登陆注册
5147400000083

第83章 THE THIRD ENNEAD(20)

It is sound, I think, to find the primal source of Love in a tendency of the Soul towards pure beauty, in a recognition, in a kinship, in an unreasoned consciousness of friendly relation.The vile and ugly is in clash, at once, with Nature and with God: Nature produces by looking to the Good, for it looks towards Order- which has its being in the consistent total of the good, while the unordered is ugly, a member of the system of evil- and besides Nature itself, clearly, springs from the divine realm, from Good and Beauty; and when anything brings delight and the sense of kinship, its very image attracts.

Reject this explanation, and no one can tell how the mental state rises and where are its causes: it is the explanation of even copulative love which is the will to beget in beauty; Nature seeks to produce the beautiful and therefore by all reason cannot desire to procreate in the ugly.

Those that desire earthly procreation are satisfied with the beauty found on earth, the beauty of image and of body; it is because they are strangers to the Archetype, the source of even the attraction they feel towards what is lovely here.There are Souls to whom earthly beauty is a leading to the memory of that in the higher realm and these love the earthly as an image; those that have not attained to this memory do not understand what is happening within them, and take the image for the reality.Once there is perfect self-control, it is no fault to enjoy the beauty of earth; where appreciation degenerates into carnality, there is sin.

Pure Love seeks the beauty alone, whether there is Reminiscence or not; but there are those that feel, also, a desire of such immortality as lies within mortal reach; and these are seeking Beauty in their demand for perpetuity, the desire of the eternal; Nature teaches them to sow the seed and to beget in beauty, to sow towards eternity, but in beauty through their own kinship with the beautiful.And indeed the eternal is of the one stock with the beautiful, the Eternal-Nature is the first shaping of beauty and makes beautiful all that rises from it.

The less the desire for procreation, the greater is the contentment with beauty alone, yet procreation aims at the engendering of beauty; it is the expression of a lack; the subject is conscious of insufficiency and, wishing to produce beauty, feels that the way is to beget in a beautiful form.Where the procreative desire is lawless or against the purposes of nature, the first inspiration has been natural, but they have diverged from the way, they have slipped and fallen, and they grovel; they neither understand whither Love sought to lead them nor have they any instinct to production; they have not mastered the right use of the images of beauty; they do not know what the Authentic Beauty is.

Those that love beauty of person without carnal desire love for beauty's sake; those that have- for women, of course- the copulative love, have the further purpose of self-perpetuation: as long as they are led by these motives, both are on the right path, though the first have taken the nobler way.But, even in the right, there is the difference that the one set, worshipping the beauty of earth, look no further, while the others, those of recollection, venerate also the beauty of the other world while they, still, have no contempt for this in which they recognize, as it were, a last outgrowth, an attenuation of the higher.These, in sum, are innocent frequenters of beauty, not to be confused with the class to whom it becomes an occasion of fall into the ugly- for the aspiration towards a good degenerates into an evil often.

So much for love, the state.

Now we have to consider Love, the God.

2.The existence of such a being is no demand of the ordinary man, merely; it is supported by Theologians and, over and over again, by Plato to whom Eros is child of Aphrodite, minister of beautiful children, inciter of human souls towards the supernal beauty or quickener of an already existing impulse thither.All this requires philosophical examination.A cardinal passage is that in the Symposium where we are told Eros was not a child of Aphrodite but born on the day of Aphrodite's birth, Penia, Poverty, being the mother, and Poros, Possession, the father.

The matter seems to demand some discussion of Aphrodite, since in any case Eros is described as being either her son or in some association with her.Who then is Aphrodite, and in what sense is Love either her child or born with her or in some way both her child and her birth-fellow?

To us Aphrodite is twofold; there is the heavenly Aphrodite, daughter of Ouranos or Heaven: and there is the other the daughter of Zeus and Dione, this is the Aphrodite who presides over earthly unions; the higher was not born of a mother and has no part in marriages for in Heaven there is no marrying.

