Τὰς αἰσθήσεις οὐ πάθη λέγοντες εἶναι, ἐνεργείας δὲ περὶ τὰ παθήματα καὶ κρίσεις, τῶν μὲν παθῶν περὶ ἄλλο γινομένων, οἷον τὸ σῶμα φέρε τὸ τοιόνδε, τῆς δὲ κρίσεως περὶ τὴν ψυχὴν οὐ πάθους οὔσης — ἄλλην γὰρ αὖ ἔδει κρίσιν γίνεσθαι καὶ ἐπαναβαίνειν ἀεὶ εἰς ἄπειρον — εἴχομεν [ἂν] οὐδὲν ἧττον καὶ ἐνταῦθα ἀπορίαν, εἰ ἡ κρίσις ᾗ κρίσις οὐδὲν ἔχει τοῦ κρινομένου. ἤ, εἰ τύπον ἔχοι, πέπονθεν. ἦν δ’ ὅμως λέγειν καὶ περὶ τῶν καλουμένων τυπώσεων, ὡς ὁ τρόπος ὅλως ἕτερος ἢ ὡς ὑπείληπται, ὁποῖος καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν νοήσεων ἐνεργειῶν καὶ τούτων οὐσῶν γινώσκειν [δ’] ἄνευ τοῦ παθεῖν τι δυναμένων· καὶ ὅλως ὁ λόγος ἡμῖν καὶ τὸ βούλημα μὴ ὑποβαλεῖν τροπαῖς καὶ ἀλλοιώσεσι τὴν ψυχὴν τοιαύταις, ὁποῖαι αἱ θερμάνσεις καὶ ψύξεις σωμάτων.
We say that perceptions are not affections but activities and judgments concerned with affections. The affections occur in something else—say, a body of such and such a kind—while the judgment occurs in the soul and is not an affection; otherwise another judgment would be needed, and so on, climbing forever to infinity. Even so, we would still have a difficulty here: whether the judgment, as judgment, has nothing of what is judged. Or rather: if it has an impression, it has been affected. Still, one could also say, about what are called impressions, that the way they work is altogether different from what has been supposed—the same way as with thoughts, which are also activities and able to know without being affected at all. And in general our argument and our aim is not to subject the soul to changes and alterations like the heatings and coolings of bodies.
καὶ τὸ παθητικὸν δὲ λεγόμενον αὐτῆς ἔδει ἰδεῖν καὶ ἐπισκέψασθαι, πότερα καὶ τοῦτο ἄτρεπτον δώσομεν, ἢ τούτῳ μόνῳ τὸ πάσχειν συγχωρήσομεν. ἀλλὰ τοῦτο μὲν ὕστερον, περὶ δὲ τῶν προτέρων τὰς ἀπορίας ἐπισκεπτέον. πῶς γὰρ ἄτρεπτον καὶ τὸ πρὸ τοῦ παθητικοῦ καὶ τὸ πρὸ αἰσθήσεως καὶ ὅλως ψυχῆς ὁτιοῦν κακίας περὶ αὐτὴν ἐγγινομένης καὶ δοξῶν ψευδῶν καὶ ἀγνοίας; οἰκειώσεις δὲ καὶ ἀλλοτριώσεις ἡδομένης καὶ λυπουμένης, ὀργιζομένης, φθονούσης, ζηλούσης, ἐπιθυμούσης, ὅλως οὐδαμῇ ἡσυχίαν ἀγούσης, ἀλλ’ ἐφ’ ἑκάστῳ τῶν προσπιπτόντων κινουμένης καὶ μεταβαλλούσης.
We also had to look at and examine what is called its affective part: whether we will grant that this too is unchangeable, or allow being affected to it alone. But that comes later; first we must examine the difficulties about the earlier points. For how is even the part before the affective part, and before perception, and in general any part of soul whatever, unchangeable, when vice comes to be in it, and false opinions, and ignorance? And feelings of attachment and aversion, when it feels pleasure and pain, anger, envy, jealousy, desire, when it is never at rest at all but is moved and changed by each thing that strikes it?
ἀλλ’ εἰ μὲν σῶμά ἐστιν ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ μέγεθος ἔχει, οὐ ῥᾴδιον, μᾶλλον δὲ ὅλως ἀδύνατον, ἀπαθῆ αὐτὴν καὶ ἄτρεπτον δεικνύναι ἐν ὁτῳοῦν τῶν λεγομένων γίνεσθαι περὶ αὐτήν· εἰ δέ ἐστιν οὐσία ἀμεγέθης καὶ δεῖ καὶ τὸ ἄφθαρτον αὐτῇ παρεῖναι, εὐλαβητέον αὐτῇ πάθη διδόναι τοιαῦτα, μὴ καὶ λάθωμεν αὐτὴν φθαρτὴν εἶναι διδόντες. καὶ δὴ εἴτε ἀριθμὸς εἴτε λόγος, ὥς φαμεν, ἡ οὐσία αὐτῆς, πῶς ἂν πάθος ἐγγένοιτο ἐν ἀριθμῷ ἢ λόγῳ; ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον λόγους ἀλόγους καὶ ἀπαθῆ πάθη δεῖ ἐπιγίγνεσθαι αὐτῇ οἴεσθαι, καὶ ταῦτα ἀπὸ τῶν σωμάτων μετενηνεγμένα ἀντικειμένως ληπτέον ἕκαστα καὶ κατ’ ἀναλογίαν, καὶ ἔχουσαν οὐκ ἔχειν καὶ πάσχουσαν οὐ πάσχειν. καὶ ὅστις ὁ τρόπος τῶν τοιούτων, ἐπισκεπτέον.
Now if soul is a body and has magnitude, it is not easy—or rather it is quite impossible—to show that it is unaffected and unchanged in any of the things said to happen to it. But if it is a being without magnitude, and must also be imperishable, we must beware of giving it affections of this kind, or we may find we have made it perishable without noticing. And indeed, whether its being is a number or, as we say, a rational principle, how could an affection arise in a number or a rational principle? Rather, we must think that irrational rational principles and unaffected affections come upon it. These terms, carried over from bodies, must each be taken in the opposite sense and by analogy: it has and does not have, it is affected and not affected. And what the manner of such things is, we must examine.
πρῶτον δὲ περὶ κακίας καὶ ἀρετῆς λεκτέον, τί γίγνεται τότε, ὅταν κακία λέγηται παρεῖναι· καὶ γὰρ ἀφαιρεῖν δεῖν φαμεν ὡς ὄντος τινὸς ἐν αὐτῇ κακοῦ καὶ ἐνθεῖναι ἀρετὴν καὶ κοσμῆσαι καὶ κάλλος ἐμποιῆσαι ἀντὶ αἴσχους τοῦ πρόσθεν. ἆρ’ οὖν λέγοντες ἀρετὴν ἁρμονίαν εἶναι, ἀναρμοστίαν δὲ τὴν κακίαν, λέγοιμεν ἂν δόξαν δοκοῦσαν τοῖς παλαιοῖς καί τι πρὸς τὸ ζητούμενον οὐ μικρὸν ὁ λόγος ἀνύσειεν;
First we must speak about vice and virtue: what happens when vice is said to be present? For we say we must remove something, as if there were something bad in the soul, and put virtue in, and set it in order, and produce beauty in place of its former ugliness. Then if we say that virtue is a harmony and vice a disharmony, would we be stating an opinion the ancients held, and would the argument get us some way, and not a small one, toward what we are looking for?
εἰ γὰρ συναρμοσθέντα μὲν κατὰ φύσιν τὰ μέρη τῆς ψυχῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα ἀρετή ἐστι, μὴ συναρμοσθέντα δὲ κακία, ἐπακτὸν οὐδὲν ἂν οὐδ’ ἑτέρωθεν γίγνοιτο, ἀλλ’ ἕκαστον ἥκοι ἂν οἷον ἐστὶν εἰς τὴν ἁρμογὴν καὶ οὐκ ἂν ἥκοι ἐν τῇ ἀναρμοστίᾳ τοιοῦτον ὄν, οἷον καὶ χορευταὶ χορεύοντες καὶ συνᾴδοντες ἀλλήλοις, εἰ καὶ μὴ οἱ αὐτοί εἰσι, καὶ μόνος τις ᾅδων τῶν ἄλλων μὴ ᾀδόντων, καὶ ἑκάστου καθ’ ἑαυτὸν ᾅδοντος· οὐ γὰρ μόνον δεῖ συνᾴδειν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἕκαστον καλῶς τὸ αὑτοῦ ᾅδοντα οἰκείᾳ μουσικῇ· ὥστε κἀκεῖ ἐπὶ τῆς ψυχῆς ἁρμονίαν εἶναι ἑκάστου μέρους τὸ αὐτῷ προσῆκον ποιοῦντος. δεῖ δὴ πρὸ τῆς ἁρμονίας αὐτῆς ἄλλην ἑκάστου εἶναι ἀρετήν, καὶ κακίαν δὲ ἑκάστου πρὸ τῆς πρὸς ἄλληλα ἀναρμοστίας. τίνος οὖν παρόντος ἕκαστον μέρος κακόν; ἢ κακίας. καὶ ἀγαθὸν αὖ;
For if virtue is the parts of the soul harmonized with one another according to nature, and vice their not being harmonized, nothing would come in from outside or from anywhere else. Each part would come into the harmony just as it is, and would not, being such, come into the disharmony. Think of a chorus dancing and singing together, even if its members are not the same; or of one person singing alone while the others do not sing; or of each singing by himself. They must not only sing together; each must also sing his own part well, with his own musicianship. So there too, in the soul, there is harmony when each part does what belongs to it. So before the harmony itself there must be a distinct virtue of each part, and a vice of each part before their disharmony with one another. What, then, must be present for each part to be bad? Vice, of course. And for it to be good, in turn?
ἢ ἀρετῆς. τῷ μὲν οὖν λογιστικῷ τάχ’ ἄν τις λέγων ἄγνοιαν εἶναι τὴν κακίαν καὶ ἄγνοιαν τὴν κατὰ ἀπόφασιν οὐ παρουσίαν τινὸς ἂν λέγοι.
Virtue. Now in the case of the reasoning part, someone might perhaps say that its vice is ignorance, and ignorance in the sense of negation; and then he would not be saying that anything is present.
ἀλλ’ ὅταν καὶ ψευδεῖς δόξαι ἐνῶσιν, ὃ δὴ μάλιστα τὴν κακίαν ποιεῖ, πῶς οὐκ ἐγγίνεσθαι φήσει καὶ ἀλλοῖον ταύτῃ τοῦτο τὸ μόριον γίνεσθαι; τὸ δὲ θυμοειδὲς οὐκ ἄλλως μὲν ἔχει δειλαῖνον, ἀνδρεῖον δὲ ὂν ἄλλως; τὸ δὲ ἐπιθυμοῦν ἀκόλαστον μὲν ὂν οὐκ ἄλλως, σωφρονοῦν δὲ ἄλλως; ἢ ὅταν μὲν ἐν ἀρετῇ ἕκαστον ᾖ, ἐνεργεῖν κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν ᾗ ἐστιν ἕκαστον ἐπαίον λόγου φήσομεν καὶ τὸ μὲν λογιζόμενον παρὰ τοῦ νοῦ, τὰ δ’ ἄλλα παρὰ τούτου. τὸ [δ’] ἐπαίειν λόγου ὥσπερ ὁρᾶν ἐστιν οὐ σχηματιζόμενον, ἀλλ’ ὁρῶν καὶ ἐνεργείᾳ ὄν, ὅτε ὁρᾷ.
But when false opinions are in it as well—which is precisely what most of all produces vice—how will he deny that something comes to be in it, and that in this way this part becomes different? And isn’t the spirited part in one state when it is cowardly and in another when it is courageous? And the desiring part, isn’t it one way when it is dissolute and another way when it is moderate? Or rather: when each part is in virtue, we will say that it acts according to the being that each is, listening to reason; the reasoning part takes it from intellect, the others from the reasoning part. Listening to reason is like seeing: not being shaped, but seeing, and being in activity when it sees.
ὥσπερ γὰρ ἡ ὄψις καὶ δυνάμει οὖσα καὶ ἐνεργείᾳ ἡ αὐτὴ τῇ οὐσίᾳ, ἡ δὲ ἐνέργειά ἐστιν οὐκ ἀλλοίωσις, ἀλλ’ ἅμα προσῆλθε πρὸς ὃ ἔχει τὴν οὐσίαν καὶ ἔστιν εἰδυῖα καὶ ἔγνω ἀπαθῶς, καὶ τὸ λογιζόμενον οὕτω πρὸς τὸν νοῦν ἔχει καὶ ὁρᾷ καὶ ἡ δύναμις τοῦ νοεῖν τοῦτο, οὐ σφραγῖδος ἔνδον γενομένης, ἀλλ’ ἔχει ὃ εἶδε καὶ αὖ οὐκ ἔχει· ἔχει μὲν τῷ γινώσκειν, οὐκ ἔχει δὲ τῷ μὴ ἀποκεῖσθαί τι ἐκ τοῦ ὁράματος, ὥσπερ ἐν κηρῷ μορφήν. μεμνῆσθαι δὲ δεῖ, ὅτι καὶ τὰς μνήμας οὐκ ἐναποκειμένων τινῶν ἐλέγετο εἶναι, ἀλλὰ τῆς ψυχῆς οὕτω τὴν δύναμιν ἐγειράσης, ὥστε καὶ ὃ μὴ ἔχει ἔχειν. τί οὖν; οὐκ ἄλλη ἦν πρὶν οὕτω μνημονεύειν καὶ ὕστερον, ὅτε μνημονεύει;
Sight is the same in its being whether it is in potentiality or in actuality, and its activity is not an alteration: it has at once come to that to which its being is directed, and it knows, and has known, without being affected. In just the same way the reasoning part is related to intellect: it sees, and this is its power of thinking. No seal-impression comes to be inside it; it has what it saw and again does not have it. It has it by knowing it; it does not have it in that nothing is stored away from the vision, like a shape in wax. We must remember that memories too were said not to consist in anything stored up, but in the soul’s so awakening its power that it has even what it does not have. What then? Wasn’t it different before it remembered in this way and later, when it remembers?
ἢ βούλει ἄλλην; οὔκουν ἀλλοιωθεῖσά γε, πλὴν εἰ μή τις τὸ ἐκ δυνάμεως εἰς ἐνέργειαν ἐλθεῖν ἀλλοίωσιν λέγοι, ἀλλ’ ἔστιν οὐδὲν προσγενόμενον, ἀλλ’ ᾗπερ ἦν πεφυκυῖα τοῦτο ποιεῖ. ὅλως γὰρ αἱ ἐνέργειαι τῶν ἀύλων οὐ συναλλοιουμένων γίνονται· ἢ φθαρεῖεν ἄν· ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον μενόντων, τὸ δὲ πάσχειν τὸ ἐνεργοῦν τοῦτο τῶν μεθ’ ὕλης. εἰ δὲ ἄυλον ὂν πείσεται, οὐκ ἔχει ᾧ μένει· ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τῆς ὄψεως τῆς ὁράσεως ἐνεργούσης τὸ πάσχον ὁ ὀφθαλμός ἐστιν, αἱ δὲ δόξαι ὥσπερ ὁράματα. τὸ δὲ θυμοειδὲς πῶς δειλόν; πῶς δὲ καὶ ἀνδρεῖον;
Or would you like to call it different? Certainly not as having been altered—unless one were to call coming from potentiality into actuality an alteration. Nothing has been added; it is doing what it was naturally made to do. For in general the activities of immaterial things occur without their being altered along with them—otherwise they would be destroyed—but much rather while they remain. Being affected while acting belongs to things with matter. If something immaterial is going to be affected, it has nothing to remain by. So in the case of sight, when seeing is active, what is affected is the eye; and opinions are like the things seen. But how is the spirited part cowardly? And how is it courageous?
ἢ δειλὸν μὲν τῷ ἢ μὴ ὁρᾶν πρὸς τὸν λόγον ἢ πρὸς φαῦλον ὄντα τὸν λόγον ὁρᾶν ἢ ὀργάνων ἐλλείψει, οἷον ἀπορίᾳ ἢ σαθρότητι ὅπλων σωματικῶν, ἢ ἐνεργεῖν κωλυόμενον ἢ μὴ κινηθὲν [ἀλλ’] οἷον ἐρεθισθέν· ἀνδρεῖον δέ, εἰ τὰ ἐναντία. ἐν οἷς οὐδεμία ἀλλοίωσις οὐδὲ πάθος. τὸ δὲ ἐπιθυμοῦν ἐνεργοῦν μὲν μόνον τὴν λεγομένην ἀκολασίαν παρέχεται· πάντα γὰρ μόνον πράττει καὶ οὐ πάρεστι τὰ ἄλλα, οἷς ἂν ἦν ἐν μέρει τὸ κρατεῖν παροῦσι καὶ δεικνύναι αὐτῷ, τὸ δ’ ὁρῶν ἦν ἂν ἄλλο πρᾶττον, οὐ πάντη ἀλλά που καὶ σχολάζον τῷ ὁρᾶν ὡς οἷόν τε τὰ ἄλλα. τάχα δὲ τὸ πολὺ καὶ σώματος καχεξία ἡ τούτου λεγομένη κακία, ἀρετὴ δὲ τἀναντία· ὥστ’ οὐδεμία ἐφ’ ἑκάτερα προσθήκη τῇ ψυχῇ
Perhaps cowardly by not looking to reason, or by looking to reason that is in a bad state, or through a deficiency of instruments—a lack, say, or rottenness of its bodily weapons—or by being prevented from acting, or by not being set in motion, [but] roused, as it were. And courageous if the opposite is the case. In none of this is there any alteration or affection. The desiring part, when it alone is active, produces what is called licentiousness. It does everything alone, and the others are not present, which, if they were present, would have their share in ruling and in showing it the way; and the part that sees would be something else acting, not wholly occupied, but at times having leisure to see the others as far as possible. Perhaps, for the most part, what is called the vice of this part is also a bad condition of the body, and its virtue the opposite. So in neither case is anything added to the soul.
