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For unless I am mistaken, that is the true and perfect happiness which makes one self-sufficient, powerful, worthy of reverence, renowned and joyful. And that you may know I have observed this inwardly, I recognize without ambiguity that whatever can truly furnish any one of these — since they are all in fact the same — this is full beatitude. O my pupil, happy in this opinion, if indeed, she said, you will add this. 'Add what?' said I. 'Do you suppose there is anything among these mortal and perishable things that could bestow such a state?' 'By no means,' said I, 'do I suppose so, and you have shown it, so that nothing further could be desired.' 'These things, then, seem to give to mortals either images of the true good or certain imperfect goods, but they cannot confer the true and perfect good.' 'I agree,' said I.
'Since, therefore, you have recognized what that true beatitude is, and what things falsely counterfeit beatitude, it now remains for you to learn whence you may seek this true one.' 'That indeed,' said I, 'I have long been eagerly awaiting.' 'But since,' she said, 'as it pleases our Plato in the Timaeus, divine aid ought to be implored even in the smallest matters, what do you think must now be done, that we may deserve to find the seat of that highest good?' 'We must invoke,' said I, 'the Father of all things, for without Him no beginning is rightly founded.' 'Rightly,' she said, and at once sang in measured strains thus.
O Thou who governest the world by everlasting reason, sower of earth and heaven, who biddest time go forth from eternity, and abiding unmoved makest all things move; whom no external causes drove to fashion the work of floating matter, but the indwelling Form of the highest good, free of all envy — Thou leadest all things from the supernal exemplar, Thyself most fair bearing the fair world in Thy mind and shaping it in a like image, and bidding the perfect whole bring its parts to perfection. Thou bindest the elements by numbers, that cold may agree with flame, the dry with the moist, lest the purer fire fly away or the weight drag down the submerged lands. Thou, knitting together the soul that moves all things, of threefold nature, dost dissolve it through harmonious members; which, when it has been cut and gathered its motion into two orbs, goes on to return into itself, encircles the deep Mind, and turns the heaven in a like image.
Thou by like causes raisest up souls and lesser lives, and fitting the lofty ones to nimble chariots, scatterest them through heaven and earth; and by a kindly law makest them, turned toward Thee, return by a fire that brings them back. Grant, Father, that the mind may climb to Thy august seat; grant that it may survey the fountain of good; grant that, having found the light, it may fix the clear sight of its spirit upon Thee. Scatter the mists and the weights of earthly mass, and shine forth in Thy splendour! For Thou art the serene, Thou the tranquil rest of the godly; to behold Thee is our end, Thou our beginning, bearer, guide, path, and likewise journey's end. 'Since, therefore, you have seen what is the form of the imperfect good and also of the perfect, I think it must now be shown where this perfection of happiness is established. And in this I judge that this first must be inquired: whether any such good as you defined a little before can exist in the nature of things, lest an empty image of thought deceive us, beside the truth of the underlying matter.'
'But that it exists, and is as it were a kind of fountain of all goods, cannot be denied. For everything that is said to be imperfect is held to be imperfect by the diminution of the perfect. Whence it comes about that, if in any class anything seems to be imperfect, in that class there must necessarily also be something perfect. For indeed, if perfection be taken away, it cannot even be imagined whence that which is called imperfect could have arisen. For the nature of things did not take its beginning from things diminished and unfinished, but proceeding from things whole and complete, it lapses into these extreme and worn-out things. But if, as we showed a little before, there is a certain imperfect happiness of a fragile good, it cannot be doubted that there is some solid and perfect one.' 'Most firmly,' said I, 'and most truly is it concluded.' 'But where it dwells,' she said, 'consider thus.'