The Heavenly Aphrodite, daughter of Kronos who is no other than the Intellectual Principle- must be the Soul at its divinest:

unmingled as the immediate emanation of the unmingled; remaining ever Above, as neither desirous nor capable of descending to this sphere, never having developed the downward tendency, a divine Hypostasis essentially aloof, so unreservedly an Authentic Being as to have no part with Matter- and therefore mythically "the unmothered"justly called not Celestial Spirit but God, as knowing no admixture, gathered cleanly within itself.

Any Nature springing directly from the Intellectual Principle must be itself also a clean thing: it will derive a resistance of its own from its nearness to the Highest, for all its tendency, no less than its fixity, centres upon its author whose power is certainly sufficient to maintain it Above.

Soul then could never fall from its sphere; it is closer held to the divine Mind than the very sun could hold the light it gives forth to radiate about it, an outpouring from itself held firmly to it, still.

同类推荐
  • 登鹳雀楼

    登鹳雀楼

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 观音玄义记

    观音玄义记

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 胡仲子集

    胡仲子集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 灵树远禅师云岩集

    灵树远禅师云岩集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 后汉门 马后

    后汉门 马后

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 百位世界杰出的文学家上(世界名人成功启示录)

    百位世界杰出的文学家上(世界名人成功启示录)

    斗转星移,物是人非。漫长的世界历史画卷上写满了兴盛与衰亡、辉煌与悲怆。多少风流人物,多少英雄豪杰,在历史的长河中悄然隐去。然而,仍有许许多多曾创造了不朽业绩的杰出人物名彪史册,业传千秋。拭去历史的风尘,人们依稀看见那些改写人类历史的政治家、军事家;人们仍旧忆起那些拯救人类危机的谋略家、外交家;人们还会记得那些推动人类文明进程的思想家、科学家、发明家;人们至今难忘那些为人类生产精神盛宴的文学家、艺术家;人们深深感谢那些创造人类物质财富的企业家、经济学家。
  • 复仇葬恋心

    复仇葬恋心

    十年前,她们原本可以衣食无忧生活的很幸福,可是命运捉弄,她们发誓等自己变强以后,会回来拿回自己的一切!终于,她们变强了,霸气回归,回来拿回属于她们的东西!“呵,我命由我不由天!”
  • 萌萌小娇妻:叶少的大小姐

    萌萌小娇妻:叶少的大小姐

    故事一:人生嘛!当然是打打游戏,逃逃课,顺带挖挖坑,坑人……咦,一不小心就把坑挖的太大了把自己也给坑进去了?肿么办?“哎哎!我都说了不是故意的,你还想怎么样?”沐罂怒吼道,“……”某大少黑着脸不说话,一把把人拖回家……
  • 屹立娱乐之巅

    屹立娱乐之巅

    身带“金手指”的顾翘翘一头扎进竞争残酷而激烈,充满了各种利益冲突和明争暗斗,娱乐圈这个巨大的名利场。不想做流星,立志做恒星的她在向目标前进的途中,见过鲜花,也见过荆棘;听过掌声,也听倒过倒彩声,遇到过友谊,也遭到过背叛……她依然不改初心,最终走向巅峰的故事!简介无能,慢热,现实中娱乐圈的故事和虚构的人物结合在一起,半现实像。
  • 成功不是偶然:马云的激情人生与创业真经(超值金版)

    成功不是偶然:马云的激情人生与创业真经(超值金版)

    本书以独特的视角从大量的现象中提炼出马云创业成功方法,并收录了大量有关他对创业经营的讲话和观点,更能让读者从这些珍贵的第一手资料中去分析、感悟成功的精髓。相信创业者、管理者以及所有渴望成功的人,都将在本书中找到创业成功的经验与策略。
  • 精忠报国

    精忠报国

    坚持了一千多个日日夜夜,究其动因,当然少不了朋友们不断给我的鼓气,希望我不要半途而废。同时也是剧中人物在时时无形地推动着我,越写越感到非把他们写出来不可。这期间也有一些朋友劝我何必自找苦吃:你写得好吗?你写出来有人看吗?有人用吗?你有钱将它推向社会吗?知道吗?现在“触电”难呢!他们说的都是实实在在的问题。但是,我最终毫不回头地走自己的路。
  • 《爱的追踪》原著小说:赎罪无门

