_Energie._ It is a peculiar Platonicall terme. In my Interpret. Gen. I expounded it Operation, Efflux, Activity. None of those words bear the full sense of it. The examples there are fit, _viz._ the light of the Sunne, the phantasms of the soul. We may collect the genuine sense of the word by comparing severall places in the Philosopher. Ἔχει γὰρ ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων ἐνεργειαν, ἥ ἐστιν ὁμοίωμα αὐτοῦ, ὥστε αὐτοῦ ὄντος, κἀκεῖνο εἶναι, καὶ μένοντος φθάνειν εἰς τὸ πόῤῥω, τὸ μὲν ἐπὶ πλέον, τὸ δὲ εἰς ἔλαττον. Καὶ αἱ μὲν ἀσθενεῖς καὶ ἀμυδραὶ, αἱ δὲ καὶ λανθάνουσαι, τῶν δ’ εἰσὶ μείζους καὶ εἰς τὸ πόῤῥω. _For every being hath its Energie, which is the image of it self, so that it existing that Energie doth also exist, and standing still is projected forward more or lesse. And some of those energies are weak and obscure, others hid or undiscernable, othersome greater and of a larger projection._ Plotin. Ennead. 4. lib. 5. cap. 7. And again, Ennead. 3. lib. 4. Καὶ μένομεν τῷ μὲν νοητῷ ἀνθρώπῳ ἄνω· τῷ δὲ ἐσχάτῳ αὐτοῦ, πεπεδήμεθα τῷ κάτω, οἷον ἀπόῤῥοιαν ἀπ’ ἐκείνου διδόντες εἰς τὸ κάτω, μᾶλλον δὲ ἐνέργειαν, ἐκείνου οὐκ ἐλαττουμένου. _And we remain above by the Intellectuall man, but by the extreme part of him we are held below, as it were yielding an efflux from him to that which is below, or rather an energie he being not at all lessened._ This curiositie Antoninus also observes, (lib. 8. Meditat.) in the nature of the sun-beams, where although he admits of χύσις, yet he doth not of ἀπόῤῥοια which is ἔκχυσις. Ὁ ἥλιος κατακεχύσθαι δοκεῖ, καὶ πάντῇ γε κέχυται οὐ μὴν ἐκκέχυται. ἡ γὰρ χύσις αὐτοῦ τάσις ἐστίν. ἀκτῖνες γοῦν αἱ αὐγαὶ αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐκτείνεσθαι λέγονται. _The sunne_, saith he, _is diffused, and his fusion is every where but without effusion_, &c. I will onely adde one place more out of Plotinus. Ennead. 3. lib. 6. Ἑκάστου δὲ μορίου ἡ ἐνέργεια ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ζωὴ οὐκ ἐξιστᾶσα. _The naturall energie of each power of the soul is life not parted from the soul though gone out of the soul, =viz.= into act._ Comparing of all these places together, I cannot better explain this Platonick term, _energie_, then by calling it the rayes of an essence, or the beams of a vitall Centre. For essence is the Centre as it were of that which is truly called Energie, and Energie the beams and rayes of an essence. And as the _Radii_ of a circle leave not the centre by touching the Circumference, no more doth that which is the pure Energie of an essence, leave the essence by being called out into act, but is ἐν-έργεια a working in the essence though it flow _out_ into act. So that _Energie_ depends alwayes on essence, as _Lumen_ on _Lux_, or the creature on God; Whom therefore Synesius in his Hymnes calls the Centre of all things. _Entelecheia._ See Interpret. Gen. F