'That God, the prince of all things, is good — this the common conception of human minds proves. For since nothing better than God can be conceived, who would doubt that that, than which nothing is better, is good? And reason demonstrates God to be good in such a way that it proves the good in Him to be also perfect. For unless it were such, He could not be the prince of all things. For there would be something more excellent than He, possessing a perfect good, which would seem to be prior and more ancient than He; for all perfect things have been shown to be prior to less complete ones. Wherefore, lest the reasoning proceed to infinity, it must be confessed that the supreme God is most full of the supreme and perfect good. But we established the perfect good to be true beatitude; therefore true beatitude must necessarily be situated in the supreme God.' 'I accept it,' said I, 'nor is there anything that could in any way be contradicted.'
'But I beg you,' she said, 'see how reverently and inviolably you can prove this, that we said the supreme God to be most full of the supreme good.' 'In what way?' said I. 'Do not presume that this Father of all things has either received from without that supreme good with which He is said to be full, or possesses it so naturally that you would think the substance of the God who has it and of the beatitude that is had to be diverse. For if you suppose it received from without, you could deem that which gave it more excellent than that which received it. But we most worthily confess Him to be the most pre-eminent of all things. But if it is indeed inherent by nature, yet is diverse in reasoning — since we are speaking of God, the prince of things — let him imagine it who can: who joined these diverse things together? Finally, that which is diverse from any thing is not that thing from which it is understood to be diverse.'
'Wherefore that which is diverse by its own nature from the supreme good is not the supreme good — which it is impious to think concerning Him, than whom nothing is established to be more excellent. For in no wise can the nature of any thing be better than its own principle; wherefore I would conclude by most true reasoning that what is the principle of all things is also, in its own substance, the supreme good.' 'Most rightly,' said I. 'But it has been granted that the supreme good is beatitude.' 'It is so,' said I. 'Therefore,' she said, 'we must necessarily confess that God is beatitude itself.' 'I cannot,' said I, 'gainsay the premises set before me, and I perceive this to be the consequence inferred from them.' 'Consider,' she said, 'whether the same be more firmly approved from this also, that two supreme goods which are diverse from each other cannot exist. For it is plain that goods which differ — the one is not that which the other is; wherefore neither could be perfect, since to each the other is lacking.'
'But that which is not perfect is manifestly not supreme; in no way, therefore, can those things which are supreme goods be diverse. But we gathered both beatitude and God to be the supreme good; wherefore that very thing which is the supreme divinity must necessarily be the supreme beatitude.' 'Nothing,' said I, 'can be concluded either truer in fact, or firmer in reasoning, or more worthy of God.' 'Upon these things, then,' she said, 'as geometers are wont, from the propositions demonstrated, to infer something which they themselves call porisms, so I too will give you, as it were, a corollary. For since by the attainment of beatitude men become blessed, and beatitude is divinity itself, it is manifest that by the attainment of divinity they become blessed: but just as by the attainment of justice men become just, and by wisdom wise, so by like reasoning it must necessarily be that those who attain divinity become gods.'
'Therefore every blessed one is a god, but by nature indeed only one; yet by participation nothing prevents there being as many as you please.' 'And this is a fair thing,' said I, 'and precious, whether you prefer it to be called a porism or a corollary.' 'But there is nothing fairer than this also, which reason persuades must be annexed to these.' 'What?' said I. 'Since beatitude,' she said, 'seems to contain many things, do all these join together as one body of beatitude, as it were, by a certain variety of parts, or is there some one of them which fulfils the substance of beatitude, to which all the rest are referred?' 'I should wish,' said I, 'that you would make this plain by the recalling of the things themselves.' 'Do we not,' she said, 'reckon beatitude to be a good?' 'And indeed the supreme good,' said I. 'You may add this,' she said, 'of them all. For this same sufficiency is the supreme, this same the supreme power, and reverence too, renown and pleasure are judged to be beatitude. What then?'
