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Elements of Theology, Proposition 34
Aug. 6th, 2024 12:48 am Every thing which is converted according to nature makes its return to that from which it received the progression of its characteristic essence.
COMMENTARY
We have a couple of different terms to unpack here, and I think it's best to take it a step at a time.
We start with conversion. We've already learned that conversion is the return of an effect to its cause. Everything caused is subject to the threefold movement of mone or abiding, prohodos or proceeding, and epistrophe or returning.
Now we have the phrase, "according to nature." What precisely does Proclus mean by this? He goes on to say that something converted by nature "will have an essential desire for that to which it is converted." That word essential is important. Essence is the very being of a thing. To be "converted by nature" means that, for anything converted, its conversion is part of its very being. The "desire" Proclus speaks of is precisely the movement of any given thing toward its source.
As we have seen, everything in the world of our experience has ultimately has its source in the higher world of Intellect. What this means is htat, in the final analysis, Intellect Itself is the object of desire for all things, because it is the source of all things.
For if it is converted according to nature, it will have an essential desire for that to which it is converted. But if this be the case, the whole being of it depends on that to which it makes an essential conversion, and it is essentially similar to it. Hence also it has a natural sympathy with it because it is cognate to the essence of it. If this be so, either the being of each is the same, or the one is derived from the other, or both are allotted similitude from a certain other one. But if the being of each is the same, how is the one naturally converted to the other? And if both are from a certain one, it will be according to nature for each to be converted to that one. It remains, therefore, that the one must derive its being from the other. But if this be the case, the progression will be from that to which the conversion or return is according to nature.
Corollary.— From these things, therefore, it is evident that Intellect is the object of desire to all things, that all things proceed from intellect, and that the whole world, though it is eternal, possesses its essence from intellect. For the world is not prevented from proceeding from intellect because it is eternal: neither because it is always arranged is it not converted to intellect, but it always proceeds, is essentially eternal, always converted, and is indissoluble because it always remains in the same order.
We have a couple of different terms to unpack here, and I think it's best to take it a step at a time.
We start with conversion. We've already learned that conversion is the return of an effect to its cause. Everything caused is subject to the threefold movement of mone or abiding, prohodos or proceeding, and epistrophe or returning.
Now we have the phrase, "according to nature." What precisely does Proclus mean by this? He goes on to say that something converted by nature "will have an essential desire for that to which it is converted." That word essential is important. Essence is the very being of a thing. To be "converted by nature" means that, for anything converted, its conversion is part of its very being. The "desire" Proclus speaks of is precisely the movement of any given thing toward its source.
As we have seen, everything in the world of our experience has ultimately has its source in the higher world of Intellect. What this means is htat, in the final analysis, Intellect Itself is the object of desire for all things, because it is the source of all things.
