Cause Principle Unity

A general account of bonding
12. No one particular thing can bind everything. What is absolutely beautiful
and good and large and true binds every feeling and every mind absolutely.
It destroys nothing; it contains and seeks out all things; it is desired and
pursued by many because it invigorates with different types of bonds.
Hence, we abundantly acquire many skills, not to be able to act universally
and simply, but rather to do this at one time, and that at another time. Thus,
since no particular thing is absolutely beautiful, good, true, etc., whether it
be above all genera or in any particular genus or species, it follows that
nothing can bind simply at any of these levels. Nevertheless, there is a
desire for the beautiful, good, etc., in all things, for everything seeks to exist
and to be beautiful in every way, at least according as its species and genus
allow. Beauty and goodness are one thing for one species, and another thing
for another; in one thing one contrary dominates, and in another the other
dominates. The total beauty and goodness of one species cannot be attained
except through the whole species for all eternity and in each of its individual
members taken separately. Testimony to this in regard to human beauty
is given by Zeuxis in his painting of Helena, whom he selected from among
the young women of Crotona. Although he has given us a girl who is beautiful
as a whole and in every detail, how could he have ever presented complete
beauty in every way, since the different types of physical beauty in the
female species are innumerable, and only some of them can be found in any
one subject? For beauty, which consists of a special symmetry or of some
other incorporeal aspect of physical nature, occurs in a myriad of forms and
arises from innumerable ordered patterns. Thus, just as the rough surface
of a stone does not meet, fit and adhere to the rough surface of any other
stone, except when their folds and cavities correspond a great deal, likewise
not every quality will reside in any soul. Therefore, different individuals
are bonded by different objects. And even though the same object bonds
both Socrates and Plato, it binds each of them in a different way. Some
things excite the masses, other things affect only a few; some things affect
the male and the manly, other things the female and the feminine.
13. The various instruments of the bonding agent. Nature has distinguished,
dispersed and disseminated the objects of beauty, goodness, truth and value
in its own way. And, as a result, different things can bind for various reasons
and for different purposes. For example, a good farmer binds and
becomes admirable for one reason, a cook for another reason, a soldier for
another, and a musician, a painter, a philosopher, a boy, a girl, for different
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