO COME FORTH.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plotinus and Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan
1. The One is all things, and is none of these things. The Principle of all things cannot be all things.263 It is all things only in the sense that all things coexist within it. But in it, they "are" not yet, but only "will be."264 How then could the manifoldness of all beings issue from the One, which is simple and identical, which contains no diversity or duality? It is just because nothing is contained within it, that everything can issue from it.265 In order that essence might exist, the One could not be (merely) essence, but had to be the 'father' of essence, and essence had to be its first-begotten. As the One is perfect, and acquires nothing, and has no need or desire, He has, so to speak, superabounded, and this superabundance has produced a different nature.266 This different nature of the One turned towards Him, and by its conversion, arrived at the fulness (of essence). Then it had the potentiality of contemplating itself, and thus determined itself as Intelligence. Therefore, by resting near the One, it became Essence; and by contemplating itself, became Intelligence. Then by fixing itself within itself to contemplate itself, it simultaneously became Essence-and-Intelligence.