THE ASPECTS OF UNITY 61

content of every distinction, for it is by its intrinsic one-
ness that each being is distinct apart from the distinc-
tion by its mere limitations. Things are distinguished
by their qualities and these, in so far as they are positive,
can be transposed into the universal realm according
to the formula; ““There is no perfection if it be not
The (Divine) Perfection.” Now Universal Qualities
are connected with the Divine Oneness, for they are
like possible “aspects” of the Divine Essence imma-
nent in the world. In regard to the Unique Being re-
vealing Himself in them, they can be compared to rays
emanating from the Principle from which they are
never separate, and these rays light up all relative pos-
sibilitics. They are in some sort the ‘uncreated con-
tent” of created things, and it is through the medium
of them that the Divinity is accessible, subject to the
proviso that the Supreme Essence (adh-Dhat),! in which
their distinctive realities coincide, remains inaccessible
from a relative starting-point. The outspreading of
these rays is symbolised by the sun whose rays we see,
though we cannot look on it itself directly because of
its blinding brilliance.

We must not lose sight of the fact that the principial
aspects of Being are also fundamental modalities of
knowledge ; the Universal Qualities are in the Intellect
as they are also in the Essence; in both, they can be
compared to the different colours included in white

. The term “Essence”, here taken as thee quivalent of the Arabic
adh-Dhat, is used both in the sense of the active pole of Universal Existence,
as when the cosmic “‘essence’ and *‘substance” are spoken of, and in the sense
of the Absolute and Infinite Reality, when It is “‘opposed”’, through Its trans-
cendence, to Being and so, a fortiori, to the Universe.