第155章 THE FOURTH ENNEAD(41)

Now if, thus, it enters into other substances from something gleaming, could it exist in the absence of its container?

There is a distinction to be made: if it is a quality, some quality of some substance, then light, equally with other qualities, will need a body in which to lodge: if, on the contrary, it is an activity rising from something else, we can surely conceive it existing, though there be no neighbouring body but, if that is possible, a blank void which it will overleap and so appear on the further side: it is powerful, and may very well pass over unhelped.If it were of a nature to fall, nothing would keep it up, certainly not the air or anything that takes its light; there is no reason why they should draw the light from its source and speed it onwards.

Light is not an accidental to something else, requiring therefore to be lodged in a base; nor is it a modification, demanding a base in which the modification occurs: if this were so, it would vanish when the object or substance disappeared; but it does not; it strikes onward; so, too [requiring neither air nor object]

it would always have its movement.

But movement, where?

Is space, pure and simple, all that is necessary?

With unchecked motion of the light outward, the material sun will be losing its energy, for the light is its expression.

Perhaps; and [from this untenable consequence] we may gather that the light never was an appanage of anything, but is the expressive Act proceeding from a base [the sun] but not seeking to enter into a base, though having some operation upon any base that may be present.

Life is also an Act, the Act of the soul, and it remains so when anything- the human body, for instance- comes in its path to be affected by it; and it is equally an Act though there be nothing for it to modify: surely this may be true of light, one of the Acts of whatever luminary source there be [i.e., light, affecting things, may be quite independent of them and require no medium, air or other].

Certainly light is not brought into being by the dark thing, air, which on the contrary tends to gloom it over with some touch of earth so that it is no longer the brilliant reality: as reasonable to talk of some substance being sweet because it is mixed with something bitter.

If we are told that light is a mode of the air, we answer that this would necessarily imply that the air itself is changed to produce the new mode; in other words, its characteristic darkness must change into non-darkness; but we know that the air maintains its character, in no wise affected: the modification of a thing is an experience within that thing itself: light therefore is not a modification of the air, but a self-existent in whose path the air happens to be present.

On this point we need dwell no longer; but there remains still a question.

7.Our investigation may be furthered by enquiring: Whether light finally perishes or simply returns to its source.

If it be a thing requiring to be caught and kept, domiciled within a recipient, we might think of it finally passing out of existence: if it be an Act not flowing out and away- but in circuit, with more of it within than is in outward progress from the luminary of which it is the Act- then it will not cease to exist as long as that centre is in being.And as the luminary moves, the light will reach new points- not in virtue of any change of course in or out or around, but simply because the act of the luminary exists and where there is no impediment is effective.Even if the distance of the sun from us were far greater than it is, the light would be continuous all that further way, as long as nothing checked or blocked it in the interval.

We distinguish two forms of activity; one is gathered within the luminary and is comparable to the life of the shining body; this is the vaster and is, as it were, the foundation or wellspring of all the act; the other lies next to the surface, the outer image of the inner content, a secondary activity though inseparable from the former.For every existent has an Act which is in its likeness: as long as the one exists, so does the other; yet while the original is stationary the activity reaches forth, in some things over a wide range, in others less far.There are weak and faint activities, and there are some, even, that do not appear; but there are also things whose activities are great and far-going; in the case of these the activity must be thought of as being lodged, both in the active and powerful source and in the point at which it settles.This may be observed in the case of an animal's eyes where the pupils gleam:

they have a light which shows outside the orbs.Again there are living things which have an inner fire that in darkness shines out when they expand themselves and ceases to ray outward when they contract:

the fire has not perished; it is a mere matter of it being rayed out or not.

But has the light gone inward?

No: it is simply no longer on the outside because the fire [of which it is the activity] is no longer outward going but has withdrawn towards the centre.

But surely the light has gone inward too?

No: only the fire, and when that goes inward the surface consists only of the non-luminous body; the fire can no longer act towards the outer.

The light, then, raying from bodies is an outgoing activity of a luminous body; the light within luminous bodies- understand; such as are primarily luminous- is the essential being embraced under the idea of that body.When such a body is brought into association with Matter, its activity produces colour: when there is no such association, it does not give colour- it gives merely an incipient on which colour might be formed- for it belongs to another being [primal light] with which it retains its link, unable to desert from it, or from its [inner] activity.