αἱ δ’ οἰκειώσεις καὶ ἀλλοτριώσεις πῶς; καὶ λῦπαι καὶ ὀργαὶ καὶ ἡδοναὶ ἐπιθυμίαι τε καὶ φόβοι πῶς οὐ τροπαὶ καὶ πάθη ἐνόντα καὶ κινούμενα; δεῖ δὴ καὶ περὶ τούτων ὧδε διαλαβεῖν. ὅτι γὰρ ἐγγίνονται ἀλλοιώσεις καὶ σφοδραὶ τούτων αἰσθήσεις μὴ λέγειν ἐναντία λέγοντός ἐστι τοῖς ἐναργέσιν. ἀλλὰ χρὴ συγχωροῦντας ζητεῖν ὅ τι ἐστὶ τὸ τρεπόμενον. κινδυνεύομεν γὰρ περὶ ψυχὴν ταῦτα λέγοντες ὅμοιόν τι ὑπολαμβάνειν, ὡς εἰ τὴν ψυχὴν λέγοιμεν ἐρυθριᾶν ἢ αὖ ἐν ὠχριάσει γίγνεσθαι, μὴ λογιζόμενοι, ὡς διὰ ψυχὴν μὲν ταῦτα τὰ πάθη, περὶ δὲ τὴν ἄλλην σύστασίν ἐστι γιγνόμενα.
But what about feelings of attachment and aversion? And pains and angers and pleasures, desires and fears—how are they not changes and affections present in the soul and moving it? About these, too, we must make the following distinction. To say that alterations do not occur, and intense perceptions of them, is to contradict what is plainly evident. Rather, granting this, we must inquire what it is that changes. For when we say these things about the soul, we risk supposing something like saying that the soul blushes or turns pale, without reckoning that these affections come about through the soul but occur in the rest of the structure.
ἀλλ’ ἡ μὲν αἰσχύνη ἐν ψυχῇ δόξης αἰσχροῦ γενομένης τὸ δὲ σῶμα ἐκείνης τοῦτο οἷον σχούσης, ἵνα μὴ τοῖς ὀνόμασι πλανώμεθα, ἐπὶ τῇ ψυχῇ ὂν καὶ οὐ ταὐτὸν ἀψύχῳ ἐτράπη κατὰ τὸ αἷμα εὐκίνητον ὄν. τά τε τοῦ λεγομένου φόβου ἐν μὲν τῇ ψυχῇ ἡ ἀρχή, τὸ δ’ ὠχρὸν ἀναχωρήσαντος τοῦ αἵματος εἴσω. καὶ τῆς ἡδονῆς δὲ τὸ τῆς διαχύσεως τοῦτο καὶ εἰς αἴσθησιν ἧκον περὶ τὸ σῶμα, τὸ δὲ περὶ τὴν ψυχὴν οὐκέτι πάθος. καὶ τὸ τῆς λύπης ὡσαύτως. ἐπεὶ καὶ τὸ τῆς ἐπιθυμίας ἐπὶ μὲν τῆς ψυχῆς τῆς ἀρχῆς οὔσης τοῦ ἐπιθυμεῖν λανθάνον ἐστίν, ἐκεῖθεν δὲ τὸ προελθὸν ἡ αἴσθησις ἔγνω.
Shame arises in the soul when an opinion that something is disgraceful comes to be; and the body—which the soul, so to speak, holds, if we are not to be misled by words—being dependent on the soul and not the same as something lifeless, changes in the blood, which is easily moved. As for what is called fear, its beginning is in the soul, while the pallor comes from the blood withdrawing inward. In pleasure, too, the expansion, the part that reaches perception, belongs to the body, while what belongs to the soul is no longer an affection. And the same with pain. Indeed in desire, too, what is in the soul, which is the principle of desiring, goes unnoticed, while what has proceeded from there is what perception has come to know.
καὶ γὰρ ὅταν λέγωμεν κινεῖσθαι αὐτὴν ἐν ἐπιθυμίαις, ἐν λογισμοῖς, ἐν δόξαις, οὐ σαλευομένην αὐτὴν λέγομεν ταῦτα ποιεῖν, ἀλλ’ ἐξ αὐτῆς γίνεσθαι τὰς κινήσεις. ἐπεὶ καὶ τὸ ζῆν κίνησιν λέγοντες οὐκ ἀλλοιοῦμεν, ἑκάστου δὲ μορίου ἡ ἐνέργεια ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ζωὴ οὐκ ἐξιστᾶσα. κεφάλαιον δὲ ἱκανόν· εἰ τὰς ἐνεργείας καὶ τὰς ζωὰς καὶ τὰς ὀρέξεις οὐκ ἀλλοιώσεις συγχωροῦμεν καὶ [τὰς] μνήμας οὐ τύπους ἐναποσφραγιζομένους οὐδὲ τὰς φαντασίας ὡς ἐν κηρῷ τυπώσεις, συγχωρητέον πανταχοῦ ἐν πᾶσι τοῖς λεγομένοις πάθεσι καὶ κινήσεσι τὴν ψυχὴν ὡσαύτως ἔχειν τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ καὶ τῇ οὐσίᾳ καὶ τὴν ἀρετὴν καὶ τὴν κακίαν μὴ ὡς τὸ μέλαν καὶ τὸ λευκὸν περὶ τὸ σῶμα γίγνεσθαι ἢ τὸ θερμὸν καὶ τὸ ψυχρόν, ἀλλ’ ὃν εἴρηται τρόπον ἐπ’ ἄμφω περὶ πάνθ’ ὅλως τὰ ἐναντία γίγνεσθαι.
When we say the soul is moved in desires, in reasonings, in opinions, we do not mean that it does these things while being shaken about, but that the movements come from it. Even when we call living a movement, we do not mean an alteration: the activity of each part according to nature is a life that does not take it out of itself. A sufficient summary: if we grant that activities and lives and appetites are not alterations, and that memories are not impressions stamped in, nor imaginations impressions as in wax, we must grant that everywhere, in all the so-called affections and movements, the soul remains the same in its substrate and its being; and that virtue and vice do not come to be as black and white, or hot and cold, come to be in a body, but in the way that has been stated, for both and in general for all the opposites.
περὶ δὲ τοῦ λεγομένου παθητικοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐπισκεπτέον. ἤδη μὲν οὖν εἴρηται τρόπον τινὰ καὶ περὶ τούτου ἐν οἷς περὶ τῶν παθῶν ἁπάντων ἐλέγετο τῶν περὶ τὸ θυμοειδὲς καὶ τὸ ἐπιθυμοῦν γιγνομένων ὅπως ἕκαστα· οὐ μὴν ἀλλ’ ἔτι λεκτέον περὶ αὐτοῦ πρῶτον λαβόντας, ὅ τι ποτὲ τὸ παθητικὸν τῆς ψυχῆς λέγεται εἶναι. λέγεται δὴ πάντως περὶ ὃ τὰ πάθη δοκεῖ συνίστασθαι· ταῦτα δέ ἐστιν οἷς ἕπεται ἡδονὴ καὶ λύπη. τῶν δὲ παθῶν τὰ μὲν ἐπὶ δόξαις συνίσταται, ὡς ὅταν δοξάσας τις μέλλειν τελευτᾶν ἴσχῃ φόβον, ἢ οἰηθεὶς ἀγαθὸν αὑτῷ τι ἔσεσθαι ἡσθῇ, τῆς μὲν δόξης ἐν ἄλλῳ, τοῦ δὲ πάθους κινηθέντος ἐν ἄλλῳ· τὰ δέ ἐστιν ὡς ἡγησάμενα αὐτὰ ἀπροαιρέτως ἐμποιεῖν ἐν τῷ πεφυκότι δοξάζειν τὴν δόξαν.
We must examine what is called the affective part of the soul. In a way something has already been said about this too, when we discussed all the affections occurring in the spirited and the desiring parts, and how each arises. Nonetheless we must say more about it, first grasping what the affective part of the soul is said to be. It is said, surely, to be that around which the affections seem to form; and these are the ones followed by pleasure and pain. Some affections form on the basis of opinions: as when someone forms the opinion that he is going to die and feels fear, or believes some good will come to him and is pleased. The opinion is in one thing, the affection is set in motion in another. Others, as it were taking the lead, themselves produce the opinion involuntarily in the part whose nature is to form opinions.
ἡ μὲν δὴ δόξα ὅτι ἄτρεπτον ἐᾷ ἐπὶ τῷ δοξάζειν εἴρηται· ὁ δ’ ἐκτὸς τῆς δόξης φόβος ἐλθὼν ἄνωθεν αὖ ἀπὸ τῆς δόξης οἷον σύνεσίν τινα παρασχὼν τῷ λεγομένῳ τῆς ψυχῆς φοβεῖσθαι. τί ποτε ποιεῖ τοῦτο τὸ φοβεῖσθαι; ταραχὴν καὶ ἔκπληξίν, φασιν, ἐπὶ προσδοκωμένῳ κακῷ. ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἡ φαντασία ἐν ψυχῇ, ἥ τε πρώτη, ἣν δὴ καλοῦμεν δόξαν, ἥ τε ἀπὸ ταύτης οὐκέτι δόξα, ἀλλὰ περὶ τὸ κάτω ἀμυδρὰ οἷον δόξα καὶ ἀνεπίκριτος φαντασία, οἵα τῇ λεγομένῃ φύσει ἐνυπάρχει ἐνέργεια καθ’ ἃ ποιεῖ ἕκαστον, ὥς φασιν, ἀφαντάστως, δῆλον ἄν τῳ γένοιτο. τὸ δ’ ἀπὸ τούτων ἤδη αἰσθητὴ ἡ ταραχὴ περὶ τὸ σῶμα γινομένη ὅ τε τρόμος καὶ ὁ σεισμὸς τοῦ σώματος καὶ τὸ ὠχρὸν καὶ ἡ ἀδυναμία τοῦ λέγειν.
Now it has been said that opinion leaves that part unchanged when it forms an opinion. Fear, which is outside opinion, comes from above, from the opinion, and gives a kind of understanding, as it were, to what is called the fearing part of the soul. What does this fearing produce? Disturbance and consternation, they say, at an expected evil. That imagination is in the soul should be clear to anyone: both the first kind, which we call opinion, and the kind derived from it, which is no longer opinion but a dim quasi-opinion directed to what is below, an unexamined imagination, like the activity present in what is called nature, by which it makes each thing, as they say, without imagination. What follows from these is the disturbance, now perceptible, occurring in the body: the trembling and shaking of the body, the pallor, the inability to speak.
οὐ γὰρ δὴ ἐν τῷ ψυχικῷ μέρει ταῦτα· ἢ σωματικὸν φήσομεν αὐτὸ εἶναι, αὐτό γε εἴπερ ἦν παθὸν ταῦτα· οὐδ’ ἂν ἔτι εἰς τὸ σῶμα ταῦτα ἀφίκετο τοῦ πέμποντος οὐκέτι ἐνεργοῦντος τὸ πέμπειν διὰ τὸ κατέχεσθαι τῷ πάθει καὶ ἐξίστασθαι ἑαυτοῦ.
These are certainly not in the soul part. Otherwise we will say that this part is itself bodily, if it really had undergone them; and then these things would no longer even reach the body, since what sends them would no longer be actively sending, being gripped by the affection and taken out of itself.
ἀλλ’ ἔστι μὲν τοῦτο τὸ τῆς ψυχῆς μέρος τὸ παθητικὸν οὐ σῶμα μέν, εἶδος δέ τι. ἐν ὕλῃ μέντοι καὶ τὸ ἐπιθυμοῦν καὶ τό γε θρεπτικόν τε καὶ αὐξητικὸν καὶ γεννητικόν, ὅ ἐστι ῥίζα καὶ ἀρχὴ τοῦ ἐπιθυμοῦντος καὶ παθητικοῦ εἴδους. εἴδει δὲ οὐδενὶ δεῖ παρεῖναι ταραχὴν ἢ ὅλως πάθος, ἀλλ’ ἑστηκέναι μὲν αὐτό, τὴν δὲ ὕλην αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ πάθει γίγνεσθαι, ὅταν γίγνηται, ἐκείνου τῇ παρουσίᾳ τοῦ κινοῦντος. οὐ γὰρ δὴ τὸ φυτικόν, ὅταν φύῃ, φύεται, οὐδ’ ὅταν αὔξῃ, αὔξεται, οὐδ’ ὅλως, ὅταν κινῇ, κινεῖται ἐκείνην τὴν κίνησιν ἣν κινεῖ, ἀλλ’ ἢ οὐδ’ ὅλως, ἢ ἄλλος τρόπος κινήσεως ἢ ἐνεργείας. αὐτὴν μὲν οὖν δεῖ τὴν τοῦ εἴδους φύσιν ἐνέργειαν εἶναι καὶ τῇ παρουσίᾳ ποιεῖν, οἷον εἰ ἡ ἁρμονία ἐξ αὑτῆς τὰς χορδὰς ἐκίνει.
No: this affective part of the soul is not a body but a form. It is in matter, though—both the desiring part and the nutritive, growth and generative part, which is the root and principle of the desiring and affective form. But no form should have disturbance, or affection at all, present to it. It should itself stand still, while its matter comes to be in the affection, when it does, by the presence of that which moves it. For the vegetative principle, when it makes things grow, does not itself grow; nor when it increases things is it increased; nor in general, when it moves, is it moved with the motion with which it moves—either it is not moved at all, or it has another manner of movement or activity. The very nature of the form must be activity, and must act by its presence, as if the harmony moved the strings of itself.
ἔσται τοίνυν τὸ παθητικὸν πάθους μὲν αἴτιον ἢ παρ’ αὐτοῦ γενομένου τοῦ κινήματος ἐκ τῆς φαντασίας τῆς αἰσθητικῆς ἢ καὶ ἄνευ φαντασίας· ἐπισκεπτέον δὲ τοῦτο, εἰ τῆς δόξης ἄνωθεν ἀρξάσης· αὐτὸ δὲ μένον ἐν ἁρμονίας εἴδει. τὰ δὲ αἴτια τοῦ κινῆσαι ἀνάλογον τῷ μουσικῷ· τὰ δὲ πληγέντα διὰ πάθους πρὸς τὰς χορδὰς ἂν τὸν λόγον ἔχοι. καὶ γὰρ κἀκεῖ οὐχ ἡ ἁρμονία πέπονθεν, ἀλλ’ ἡ χορδή· οὐ μὴν ἐκινήθη ἂν ἡ χορδὴ [μουσικῶς], εἰ καὶ ὁ μουσικὸς ἐβούλετο, μὴ τῆς ἁρμονίας τοῦτο λεγούσης.
So the affective part will be the cause of the affection, either when the movement arises from it out of sense imagination, or even without imagination—but we must examine this, whether it happens when opinion has begun from above—while the part itself remains in the form of a harmony. The causes of the movement correspond to the musician; the things struck through the affection would correspond to the strings. For there too it is not the harmony that is affected but the string; and yet the string would not have been moved [musically], even if the musician wished it, unless the harmony said so.
τί οὖν χρὴ ζητεῖν ἀπαθῆ τὴν ψυχὴν ἐκ φιλοσοφίας ποιεῖν μηδὲ τὴν ἀρχὴν πάσχουσαν; ἢ ἐπειδὴ καὶ τὸ εἰς αὐτὴν ἐπὶ τοῦ λεγομένου παθητικοῦ οἷον φάντασμα τὸ ἐφεξῆς πάθημα ποιεῖ, τὴν ταραχήν, καὶ συνέζευκται τῇ ταραχῇ ἡ τοῦ προσδοκωμένου κακοῦ εἰκών, πάθος τὸ τοιοῦτον λεγόμενον ἠξίου ὁ λόγος ὅλως ἀφαιρεῖν καὶ μὴ ἐᾶν ἐγγίγνεσθαι ὡς γιγνομένου μὲν οὔπω τῆς ψυχῆς ἐχούσης εὖ, μὴ γιγνομένου δὲ ἀπαθῶς ἰσχούσης τοῦ αἰτίου τοῦ πάθους οὐκέτι ἐγγιγνομένου, οἷον εἴ τις τὰς τῶν ὀνειράτων φαντασίας ἀναιρεῖν ἐθέλων ἐν ἐγρηγόρσει τὴν ψυχὴν τὴν φανταζομένην ποιοῖ, εἰ τὰ πάθη λέγοι πεποιηκέναι τὰ ἔξωθεν οἷον ὁράματα παθήματα λέγων τῆς ψυχῆς εἶναι. ἀλλὰ τίς ἡ κάθαρσις ἂν τῆς ψυχῆς εἴη μηδαμῆ μεμολυσμένης ἢ τί τὸ χωρίζειν αὐτὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ σώματος;
Why, then, should we try to make the soul unaffected through philosophy, if it is not affected in the first place? Or rather: what enters it in the so-called affective part, a kind of phantasm, produces the affection that follows, the disturbance; and yoked to the disturbance is the image of the expected evil. So the argument thought it right to remove this so-called affection altogether and not let it arise: when it arises, the soul is not yet in a good state; when it does not arise, the soul is unaffected, since the cause of the affection no longer arises in it. It is as if someone, wanting to abolish the images of dreams, were to bring the soul that has them to a waking state—if he were to say that it had produced the affections, calling the visions that seem to come from outside affections of the soul. But what would the purification of a soul be that has never been soiled at all? Or what is separating it from the body?
