1. [/Tat/.] Rightly, O father, hast thou told me all; now further,
[pray,] recall unto my mind what are the things that Providence doth
rule, and what the things ruled by Necessity, and in like fashion also
[those] under Fate.

[/Her/.] I said there were in us, O Tat, three species of incorporals.

The first’s a thing the mind alone can grasp 1 <#fn_177>; it thus is
colourless, figureless, massless, 2 <#fn_178> proceeding out of the
First Essence in itself, sensed by the mind alone. 3 <#fn_179>

And there are also, [secondly,] in us, opposed

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to this, 1 <#fn_180> configurings, 2 <#fn_181>—of which this serves as
the receptacle. 3 <#fn_182>

But what has once been set in motion by the Primal 4 <#fn_183> Essence
for some [set] purpose of the Reason (/Logos/), and that has been
conceived 5 <#fn_184> [by it], straightway doth change into another form
of motion; this is the image of the Demiurgic Thought. 6 <#fn_185>

2. And there is [also] a third species of incorporals, which doth
eventuate round bodies,—space, time, [and] motion, figure, surface, 7
<#fn_186> size, [and] species.

Of these there are two [sets of] differences.

The first [lies] in the quality pertaining specially unto themselves;
the second [set is] of the body.

The special qualities are figure, colour, species, space, time, movement.

[The differences] peculiar to body are figure

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configured, and colour coloured; there’s also form conformed, surface
and size. 1 <#fn_187>

The latter with the former have no part.

3. The Intelligible Essence, then, in company with God, 2 <#fn_188> has
power o’er its own self, and [power] to keep 3 <#fn_189> another, in
that it keeps itself, since Essence in itself is not under Necessity.

But when ’tis left by God, it takes unto itself the corporal nature; its
choice of it being ruled by Providence,—that is, its choosing of the
world. 4 <#fn_190>

All the irrational is moved to-wards some reason.

Reason [comes] under Providence; unreason [falls] under Necessity; the
things that happen in the corporal [fall] under Fate.

Such is the Sermon on the rule of Providence, Necessity and Fate.