We have seen that existence is "all these things;" now, what are they?
All those of which the One is the principle. But how can the One be
the principle of all things? Because the One preserves their existence
while effecting the individuality of each of them. Is it also because
He gives them existence? And if so, does He do so by possessing them?
In this case, the One would be manifold. No, it is by containing them
without any distinction yet having arisen among them. On the contrary,
in the second principle they are distinguished by reason; that is,
they are logically distinguished, because this second principle is an
actualization, while the first Principle is the power-potentiality[107]
of all things; not in the sense in which we say that matter is
potential in that it receives, or suffers, but in the opposite sense
that the One produces. How then can the One produce what it does not
possess, since unity produces that neither by chance nor by reflection?
We have already said that what proceeds from unity must differ from it;
and, consequently, cannot be absolutely one; that it must be duality,
and, consequently, multitude, since it will contain (the categories,
such as) identity, and difference, quality, and so forth.[110] We have
demonstrated that that which is born of the One is not absolutely one.
It now remains for us to inquire whether it will be manifold, such as
it is seen to be in what proceeds from the One. We shall also have to
consider why it necessarily proceeds from the One.