ἢ ἡ μὲν κάθαρσις ἂν εἴη καταλιπεῖν μόνην καὶ μὴ μετ’ ἄλλων ἢ μὴ πρὸς ἄλλο βλέπουσαν μηδ’ αὖ δόξας ἀλλοτρίας ἔχουσαν, ὅστις ὁ τρόπος τῶν δοξῶν, ἢ τῶν παθῶν, ὡς εἴρηται, μήτε ὁρᾶν τὰ εἴδωλα μήτε ἐξ αὐτῶν ἐργάζεσθαι πάθη. εἰ δὲ ἐπὶ θάτερα τῶν κάτω, πῶς οὐ κάθαρσις; καὶ χωρισμός γε πρὸς τῆς ψυχῆς τῆς μηκέτι ἐν σώματι γιγνομένης ὡς ἐκείνου εἶναι, καὶ τὸ ὥσπερ φῶς ἐν θολερῷ καίτοι ἀπαθὲς ὅμως καὶ ἐν θολερῷ. τοῦ δὴ παθητικοῦ ἡ μὲν κάθαρσις ἔγερσις ἐκ τῶν ἀτόπων εἰδώλων καὶ μὴ ὅρασις, τὸ δὲ χωρίζεσθαι τῇ μὴ πολλῇ νεύσει καὶ τῇ περὶ τὰ κάτω μὴ φαντασίᾳ.
Perhaps purification would be to leave it alone, not with others, or not looking at something else, nor again having alien opinions—whatever the manner of the opinions or of the affections, as has been said—neither seeing the images nor producing affections from them. And if it turns the other way, away from the things below, how is that not purification? And separation, on the soul’s side, is its no longer coming to be in a body so as to belong to it, and being like light in murky water, which is unaffected even in the murk. For the affective part, purification is waking up from its strange images and not seeing them; separation is not inclining much downward and not imagining the things below.
εἴη δ’ ἂν καὶ τὸ χωρίζειν αὐτὸ τὸ ἐκεῖνα ἀφαιρεῖν ὧν τοῦτο χωρίζεται, ὅταν μὴ ἐπὶ πνεύματος θολεροῦ ἐκ γαστριμαργίας καὶ πλήθους οὐ καθαρὸν ᾖ σαρκῶν, ἀλλ’ ᾖ ἰσχνὸν τὸ ἐν ᾧ, ὡς ἐπ’ αὐτοῦ ὀχεῖσθαι ἡσυχῇ.
And separating it would also mean removing the things from which it is separated, when it does not rest on a murky pneuma made impure by gluttony and a mass of flesh, but what it is in is thin, so that it can ride on it quietly.
Matter and true being
True being is life and Intellect, and the more bodily a thing is, the less it truly is.
τὴν μὲν δὴ οὐσίαν τὴν νοητὴν τὴν κατὰ τὸ εἶδος ἅπασαν τεταγμένην ὡς ἀπαθῆ δεῖ εἶναι δοκεῖν εἴρηται. ἐπεὶ δὲ καὶ ἡ ὕλη ἕν τι τῶν ἀσωμάτων, εἰ καὶ ἄλλον τρόπον, σκεπτέον καὶ περὶ ταύτης τίνα τρόπον ἔχει, πότερον παθητή, ὡς λέγεται, καὶ κατὰ πάντα τρεπτή, ἢ καὶ ταύτην δεῖ ἀπαθῆ εἶναι οἴεσθαι, καὶ τίς ὁ τρόπος τῆς ἀπαθείας. πρῶτον δὴ ληπτέον ἐπὶ τοῦτο στελλομένοις καὶ περὶ τῆς φύσεως αὐτῆς λέγουσιν ὁποία τις, ὡς ἡ τοῦ ὄντος φύσις καὶ ἡ οὐσία καὶ τὸ εἶναι οὐ ταύτῃ ἔχει, ὡς οἱ πολλοὶ νομίζουσιν. ἔστι γὰρ τὸ ὄν, ὃ καὶ κατὰ ἀλήθειαν ἄν τις εἴποι ὄν, ὄντως ὄν· τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν, ὃ πάντη ἐστὶν ὄν· τοῦτο δέ, ὃ μηδὲν ἀποστατεῖ τοῦ εἶναι.
It has been said, then, that intelligible being, all of it ranked as form, must be thought to be unaffected. But since matter too is one of the bodiless things, even if in another way, we must examine how it stands with matter as well: whether it is affectable, as people say, and changeable in every way, or whether we must think it too is unaffected, and what the manner of its unaffectedness is. As we set out on this and speak about its nature, what kind it is, we must first grasp that the nature of being, and substance, and existence, are not what most people think. For being—what one would truly call being—is what really is; and this is what is being in every way; and this is what falls short of being in nothing.
τελέως δὲ ὂν οὐδενὸς δεῖται, ἵνα σώζηται καὶ ᾖ, ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις αἴτιον τοῖς δοκοῦσιν εἶναι τοῦ δοκεῖν εἶναι. εἰ δὲ ταῦτα ὀρθῶς λέγεται, ἀνάγκη αὐτὸ ἐν ζωῇ καὶ ἐν τελείᾳ ζωῇ εἶναι· ἢ ἐλλεῖπον οὐ μᾶλλον ὂν ἢ μὴ ὂν ἔσται. τοῦτο δὲ νοῦς καὶ πάντη φρόνησις. καὶ ὡρισμένον ἄρα καὶ πεπερασμένον καὶ τῇ δυνάμει οὐδὲν ὅ τι μὴ οὐδὲ τοσῇδε· ἐπιλείποι γὰρ ἄν. διὸ καὶ τὸ ἀεὶ καὶ τὸ ὡσαύτως καὶ τὸ ἄδεκτον παντὸς καὶ οὐδὲν εἰς αὐτό· εἰ γάρ τι δέχοιτο, παρ’ αὑτὸ ἄν τι δέχοιτο· τοῦτο δὲ μὴ ὄν. δεῖ δ’ αὐτὸ πάντη ὂν εἶναι· ἥκειν οὖν δεῖ παρ’ αὑτοῦ πάντα ἔχον εἰς τὸ εἶναι· καὶ ὁμοῦ πάντα καὶ ἓν πάντα.
Being perfectly, it needs nothing in order to be preserved and to be; it is also the cause, for the other things that seem to be, of their seeming to be. If this is rightly said, it must be in life, and in perfect life; otherwise, falling short, it will be no more being than non-being. And this is Intellect and understanding in every way. So it is also defined and limited; there is nothing outside its power, and its power is not of any particular size—for then it would fall short. That is why it has the “always” and the “in the same way,” and receives nothing, and nothing enters it. For if it received anything, it would receive something other than itself, and that would be non-being. But it must be being in every way; so it must come into being from itself, having everything; and it is all things together, and all one.
εἰ δὴ τούτοις ὁρίζομεν τὸ ὄν — δεῖ δέ, ἢ οὐκ ἂν ἐκ τοῦ ὄντος ἥκοι νοῦς καὶ ζωή, ἀλλὰ τῷ ὄντι ἐπακτὰ ταῦτα καὶ ἐξ οὐκ ὄντος ἔσται — καὶ τὸ μὲν ὂν ἄζων καὶ ἄνουν ἔσται, ὃ δὲ μὴ ὄν ἐστιν ἀληθῶς ταῦτα ἕξει, ὡς ἐν τοῖς χείροσι δέον ταῦτα εἶναι καὶ τοῖς ὑστέροις τοῦ ὄντος· τὸ γὰρ πρὸ τοῦ ὄντος χορηγὸν μὲν τούτων εἰς τὸ ὄν, οὐ δεόμενον δὲ αὐτὸ τούτων· εἰ οὖν τοιοῦτον τὸ ὄν, ἀνάγκη μήτε τι σῶμα αὐτὸ μήτε τὸ ὑποκείμενον τοῖς σώμασιν εἶναι, ἀλλ’ εἶναι τούτοις τὸ εἶναι τὸ μὴ οὖσιν εἶναι. καὶ πῶς ἡ τῶν σωμάτων φύσις μὴ οὖσα, πῶς δὲ ἡ ὕλη, ἐφ’ ἧς ταῦτα;
If, then, we define being by these marks—and we must; otherwise intellect and life would not come from being, but would be brought into being from outside and would come from non-being, and being would be lifeless and mindless while what is truly non-being would have them, as if they had to be in inferior things, posterior to being; whereas what is before being supplies these to being without itself needing them—if, then, being is like this, it must be neither a body nor the substrate of bodies. Rather, for these, to be is to be things that are not. And how is the nature of bodies non-being? How is matter, on which they rest?
ὄρη καὶ πέτραι καὶ πᾶσα γῆ στερεὰ καὶ πάντα ἀντίτυπα καὶ ταῖς πληγαῖς βιαζόμενα τὰ πληττόμενα ὁμολογεῖ αὐτῶν τὴν οὐσίαν. εἰ οὖν τις λέγοι· πῶς δὲ τὰ [μὴ] θλίβοντα καὶ μὴ βιαζόμενα μηδὲ ἀντίτυπα μηδ’ ὅλως ὁρώμενα, ψυχὴ καὶ νοῦς, ὄντα καὶ ὄντως ὄντα; καὶ δὴ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν σωμάτων μᾶλλον [ὂν] γῆς ἑστώσης τὸ μᾶλλον κινούμενον καὶ ἐμβριθὲς ἧττον, καὶ τούτου τὸ ἄνω· καὶ δὴ καὶ τὸ πῦρ φεῦγον ἤδη τὴν σώματος φύσιν. ἀλλ’ οἶμαι, τὰ μὲν αὐταρκέστερα αὑτοῖς ἧττον ἐνοχλεῖ τὰ ἄλλα καὶ ἀλυπότερα τοῖς ἄλλοις, τὰ δὲ βαρύτερα καὶ γεωδέστερα, ὅσα ἐλλιπῆ καὶ πίπτοντα καὶ αἴρειν αὑτὰ οὐ δυνάμενα, ταῦτα πίπτοντα ὑπὸ ἀσθενείας τῇ καταφορᾷ καὶ νωθείᾳ πληγὰς ἔχει.
Mountains and rocks and all the solid earth, and everything that resists and forces what it strikes with its blows, testify that they have being. Suppose someone says: then how are things that do not press, do not force, do not resist, and are not seen at all—soul and intellect—beings, and really beings? Well, among bodies too, what moves more and is less heavy is more [being] than earth, which stands still, and the upper part of this is more so still; and fire is already escaping the nature of body. But I think that the more self-sufficient things trouble others less and are less painful to others, while the heavier and earthier ones—those that are deficient and falling and cannot lift themselves—fall through weakness and deliver blows by their downward rush and sluggishness.
ἐπεὶ καὶ τὰ νεκρὰ τῶν σωμάτων ἀηδέστερα προσπεσεῖν, καὶ τὸ σφόδρα τῆς πληγῆς καὶ τὸ βλάπτειν ἔχει· τὰ δὲ ἔμψυχα μετέχοντα τοῦ ὄντος, ὅσῳ τούτου μέτεστιν αὐτοῖς, εὐχαριτώτερα τοῖς πέλας. ἡ δὲ κίνησις, ὥσπερ τις ζωὴ οὖσα ἐν τοῖς σώμασι καὶ μίμησιν ἔχουσα ταύτης, μᾶλλόν ἐστι τοῖς ἧττον σώματος ἔχουσιν, ὡς τῆς ἀπολείψεως τοῦ ὄντος ὃ καταλείπει μᾶλλον τοῦτο σῶμα ποιούσης· καὶ ἐκ τῶν δὲ λεγομένων παθημάτων μᾶλλον ἄν τις ἴδοι τὸ μᾶλλον σῶμα μᾶλλον παθητὸν ὄν, γῆν ἢ τὰ ἄλλα, καὶ τὰ ἄλλα κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον· τὰ μὲν γὰρ ἄλλα σύνεισι διαιρούμενα μὴ κωλύοντος μηδενὸς εἰς ἓν πάλιν, τμηθὲν δὲ γεηρὸν ἅπαν χωρὶς ἑκάτερον ἀεί· ὥσπερ [γὰρ] τὰ ἀπαγορεύοντα τῇ φύσει, ἃ δὴ μικρᾶς πληγῆς γενομένης οὕτως ἔχει ὥσπερ πέπληκται καὶ ἐφθάρη, οὕτω καὶ τὸ μάλιστα σῶμα γενόμενον ὡς μάλιστα εἰς τὸ μὴ ὂν ἧκον ἀναλαβεῖν αὑτὸ εἰς τὸ ἓν ἀσθενεῖ.
Indeed, dead bodies are also more unpleasant to collide with; they have violence in their blows and the power to harm. Living things, which share in being, are more agreeable to those near them, to the extent that they share in it. And motion, which is a kind of life in bodies and an imitation of life, belongs more to things that have less of body, as though being’s abandonment made what it leaves behind more of a body. And from the so-called affections one can see better that what is more body is more affectable: earth more than the others, and the others by the same reckoning. For the others, when divided, come together into one again if nothing prevents it, while anything earthy, once cut, stays forever apart, each piece by itself. Things that are failing in their nature, when a small blow occurs, stay as they were struck and perish; in the same way, what has most become body, having gone furthest into non-being, is too weak to gather itself back into one.
πτῶμα οὖν αἱ βαρεῖαι καὶ σφοδραὶ πληγαὶ ποιοῦσιν εἰς ἄλληλα· ἀσθενὲς δὲ ἀσθενεῖ προσπῖπτον ἰσχυρόν ἐστι πρὸς ἐκεῖνο καὶ μὴ ὂν μὴ ὄντι. ταῦτα μὲν οὖν εἴρηται πρὸς τοὺς ἐν τοῖς σώμασι τιθεμένους τὰ ὄντα τῇ τῶν ὠθισμῶν μαρτυρίᾳ καὶ τοῖς διὰ τῆς αἰσθήσεως φαντάσμασι πίστιν τῆς ἀληθείας λαμβάνοντας, οἳ παραπλήσιον τοῖς ὀνειρώττουσι ταῦτα ἐνεργῆ νομίζουσιν, ἃ ὁρῶσιν ἐνύπνια ὄντα. καὶ γὰρ τὸ τῆς αἰσθήσεως ψυχῆς ἐστιν εὑδούσης· ὅσον γὰρ ἐν σώματι ψυχῆς, τοῦτο εὕδει· ἡ δ’ ἀληθινὴ ἐγρήγορσις ἀληθινὴ ἀπὸ σώματος, οὐ μετὰ σώματος, ἀνάστασις. ἡ μὲν γὰρ μετὰ σώματος μετάστασίς ἐστιν ἐξ ἄλλου εἰς ἄλλον ὕπνον, οἷον ἐξ ἑτέρων δεμνίων· ἡ δ’ ἀληθὴς ὅλως ἀπὸ τῶν σωμάτων, ἃ τῆς φύσεως ὄντα τῆς ἐναντίας ψυχῇ τὸ ἐναντίον εἰς οὐσίαν ἔχει.
So heavy and violent blows produce a collapse when bodies strike one another; and one weak thing falling on another weak thing is strong against it, non-being against non-being. This has been said against those who place real beings in bodies, taking the testimony of shoves and the phantasms of perception as proof of truth. Like dreamers, they think the things they see are real, when they are dreams. For the business of perception belongs to soul asleep: as much of soul as is in body, so much of it sleeps. True waking is a true rising up from the body, not with the body. Rising with the body is moving from one sleep to another, as if from one bed to another; the true rising is away from bodies altogether, which, being of a nature opposite to soul, have what is opposite to it with respect to being.
μαρτυρεῖ δὲ καὶ ἡ γένεσις αὐτῶν καὶ ἡ ῥοὴ καὶ ἡ φθορὰ οὐ τῆς τοῦ ὄντος φύσεως οὖσα.
Their coming to be, too, and their flowing and perishing, which do not belong to the nature of being, bear witness to this.
ἀλλ’ ἐπανιτέον ἐπί τε τὴν ὕλην τὴν ὑποκειμένην, καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τῇ ὕλῃ εἶναι λεγόμενα, ἐξ ὧν τό τε μὴ εἶναι αὐτὴν καὶ τὸ τῆς ὕλης ἀπαθὲς γνωσθήσεται. ἔστι μὲν οὖν ἀσώματος, ἐπείπερ τὸ σῶμα ὕστερον καὶ σύνθετον καὶ αὐτὴ μετ’ ἄλλου ποιεῖ σῶμα. οὕτω γὰρ τοῦ ὀνόματος τετύχηκε τοῦ αὐτοῦ κατὰ τὸ ἀσώματον, ὅτι ἑκάτερον τό τε ὂν ἥ τε ὕλη ἕτερον τῶν σωμάτων. οὔτε δὲ ψυχὴ οὖσα οὔτε νοῦς οὔτε ζωὴ οὔτε εἶδος οὔτε λόγος οὔτε πέρας· ἀπειρία γάρ· οὔτε δύναμις· τί γὰρ καὶ ποιεῖ;
But we must go back to the underlying matter and to the things said to be on matter; from these we will come to know both its not-being and matter’s unaffectedness. Matter, then, is bodiless, since body comes later and is composite, and matter together with something else makes body. That is how it has come to share the same name with being, as bodiless: both being and matter are different from bodies. It is not soul, nor intellect, nor life, nor form, nor rational principle, nor limit—for it is unlimitedness—nor power: what does it make?
