sary to attend to
the conception of Plato, that the united is not the one itself, but that
which is passive[2] to it? And this being the case, it is evident that it
ranks after the one; for it is supposed to be the united and not the one
itself. If also being is composed from the elements bound and infinity,
as appears from the Philebus of Plato, where he calls it that which is
mixt, it will be indigent of its elements. Besides, if the conception of
being is different from that of being united, and that which is a whole
is both united and being, these will be indigent of each other, and the
whole which is called one being is indigent of the two. And though the
one in this is better than being, yet this is indigent of being, in order
to the subsistence of one being. But if being here supervenes the one, as
it were, form in that which is mixt and united, just as the idiom of man
in that which is collectively rational-mortal-animal, thus also the one
will be indigent of being. If, however, to speak more properly, the one
is two-fold; this being the cause of the mixture, and subsisting prior to
being, but that conferring rectitude, on being,--if this be the case,
neither will the indigent perfectly desert this nature. After all these,
it may be said that the one will be perfectly unindigent. For neither is
it indigent of that which is posterior to itself for its subsistence,
since the truly one is by itself separated from all things; nor is it
indigent of that which is inferior or more excellent in itself; for there
is nothing in it besides itself; nor is it in want of itself. But it is
one, because neither has it any duplicity with respect to itself. For not
even the relation of itself to itself must be asserted of the truly one;
since it is perfectly simple. This, therefore, is the most unindigent of
all things. Hence this is the principle and the cause of all; and this is
at once the first of all things. If these qualities, however, are present
with it, it will not be the one. Or may we not say that all things
subsist in the one according to the one? And that both these subsist in
it, and such other things as we predicate of it, as, for instance, the
most simple, the most excellent, the most powerful, the preserver of all
things, and the good itself? If these things, however, are thus true of
the one, it will thus also be indigent of things posterior to itself,
according to those very things which we add to it. For the prin