'Are all these — sufficiency, power, and the rest — the good, as it were certain members of beatitude, or are they all referred to the good as to a summit?' 'I understand,' said I, 'what you propose to investigate, but I desire to hear what you determine.' 'Receive thus the discernment of the matter. If all these were members of beatitude, they would also differ from one another. For this is the nature of parts, that diverse things compose one body. But all these have been shown to be the same; therefore they are by no means members. Otherwise beatitude would seem to be joined together out of one member — which cannot happen.' 'That indeed,' said I, 'is not doubtful, but I await what remains.' 'It is plain that the rest are referred to the good. For sufficiency is sought precisely because it is judged to be good, power likewise because it too is believed to be good; the same may be conjectured concerning reverence, renown, and delight.'
'Therefore the good is the sum and cause of all things to be sought. For that which retains in itself no good, neither in reality nor in likeness, can in no way be sought. And on the contrary, even those things which are not good by nature, yet if they seem to be, are desired as if they were truly good. Whence it comes about that goodness is rightly believed to be the sum, the hinge, and the cause of all things to be sought. But that for the sake of which anything is sought seems most of all to be wished for; as if one should wish to ride for the sake of health, he does not so much desire the motion of riding as the effect of health. Since, therefore, all things are sought for the sake of the good, it is not those rather, but the good itself, that is desired by all. But we granted beatitude to be that on account of which the rest are wished for; wherefore in this way too beatitude alone is sought. From which it clearly appears that of the good itself and of beatitude there is one and the same substance.' 'I see nothing,' said I, 'for which anyone could dissent.'
'But we have shown that God and true beatitude are one and the same.' 'It is so,' said I. 'We may therefore safely conclude that the substance of God also is situated in the good itself, and nowhere else. Come hither all together, ye captives, whom earthly lust, dwelling in your minds, binds with wicked chains. Here shall be rest for your labours, here a haven abiding in placid quiet, this the one open refuge for the wretched. Whatever the Tagus gives from its golden sands, or Hermus from its glowing bank, or Indus near the warm world, mingling green stones with white — these do not enlighten the sight, but rather bury blind souls the more in their own darkness. Whatever pleases and excites the mind, the earth has fostered in its lowest caverns; but the splendour by which heaven is read and is vigorous shuns the dark ruins of the soul. Whoever shall be able to mark this light will deny that the rays of Phoebus are bright.' 'I agree,' said I, 'for all things stand bound together by the firmest reasonings.'
Then she: 'At how much,' she said, 'will you value it, if you come to recognize what the good itself is?' 'At an infinite price,' said I, 'if indeed it shall fall to me likewise to recognize God too, who is the good.' 'And yet I will make this plain,' she said, 'by most true reasoning, provided only that the things lately concluded remain standing.' 'They will remain.' 'Did we not show,' she said, 'that those things which are sought by the many are therefore not true and perfect goods, because they differ from one another, and since to one the other is lacking, they cannot bring a full and absolute good? But that they become the true good when they are gathered, as it were, into one form and efficiency, so that what is sufficiency may be the same as power, reverence, renown and delight, and that unless they are all one and the same thing, they have nothing whereby they may be numbered among things to be sought?' 'It was demonstrated,' said I, 'nor can it in any way be doubted.'
'Therefore those things which, when they differ, are by no means goods, but when they have begun to be one, become goods — is it not by the attainment of unity that it befalls them to be goods?' 'So it seems,' said I. 'But do you concede that everything which is good is good by participation in the good, or not?' 'It is so.' 'You must therefore concede by like reasoning that the one and the good are the same; for the substance of those things is the same whose effect is not naturally diverse.' 'I cannot,' said I, 'deny it.' 'Do you know, then,' she said, 'that everything which is, remains and subsists just so long as it is one, but perishes and is dissolved at the same moment it ceases to be one?' 'In what way?' 'As in living creatures,' she said, 'when soul and body come together into one and remain so, it is called an animal; but when this unity is dissolved by the separation of the two, it is plain that it perishes and is no longer an animal.'