ἀλλὰ ταῦτα ὑπερεκπεσοῦσα πάντα οὐδὲ τὴν τοῦ ὄντος προσηγορίαν ὀρθῶς ἂν δέχοιτο, μὴ ὂν δ’ ἂν εἰκότως λέγοιτο, καὶ οὐχ ὥσπερ κίνησις μὴ ὂν ἢ στάσις μὴ ὄν, ἀλλὰ ἀληθινῶς μὴ ὄν, εἴδωλον καὶ φάντασμα ὄγκου καὶ ὑποστάσεως ἔφεσις καὶ ἑστηκὸς οὐκ ἐν στάσει καὶ ἀόρατον καθ’ αὑτὸ καὶ φεῦγον τὸν βουλόμενον ἰδεῖν, καὶ ὅταν τις μὴ ἴδῃ γιγνόμενον, ἀτενίσαντι δὲ οὐχ ὁρώμενον, καὶ τὰ ἐναντία ἀεὶ ἐφ’ ἑαυτοῦ φανταζόμενον, μικρὸν καὶ μέγα καὶ ἧττον καὶ μᾶλλον, ἐλλεῖπόν τε καὶ ὑπερέχον, εἴδωλον οὐ μένον οὐδ’ αὖ φεύγειν δυνάμενον· οὐδὲ γὰρ οὐδὲ τοῦτο ἰσχύει ἅτε μὴ ἰσχὺν παρὰ νοῦ λαβόν, ἀλλ’ ἐν ἐλλείψει τοῦ ὄντος παντὸς γενόμενον.
Having fallen outside all these, it could not rightly receive even the name of being, but it might reasonably be called non-being—and not as motion is non-being or rest is non-being, but truly non-being. It is an image and phantasm of bulk, an aspiration to existence; it stands still, but not at rest; invisible in itself, it escapes whoever wants to see it; it is there when one is not looking, but is not seen when one gazes intently; it always shows opposite appearances in itself—small and great, less and more, falling short and exceeding—an image that does not stay, and yet cannot flee either. It does not have the strength even for that, since it has received no strength from Intellect but has come to be in the lack of all being.
διὸ πᾶν ὃ ἂν ἐπαγγέλληται ψεύδεται, κἂν μέγα φαντασθῇ, μικρόν ἐστι, κἂν μᾶλλον, ἧττόν ἐστι, καὶ τὸ ὂν αὐτοῦ ἐν φαντάσει οὐκ ὄν ἐστιν, οἷον παίγνιον φεῦγον· ὅθεν καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ ἐγγίγνεσθαι δοκοῦντα παίγνια, εἴδωλα ἐν εἰδώλῳ ἀτεχνῶς, ὡς ἐν κατόπτρῳ τὸ ἀλλαχοῦ ἱδρυμένον, ἀλλαχοῦ φανταζόμενον· καὶ πιμπλάμενον, ὡς δοκεῖ, [κενὸν] καὶ ἔχον οὐδὲν καὶ δοκοῦν τὰ πάντα. τὰ δὲ εἰσιόντα καὶ ἐξιόντα τῶν ὄντων μιμήματα καὶ εἴδωλα εἰς εἴδωλον ἄμορφον καὶ διὰ τὸ ἄμορφον αὐτῆς ἐνορώμενα ποιεῖν μὲν δοκεῖ εἰς αὐτήν, ποιεῖ δὲ οὐδέν· ἀμενηνὰ γὰρ καὶ ἀσθενῆ καὶ ἀντερεῖδον οὐκ ἔχοντα· ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ ἐκείνης ἐχούσης δίεισιν οὐ τέμνοντα οἷον δι’ ὕδατος ἢ εἴ τις ἐν τῷ λεγομένῳ κενῷ μορφὰς οἷον εἰσπέμποι.
So whatever it announces is a lie. If it appears great, it is small; if more, it is less; and its being, in appearance, is not being, like a toy that slips away. Hence the things that seem to come to be in it are toys too, simply images in an image, as in a mirror what is set in one place appears in another. It seems to be filled, [empty] as it is; it has nothing, and seems to be everything. The things that enter and leave, imitations of the things that are, are images entering a formless image, and are seen in it because of its formlessness. They seem to act on it, but they do nothing; for they are feeble and weak and have nothing to push against. But since it has nothing either, they pass through without cutting, as through water, or as if someone were to send shapes, as it were, into what is called the void.
καὶ γὰρ αὖ, εἰ μὲν τοιαῦτα ἦν τὰ ὁρώμενα, οἷα τὰ ἀφ’ ὧν ἦλθεν εἰς αὐτήν, τάχ’ ἄν τις διδοὺς αὐτοῖς δύναμίν τινα τῶν πεμψάντων εἰς αὐτὴν γενομένην πάσχειν ὑπ’ αὐτῶν ἂν ὑπέλαβε· νῦν δὲ ἄλλων μὲν ὄντων τῶν ἐμφανταζομένων, ἀλλοίων δὲ τῶν ἐνορωμένων, κἀκ τούτων μαθεῖν ἔστι τὸ τῆς πείσεως ψεῦδος ψεύδους ὄντος τοῦ ἐνορωμένου καὶ οὐδαμῇ ἔχοντος ὁμοιότητα πρὸς τὸ ποιῆσαν. ἀσθενὲς δὴ καὶ ψεῦδος ὂν καὶ εἰς ψεῦδος ἐμπῖπτον, οἷα ἐν ὀνείρῳ ἢ ὕδατι ἢ κατόπτρῳ, ἀπαθῆ αὐτὴν εἴασεν ἐξ ἀνάγκης εἶναι· καίτοι ἔν γε τοῖς προειρημένοις ὁμοίωσις τοῖς ἐνορωμένοις ἐστὶ πρὸς τὰ ἐνορῶντα.
And again, if the things seen in it were like the things from which they came into it, someone might perhaps grant them some power of their senders that had come into it, and suppose it was affected by them. As it is, though, the things that appear in it are other, and the things seen in it are different in kind; and from this too one can learn that its being affected is a falsehood, since what is seen in it is false and has no likeness whatever to what produced it. Being weak and false and falling into what is false, as in a dream or in water or in a mirror, it necessarily leaves matter unaffected. And yet in the cases just mentioned the things seen in them do bear a likeness to the things that cast them.
ὅλως δὲ τὸ πάσχον δεῖ τοιοῦτον εἶναι οἷον ἐν ταῖς ἐναντίαις εἶναι δυνάμεσι καὶ ποιότησι τῶν ἐπεισιόντων καὶ τὸ πάσχειν ἐμποιούντων. τῷ γὰρ ἐνόντι θερμῷ ἡ ἀλλοίωσις παρὰ τοῦ ψύχοντος καὶ τῷ ἐνόντι ὑγρῷ ἡ ἀλλοίωσις παρὰ τοῦ ξηραίνοντος, καὶ ἠλλοιῶσθαι λέγομεν τὸ ὑποκείμενον, ὅταν ἐκ θερμοῦ ψυχρὸν ἢ ἐκ ξηροῦ ὑγρὸν γένηται. μαρτυρεῖ δὲ καὶ ἡ λεγομένη πυρὸς φθορὰ μεταβολῆς γενομένης εἰς στοιχεῖον ἄλλο· τὸ γὰρ πῦρ ἐφθάρη, φαμέν, οὐχ ἡ ὕλη· ὥστε καὶ τὰ πάθη περὶ τοῦτο, περὶ ὃ καὶ ἡ φθορά· ὁδὸς γὰρ εἰς φθορὰν ἡ παραδοχὴ τοῦ πάθους· καὶ τούτῳ τὸ φθείρεσθαι, ᾧ καὶ τὸ πάσχειν. τὴν δὲ ὕλην φθείρεσθαι οὐχ οἷόν τε· εἰς τί γὰρ καὶ πῶς;
In general, what is affected must be such as to have powers and qualities opposite to those of the things that come upon it and produce the affection. The heat present in a thing undergoes alteration from what cools it, and the moisture present from what dries it; and we say the substrate has been altered when it becomes cold from hot or wet from dry. What is called the destruction of fire also bears witness to this, when it changes into another element: the fire was destroyed, we say, not the matter. So the affections, too, concern the same thing that destruction concerns; for receiving an affection is the road to destruction, and being destroyed belongs to the same thing as being affected. But matter cannot be destroyed. Into what, and how?
πῶς οὖν λαβοῦσα ἐν αὑτῇ θερμότητας, ψυχρότητας, μυρίας καὶ ἀπείρους ὅλως ποιότητας καὶ ταύταις διαληφθεῖσα καὶ οἷον συμφύτους αὐτὰς ἔχουσα καὶ συγκεκραμένας ἀλλήλαις, οὐ γὰρ ἕκαστα χωρίς, αὐτὴ δὲ ἐν μέσῳ ἀποληφθεῖσα πασχουσῶν τῶν ποιοτήτων ἐν τῇ πρὸς ἀλλήλας ἀπ’ ἀλλήλων μίξει οὐχὶ συμπάσχει καὶ αὐτή; εἰ μὴ ἄρα ἔξω τις αὐτὴν θήσεται αὐτῶν παντάπασιν· ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ δὲ πᾶν οὕτω πάρεστι τῷ ὑποκειμένῳ, ὡς αὐτῷ τι παρ’ αὑτοῦ διδόναι.
How, then, does it not itself share in the affection, when it takes into itself heats, colds, countless qualities, unlimited altogether, and is parceled out by them, and has them as if grown into it and blended with one another—for they are not each separate—while it is caught in the middle and the qualities are affected in their mixing, with one another and by one another? Unless, of course, one is going to put it altogether outside them. But whatever is in a substrate is present to the substrate in such a way as to give it something of itself.
ληπτέον δὴ τὸ παρεῖναι ἕτερον ἑτέρῳ καὶ τὸ εἶναι ἄλλο ἐν ἄλλῳ πρῶτον ὡς οὐ καθ’ ἕνα τρόπον ὑπάρχει, ἀλλὰ τὸ μέν ἐστιν οἷον μετὰ τοῦ παρεῖναι ἢ χεῖρον ἢ βέλτιον ποιεῖν ἐκεῖνο μετὰ τοῦ τρέπειν, οἷον ἐπὶ τῶν σωμάτων ὁρᾶται ἐπί γε τῶν ζῴων, τὸ δ’ οἷον ποιεῖν βέλτιον ἢ χεῖρον ἄνευ τοῦ πάσχειν ἐκεῖνο, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τῆς ψυχῆς ἐλέγετο, τὸ δ’ οἷον ὅταν τις σχῆμα κηρῷ προσαγάγῃ, ἔνθα οὔτε τι πάθος, ὡς ἄλλο τι ποιῆσαι τὸν κηρὸν εἶναι, ὅταν παρῇ τὸ σχῆμα, οὔτε τις ἔλλειψις ἐκείνῳ ἀπεληλυθότος ἐκείνου. τὸ δὲ δὴ φῶς οὐδὲ σχήματος ἀλλοίωσιν περὶ τὸ φωτιζόμενον ποιεῖ. ὁ δὲ δὴ λίθος ψυχρὸς γενόμενος τί παρὰ τῆς ψυχρότητος μένων λίθος ἔχει; τί δ’ ἂν γραμμὴ πάθοι ὑπὸ χρώματος;
First we must grasp that “being present to another” and “being in another” do not occur in a single way. One kind, by being present, makes the other worse or better while changing it, as one sees with bodies, at least with those of living things. Another, as it were, makes it better or worse without the other being affected, as was said in the case of the soul. Another is as when someone applies a shape to wax: here there is no affection such as to make the wax something else when the shape is present, nor any lack in it when the shape has gone. And light does not even make an alteration of shape in what is lit. And the stone that has become cold—what does it get from the coldness, remaining a stone? And what would a line suffer from color?
οὐδὲ δὴ τὸ ἐπίπεδον, οἶμαι, ἀλλὰ τὸ ὑποκείμενον ἴσως σῶμα. καίτοι ὑπὸ χρώματος τί ἂν πάθοι; οὐ γὰρ δεῖ τὸ παθεῖν λέγειν τὸ παρεῖναι οὐδὲ τὸ μορφὴν περιθεῖναι. εἰ δέ τις καὶ τὰ κάτοπτρα λέγοι καὶ ὅλως τὰ διαφανῆ ὑπὸ τῶν ἐνορωμένων εἰδώλων μηδὲν πάσχειν, οὐκ ἀνόμοιον ἂν τὸ παράδειγμα φέροι. εἴδωλα γὰρ καὶ τὰ ἐν τῇ ὕλῃ καὶ αὕτη ἔτι μᾶλλον ἀπαθέστερον ἢ τὰ κάτοπτρα. ἐγγίνονται μὲν δὴ ἐν αὐτῇ θερμότητες καὶ ψυχρότητες, ἀλλ’ οὐκ αὐτὴν θερμαίνουσαι· τὸ γὰρ θερμαίνεσθαί ἐστι καὶ τὸ ψύχεσθαι ποιότητος ἐξ ἄλλης εἰς ἄλλην τὸ ὑποκείμενον ἀγούσης.
Nor does the surface, I think, but perhaps the underlying body. And yet what would that suffer from color? We must not call being present being affected, nor putting a shape around something. And if someone were to say that mirrors, and transparent things in general, are not affected at all by the images seen in them, the example he offered would not be unlike the case. For the things in matter are images too, and matter is even more unaffected than mirrors are. Heats and colds do come to be in it, but they do not heat it; for being heated and being cooled belong to a quality that brings the substrate from one quality to another.
ἐπισκεπτέον δὲ περὶ τῆς ψυχρότητος μήποτε ἀπουσία καὶ στέρησις. συνελθοῦσαι δὲ εἰς αὐτὴν αἱ ποιότητες εἰς ἀλλήλας μὲν αἱ πολλαὶ αὐτῶν [οὐ] ποιήσουσι, μᾶλλον δὲ αἱ ἐναντίως ἔχουσαι. τί γὰρ ἂν εὐωδία γλυκύτητα ἐργάσαιτο ἢ χρῶμα σχῆμα ἢ τὸ ἐξ ἄλλου γένους ἄλλο; ὅθεν ἄν τις καὶ μάλιστα πιστεύσειεν, ὡς ἔστιν ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ εἶναι ἄλλο [ἐν] ἄλλῳ ἢ ἕτερον ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἄλυπον ὂν τῇ αὑτοῦ παρουσίᾳ ᾧ ἢ ἐν ᾧ πάρεστιν. ὥσπερ οὖν καὶ τὸ βλαπτόμενον οὐχ ὑπὸ τοῦ τυχόντος, οὕτως οὐδὲ τὸ τρεπόμενον καὶ πάσχον ὑφ’ ὁτουοῦν ἂν πάθοι, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ἐναντίοις ὑπὸ τῶν ἐναντίων ἡ πεῖσις, τὰ δ’ ἄλλα ὑπ’ ἄλλων ἄτρεπτα. οἷς δὴ μηδεμία ἐναντιότης ὑπάρχει, ταῦτα ὑπ’ οὐδενὸς ἂν ἐναντίου πάθοι.
We should examine whether coldness is not an absence and a privation. When the qualities come together in matter, they will act on one another—many of them, or rather those that are opposed. For how could a fragrance produce sweetness, or a color a shape, or one thing of one kind another thing of a different kind? From this one might be especially convinced that it is possible for one thing to be [in] another in the same subject, or something different in something different, causing no harm by its presence to that to which or in which it is present. Just as what is harmed is not harmed by any chance thing, so too what is changed and affected would not be affected by just anything: affection is for opposites by opposites, and other things are unchanged by others. Things in which there is no opposition would be affected by no opposite.
ἀνάγκη τοίνυν, εἴ τι πάσχει, μὴ ὕλην, ἀλλά τι συναμφότερον ἢ ὅλως πολλὰ ὁμοῦ εἶναι. τὸ δὲ μόνον καὶ ἔρημον τῶν ἄλλων καὶ παντάπασιν ἁπλοῦν ἀπαθὲς ἂν εἴη πάντων καὶ ἐν μέσοις ἅπασιν ἀπειλημμένον τοῖς εἰς ἄλληλα ποιοῦσιν· οἷον ἐν οἴκῳ τῷ αὐτῷ ἀλλήλους παιόντων ὁ οἶκος ἀπαθὴς καὶ ὁ ἐν αὐτῷ ἀήρ. συνιόντα δὲ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς ὕλης ἄλληλα ποιείτω, ὅσα ποιεῖν πέφυκεν, αὐτὴ δ’ ἀπαθὴς ἔσται πολὺ μᾶλλον, ἢ ὅσαι ποιότητες ἐν αὐτῇ τῷ μὴ ἐναντίαι εἶναι ἀπαθεῖς ὑπ’ ἀλλήλων εἰσίν.
So if anything is affected, it must be not matter but some composite, or in general many things together. What is alone, isolated from the others and altogether simple, would be unaffected by everything, even when caught in the middle of all the things acting on one another—as when people in the same house strike one another, the house is unaffected, and so is the air in it. Let the things on matter, then, come together and act on one another, as far as their nature allows; matter itself will be unaffected, and much more so than the qualities in it that are unaffected by one another because they are not opposites.
