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Excerpt from Numenius of Apamea, the Father of Neo-Platonism: Works, Biography, Message, Sources, and Influence
Stranger: If we then grant that Existence could not consist of any single body, is there not the alternative that it mght be matter (in general)?
Philosopher: Neither is this any more likely, for matter is incapable of stability; it is as undefined as a swift flowing stream of infinite depth, breadth and length.
12. The Soul as Savior of the Body.
Philosopher: Correct, therefore, would be the following statement. Since matter is unlimited, it is indefinite; and this entails incomprehensibility, which results in unknowability. But as order facilitates comprehension, this unknowability means disorder; and a jumble cannot stand or survive; (and this can be proved by its contrary), for it is improbable that any one would attempt to demonstrate existence from a characteristic of instability.
4. This is the very point about which we agreed above, namely, that it would be irrational to apply such predicates to existence.
Stranger: That is surely self-evident; and it is convincing, at least to me.
Philosopher: Consequently I assert that neither matter as such, nor (matter made up into) bodies really exist.
5. Stranger: This being granted, it remains to ask whether within the nature of the universe exists anything else.
Philosopher: Surely! I shall show you that easily, although we shall have to agree on some preliminaries.
6. Since, by nature, bodies are dead and unstable, and as they tend to alter, will we not, to explain their experimental consistence, have to assume some principle of coherence?
Stranger: Of course!
Philosopher: Without such a principle could they endure?
Stranger: Surely not!
Philosopher: What then is the nature of this principle through which they endure?