'The body itself, too, while it remains in one form by the conjunction of its members, is seen as a human shape; but if the parts of the body, distributed and separated, have torn apart that unity, it ceases to be what it had been. And in this way, to one who runs through the rest, it will without doubt be plain that each single thing subsists while it is one, but when it ceases to be one, perishes.' 'When I consider it,' said I, 'in many cases nothing else appears to me.' 'Is there then,' she said, 'anything which, insofar as it acts naturally, forsaking the appetite for subsisting, would come to and desire corruption?' 'If I consider animals,' said I, 'which have some nature of willing and not willing, I find nothing which, with no outward forces compelling, would cast away the intention of remaining and of its own accord hasten to its destruction. For every animal labours to guard its own safety, but shuns death and ruin.'
'But what I should hold concerning herbs and trees, what concerning utterly inanimate things, I am altogether in doubt.' 'And yet there is no reason why you should waver about this too, when you observe that herbs and trees first grow up in places suited to them, where, as far as their nature allows, they cannot quickly wither and perish. For some indeed spring up in plains, others on mountains; marshes bear some, others cling to rocks, and the barren sands are fruitful of yet others, which, if anyone should try to transplant into other places, they would dry up. But nature gives to each what is fitting, and labours that they may not perish while they are able to remain. Why is it that all of them, as though with their mouths sunk into the earth, draw nourishment by their roots, and through their pith diffuse strength and bark?'
'And what of the fact that each softest part, such as the pith, is always stored in the inner seat, while outside a certain firmness of wood, and lastly the outermost bark, is set as a defender, enduring like an evil, against the inclemency of the sky? But indeed how great is the diligence of nature, that all things are propagated by multiplied seed! Who does not know that all these are, as it were, certain engines not only for remaining for a time, but also for remaining, generation by generation, as if forever? Do not even those things which are believed to be inanimate likewise, by similar reasoning, each desire what is their own? For why does lightness bring flames upward, while weight presses earth downward, unless because these places and motions are suited to each? Moreover, that which is congenial to each preserves each single thing, just as those things which are hostile corrupt it.'
'Now indeed those things which are hard, such as stones, cling most tenaciously to their own parts and resist being easily dissolved. But those which are fluid, such as air and water, yield easily indeed to things that divide them, yet quickly flow back again into those parts from which they were cut off; but fire flees all cutting. Nor are we now treating of the voluntary motions of the knowing soul, but of natural intention, such as is the fact that we digest the food we have taken without thought, that in sleep we draw breath unknowing; for not even in animals does the love of remaining come from the soul's volitions, but from the principles of nature. For often, when causes compel, the will embraces that death which nature dreads; and on the contrary, that work of begetting, by which alone the long duration of mortal things endures, which nature always desires, the will sometimes restrains.'
'So fully does this self-love proceed not from animal motion but from natural intention. For providence gave to the things created by it this, even the greatest, cause of remaining, that, as far as they can, they naturally desire to remain; wherefore there is nothing whereby you could in any way doubt that all things which are naturally desire the constancy of remaining and shun destruction.' 'I confess,' said I, 'that now I see without doubt the things which a little before seemed uncertain.' 'But that,' she said, 'which seeks to subsist and remain, desires to be one; for, this taken away, not even being will remain to anything.' 'It is true,' said I. 'All things, therefore,' she said, 'desire the one.' 'I consented.' 'But we showed that this very one is that which is good.' 'So indeed.' 'All things therefore seek the good, which indeed you may describe thus: that the good itself is that which is desired by all.' 'Nothing,' said I, 'truer can be conceived.'
