Principle of Plenitude

The principle of plenitude holds that goodness is self-diffusive: a perfect, ungrudging source brings into being every possibility, so the world is as full as it can be. Its classic seed is the Timaeus, where the Demiurge, “being good and free of envy,” makes the cosmos contain every kind of living thing, that it might be as complete as its model.

Taken up by the Neoplatonists to explain why the One overflows into every level of the chain of being, and named by Arthur Lovejoy, plenitude links Platonic emanation to the conviction that reality is maximally full and good.