ἔπειτα, εἰ πάσχει ἡ ὕλη, δεῖ τι ἔχειν αὐτὴν ἐκ τοῦ πάθους ἢ αὐτὸ τὸ πάθος ἢ ἑτέρως διακεῖσθαι ἢ πρὶν εἰσελθεῖν εἰς αὐτὴν τὸ πάθος. ἐπιούσης τοίνυν ἄλλης μετ’ ἐκείνην ποιότητος οὐκέτι ὕλη ἔσται τὸ δεχόμενον, ἀλλὰ ποιὰ ὕλη. εἰ δὲ καὶ αὕτη ἡ ποιότης ἀποσταίη καταλιποῦσά τι αὑτῆς τῷ ποιῆσαι, ἄλλο ἂν ἔτι μᾶλλον γίνοιτο τὸ ὑποκείμενον. καὶ προιουσῶν τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον ἄλλο τι ἢ ὕλη ἔσται τὸ ὑποκείμενον, πολύτροπον δὲ καὶ πολυειδές· ὥστε οὐδ’ ἂν ἔτι πανδεχὲς γένοιτο ἐμπόδιον πολλοῖς τοῖς ἐπιοῦσι γινόμενον. ἥ τε ὕλη οὐκέτι μενεῖ· οὐδὲ ἄφθαρτος τοίνυν· ὥστε, εἰ δεῖ ὕλην εἶναι, ὥσπερ ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἦν, οὕτως ἀεὶ δεῖ αὐτὴν εἶναι τὴν αὐτήν· ὡς τό γε ἀλλοιοῦσθαι λέγειν οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτὴν ὕλην τηρούντων.
Next, if matter is affected, it must have something from the affection: either the affection itself, or a different condition from the one it was in before the affection entered it. Then when another quality comes on after that one, what receives it will no longer be matter but qualified matter. And if this quality too should depart, leaving something of itself behind because it acted, the substrate would become still more something else. And as things go on in this way, the substrate will be something other than matter, many-sided and multiform; so it would no longer be all-receiving, since it would become an obstacle to the many things coming upon it. And the matter will no longer remain; nor, then, is it indestructible. So if there must be matter, it must always be the same as it was from the beginning; to speak of its being altered is not for those who keep it as matter.
ἔπειτα δέ, εἰ ὅλως τὸ ἀλλοιούμενον πᾶν δεῖ μένον ἐπὶ τοῦ αὐτοῦ εἴδους ἀλλοιοῦσθαι κατὰ συμβεβηκός, ἀλλ’ οὐ καθ’ αὑτό· εἰ δὴ δεῖ μένειν τὸ ἀλλοιούμενον καὶ οὐ τὸ μένον ἐστὶν αὐτοῦ τὸ πάσχον, δυοῖν θάτερον ἀνάγκη, ἢ ἀλλοιουμένην τὴν ὕλην αὑτῆς ἐξίστασθαι, ἢ μὴ ἐξισταμένην αὑτῆς μὴ ἀλλοιοῦσθαι. εἰ δέ τις λέγοι μὴ καθ’ ὅσον ὕλη ἀλλοιοῦσθαι, πρῶτον μὲν κατὰ τί ἀλλοιώσεται οὐχ ἕξει λέγειν, ἔπειτα ὁμολογήσει καὶ οὕτω τὴν ὕλην αὐτὴν μὴ ἀλλοιοῦσθαι.
Further, if in general everything that is altered must remain in the same form and be altered incidentally, not in itself—if, then, what is altered must remain, and what remains of it is not what is affected—one of two things is necessary: either matter is altered and departs from itself, or it does not depart from itself and is not altered. If someone says it is altered, but not insofar as it is matter, first he will be unable to say in respect of what it will be altered; and then he will admit that even so matter itself is not altered.
ὥσπερ γὰρ τοῖς ἄλλοις εἴδεσιν οὖσιν οὐκ ἔστιν ἀλλοιοῦσθαι κατὰ τὴν οὐσίαν τῆς οὐσίας αὐτοῖς ἐν τούτῳ οὔσης, οὕτως, ἐπειδὴ τὸ εἶναι τῇ ὕλῃ ἐστὶ τὸ εἶναι ᾗ ὕλη, οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτὴν ἀλλοιοῦσθαι καθ’ ὅ τι ὕλη ἐστίν, ἀλλὰ μένειν, καὶ ὥσπερ ἐκεῖ ἀναλλοίωτον αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος, οὕτω καὶ ἐνταῦθα ἀναλλοίωτον αὐτὴν τὴν ὕλην.
For just as the other things, being forms, cannot be altered in their being, since their being lies in this, so too, since for matter to be is to be as matter, it cannot be altered in respect of being matter, but remains. And just as there the form itself is unalterable, so here matter itself is unalterable.
How matter participates
Forms appear in matter like images in a mirror, leaving it unchanged and unaffected.
ὅθεν δὴ καὶ τὸν Πλάτωνα οὕτω διανοούμενον ὀρθῶς εἰρηκέναι νομίζω ‘τὰ δὲ εἰσιόντα καὶ ἐξιόντα τῶν ὄντων [ἀεὶ] μιμήματα’ μὴ μάτην εἰσιέναι καὶ ἐξιέναι εἰρηκότα, ἀλλὰ βουλόμενον ἡμᾶς συνεῖναι ἐπιστήσαντας τῷ τρόπῳ τῆς μεταλήψεως, καὶ κινδυνεύει τὸ ἄπορον ἐκεῖνο τὸ ὅπως ἡ ὕλη τῶν εἰδῶν μεταλαμβάνει μὴ ἐκεῖνο εἶναι, ὃ οἱ πολλοὶ ᾠήθησαν τῶν πρὸ ἡμῶν, τὸ πῶς ἔρχεται εἰς αὐτήν, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον [τὸ] πῶς ἔστιν ἐν αὐτῇ. ὄντως γὰρ θαυμαστὸν εἶναι δοκεῖ, πῶς τούτων παρόντων αὐτῇ μένει ἡ αὐτὴ ἀπαθὴς αὐτῶν οὖσα καὶ προσέτι αὐτῶν τῶν εἰσιόντων πασχόντων ὑπ’ ἀλλήλων.
That is why I think Plato too, thinking along these lines, was right to say “the things that enter and leave are imitations of the things that [always] are.” He did not say “enter and leave” idly; he wanted us to understand by attending to the manner of participation. And it may be that the famous difficulty, how matter participates in the Forms, is not what most of our predecessors thought—how they come into it—but rather how they are in it. For it seems truly astonishing how, when these are present to it, it remains the same, unaffected by them, and that even though the very things that enter are affected by one another.
ἀλλὰ καὶ αὐτὰ τὰ εἰσιόντα ἐξωθεῖν τὰ πρότερα ἕκαστα καὶ εἶναι τὸ παθεῖν ἐν τῷ συνθέτῳ καὶ οὐδὲ ἐν παντὶ συνθέτῳ, ἀλλ’ ᾧ χρεία τοῦ προσελθόντος ἢ ἀπελθόντος καὶ ὃ ἐλλιπὲς μὲν τῇ συστάσει ἀπουσίᾳ τινός, τέλειον δὲ τῇ παρουσίᾳ. τῇ δὲ ὕλῃ οὔτε τι πλέον εἰς τὴν αὐτῆς σύστασιν προσελθόντος ὁτουοῦν· οὐ γὰρ γίνεταί τι ὃ ἔστι προσελθόντος, οὔτε ἔλαττον ἀπελθόντος· μένει γὰρ ὃ ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἦν. τοῦ δὲ κεκοσμῆσθαι τοῖς μὲν κόσμου καὶ τάξεως δεομένοις εἴη ἂν χρεία καὶ ὁ κόσμος δὲ γένοιτο ἂν ἄνευ μεταλλοιώσεως, οἷον οἷς περιτίθεμεν· εἰ δὲ οὕτω τι κοσμηθείη ὡς σύμφυτον εἶναι, δεήσει ἀλλοιωθὲν ὃ πρότερον αἰσχρὸν ἦν καὶ ἕτερον γενόμενον ἐκεῖνο τὸ κεκοσμημένον οὕτω καλὸν ἐξ αἰσχροῦ εἶναι.
Rather, the very things that enter push out, each of them, the ones before; and being affected belongs to the composite—and not even to every composite, but to one that has need of what comes or goes, one that is deficient in its constitution through the absence of something and complete through its presence. But matter gets nothing more for its constitution when anything whatever comes to it—for it does not become what it is when something comes—nor less when something leaves; it remains what it was from the beginning. Being adorned would be needed by things that need adornment and order; and adornment could come about without alteration, as with things we put ornaments on. But if something were adorned so that the adornment grew into it, then what was ugly before would have to be altered and become different, so that the adorned thing is beautiful instead of ugly.
εἰ τοίνυν αἰσχρὰ οὖσα ἡ ὕλη καλὴ ἐγένετο, ὃ ἦν πρότερον τῷ αἰσχρὰ εἶναι οὐκέτ’ ἐστίν· ὥστε ἐν τῷ οὕτω κεκοσμῆσθαι ἀπολεῖ τὸ ὕλην εἶναι καὶ μάλιστα, εἰ μὴ κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς αἰσχρά· εἰ δ’ οὕτως αἰσχρὰ ὡς αἶσχος εἶναι, οὐδ’ ἂν μεταλάβοι κόσμου, καὶ εἰ οὕτω κακὴ ὡς κακὸν εἶναι, οὐδ’ ἂν μεταλάβοι ἀγαθοῦ· ὥστε οὐχ οὕτως ἡ μετάληψις ὡς οἷόν τι παθούσης, ἀλλ’ ἕτερος τρόπος οἷον δοκεῖν. ἴσως δὲ καὶ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον λύοιτο ἂν τὸ ἄπορον, πῶς οὖσα κακὴ ἐφίοιτο ἂν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, ὡς μὴ μεταλήψει ἀπολλυμένης ὃ ἦν· εἰ γὰρ τοῦτον τὸν τρόπον ἡ λεγομένη μετάληψις, ὡς τὴν αὐτὴν μένειν μὴ ἀλλοιουμένην, ὡς λέγομεν, ἀλλ’ εἶναι ἀεὶ ὃ ἔστιν, οὐκέτι θαυμαστὸν γίνεται τὸ πῶς οὖσα κακὴ μεταλαμβάνει.
If, then, matter was ugly and became beautiful, what it was before, in being ugly, it no longer is. So in being adorned in this way it will lose its being matter, especially if it was not ugly incidentally. But if it is ugly in such a way as to be ugliness, it could not participate in adornment; and if it is evil in such a way as to be evil itself, it could not participate in good. So its participation is not a matter of its being affected in some way; it is another manner, a kind of seeming. Perhaps in this way, too, the difficulty would be solved of how, being evil, it could aspire to the good: participation would not destroy what it was. For if what is called participation is of such a kind that matter remains the same and is not altered, as we say, but always is what it is, it is no longer astonishing how, being evil, it participates.
οὐ γὰρ ἐξίσταται ἑαυτῆς, ἀλλ’ ὅτι μὲν ἀναγκαῖόν ἐστι μεταλαμβάνειν ἀμηγέπη μεταλαμβάνει ἕως ἂν ᾖ, τῷ δ’ εἶναι ὃ ἔστι τρόπῳ μεταλήψεως τηροῦντι αὐτὴν οὐ βλάπτεται εἰς τὸ εἶναι παρὰ τοῦ οὕτω διδόντος, καὶ κινδυνεύει διὰ τοῦτο οὐχ ἧττον εἶναι κακή, ὅτι ἀεὶ μένει τοῦτο ὃ ἔστι. μεταλαμβάνουσα γὰρ ὄντως καὶ ἀλλοιουμένη ὄντως ὑπὸ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ οὐκ ἂν ἦν τὴν φύσιν κακή. ὥστε εἴ τις τὴν ὕλην λέγει κακήν, οὕτως ἂν ἀληθεύοι, εἰ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἀπαθῆ λέγοι· τοῦτο δὲ ταὐτόν ἐστι τῷ ὅλως ἀπαθῆ εἶναι.
For it does not depart from itself. Since it is necessary for it to participate, it participates in some way, as long as it exists; but by being what it is, through a manner of participation that preserves it, it suffers no harm to its being from what gives in this way. And it may be that for this very reason it is no less evil: because it always remains what it is. For if it really participated, and were really altered by the good, it would not be evil in its nature. So if someone calls matter evil, he would be speaking the truth if he called it unaffected by the good; and this is the same as being wholly unaffected.
ὁ δέ γε Πλάτων τοῦτο νοῶν περὶ αὐτῆς καὶ τὴν μετάληψιν οὐχ ὡς ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ εἴδους γενομένου καὶ μορφὴν διδόντος, ὥστε ἓν σύνθετον γενέσθαι συντραπέντων καὶ οἷον συγκραθέντων καὶ συμπαθόντων, τιθέμενος, ὅτι μὴ οὕτω λέγει παραστῆσαι βουλόμενος, καὶ πῶς ἂν αὐτὴ ἀπαθὴς μένουσα ἔχοι τὰ εἴδη, ἀπαθοῦς μεταλήψεως ζητῶν παράδειγμα, ἄλλον τρόπον οὐ ῥᾴδιον [ὂν] διδάξαι ἃ μάλιστα παρόντα σώζει τὸ ὑποκείμενον ταὐτὸν εἶναι, ὑπέστη πολλὰς ἀπορίας σπεύδων ἐφ’ ὃ βούλεται καὶ προσέτι παραστῆσαι θέλων τὸ ἐν τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς κενὸν τῆς ὑποστάσεως καὶ τὴν χώραν τοῦ εἰκότος οὖσαν πολλήν. τὴν οὖν ὕλην σχήμασιν ὑποθέμενος τὰ πάθη ποιεῖν τοῖς ἐμψύχοις σώμασιν οὐδὲν αὐτὴν ἔχουσαν τούτων τῶν παθημάτων τὸ μένον αὐτῆς ταύτῃ ἐνδείκνυται διδοὺς συλλογίζεσθαι, ὡς οὐδὲ παρὰ τῶν σχημάτων ἔχει τὸ πάσχειν αὐτὴ καὶ ἀλλοιοῦσθαι.
Plato, having this in mind about matter, did not take participation to be form coming to be in a substrate and giving it shape, so that a single composite comes about from things changed together and, as it were, blended and affected together. He wanted to show that this is not what he means, and how matter could have the forms while remaining unaffected; and he looked for an example of unaffected participation, since it is not easy to teach in another way what it is that, while present, most preserves the substrate as the same. So he took on many difficulties as he hurried toward what he wanted, wishing besides to show the emptiness of existence in sensible things and how large the territory of the likely is. Positing, then, that matter produces the affections in living bodies through shapes, while itself having none of these affections, he shows in this way that it persists, letting us infer that it does not get being affected and altered from the shapes either.
τοῖς μὲν γὰρ σώμασι τούτοις ἐξ ἑτέρου σχήματος ἕτερον σχῆμα δεχομένοις τάχα ἄν τις ἀλλοίωσιν λέγοι γίγνεσθαι τὴν τοῦ σχήματος μεταβολὴν ὁμώνυμον τὴν ἀλλοίωσιν εἶναι λέγων· τῆς δὲ ὕλης οὐδὲν σχῆμα ἐχούσης οὐδὲ μέγεθος πῶς ἄν τις τὴν τοῦ σχήματος ὁπωσοῦν παρουσίαν ἀλλοίωσιν εἶναι κἂν ὁμωνύμως λέγοι; εἴ τις οὖν ἐνταῦθα τὸ ‘νόμῳ χροιὴ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα νόμῳ’ λέγοι τῷ τὴν φύσιν τὴν ὑποκειμένην μηδὲν οὕτως ἔχειν, ὡς νομίζεται, οὐκ ἂν ἄτοπος εἴη τοῦ λόγου. ἀλλὰ πῶς ἔχει, εἰ μηδὲ τὸ ὡς σχήματα ἀρέσκει; ἀλλ’ ἔχει ἔνδειξιν ἡ ὑπόθεσις ὡς οἷόν τε τῆς ἀπαθείας καὶ τῆς οἷον εἰδώλων οὐ παρόντων δοκούσης παρουσίας.
In these bodies, which receive one shape after another, someone might perhaps say that alteration takes place, calling the change of shape an alteration in name only. But since matter has no shape or magnitude, how could anyone call the presence of shape, in any way at all, an alteration, even in name only? So if someone said here “by convention color, and by convention the rest,” on the ground that the underlying nature has nothing in the way it is thought to, he would not be out of place in the argument. But how does matter have them, if even “as shapes” does not satisfy? Well, the hypothesis gives an indication, as far as possible, of its unaffectedness, and of the seeming presence of what are, as it were, images that are not present.
ἢ πρότερον ἔτι περὶ τῆς ἀπαθείας αὐτῆς λεκτέον διδάσκοντας ὡς [οὐ] χρὴ ταῖς συνηθείαις τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπὶ τὸ πάσχειν αὐτὴν φέρεσθαι, οἷον ὅταν ξηραινομένην λέγῃ αὐτὴν [καὶ] πυρουμένην καὶ ὑγραινομένην, ἐνθυμουμένους καὶ τὰ ἑξῆς ‘καὶ τὰς ἀέρος καὶ ὕδατος μορφὰς δεχομένην’. τὸ γὰρ καὶ τὰς ἀέρος καὶ ὕδατος μορφὰς δεχομένην ἀπαμβλύνει μὲν τὸ πυρουμένην καὶ ὑγραινομένην, δηλοῖ τε ἐν τῷ μορφὰς δεχομένην οὐ τὸ μεμορφῶσθαι αὐτήν, ἀλλ’ εἶναι τὰς μορφὰς ὡς εἰσῆλθον, τό τε πυρουμένην οὐ κυρίως εἰρῆσθαι, ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον πῦρ γινομένην· οὐ γὰρ τὸ αὐτὸ πῦρ γίνεσθαι καὶ πυροῦσθαι· ὑπ’ ἄλλου μὲν γὰρ τὸ πυροῦσθαι, ἐν ᾧ καὶ τὸ πάσχειν· ὃ δ’ αὐτὸ μέρος ἐστὶ πυρὸς πῶς ἂν πυροῖτο;
Or rather, we must first say more about its unaffectedness, teaching how we should take the customary words that carry us toward making it affected—as when he says it is dried [and] set on fire and moistened—keeping in mind also what comes next: “and receiving the shapes of air and water.” For “and receiving the shapes of air and water” blunts “set on fire and moistened”; and in the words “receiving shapes” it shows not that matter itself has been shaped, but that the shapes are there as they entered. It also shows that “set on fire” is not said in the strict sense, but rather means “becoming fire.” For becoming fire and being set on fire are not the same: being set on fire comes from something else, and that involves being affected; but how could what is itself a part of fire be set on fire?
