On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians

its existence as the object of desire for all beings. For all things desire the good. At the same time, however, it asserts that these names are in reality nothing more than the creations of the soul. Standing as if in the vestibules of the inner sanctuary (adytum) of the deity, the soul announces nothing pertaining to the ineffable; rather, these names only indicate the soul’s own spontaneous tendencies toward it, and belong more to the immediate offspring of the first God than to the first God itself. Consequently, as the result of this most venerable conception of the Supreme—when it ventures not only to name it, though it be ineffable, but also to assert something regarding its relation to other things—it considers this to be its preeminent characteristic: that it is the principle of principles. It is necessary that the property of a "principle," like all other things, should not begin from a multitude, but should be gathered into one monad as a summit, which acts as the principle of all principles.

The scientific reasoning from which this doctrine is deduced is as follows: Since the principle of all things is the one, it is