Elements of Theology 9: The Laws of Procession

[sdi]

I apologize for the long gap since the last section, but it's been a difficult month. Back to work! Dodds calls the next section of the Elements of Theology, running from XXV through XXXIX, "Of Procession and Reversion." Again, that seems reasonable to me—more reasonable, at least, than Taylor's and Johnson's very odd sectioning—but fifteen propositions is a lot to bite off at once, so I'll once again be breaking it up. Logically enough, we'll be dealing with procession, first.

This section is less of a series of propositions leading up to some conclusion, and more of a set of fundamental laws of Neoplatonist cosmology.

The Laws of Procession: Every complete thing produces lesser things that are as similiar to itself as possible, given their diminished potency. This production isn't like an artificer who makes something by craft, or like a mother who gives birth; rather, the producer radiates its productions like the sun radiates light, and it is undiminished by doing so.

XXV. Every complete thing produces all things of which it is capable of producing in imitation of the One.

Every thing that exists is produced by the Good [XII]; but the Good is the One [XIII], so the production of every thing possible must be the act of the One. But every complete thing is a one, and so in a like manner to the One, it's act must be to produce every thing possible for it to produce. These productions will be inferior to it [VII]. From this, we may see that the One has the greatest productive power; it's productions, even when complete, are less complete than it and have lesser productive power; and the productions of those productions are lesser still, and have even less productive power; and so on all the way down to the least things which are sterile and have no productive power whatsoever.

XXVI. Every productive cause produces changelessly.

Since the One is both productive of all things [XII, XIII] and changeless [XX], the productive act of the One must not require change. But all causes derive their productive power from their parent cause and produce in the same way [XXV]; therefore all causes produce changelessly. Further, because being diminished is a kind of change, a cause is not diminished by its production.

XXVII. Every productive cause produces not out of itself, but as a byproduct of its completeness.

Suppose a productive cause is not complete. Then, unable to produce in like manner to the One [XXV], it produces out of itself somehow; but this is impossible, since every productive cause produces changelessly [XXVI]. Therefore every productive cause is complete, and produces from its completeness and without change, and its product is a separate existence beside it.

XXVIII. Every productive cause produces things like itself in preference to things unlike itself.

When comparing a cause and its effect, they must either be the same in every way, different in every way, or the same in some ways and different in others. They cannot be the same in every way, since then the would be equal, but a cause must be superior to its effect [VII]. Similarly, they cannot be different in every way, because a cause must have some relation to its effect, since the effect would not exist without the cause. So the cause and effect must be the same in some ways and different in others.

Now, every effect participates in the Good through its cause [IX], and so the more similar an effect is to its cause, the more closely linked it is, and therefore the better it is. Since a cause would prefer better effects to worse ones, a cause will prefer to produce effects as similar to itself as possible.

XXIX. All procession is effected through similitude of cause and effect.

Procession is the process whereby productive power is diminished [VII] but similarity is retained [XXVIII]; so it is by similarity, and not difference, that every thing is produced. [So, the highest level of reality is the Good itself [XX], but each level below it is the best possible given the constraints it operates under.]

XXX. Every thing produced by a cause is both part of and separate from that cause.

We have already shown that a cause is unchanged by its productions [XXVI] and is both the same and different from its productions [XXVII]. That part of the effect which is the same has identity with the cause and is not to be distinguished from it; this common part must remain in the cause (or else the cause is not prior to the effect). Conversely, however, the part that is different ensures that the effect cannot be identified with the cause and is a separate thing. So, in a sense, the effect is a part of the cause from one perspective; and it is separate from the cause from another perspective; but both of these relationships are inseparable.

Proclus may have been disagreeable last time, but here he seems to hew quite closely to his predecessors! This section is essentially an explicit formulation of some of the axioms used in the Enneads, and in fact it seems rather similar to On the Gods and the World XIII.

Dodds calls XXV "the law of emanation." Bishop Nicolaus of Methone (c. AD 1150) pithily ridicules it (and, by extension, Neoplatonism generally) by saying that "men beget men, not pigs." The obvious retort to this is that men beget neither men nor pigs; souls do. Bodies are the limit of causative process and are not able to produce anything: hence why only the living have children, and not the dead—the presence of soul is crucial. (There, I have criticized a cleric and done my good deed for the day. *pats self on head*)

Dodds calls XXVI and XXVII, together, "the law of undiminished giving." He quotes Shelley's Epipsychidion [§11] as exemplary of it:

True Love in this differs from gold and clay,
That to divide is not to take away.
Love is like understanding, that grows bright,
Gazing on many truths; 'tis like thy light,
Imagination! which from earth and sky,
And from the depths of human fantasy,
As from a thousand prisms and mirrors, fills
The Universe with glorious beams, and kills
Error, the worm, with many a sun-like arrow
Of its reverberated lightning. Narrow
The heart that loves, the brain that contemplates,
The life that wears, the spirit that creates
One object, and one form, and builds thereby
A sepulchre for its eternity.

He also references a poem by (Robert?) Bridges: "Immortal happiness... a gift whose wealth is amplified by spending." I was unfortunately unable to locate the poem containing this line despite much searching.

Dodds calls XXVIII and XXIX, together, "the law of continuity." I like how he summarizes them: just as the physical universe abhors a vacuum, so too does the spiritual universe—but spiritual objects are not separated by distance but rather by quality. That's the kind of statement one could ponder for a lifetime and still not exhaust its possibilities! Part of the reason I like a simple Neopythagorean (?) approach to souls (assuming it washes—I haven't dug too deep yet) is that it makes the explicit formulation of this law unnecessary: it is implicit in the relationship of numbers to each other. (But if I'm right that the Elements is meant to be a syllabus, then perhaps being explicit is the point!)

XXIX is notable for being the first proposition where I think Taylor is easier to read than Dodds! Dodds calls it a "rather superfluous corollary" to XXVIII, but in my opinion the emphasis is warranted as it's the answer to a very common question: "Why is the world so horrible?" "Give it a break, it's trying it's best!"

Dodds calls XXX "the law of immanence," the idea that more sophisticated levels of reality are built out of and on top of simpler ones. The Greek conception and description of this feels pretty clunky to me, but I think it's pretty easily grasped in this age of computers: nowadays we would simply say that each level of reality is simulated by the one above it. It's the same idea I was trying to analogize using Conway's Game of Life and my nested boxes of virtual numbers. (And see, Br'er Wolf? I did get there eventually! It only took me two years!) It's interesting to consider your body as a simulation created by your soul. (However, an equally-interesting corollary is that your soul is not simulated by the gods: your soul is no less divine than the gods are, just much smaller and dependent upon them.)