τοιοῦτον γὰρ ἂν εἴη, οἷον εἴ τις διὰ τοῦ χαλκοῦ τὸν ἀνδριάντα λέγοι πεφοιτηκέναι, εἰ τὸ πῦρ διὰ τῆς ὕλης λέγοι κεχωρηκέναι καὶ προσέτι πυρῶσαι. ἔτι, εἰ λόγος ὁ προσιών, πῶς ἂν πυρώσειεν; ἢ εἰ σχῆμα; ἀλλὰ τὸ πυρούμενον ὑπ’ ἀμφοῖν ἤδη. πῶς οὖν ὑπ’ ἀμφοῖν μὴ ἑνὸς ἐξ ἀμφοῖν γενομένου; ἤ, κἂν ἓν ᾖ γενόμενον, οὐκ ἐν ἀλλήλοις τὰ πάθη ἐχόντων, ἀλλὰ πρὸς ἄλληλα ποιούντων. ἆρ’ οὖν ἀμφοτέρων ποιούντων, ἢ θατέρου θάτερον παρέχοντος μὴ φυγεῖν; ἀλλ’ ὅταν διαιρεθῇ τι σῶμα, πῶς οὐ καὶ αὐτὴ διῄρηται; καὶ πεπονθότος ἐκείνου τῷ διῃρῆσθαι πῶς οὐ καὶ αὐτὴ τῷ αὐτῷ τούτῳ παθήματι πέπονθεν; ἢ τί κωλύει τῷ αὐτῷ λόγῳ τούτῳ καὶ φθεῖραι λέγοντας· πῶς φθαρέντος τοῦ σώματος οὐκ ἔφθαρται;
It would be like saying that the statue had passed through the bronze, if one said that fire had gone through matter and, what is more, set it on fire. Further, if what comes to it is a rational principle, how would it set it on fire? Or if it is a shape? But what is set on fire is set on fire by both together. How, then, by both, if one thing has not come to be from both? Or rather: even if one thing has come about, they do not have their affections in each other; they act toward each other. Are both active, then, or does one make sure the other does not escape? But when some body is divided, how is matter not divided too? And when the body has been affected by being divided, how has matter not been affected by this same affection? Or what stops one, by this same argument, from destroying it too, by saying: how is it not destroyed when the body has been destroyed?
ἔτι λεκτέον τοσόνδε γὰρ εἶναι καὶ μέγεθος εἶναι, τῷ δὲ μὴ μεγέθει οὐδὲ τὰ μεγέθους πάθη ἐγγίγνεσθαι καὶ ὅλως δὴ τῷ μὴ σώματι μηδὲ τὰ σώματος πάθη ἐγγίνεσθαι· ὥστε ὅσοι παθητὴν ποιοῦσι καὶ σῶμα συγχωρείτωσαν αὐτὴν εἶναι.
We must say further that what is divided is something of a certain size and a magnitude, while what is not a magnitude does not undergo the affections of magnitude either, and in general what is not body does not undergo the affections of body. So those who make matter affectable must also concede that it is a body.
ἔτι δὲ κἀκεῖνο ἐπιστῆσαι αὐτοὺς προσήκει, πῶς λέγουσι φεύγειν αὐτὴν τὸ εἶδος· πῶς γὰρ ἂν λίθους καὶ πέτρας φύγοι τὰ περιλαβόντα αὐτήν; οὐ γὰρ δὴ ποτὲ μὲν φεύγειν, ποτὲ δὲ μὴ φεύγειν φήσουσιν. εἰ γὰρ βουλήσει αὑτῆς φεύγει, διὰ τί οὐκ ἀεί; εἰ δὲ ἀνάγκῃ μένει, οὐκ ἔστιν ὅτε οὐκ ἐν εἴδει τινί ἐστιν. ἀλλὰ τοῦ μὴ τὸ αὐτὸ εἶδος ἀεὶ ἴσχειν ἑκάστην ὕλην ζητητέον τὴν αἰτίαν, καὶ ἐν τοῖς εἰσιοῦσι μᾶλλον. πῶς οὖν λέγεται φεύγειν; ἢ τῇ αὐτῇ φύσει καὶ ἀεί; τοῦτο δὲ τί ἂν εἴη ἢ μηδέποτε αὑτῆς ἐξισταμένην οὕτως ἔχειν τὸ εἶδος ὡς μηδέποτε ἔχειν· ἢ ὅ τι χρήσονται τῷ ὑπ’ αὐτοῦ λεγομένῳ οὐχ ἕξουσιν.
Further, they ought to consider this point too: how do they say that matter flees form? How could it escape the stones and rocks that have enclosed it? For surely they will not say that it sometimes flees and sometimes does not. If it flees by its own will, why not always? And if it stays by necessity, there is no time when it is not in some form. Rather, we must look for the cause of each piece of matter’s not always holding the same form, and look for it rather in the things that enter. In what sense, then, is it said to flee? Or is it by its very nature, and always? But what would this mean, except that, never departing from itself, it has form in such a way as never to have it? Otherwise they will not know what to do with what he says.
‘ἡ δὲ ὑποδοχὴ καὶ τιθήνη γενέσεως ἁπάσης.’ εἰ γὰρ ὑποδοχὴ καὶ τιθήνη, ἡ δὲ γένεσις ἄλλο αὐτῆς, τὸ δὲ ἀλλοιούμενον ἐν τῇ γενέσει, πρὸ γενέσεως οὖσα εἴη ἂν καὶ πρὸ ἀλλοιώσεως· ἡ δὲ ὑποδοχὴ καὶ ἔτι ἡ τιθήνη τηρεῖ ὃ ἔστιν ἀπαθῆ οὖσαν, καὶ τὸ ‘ἐν ᾧ ἐγγινόμενον ἕκαστον φαντάζεται καὶ πάλιν ἐκεῖθεν ἔξεισι’ καὶ χώραν εἶναι καὶ ἕδραν. καὶ τὸ λεγόμενον δὲ καὶ εὐθυνόμενον ὡς τόπον εἰδῶν λέγοντος οὐ πάθος λέγει περὶ ἐκεῖνο, ἀλλὰ τρόπον ἕτερον ζητεῖ. τίς οὖν οὗτος;
“The receptacle and nurse of all becoming.” If it is the receptacle and nurse, and becoming is something other than it, and what is altered is in becoming, then it would exist before becoming and before alteration. And “receptacle,” and still more “nurse,” keep it as what it is, unaffected; and so do “that in which each thing, coming to be in it, appears, and from which it departs again,” and its being “space” and “seat.” As for the remark that has been made and criticized, that he calls it a “place of forms”: it does not speak of an affection in that thing, but is looking for a different manner. What, then, is this?
ἐπειδὴ τὴν λεγομένην ταύτην φύσιν οὐδὲν δεῖ εἶναι τῶν ὄντων, ἀλλ’ ἅπασαν ἐκπεφευγέναι τὴν τῶν ὄντων οὐσίαν καὶ πάντη ἑτέραν — λόγοι γὰρ ἐκεῖνα καὶ ὄντως ὄντες — ἀνάγκη δὴ αὐτὴν τῷ ἑτέρῳ τούτῳ φυλάττουσαν αὑτῆς ἣν εἴληχε σωτηρίαν μὴ μόνον τῶν ὄντων ἄδεκτον εἶναι, ἀλλὰ καί, εἴ τι μίμημα αὐτῶν, καὶ τούτου ἄμοιρον εἰς οἰκείωσιν εἶναι. οὕτω γὰρ ἂν ἑτέρα πάντη· ἢ εἶδός τι εἰσοικισαμένη μετ’ ἐκείνου ἄλλο γενομένη ἀπώλεσε τὸ ἑτέρα εἶναι καὶ χώρα πάντων καὶ οὐδενὸς ὅτου οὐχ ὑποδοχή.
Since this nature we are speaking of must be none of the things that are, but must have escaped the whole being of the things that are and be altogether other than them—for they are rational principles and really are—it must, by this very otherness, preserving the security it has been allotted, not only be unable to receive the things that are, but also, if there is some imitation of them, have no share in that either so as to make it its own. For in this way it would be altogether other. Otherwise, by taking in some form to dwell in it and becoming something else along with it, it would have lost its being other, and its being the space of all things and the receptacle of everything without exception.
ἀλλὰ δεῖ καὶ εἰσιόντων τὴν αὐτὴν μένειν καὶ ἐξιόντων ἀπαθῆ, ἵνα καὶ εἰσίῃ τι ἀεὶ εἰς αὐτὴν καὶ ἐξίῃ. εἴσεισι δὴ τὸ εἰσιὸν εἴδωλον ὂν καὶ εἰς οὐκ ἀληθινὸν οὐκ ἀληθές. ἆρ’ οὖν ἀληθῶς; καὶ πῶς, ᾧ μηδαμῶς θέμις ἀληθείας μετέχειν διὰ τὸ ψεῦδος εἶναι; ἆρ’ οὖν ψευδῶς εἰς ψεῦδος ἔρχεται καὶ παραπλήσιον γίνεται οἷον καὶ εἰς τὸ κάτοπτρον ἐνορᾶται τὰ εἴδωλα τῶν ἐνορωμένων καὶ ἕως ἐνορᾷ ἐκεῖνα; καὶ γὰρ εἰ ἐνταῦθα ἀνέλοις τὰ ὄντα, οὐδὲν ἂν οὐδένα χρόνον φανείη τῶν νῦν ἐν αἰσθητῷ ὁρωμένων.
Rather, it must remain the same when things enter it, and unaffected when they leave, so that something may always be entering it and leaving. What enters, then, enters as an image, and into what is not true as what is not true. Does it truly enter, then? And how could it, into something that may by no means share in truth, because it is falsehood? Does it, then, come falsely into falsehood, and is it much the same as when the images of things reflected are seen in a mirror, for as long as those things look into it? For here too, if you took away the things that are, not one of the things now seen in the sensible world would appear for any time at all.
τὸ μὲν οὖν κάτοπτρον ἐνταῦθα καὶ αὐτὸ ὁρᾶται· ἔστι γὰρ καὶ αὐτὸ εἶδός τι· ἐκεῖ δὲ οὐδὲν εἶδος ὂν αὐτὸ μὲν οὐχ ὁρᾶται· ἔδει γὰρ αὐτὸ πρότερον καθ’ αὑτὸ ὁρᾶσθαι· ἀλλὰ τοιοῦτόν τι πάσχει, οἷον καὶ ὁ ἀὴρ φωτισθεὶς ἀφανής ἐστι καὶ τότε, ὅτι καὶ ἄνευ τοῦ φωτισθῆναι οὐχ ἑωρᾶτο. ταύτῃ οὖν τὰ μὲν ἐν τοῖς κατόπτροις οὐ πιστεύεται εἶναι ἢ ἧττον, ὅτι ὁρᾶται τὸ ἐν ᾧ ἐστι καὶ μένει μὲν αὐτό, τὰ δὲ ἀπέρχεται· ἐν δὲ τῇ ὕλῃ οὐχ ὁρᾶται αὐτὴ οὔτε ἔχουσα οὔτε ἄνευ ἐκείνων. εἰ δέ γε ἦν μένειν τὰ ἀφ’ ὧν πληροῦται τὰ κάτοπτρα καὶ αὐτὰ μὴ ἑωρᾶτο, οὐκ ἂν μὴ εἶναι ἀληθινὰ ἠπιστήθη τὰ ἐνορώμενα.
Now in this case the mirror is itself seen too, since it is itself a form of some kind. But there, matter, being no form, is not itself seen; for it would have had to be seen first by itself. Rather, something happens to it like what happens to air: when lit, it is invisible even then, because it was not seen without being lit either. This, then, is why the images in mirrors are not believed to be real, or less so: because the thing they are in is seen, and it remains while they go away. But in matter, matter itself is not seen, either when it has them or without them. If the things that fill mirrors could remain while the mirrors themselves were not seen, no one would have doubted that what appears in them is real.
εἰ μὲν οὖν ἔστι τι ἐν τοῖς κατόπτροις, καὶ ἐν τῇ ὕλῃ οὕτω τὰ αἰσθητὰ ἔστω· εἰ δὲ μὴ ἔστι, φαίνεται δὲ εἶναι, κἀκεῖ φατέον φαίνεσθαι ἐπὶ τῆς ὕλης αἰτιωμένους τῆς φαντάσεως τὴν τῶν ὄντων ὑπόστασιν, ἧς τὰ μὲν ὄντα ὄντως ἀεὶ μεταλαμβάνει, τὰ δὲ μὴ ὄντα μὴ ὄντως, ἐπείπερ οὐ δεῖ οὕτως ἔχειν αὐτὰ ὡς εἶχεν ἂν τοῦ ὄντος μὴ ὄντος, εἰ ἦν αὐτά.
If, then, there is something in mirrors, let sensible things be in matter in the same way. But if there is not, and it only appears to be, then we must say that there too they appear on matter, and make the existence of the things that are the cause of the appearing—an existence in which the things that are always really participate, while the things that are not participate not really; since they cannot be in the state they would be in if what is were not and they themselves were.
τί οὖν; μὴ οὔσης οὐδὲν ὑπέστη ἄν; ἢ οὐδὲ εἴδωλον κατόπτρου μὴ ὄντος ἤ τινος τοιούτου. τὸ γὰρ ἐν ἑτέρῳ πεφυκὸς γίνεσθαι ἐκείνου μὴ ὄντος οὐκ ἂν γένοιτο· τοῦτο γὰρ φύσις εἰκόνος τὸ ἐν ἑτέρῳ. εἰ μὲν γάρ τι ἀπῄει ἀπὸ τῶν ὄντων, καὶ ἄνευ τοῦ ἐν ἑτέρῳ ἦν ἄν. ἐπεὶ δὲ μένει ἐκεῖνα, εἰ ἐμφαντασθήσεται ἐν ἄλλῳ, δεῖ ἄλλο εἶναι ἕδραν παρέχον τῷ οὐκ ἐλθόντι, τῇ δ’ αὑτοῦ παρουσίᾳ καὶ τῇ τόλμῃ καὶ οἷον προσαιτήσει καὶ πενίᾳ οἷον βιασάμενον λαβεῖν καὶ ἀπατηθὲν τῇ οὐ λήψει, ἵνα μένῃ ἡ πενία καὶ ἀεὶ προσαιτῇ. ἐπεὶ γὰρ ἅπαξ ὑπέστη, ὁ μὲν μῦθος αὐτὴν ποιεῖ προσαιτοῦσαν ἐνδεικνύμενος αὐτῆς τὴν φύσιν, ὅτι ἀγαθοῦ ἔρημος.
What then? If matter did not exist, would nothing have come into existence? No—any more than an image would if there were no mirror or something of the kind. For what is naturally such as to come to be in something else could not come to be if that thing did not exist; for this is the nature of an image: to be in something else. If something went off from the things that are, it could exist even without being in something else. But since those things remain, if they are to be reflected in something else, there must be something else that offers a seat to what does not come—something that by its presence, its boldness, its begging, as it were, and its poverty, as it were forces its way to take, and is cheated by not taking, so that its poverty may remain and it may beg forever. For once it has come into existence, the myth makes it a beggar, showing its nature: that it is destitute of good.
αἰτεῖ τε ὁ προσαιτῶν οὐχ ἃ ἔχει ὁ διδούς, ἀλλ’ ἀγαπᾷ ὅ τι ἂν λάβῃ· ὥστε καὶ τοῦτο ἐνδείκνυσθαι, ὡς ἕτερον τὸ ἐν αὐτῇ φανταζόμενον. τό τ’ ὄνομα ὡς οὐ πληρουμένης. τὸ δὲ τῷ πόρῳ συγγίνεσθαι οὐ τῷ ὄντι δηλοῦντός ἐστι συγγίνεσθαι οὐδὲ τῷ κόρῳ, ἀλλά τινι πράγματι εὐμηχάνῳ· τοῦτο δέ ἐστι τῇ σοφίᾳ τοῦ φαντάσματος.
And the beggar asks not for what the giver has, but is glad of whatever he gets; so this too shows that what appears in it is something other. And her name means that it is never filled. That she unites with Poros (Resource) shows that it unites not with what is, nor with plenty, but with something resourceful—that is, with the cleverness of the illusion.
ἐπεὶ γὰρ οὐχ οἷόν τε τοῦ ὄντος πάντη μὴ μετέχειν ὅ τι περ ὁπωσοῦν ἔξω ὂν αὐτοῦ ἐστιν· αὕτη γὰρ [τοῦ] ὄντος φύσις τὸ ὄντα ποιεῖν· τὸ δὲ πάντη μὴ ὂν ἄμικτον τῷ ὄντι, θαῦμα τὸ χρῆμα γίνεται, πῶς μὴ μετέχον μετέχει, καὶ πῶς οἷον παρὰ τῆς γειτνιάσεως ἔχει τι καίπερ τῇ αὑτοῦ φύσει μὲν οἷον κολλᾶσθαι ἀδυνατοῦν. ἀπολισθαίνει οὖν ὡς ἂν ἀπὸ φύσεως ἀλλοτρίας ὃ ἔλαβεν ἄν, οἷον ἠχὼ ἀπὸ τόπων λείων καὶ ὁμαλῶν· ὅτι μὴ μένει, τούτῳ καὶ ἐφαντάσθη ἐκεῖ κἀκεῖθεν [τὸ] εἶναι. εἰ δ’ ἦν μετασχοῦσα καὶ οὕτω δεξαμένη, ὥσπερ τις ἀξιοῖ, καταποθὲν ἂν εἰς αὐτὴν τὸ προσελθὸν ἔδυ.
