THE WORLD AS ETERNALLY BEGOTTEN—GOD'S NEED TO GIVE.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Plotinus and Guthrie, Kenneth Sylvan
3. Thus the Soul, ever being illuminated, in turn herself illuminates lower things that subsist only through her, like plants that feed on dew, and which participate in life, each according to its capacity. Likewise a fire heats the objects that surround it, each in proportion to its nature. Now if such is the effect of fire whose power is limited, while intelligible beings exert unlimited powers, how would it be possible for these beings to exist without causing anything to participate in their nature? Each of them must therefore communicate some degree of its perfection to other beings. The Good would no longer be the good, Intelligence would no longer be intelligence, the Soul would no longer be soul, if, beneath that which possesses the first degree of life, there was not some other thing which possessed the second degree of life, and which subsisted only so long as subsists He who occupies the first rank. It is therefore unavoidable that all things (inferior to the First) must always exist in mutual dependence, and that they be begotten, because they derive their existence from some other source. They were not begotten at a definite moment. When we affirm that they are begotten, we should say, they were begotten, or, they shall be begotten. Nor will they be destroyed, unless they are composed of elements in which they could be dissolved. Those that are indissoluble will not perish. It may be objected that they could be resolved into matter. But why should matter also not be liable to be destroyed?
If it were granted that matter was liable to destruction, there was no necessity for its existence.293 It may be further objected that the existence of matter necessarily results from the existence of other principles. In this case, this necessity still subsists. If matter is to be considered as isolated (from the intelligible world), then the divine principles also, instead of being present everywhere,294 will, as it were, be walled up in a limited place.295 But if the latter be impossible, then must matter be illuminated (by the intelligible world).