    《爱的追踪》原著小说:赎罪无门

    张国立、闫妮主演电视剧《赎罪门》原著小说!主人公警察老马,在年轻时吊儿郎当,是警察中的边缘人物,直到被癌症判处死刑的时侯,才开始反思自己一生作为警察的价值。为了赎罪,他不畏强暴、挑战强权,在生命的最后阶段,与城市大鳄绝命搏斗。这是个浑身充满了“京味儿”的老警察,时而混不吝,却充满了执拗的正义感。他的生活黑白分明,化疗、剧痛,身体每况愈下、跌入黑暗,无法预计的昏迷与疼痛,不可预料的未来和毁灭。但所有这些,却是他用来击碎这个城市大鳄的唯一武器,他无惧死亡,哀兵必胜。
  • 王爷,王妃叫你滚远些

    王爷,王妃叫你滚远些

    穿穿穿,一穿过去就被唾弃为贱人,她还穿个P啊?这年头,处处可见穿越,她不过是抱怨两句没意思而已,犯得着要罚她穿么?啊啊啊啊,宇文擎,你这人面兽心的家伙,我、我、我、我我跟你拼死拼活拼了!!!!——
  • 腹黑君王你赢了

    腹黑君王你赢了

    缺德的人什么样?请看她!她的名言是:女子无德便是才!腹黑的人什么样?请看他!他的名言是:面子什么的都是浮云,宠妻才是王道!云端,一个淡然慵懒,缺德毒舌的唯利商人,总是装成儒雅俊悄的小书生模样来卖萌装嫩,蒙骗世人,但骨子里,那份刻骨铭心的薄凉却始终挥之不去!可是他的出现,却乱了她的心弦!夜星辰,一个俊美如斯,腹黑狡诈的男人,唇边带着一抹似有似无的肆意微笑。虽然身份尊贵,心计智谋可将天下玩弄于鼓掌之间。但是,他却将他全部的心思,放在了一个人的身上。为了她,他甘心倾尽所有!他只是一个男人,一个想宠她上天的男人!她遇见他,他找到她。她躲,他找。她逃,他追。当前有狼,后有虎,两边夹击成为过去,当风云起,真相现,生死难猜浮现眼前,他们二人,又会让天地发生怎样的聚变?XXXXXXXXXXXXX某玉得意的笑的分界线XXXXXXXXXXXXX【一.】某女将一个锦盒推到了某男的面前,说,"你不是最喜欢的那个青瓷缎玉瓶碎了吗,这个给你!"某男一边不动声色的欲拒还迎,一边心花怒放的毫不犹豫打开了盒子。盒子刚打开,某男那肆意的微笑就像是被雷劈到一样,眉角还隐约的抽了几下!只见里边平平整整的躺着一整盒的,银票!【二.】"你这是干什么?"云端脑冒黑线,看着动作怪异的某男!"你自己说,我生是你的人,死是你的鬼,现在不要我了,想得美!"某男将自己手上的休书一扬,变随风飘散了!"那你也不用把我绑成这个样子吧?"云端脑后的黑线还在不住的往下流!"我怕你这只狐狸再跑,我现在就要把你带进东洞房,让你补给我一个!"某男轻笑,邪恶的不止一点点!洞房?话说,五花大绑的她,怎么洞房?【三.】"跟我走吧,我会宠你一辈子的!"炮灰握着云端的手,声情并茂!"可是``````"云端欲言又止!"夜星辰那个混蛋接近你是有原因的,不要相信他!"炮灰还在傻傻的说着!"但是``````"云端眨了眨眼,无奈!
  • 向日葵小姐

    向日葵小姐

    “如果医生告诉你只能再活一个月,你会怎么度过?”雪七说了一个让所有人都石化的答案:“我会不惜一切代价和井观月在一起。”井观月是谁?偶像巨星+人气作家+绝色冰山男……江湖传闻,某位绝色校花曾向井观月告白。井观月听完,平静地走近她,摘下墨镜,淡淡地说:“如果你能比我还漂亮,我们就交往。”那位校花在看到他的真容之后,一言不发地去韩国整容了……耀眼的太阳和平凡的向日葵之间,永远隔着一个仰望的角度,这个角度也叫不可能。然而,不到一个月,雪七不但混进了井巨星的别墅,还成了他的贴身管家兼绯闻女友……