'For either all things are referred to nothing one, and, deprived of one summit as it were, they shall float without a ruler; or, if there is something toward which the universe hastens, that will be the highest of all goods.' And she: 'Too greatly, O pupil,' she said, 'do I rejoice, for you have fixed in your mind the very mark of central truth. But in this there has been made plain to you what a little before you said you did not know.' 'What?' said I. 'What,' she said, 'was the end of all things. For it is assuredly that which is desired by all, which, because we gathered it to be good, we ought to confess that the end of all things is good. Whoever with deep mind searches out the truth and wishes not to be deceived by any byways, let him turn the light of his inmost vision back upon himself, and bending his long motions, force them into a circle, and teach his mind to possess, hidden away in its own treasures, whatever it labours after outside. Soon what the dark cloud of error veiled will shine more clearly than Phoebus himself.'
'For the body, bringing in its forgetful mass, has not driven out all light from the mind. Surely the seed of truth clings within, which is awakened by the fanning of teaching. For why, when questioned, do you of your own accord judge rightly, unless the tinder lived sunk deep in the heart? But if the Muse of Plato sounds the truth, what each man learns he, forgetful, recalls.' Then I: 'I vehemently assent to Plato,' said I, 'for you remind me of these things now for the second time: first, because I lost my memory through bodily contagion, then because, pressed by the mass of grief, I lost it.' Then she: 'If you look back,' she said, 'to the things granted before, not even that will be far off, that you will recall what a little while ago you confessed you did not know.' 'What?' said I. 'By what helms,' she said, 'the world is governed.' 'I remember,' said I, 'that I confessed my ignorance, but though I now foresee what you would bring forward, I yet desire to hear it more plainly from you.'
'You thought a little before,' she said, 'that this world is ruled by God, and that this must by no means be doubted.' 'Not even now do I think,' said I, 'nor shall I ever think it must be doubted, and I will briefly set forth by what reasonings I come to this. This world could in no wise have come together into one form out of parts so diverse and contrary, unless there were one who joined together things so diverse. And the very diversity of natures, conjoined yet mutually discordant, would have sundered and torn apart what is joined, unless there were one who held together what He had bound. Nor would so sure an order of nature proceed, nor would things unfold motions so well disposed in places, times, efficiency, spaces, and qualities, unless there were one who, Himself abiding, disposed these varieties of changes. This, whatever it is, by which created things abide and are set in motion, I name by the term familiar to all — God.' Then she:
'Since you feel thus,' she said, 'I think little labour remains for me, that, possessed of happiness, you may safely revisit your homeland. But let us look at the things we proposed. Did we not number sufficiency among the goods of beatitude, and agree that God is beatitude itself?' 'So indeed.' 'And therefore,' she said, 'He will need no external supports for ruling the world; otherwise, if He needed anything, He would not have full sufficiency.' 'That,' said I, 'is thus necessarily so.' 'By Himself alone, therefore, He disposes all things.' 'It cannot be denied,' said I. 'But God has been shown to be the good itself.' 'I remember,' said I. 'Through the good, therefore, He disposes all things, if indeed He rules all by Himself, whom we agreed to be good, and this is, as it were, a certain helm and rudder by which the mechanism of the world is kept stable and incorrupt.' 'I vehemently assent,' said I, 'and I foresaw, though by a slight suspicion, that you would say this a little before.'
'I believe it,' she said, 'for now, as I think, you turn your eyes more vigilantly to discern the truth. But what I shall say lies open no less to contemplation.' 'What?' said I. 'Since God,' she said, 'is rightly believed to govern all things by the helm of goodness, and these same things, as I have taught, hasten toward the good by natural intention, can it be doubted that they are ruled voluntarily, and of their own accord turn themselves to the nod of the disposer, as things fitting and attuned to their ruler?' 'It must be so,' said I, 'nor would the rule seem blessed, if it were the yoke of those who refuse, and not the safety of those who obey.' 'There is nothing, therefore, which, keeping its nature, would attempt to strive against God.' 'Nothing,' said I. 'But if it should attempt it,' she said, 'would it after all accomplish anything against Him whom we conceded to be most powerful by right of beatitude?' 'It would avail nothing at all,' said I. 'There is nothing, therefore, which would either will or be able to withstand this supreme good.'
