Elements of Theology, Proposition 7

Every thing productive of another is more excellent than the na­ture of that which is produced.

For it is either superior, or inferior, or equal. Hence that which is produced from this has itself either a power productive of something else, or it is entirely unprolific. But if it is unprolific, by reason of this fact it will be inferior to and unequal to its producer, which is prolific, and has the power of producing. But if it is productive of other things, it either produces that which is equal to itself, and this similarly in all things, and all beings will be equal to each other, and no one thing will be better than another, that which produces always generating that which is equal to itself, in a consequent series; or it produces that which is unequal to itself, and thus that which is produced will no longer be equal to its producer. For it is the province of equal powers to pro­duce equal things: the progeny of these, however, will be unequal to each other, if that which produces indeed is equal to the cause prior to itself, but the thing posterior to it is unequal to it. Hence it is not right that the thing produced should be equal to its producing cause. Moreover, neither will that which produces ever be less than that which is produced by it. For if it imparts essence to the thing produced, it will also supply it with essential power. And if it is productive of all the power which that posterior to itself possesses, it will certainly be able to make itself such as its production is. But if this be so, it will also make itself more powerful; impotency cannot hinder, the productive power being present, nor a defect of will, — since all things naturally desire the Good. Hence, if it is able to render another thing more perfect, it will also perfect itself before it perfects that which is posterior to itself. The thing produced, therefore, is neither equal to nor better than its produc­ing cause: and hence the producing cause is in every respect better than the nature of the thing produced.

 

COMMENTARY

Having established the concepts of the One and the Many, Unity, and Things United, Proclus now takes a moment to pause and explain the order of creation. The Neoplatonic cosmos is a whole which unfolds from the One and descends layer by layer through the absolute unity of the first of the gods, through the encosmic gods which we can see and know, down to the ranks of angels and spirits (daimones), to souls heroic and ordinary, through the ranks of animals, plants, and minerals, and finally to the last of things. Here he teaches us-- or reminds us, or asks us to bear in mind-- that everything which produces is higher in the ontological scheme than that which is produced. The One itself, though simple, is not inactive; like the Sun, it is a constantly overflowing fountain of life and light. Beyond the One Itself, every power which produces grants existence to that which it produces, and with existence, power; and so every productive power contains that which it produces.  

The Platonic cosmos is a hierarchical universe, and here again we can run into difficulties when we come to these ideas with minds shaped by modern ways of thinking. In this case, there are two sources of trouble. The first, of course, is simply materialism. To the materialist way of thinking, matter is primary, or matter+energy, and everything else is either an epiphenomenon of physical processes or, at best, "emerges" from them. This can be seen in Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, in which living organisms are understood as the accidental creations of genes, which are themselves mere molecules which happened to become assembled out of an assortment of simpler substances. The organism as a whole has no real existence; it is not a true unity but an assemblage determined by its parts. This is opposite to Proclus's way of thinking. For Proclus and the Platonists generally, the whole as a unity exists at a higher ontological level than its parts. 

The second problem comes not from materialist sciewww.youtube.com/watchnce as much as it does the oddities of our religious and political history. The Middle Ages and Renaissance largely accepted the Neoplatonic cosmos, with the Holy Trinity in place of the One and the many ranks of angels standing in place of the gods. To those of us raised in the remnants of the old tradition in the Catholic or Orthodox churches, this can still be a natural way of thinking. The trouble is that the tradition used the metaphor of a kingdom to describe the nature of existence, with God in place of the king, the angels and saints as lords and ministers, and the rest of us as citizens or perhaps soldiers. Even this isn't a problem; the metaphor can be a useful one, but only if we 1. remember that it is a metaphor, and 2. do not bring in concepts drawn from modern political systems, especially those of the 20th century. The hierarchy of a feudal kingdom in medieval Europe was not the same as the top-down command structure of Stalin's Russia, or even Roosevelt's America. Even the kingdoms of the early modern period vastly reduced the power of the nobility and centralized power in the king. God does not relate to the Creation as Stalin to the Soviet Union, or as Louis the XIV to France. The hierarchy here is a hierarchy of being, not political power of the modern type. The Platonic cosmos is a layered cosmos, in which different levels of being determine those which procede from them. 

It's worth noting that this idea of a layered cosmos is making a resurgence in our own time. Thinkers at the cutting edge of science, biology and cognition have been exploring these ideas in an updated form which also makes room for emergence from the "bottom up" as well as causation from the "top down." I personally have a lot more time for listening to audio lectures, interviews, and books than for sitting down and reading; if you're like me, you might be interested in some of the following:

Wolfgang Smith on Vertical Causality 


Stuart Kaufman on Kantian Wholes. Though Kaufman titles his talk "Beyond Pythagoras," what he calls "Kauntian Wholes" could just as well be called "Procline Unities." 

An interview with Denis Noble on whole systems in evolutionary biology. Among many Noble's interesting points is the fact that if a particular gene is damaged, an organism can use alternate genes or even non-genetic processes to do the work of the missing gene.

A long talk by John Vervaeke making the case for the Neoplatonic cosmos in the language of modern physics, mathematics and cognitive science.