For it is impossible for anything that is in any way whatever outside being to have no share at all in being—this is the nature of [the] being: to make things be—while what altogether is not is unmixed with being. So the thing becomes a marvel: how it participates without participating, and how it has something, as it were, from being neighbor to it, even though by its own nature it is unable, so to speak, to stick to it. So whatever it might take slips off it as from an alien nature, like an echo from smooth, flat surfaces; and it is precisely because it does not stay that [the] being there and coming from there was imagined. If it did participate and receive in the way some think, what came to it would have been swallowed up and sunk into it.
νῦν δὲ φαίνεται, ὅτι μὴ κατεπόθη, ἀλλ’ ἔμεινεν ἡ αὐτὴ οὐδὲν δεξαμένη, ἀλλ’ ἐπισχοῦσα τὴν πρόσοδον ὡς ἕδρα ἀπωθουμένη καὶ τῶν εἰς τὸ αὐτὸ προσιόντων κἀκεῖ μιγνυμένων ὑποδοχή, οἷον ὅσα πρὸς ἥλιον πῦρ ζητοῦντες λαβεῖν ἱστᾶσι λεῖα, τὰ δὲ καὶ πληροῦντες ὕδατος, ἵνα μὴ διέλθῃ κωλυομένη ὑπὸ τοῦ ἔνδον ἐναντίου ἡ φλόξ, ἔξω δὲ συνίσταιτο. γίνεται οὖν αἰτία τῆς γενέσεως οὕτω καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ συνιστάμενα τοιοῦτον συνίσταται τρόπον.
As it is, it is evident that it was not swallowed up: matter remained the same, having received nothing, but holding back the approach like a seat that thrusts it away, and a receptacle for the things that come to the same point and mingle there. It is like the smooth objects people set up facing the sun when they want to catch fire—some even filled with water—so that the flame, blocked by the opposite within, does not pass through but collects outside. In this way, then, matter becomes the cause of becoming, and the things that are constituted in it are constituted in this sort of way.
ἐπὶ μὲν οὖν τῶν τὸ πῦρ ἐξ ἡλίου περὶ αὑτὰ συναγόντων ἅτε παρὰ αἰσθητοῦ πυρὸς λαμβανόντων τὴν περὶ αὐτὰ γιγνομένην ἔξαψιν τὸ αἰσθητοῖς εἶναι καὶ αὐτοῖς ὑπάρχει· διὸ καὶ φαίνεται, ὅτι ἔξω τὰ συνιστάμενα καὶ ἐφεξῆς καὶ πλησίον καὶ ἅπτεται καὶ πέρατα δύο· ὁ δ’ ἐπὶ τῆς ὕλης λόγος ἄλλον ἔχει τρόπον τὸ ἔξω. ἡ γὰρ ἑτερότης τῆς φύσεως ἀρκεῖ οὐδὲν πέρατος διπλοῦ δεομένη, ἀλλὰ πολὺ μᾶλλον παντὸς πέρατος ἀλλοτρία τῇ ἑτερότητι τῆς οὐσίας καὶ οὐδαμῇ συγγενείᾳ τὸ ἀμιγὲς ἔχουσα.
In the case of things that gather fire from the sun around themselves, since they receive the kindling that occurs around them from a sensible fire, they too are sensible; that is why it is evident that what forms there is outside them, adjacent and near, and that they touch, and that there are two limits. But in the account of matter, “outside” has a different sense. For the difference of nature suffices, needing no double limit; much more, it is alien to every limit by the otherness of its being, and has its unmixedness by having no kinship at all.
καὶ τὸ αἴτιον τοῦ μένειν ἐφ’ αὑτῆς τοῦτο, ὅτι οὔτε τὸ εἰσιὸν ἀπολαύει αὐτῆς, οὔτ’ αὐτὴ τοῦ εἰσιόντος, ἀλλ’ ὥσπερ αἱ δόξαι καὶ αἱ φαντασίαι ἐν ψυχῇ οὐ κέκρανται, ἀλλ’ ἄπεισι πάλιν ἑκάστη ὡς οὖσα ὃ ἔστι μόνη οὐδὲν ἐφέλκουσα οὐδὲ καταλείπουσα, ὅτι μὴ ἐμέμικτο, καὶ τὸ ἔξω [ἔχει], οὐχ ὅτι ἐπέκειτο, καὶ [τὸ] ἐφ’ ᾧ ἐστιν οὐχ ὁράσει ἕτερον, ἀλλ’ ὁ λόγος φησίν.
And this is the reason why it remains by itself: neither does what enters get anything from it, nor does it get anything from what enters. Just so, opinions and imaginings in the soul are not blended with it, but each goes off again, as being what it alone is, drawing nothing with it and leaving nothing behind, because it was not mixed in; and it [has] the “outside” not because it lay on top; and [the] thing it rests on is other, not to sight—it is reason that says so.
ἐνταῦθα μὲν οὖν οἷον εἴδωλον ἡ φαντασία οὐκ εἰδώλου τὴν φύσιν οὔσης τῆς ψυχῆς, καίπερ πολλὰ δοκοῦσα ἄγειν καὶ ὅπῃ θέλει ἄγειν, χρῆται μὲν αὐτῇ οὐδὲν ἧττον ὡς [εἶδος] ὕλῃ ἢ ἀνάλογον, οὐ μέντοι ἔκρυψε ταῖς παρ’ αὐτῆς ἐνεργείαις πολλάκις ἐξωθουμένη οὐδὲ ἐποίησεν αὐτὴν οὐδ’ εἰ μετὰ πάσης [σπουδῆς] ἔλθοι κεκρύφθαι καὶ τοιαύτην φαντάζεσθαι· ἔχει γὰρ ἐν αὑτῇ ἐνεργείας καὶ λόγους ἐναντίους, οἷς ἀπωθεῖται τὰ προσιόντα. ἡ δὲ — ἀσθενεστέρα γάρ ἐστιν ὡς πρὸς δύναμιν πολλῷ ψυχῆς καὶ ἔχει οὐδὲν τῶν ὄντων οὔτ’ ἀληθὲς οὔτ’ αὖ οἰκεῖον ψεῦδος — οὐκ ἔχει δι’ ὅτου φανῇ ἐρημία πάντων οὖσα, ἀλλὰ γίνεται μὲν αἰτία ἄλλοις τοῦ φαίνεσθαι, οὐ δύναται δὲ εἰπεῖν οὐδὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγὼ ἐνταῦθα.
Here, then, imagination is like an image, while the soul is not by nature an image. And though imagination seems to lead it in many things, and to lead it wherever it wishes, the soul nonetheless uses it as [form] matter, or something analogous. Yet imagination, often pushed out by the soul’s own activities, did not hide it, nor, even if it came with all [its effort], did it make the soul hidden, or seem to be such as itself; for the soul has in itself activities and rational principles opposed to it, by which it pushes away what approaches. But matter—for it is far weaker in power than soul, and has none of the things that are, neither a true one nor even a falsehood of its own—has nothing through which it might appear, being an emptiness of all things. It becomes the cause of appearing for other things, but it cannot say even this much: “Here I am.”
ἀλλ’ εἴ ποτε ἐξεύροι αὐτὴν λόγος βαθύς τις ἐξ ἄλλων ὄντων, ὡς ἄρα ἐστί τι ἀπολελειμμένον πάντων τῶν ὄντων καὶ τῶν ὕστερον δοξάντων εἶναι, ἑλκόμενον εἰς πάντα καὶ ἀκολουθοῦν ὡς δόξαι καὶ αὖ οὐκ ἀκολουθοῦν.
But if ever some profound reasoning were to track it down, starting from other realities, finding that there is, after all, something forsaken by all the things that are, even by the later things that seemed to be, something dragged into everything and following, as it would seem, and yet again not following.
καὶ μήν τις ἐλθὼν λόγος ἀγαγὼν εἰς ὅσον αὐτὸς ἤθελεν ἐποίησεν αὐτὴν μέγα παρ’ αὑτοῦ τὸ μέγα περιθεὶς αὐτῇ οὐκ οὔσῃ, τοῦτο δὲ οὐδὲ γενομένῃ· τὸ γὰρ ἐπ’ αὐτῇ μέγα μέγεθος [ἂν] ἦν. ἐὰν οὖν τις τοῦτο ἀφέλῃ τὸ εἶδος, οὐκέτ’ ἐστὶν οὐδὲ φαίνεται τὸ ὑποκείμενον μέγα, ἀλλ’ εἰ ἦν τὸ γενόμενον μέγα ἄνθρωπος καὶ ἵππος καὶ μετὰ τοῦ ἵππου τὸ μέγα τοῦ ἵππου ἐπελθόν, ἀπελθόντος τοῦ ἵππου καὶ τὸ μέγα αὐτοῦ ἀπέρχεται. εἰ δέ τις λέγοι, ὡς ὁ ἵππος ἐπὶ μεγάλου τινὸς ὄγκου καὶ τοσοῦδε γίνεται καὶ μένει τὸ μέγα, φήσομεν μὴ τὸ τοῦ ἵππου μέγα, ἀλλὰ τὸ τοῦ ὄγκου μέγα μένειν ἐκεῖ.
Again, a rational principle came and led it to whatever extent it wished, and made it large, putting largeness around it from itself—it being neither large nor even becoming so; for the large upon it [would have] been magnitude. So if one takes this form away, the substrate no longer is or appears large. If what had become large was a man, say, and a horse, and the horse’s largeness came along with the horse, then when the horse goes, its largeness goes too. And if someone were to say that the horse comes to be on a large bulk of a certain size and the largeness remains, we will say that what remains there is not the horse’s largeness but the bulk’s.
εἰ μέντοι ὁ ὄγκος οὗτος πῦρ ἐστιν ἢ γῆ, ἀπελθόντος τοῦ πυρὸς [ἢ τῆς γῆς] τὸ τοῦ πυρὸς ἀπέρχεται ἢ τὸ τῆς γῆς μέγα οὐ τοίνυν οὐδὲ τοῦ σχήματος οὐδὲ τοῦ μεγέθους ἀπολαύσειεν ἄν· ἢ οὐκ ἐκ πυρὸς ἄλλο τι ἔσται, ἀλλὰ μένουσα πῦρ [οὐ πῦρ] γενήσεται. ἐπεὶ καὶ νῦν τοσαύτη γενομένη, ὡς δοκεῖν ὅσον τόδε τὸ πᾶν, εἰ παύσαιτο ὁ οὐρανὸς καὶ τὰ ἐντὸς πάντα, σὺν πᾶσι τούτοις καὶ τὸ μέγεθος πᾶν οἰχήσεται ἀπ’ αὐτῆς καὶ αἱ ἄλλαι δῆλον ὅτι ὁμοῦ ποιότητες, καὶ καταλειφθήσεται ὅπερ ἦν σώζουσα οὐδὲν τῶν πρότερον περὶ αὐτὴν οὕτως ὄντων.
If, however, this bulk is fire or earth, then when the fire [or the earth] goes away, the largeness of the fire or of the earth goes away. So matter would not keep anything either of the shape or of the magnitude; otherwise it will not change from fire into something else, but, remaining fire, will become [not fire]. For even now, having become so large as to seem as large as this All, if the heaven and everything within it were to cease, all magnitude would vanish from it together with all these, and clearly the other qualities along with it; and it will be left as what it was, keeping none of the things that were previously around it in this way.
καίτοι ἐν οἷς ὑπάρχει τὸ πεπονθέναι παρουσίᾳ τινῶν καὶ ἀπελθόντων ἔστι τι ἔτι ἐν τοῖς λαβοῦσιν· ἐν δὲ τοῖς μὴ παθοῦσιν οὐκέτι, ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τοῦ ἀέρος φωτὸς περὶ αὐτὸν ὄντος καὶ ἀπελθόντος τούτου. ἐὰν δέ τις θαυμάζῃ, πῶς οὐκ ἔχον μέγεθος μέγα ἔσται, πῶς δὲ οὐκ ἔχον θερμότητα θερμὸν ἔσται· οὐ γὰρ δὴ τὸ αὐτὸ τὸ εἶναι αὐτῇ καὶ μεγέθει εἶναι, εἴπερ καὶ ἄυλον μέγεθός ἐστιν, ὥσπερ καὶ ἄυλον σχῆμα. καὶ εἰ τηροῦμεν τὴν ὕλην, μεταλήψει πάντα· ἓν δὲ τῶν πάντων καὶ τὸ μέγεθος. ἐν μὲν οὖν τοῖς σώμασι συνθέτοις οὖσίν ἐστι καὶ μέγεθος μετὰ τῶν ἄλλων, οὐ μὴν ἀφωρισμένον, ἐπειδὴ ἐν σώματος λόγῳ ἔγκειται καὶ μέγεθος· ἐν δὲ τῇ ὕλῃ οὐδὲ τὸ οὐκ ἀφωρισμένον· οὐ γὰρ σῶμα.
Yet in things capable of being affected by the presence of something, something still remains in what received it even after it goes; but in things that were not affected, nothing does—as in the case of air, when light is around it and when the light departs. And if anyone is puzzled how what has no magnitude will be large—well, how will what has no heat be hot? For surely being matter and being magnitude are not the same, since there is also immaterial magnitude, just as there is immaterial shape. And if we keep matter as it is, it will have all things by participation; and magnitude too is one of all things. Now in bodies, since they are composite, magnitude is present along with the other things, though not as something marked off, since magnitude too is contained in the rational principle of body; but in matter there is not even magnitude that is not marked off—for matter is not body.
οὐδ’ αὖ μέγεθος αὐτὸ ἔσται. εἶδος γὰρ τὸ μέγεθος, ἀλλ’ οὐ δεκτικόν· καὶ καθ’ αὑτὸ δὲ τὸ μέγεθος, οὐχ οὕτω μέγεθος. ἀλλ’ ἐπεὶ βούλεται [τὸ] ἐν νῷ ἢ ἐν ψυχῇ κείμενον μέγα εἶναι, ἔδωκε τοῖς οἷον ἐθέλουσι μιμεῖσθαι ἐφέσει αὐτοῦ ἢ κινήσει τῇ πρὸς αὐτὸ τὸ αὑτῶν πάθος ἐνσημήνασθαι εἰς ἄλλο. τὸ οὖν μέγα ἐν προόδῳ φαντάσεως θέον εἰς αὐτὸ δὴ τοῦτο τὸ μέγα συνθεῖν ποιῆσαν τὸ μὴ μέγα τῆς ὕλης πεποίηκεν αὐτὸ τῇ παρατάσει οὐ πληρούμενον δοκεῖν εἶναι μέγα. τὸ γὰρ ψευδῶς μέγα τοῦτό ἐστιν. ὅταν τῷ μὴ ἔχειν τὸ μέγα εἶναι ἐκτεινόμενον πρὸς ἐκεῖνο παραταθῇ τῇ ἐκτάσει. ποιούντων γὰρ πάντων [τῶν] ὄντων εἰς τὰ ἄλλα τὴν αὑτῶν ἐνόπτρισιν ἕκαστόν τε τῶν ποιούντων ὡς αὐτὸ ἦν μέγα, τό τε πᾶν ἦν ἐκείνως μέγα.
Nor again will it be magnitude itself. For magnitude is a form, not something that receives; and magnitude taken by itself is not magnitude in that sense. But since [that] which lies in Intellect or in Soul wants to be great, it granted to the things that, as it were, wish to imitate it, by their aspiration for it or their movement toward it, to imprint their own affection on something else. So the great, running forward in a procession of appearing, made the not-great of matter run along with it into this very greatness, and so has made it seem great, by an extension that does not fill it. For this is what is falsely great: when, by not having greatness, it is stretched out toward that and extended by the stretching. For since all [the] things that are produce their own mirror image in other things, and each of the producers was great in the way it itself was, the whole too was great in that way.
συνῄει οὖν τὸ ἑκάστου λόγου μέγα, οἷον ἵππου καὶ ὁτουοῦν ἄλλου, καὶ τὸ μέγα αὐτό· καὶ ἐγίνετο πᾶσα μὲν μέγα πρὸς αὐτὸ [τὸ] μέγα ἐλλαμπομένη καὶ ἑκάστη δὲ μοῖρα μέγα τι καὶ ὁμοῦ πάντα ἐφαίνετο ἐκ παντὸς τοῦ εἴδους, οὗ τὸ μέγα, καὶ ἐξ ἑκάστου, καὶ οἷον παρετέτατο καὶ πρὸς πᾶν καὶ πάντα ἐν εἴδει τούτῳ ἀναγκασθεῖσα εἶναι καὶ ἐν ὄγκῳ, ὅσον ἡ δύναμις πεποίηκε τὸ μηδὲν ὂν αὐτὸ πάντα εἶναι· οἷον αὐτῷ τῷ φαίνεσθαι καὶ τὸ χρῶμα τὸ ἐξ οὐ χρώματος καὶ ἡ ποιότης ἡ ἐνταῦθα ἡ ἐξ οὐ ποιότητος ἔσχε τὴν ὁμωνυμίαν τὴν ἀπ’ ἐκείνων, καὶ τὸ μέγεθος [τὸ] ἐξ οὐ μεγέθους ἢ ὁμωνύμου μεταξὺ θεωρουμένων ἐκείνων καὶ αὐτῆς τῆς ὕλης καὶ τοῦ εἴδους αὐτοῦ.
