220 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XII. 



he one, for thus it would be beings and participate 

 of essence; but as it appears, the one neither is 

 one, nor is^ if it be proper to believe in reasoning 

 of this kind. It appears so. But can anything 

 either belong to, or be affirmed of, that which is 

 not ? How can it ? Neither, therefore, does any 

 name belong to it, nor discourse , nor any science^ 

 nor sensCy nor opinion. It does not appear that 

 there can. Hence it can neither be named, nor 

 spoken of, nor conceived hij opinion, nor be known, 

 nor ^;e7'ce??;e<:/ by any being. So it seems." . . . . 

 Prior to the one, therefore, is that which is simply 

 and perfectly ineffable, without position, unco- 

 ordinated, and incapable of being apprehended. 

 . . . From this truly ineffable princi])le, exempt 

 from all Essence, power, and energy, a multitude 

 of divine natures, according to Plato, inunediately 



proceed He affirms (in the sixth book of 



his Republic), that tlie good, or the ineffable 

 principle of things, is superessential, and shows 

 the analogy of the Sun to the good, that what 

 light and sight are in the visible, trutli and in- 

 telligence are in the intelligible world. As light, 

 therefore, immediately proceeds from the Sun, and 

 wholly subsists according to a solar idiom or 

 property, so truth, or the immediate progeny of tJie 

 good, must subsist according to a superessential 

 idiom. And as the good, according to Plato, is 

 the same with the one, the immediate progeny of 

 the one will be the same as that of the good. . . . 

 Self-subsistent superessential natures are the im- 

 mediate progeny of tlie one, if it be lawful thus to 



