Page:Enneads (IA enneads05plot).pdf/161
Similarly with number; in attributing the dekad to things we affirm either the truly existent dekad or, where the dekadhood is accidental, we necessarily posit the self-subsistent dekad, dekad not associated; if things are to be described as forming a dekad, then either they must be of themselves the dekad or be preceded by that which has no other being than that of dekadhood.
It must be urged as a general truth that anything affirmed of a subject not itself either found its way in from outside or is the characteristic Act of that subject; and supposing the predicated attribute to show no variation of presence and absence but to be always present, then, if the subject is a Real Being so also is the accidental in an equal degree; or, failing Real Being, it at least belongs to the existents, it exists. In the case when the subject can be thought of as remaining without its Act, yet that Act is inbound with it even though to our minds it appears as a later; when on the contrary the subject cannot be conceived without the attribute—man, for example, without unity—then the attribute is either not later but concomitant or, being essential to the existence, is precedent. In our view, Unity and Number are precedent.
11.
It may be suggested that the dekad is nothing more than so many henads; admitting the one henad why should we reject the ten? As the one is a real existence why not the rest? We are certainly not compelled to attach that one henad to some one thing and so deprive all the rest of the means to unity: since every existent must be one thing, the unity is obviously common to all. This means one principle applying to many, the principle whose existence within itself we affirmed to be presupposed by its manifestation outside.
But if a henad exists in some given object and further is observed in something else, then that first henad being real, there cannot be only one henad in existence; there must be a multiplicity of henads.
Supposing that first henad alone to exist, it must obviously be lodged either in the thing of completest Being or at all events in the thing most