So the largeness of each rational principle—of horse, say, or of anything else—came together with largeness itself; and matter as a whole became large, lit up in relation to [the] great itself, and each portion became something large, and all things appeared together, from the whole form to which largeness belongs, and from each. Matter was, as it were, stretched out both toward the whole and toward all things, compelled to be in this form and in bulk, to the extent that the power made what is itself nothing to be all things. In the same way, by merely appearing, the color here, which comes from what is not color, and the quality here, which comes from what is not quality, got the name they share with those; and so did magnitude, [the one] that comes from what is not magnitude, or from what shares its name only—those things being seen in between matter itself and the form itself.
καὶ φαίνεται μέν, ὅτι ἐκεῖθεν, ψεύδεται δέ, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι τὸ ἐν ᾧ φαίνεται. μεγεθύνεται δὴ ἕκαστα ἑλκόμενα τῇ δυνάμει τῶν ἐνορωμένων καὶ χώραν ἑαυτοῖς ποιούντων, ἕλκεται δὲ ἐπὶ πάντα οὐ βίᾳ τῷ ὕλη τὸ πᾶν εἶναι. ἕλκει δὲ ἕκαστον κατὰ τὴν αὑτοῦ δύναμιν ἣν ἔχει· ἔχει δὲ ἐκεῖθεν. καὶ τὸ μὲν ποιοῦν μέγα τὴν ὕλην ὡς δοκεῖν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐμφαντάσεως τοῦ μέγα καὶ τοῦτό ἐστι τὸ ἐμφαντασθέν, τὸ ἐνταῦθα μέγα· ἡ δὲ ὕλη, ἐφ’ ἧς ἀναγκάζεται συνθεῖν, ὁμοῦ πᾶσα καὶ πανταχοῦ παρέχει ἑαυτήν· ὕλη γάρ ἐστι καὶ τούτου καὶ οὐ τουτί· ὃ δὲ μή ἐστί τι παρ’ αὑτοῦ, δύναται γενέσθαι καὶ τὸ ἐναντίον δι’ ἄλλο καὶ γενόμενον τὸ ἐναντίον οὐδ’ ἐκεῖνό ἐστιν· ἔστη γὰρ ἄν.
And they appear, because they come from there; but they deceive, because that in which they appear is not. The several things, then, are made large, drawn out by the power of the things seen in it as they make room for themselves; and matter is drawn out over everything without force, because the whole is matter. Each draws it according to the power it has; and it has that power from there. What makes matter large, so that it seems large, comes from the reflection of the great; and this reflected thing is the large here. Matter, on which it is compelled to run along, offers itself all together and everywhere; for it is the matter of this and is not this. And what is nothing of itself can become even the opposite through something else, and having become the opposite, it is not that either; for then it would have come to a stop.
ὁ τοίνυν νόησιν μεγάλου ἔχων, εἰ αὐτοῦ ἡ νόησις δύναμιν ἔχοι μὴ μόνον ἐν αὑτῇ εἶναι, ἀλλὰ καὶ οἷον πρὸς τὸ ἔξω ὑπὸ δυνάμεως φέροιτο, λάβοι ἂν φύσιν οὐκ οὖσαν ἐν τῷ νοοῦντι, οὐδέ τι ἔχουσαν εἶδος οὐδέ τι ἴχνος τοῦ μεγάλου, ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ οὐδενός του ἄλλου. τί [οὖν] ἂν ποιήσειε ταύτῃ τῇ δυνάμει; οὐχ ἵππον, οὐ βοῦν· ταῦτα γὰρ ἄλλοι ποιήσουσιν. ἤ, ἐπειδὴ παρὰ μεγάλου πατρὸς ἔρχεται, οὐ δύναται τὸ ἄλλο χωρῆσαι [τὸ] μέγα, τοῦτο δὲ ἕξει ἐμφανταζόμενον. τῷ δὴ μὴ οὕτως εὐτυχήσαντι τοῦ μεγάλου ὡς αὐτὸ μέγα εἶναι ἐν τοῖς αὑτοῦ καθ’ ὅσον οἷόν τε μεγάλῳ φαίνεσθαι λεῖπόν ἐστι. τοῦτο δέ ἐστι μὴ ἐλλείπειν καὶ τὸ μὴ ἐπὶ πολλὰ πολλαχοῦ καὶ ἐν αὑτῷ συγγενῆ ἔχειν τὰ μέρη καὶ ἀπολείπεσθαι μηδενός.
So someone who has a thought of the great—if his thinking had the power not only to be in itself but also, as it were, to be carried outward by a power—would take hold of a nature that is not in the thinker and has no form, nor any trace of the great, nor of anything else at all. What, [then], would he make with this power? Not a horse, not an ox: others will make those. Or rather: since it comes from a great father, the other cannot hold [the] great, but will have it as an image appearing in it. So for what has not had such good fortune with the great as to be great itself, what is left is to appear great in what belongs to it, as far as it can. And this means not falling short, not being scattered over many things in many places, having its parts akin within itself, and lacking none.
οὐ δὴ γὰρ ἠνείχετο ἐν σμικρῷ ὄγκῳ ἴσον ἔτι τὸ τοῦ μεγάλου εἴδωλον εἶναι μεγάλου ὄν, ἀλλ’ ὅσον ἐφίετο τῆς ἐλπίδος ἐκείνου προσῆλθεν ὅσον οἷόν τε ἦν αὐτῷ μετὰ τοῦ συνθέοντος αὐτῷ ἀπολειφθῆναι [δ’] οὐ δυναμένου καὶ πεποίηκε μέγα τε ἐκεῖνο τὸ μὴ μέγα μηδ’ οὕτω δόξαν καὶ τὸ ὁρώμενον ἐν ὄγκῳ μέγα. ἡ δ’ ὅμως φυλάττει τὴν αὑτῆς φύσιν ἀποχρωμένη τούτῳ τῷ μεγάλῳ οἷον ἀμφιέσματι, ὃ συνδραμοῦσα αὐτῷ ὅτε θέον αὐτὴν ἦγεν ἀμπέσχετο· ὃ εἰ ὁ ἀμφιέσας ἀφέλοιτο, μένει πάλιν ἡ αὐτή, οἵαπερ παρ’ αὑτῆς ἦν, ἢ τοσαύτη, ὅσον ἂν τὸ παρὸν εἶδος αὐτὴν ποιῇ.
For the image of the great, since it is of the great, could not bear to be in a small bulk and still be equal; but as far as it aspired to the hope of that, it went as near as it could, together with what runs along with it [and] cannot be left behind; and it made great that which was not great and did not even seem so, and made what is seen in bulk large. But matter all the same keeps its own nature, using this largeness like a garment, which it put on when it ran along with it as it ran and led it; and if the one who dressed it should take it off, it remains again the same as it was of itself—or as large as the form present makes it.
ἡ μὲν γὰρ ψυχὴ τὰ τῶν ὄντων εἴδη ἔχουσα εἶδος οὖσα καὶ αὐτὴ ὁμοῦ πάντα ἔχει καὶ τοῦ εἴδους ἑκάστου ὁμοῦ ὄντος αὑτῷ τά τε τῶν αἰσθητῶν εἴδη οἷον ἀναστρέφοντα πρὸς αὑτὴν καὶ προσιόντα ὁρῶσα οὐκ ἀνέχεται μετὰ πλήθους δέχεσθαι, ἀλλ’ ἀποθέμενα τὸν ὄγκον ὁρᾷ· οὐ γὰρ δύναται ἄλλο τι ἢ ὃ ἔστι γενέσθαι. ἡ δὲ ὕλη οὐδὲν ἔχουσα τὸ ἀντικόπτον, οὐ γὰρ ἔχει ἐνέργειαν, οὖσα δὲ σκιά, ἀναμένει παθεῖν ὅ τι ἂν ἐθέλῃ τὸ ποιῆσον.
For soul, having the forms of the things that are and being itself a form, has all things together; and since each form is gathered together in itself, when it sees the forms of sensible things, as it were, turning back toward it and approaching, it will not tolerate receiving them with their multiplicity, but sees them stripped of their bulk; for it cannot become anything other than what it is. But matter, having nothing to resist—for it has no activity—and being a shadow, waits to undergo whatever the agent wishes.
τό τε οὖν προιὸν ἐκ τοῦ ἐκεῖ λόγου ἤδη ἴχνος ἔχει τοῦ μέλλοντος γενήσεσθαι· οἷον γὰρ ἐν φαντασίᾳ εἰκονικῇ κινούμενος ὁ λόγος ἢ ἡ κίνησις ἡ ἀπὸ τούτου μερισμός ἐστιν· ἤ, εἰ ταὐτὸν εἴη ἕν, οὐδὲ ἐκινήθη, ἀλλὰ μένει· ἥ τε ὕλη πάντα ὁμοῦ ὥσπερ ἡ ψυχὴ οὐ δύναται εἰσοικίσασθαι· ἢ ἦν ἄν τι ἐκείνων· αὐτήν τε αὖ δεῖ τὰ πάντα δέξασθαι, μὴ ἀμερῶς δὲ δέξασθαι. δεῖ τοίνυν πᾶσι τόπον οὖσαν ἐπὶ πάντα αὐτὴν ἐλθεῖν καὶ πᾶσιν ἀπαντῆσαι καὶ πρὸς πᾶν διάστημα ἀρκέσαι, ὅτι μὴ κατείληπται διαστήματι αὐτή, ἀλλ’ ἦν ἐκκειμένη τῷ μέλλοντι. πῶς οὖν οὐκ εἰσελθὸν ἕν τι ἐκώλυσε τὰ ἄλλα, ἃ οὐχ οἷόν τε ἦν ἐπ’ ἀλλήλοις εἶναι;
So what proceeds from the rational principle there already has a trace of what is going to come about. For the rational principle moving, as it were, in an image-making imagination—or the movement that comes from it—is a division; otherwise, if it were one and the same, it would not even have moved, but stays. And matter cannot take all things together to dwell in it, as soul does; otherwise it would be one of them. Yet it must receive all things, and receive them not without parts. So, being a place for all things, it must go out to all things, meet them all, and be equal to every extension, because it is not itself taken up by extension, but lay open to what was to come. How, then, did not some one thing, entering, block the others, since they could not be on top of one another?
ἢ οὐκ ἦν οὐδὲν πρῶτον· εἰ δ’ ἄρα, τὸ τοῦ παντὸς εἶδος· ὥστε πάντα μὲν ἅμα, ἐν μέρει δὲ ἕκαστον· ζῴου γὰρ ὕλη μερισθεῖσα σὺν τῷ τοῦ ζῴου μερισμῷ· εἰ δὲ μή, οὐκ ἂν ἐγένετό τι παρὰ τὸν λόγον.
Or rather, there was nothing first; or if there was, it was the form of the All. So all things are at once, but each in a part; for the matter of a living being is divided along with the division of the living being. Otherwise nothing would have come to be besides the rational principle.
τὰ μὲν δὴ εἰσελθόντα εἰς τὴν ὕλην ὥσπερ μητέρα ἀδικεῖ οὐδὲν οὐδ’ αὖ ὠφελεῖ. οὐδέ γε αἱ πληγαὶ αἱ τούτων πρὸς αὐτήν, πρὸς ἄλληλα δέ, ὅτι αἱ δυνάμεις πρὸς τὰ ἐναντία, οὐ πρὸς τὰ ὑποκείμενα, εἰ μή τις συνειλημμένα θεωροῖ τοῖς ἐπεισιοῦσι· θερμὸν γὰρ ἔπαυσε τὸ ψυχρὸν καὶ μέλαν τὸ λευκὸν ἢ συγκραθέντα ἄλλην ποιότητα ἐξ αὑτῶν ἐποίησε. τὰ παθόντα οὖν τὰ κραθέντα, τὸ δὲ παθεῖν αὐτοῖς τὸ μὴ εἶναι ὅπερ ἦσαν.
The things that have entered matter, as into a mother, do it no wrong, nor again do they benefit it. Nor are their blows aimed at it, but at one another, since powers act on their opposites, not on their substrates—unless one were to consider the substrates as taken together with what comes in. For hot put an end to cold, and black to white; or, blended, they produced another quality out of themselves. So the things affected are the things blended, and being affected, for them, means not being what they were.
καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἐμψύχοις δὲ αἱ μὲν πείσεις περὶ τὰ σώματα κατὰ τὰς ποιότητας καὶ τὰς δυνάμεις τὰς ἐνυπαρχούσας τῆς ἀλλοιώσεως γινομένης· λυομένων δὲ τῶν συστάσεων ἢ συνιουσῶν ἢ μετατιθεμένων παρὰ τὴν κατὰ φύσιν σύστασιν τὰ μὲν πάθη ἐν τοῖς σώμασι, ταῖς δὲ ψυχαῖς αἱ γνώσεις συνημμέναι τῶν σφοδροτέρων· εἰ δὲ μή, οὐ γινώσκουσιν. ἡ δὲ ὕλη μένει· οὐδὲν γὰρ ἀπελθόντος μὲν πέπονθε τοῦ ψυχροῦ, τοῦ δὲ θερμοῦ ἐπελθόντος· οὐ γὰρ ἦν οὔτε φίλον αὐτῇ οὔτε ἀλλότριον ὁποτερονοῦν. ὥστε οἰκειότερον αὐτῇ ἡ ‘ὑποδοχὴ καὶ τιθήνη’· ἡ δὲ μήτηρ οἷον εἴρηται· οὐδὲν γὰρ αὕτη γεννᾷ.
In living beings, too, the affections concern the bodies, since alteration takes place according to the qualities and powers present in them; and when their structures dissolve, or come together, or are shifted contrary to their natural structure, the affections are in the bodies, while the souls have the knowledge of the more intense ones joined to them; otherwise they do not notice. But matter remains: it has undergone nothing when the cold departs and the hot arrives, since neither was either dear or foreign to it. So “receptacle and nurse” suits it better; “mother” is said only as a manner of speaking, for it generates nothing.
ἀλλ’ ἐοίκασι μητέρα αὐτὴν λέγειν ὅσοι καὶ τὴν μητέρα τάξιν ὕλης πρὸς τὰ γεννώμενα ἀξιοῦσιν ἔχειν, ὡς ὑποδεχομένης μόνον, οὐδὲν δὲ εἰς τὰ γεννώμενα διδούσης· ἐπεὶ καὶ ὅσον σῶμα τοῦ γινομένου ἐκ τῆς τροφῆς. εἰ δὲ δίδωσιν ἡ μήτηρ τι τῷ γεννωμένῳ, οὐ καθ’ ὅσον ὕλη, ἀλλ’ ὅτι καὶ εἶδος· μόνον γὰρ τὸ εἶδος γόνιμον, ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα φύσις ἄγονος. ὅθεν, οἶμαι, καὶ οἱ πάλαι σοφοὶ μυστικῶς καὶ ἐν τελεταῖς αἰνιττόμενοι Ἑρμῆν μὲν ποιοῦσι τὸν ἀρχαῖον τὸ τῆς γενέσεως ὄργανον ἀεὶ ἔχοντα πρὸς ἐργασίαν τὸν γεννῶντα τὰ ἐν αἰσθήσει δηλοῦντες εἶναι τὸν νοητὸν λόγον, τὸ δὲ ἄγονον τῆς ὕλης μενούσης τὸ αὐτὸ ἀεὶ διὰ τῶν περὶ αὐτὴν ἀγόνων δηλοῦντες.
But those who call it mother seem to be people who also think the mother has the role of matter toward what is generated, as only receiving and contributing nothing to the offspring; since even whatever body the offspring has comes from nourishment. But if the mother does give something to the offspring, it is not insofar as she is matter, but because she is also form: for form alone is fertile, while the other nature is sterile. That is why, I think, the wise men of old, speaking in mystic riddles and in the rites, make the ancient Hermes always have his organ of generation ready for action, showing that what generates the things of the sensible world is the intelligible rational principle; and they show the sterility of matter, which always remains the same, through the sterile beings around it.
μητέρα γὰρ πάντων ποιήσαντες, ἣν δὴ οὕτως ἐπιφημίζουσι τὴν κατὰ τὸ ὑποκείμενον ἀρχὴν λαβόντες καὶ ὄνομα τοῦτο θέμενοι, ἵνα δηλοῖεν ὃ βούλονται, τὸ πρὸς τὴν μητέρα οὐχ ὅμοιον πάντη ἐνδείκνυσθαι θέλοντες τοῖς ὅστις ὁ τρόπος βουλομένοις ἀκριβέστερον λαβεῖν καὶ μὴ ἐπιπολῆς ζητοῦσι πόρρωθεν μέν, ὅμως δὲ ὡς ἐδύναντο, ἐνεδείξαντο ὡς ἄγονός τε καὶ οὐδὲ πάντη θῆλυς, ἀλλὰ τοσοῦτον μὲν θῆλυς, ὅσον ὑποδέξασθαι, ὅσον δὲ γεννᾶν οὐκέτι, τῷ τὸ πρὸς αὐτὴν κεχωρηκὸς μήτε θῆλυ εἶναι, μήτε γεννᾶν δύνασθαι, ἀποτετμημένον δὲ πάσης τῆς τοῦ γεννᾶν δυνάμεως, ἣ μόνῳ ὑπάρχει τῷ μένοντι ἄρρενι.
For they made her the mother of all—they call her by this name, taking her as the principle that corresponds to the substrate, and giving her this name to show what they meant. Wanting to indicate that she is not in every way like a mother, to those who wish to grasp the manner more precisely and do not inquire superficially, they indicated, from afar but as best they could, that she is sterile and not even altogether female, but female so far as receiving goes, and no further where generating is concerned. They did so by making what goes to her neither female nor able to generate, but cut off from all power of generating—a power that belongs only to what remains male.