'I think not,' said I. 'It is therefore the supreme good,' she said, 'which rules all things mightily and disposes them sweetly.' Then I: 'How greatly,' said I, 'do I delight not only in that sum of reasonings which has been concluded, but much more in these very words which you use, so that at last folly, rending itself, should be ashamed of itself.' 'You have received,' she said, 'in the fables, the Giants who assailed heaven; but them too, as was fitting, a kindly fortitude disposed of. But would you have us dash the reasonings themselves against each other? Perhaps from such a clash some fair spark of truth may leap forth.' 'At your discretion,' said I. 'That God,' she said, 'is powerful over all, no one would doubt.' 'No one who is of sound mind,' said I, 'would in any way hesitate.' 'But He who is powerful over all,' she said, 'there is nothing which He cannot do.' 'Nothing,' said I. 'Can God then do evil?' 'By no means,' said I.
'Evil, therefore,' she said, 'is nothing, since He cannot do it, who can do everything.' 'Are you mocking me,' said I, 'weaving an inextricable labyrinth with your reasonings, into which you now enter by the way you go out, and now go out by the way you entered, or are you folding up some marvellous circle of the divine simplicity? For a little before, beginning with beatitude, you said it was the supreme good, which you declared to be situated in the supreme God. You also discoursed that God Himself is the supreme good and full beatitude; from which you gave, as a little gift, that no one would be blessed unless he were likewise a god. Again, you said that the very form of the good was the substance of God and of beatitude, and you taught that the one itself was that very good which is sought by the whole nature of things. You disputed also that God rules the universe by the helms of goodness, and that all things willingly obey, and that there is no nature of evil.'
'And these things you set forth with no proofs taken from without, but with proofs inborn and domestic, the one drawing its credibility from the other.' Then she: 'We are by no means mocking,' she said, 'and by the gift of God, whom we lately implored, we have accomplished the greatest matter of all. For such is the form of the divine substance, that it neither slips away into external things nor itself takes in anything external, but, as Parmenides says of it, like in mass to a well-rounded sphere on every side, it turns the moving orb of things, while it itself keeps itself unmoved. But if we have set in motion reasonings sought not from without, but placed within the compass of the matter we were treating, you have nothing to wonder at, since, by Plato's sanction, you have learned that the discourses must be akin to the things of which they speak. Happy he who could behold the bright fountain of good; happy he who could loose the bonds of heavy earth!'
'Once the Thracian bard, mourning the death of his wife, when by his tearful strains he had made the moving woods run and the streams stand still, and had joined the fearless doe in side to the fierce lions, and the hare did not fear the dog, now made gentle by his song — when a more burning fervour scorched his inmost breast, and the strains that had subdued all things did not soothe their master, complaining of the cruel gods above, he went to the infernal abodes. There, tempering caressing songs to his sounding strings, whatever he had drawn from the chief fountains of his goddess mother, whatever his uncontrollable grief gave him, whatever love doubling that grief gave, he wept, stirring Taenarus, and with sweet prayer begs pardon of the lords of the shades. The threefold gatekeeper stands amazed, captured by the strange song; the avenging goddesses of crimes, who drive the guilty with fear, are now wet with mournful tears. The swift wheel does not whirl headlong the head of Ixion, and Tantalus, ruined by long thirst, scorns the streams.'
'While the vulture is sated with the strains, it does not tear the liver of Tityus. At last the judge of the shades, taking pity, says: "We are conquered. We grant the man his companion, his wife bought back by song; but let a law restrain the gift: that, until he has left Tartarus, it be not lawful to turn his eyes." Who can give a law to lovers? Love is to itself a greater law. Alas, near the borders of night, Orpheus saw, lost, and slew his own Eurydice. This tale looks upon you, whoever of you seek to lead your mind into the upper day. For whoever, conquered, has bent back his eyes into the Tartarean cave, whatever excellence he draws forth, he loses while he gazes on the things below.'