The Philosophy of Plotinus, Representative Books From The Enneads, Selected and Translated With An Introduction by Joseph Katz, 1950

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APPLETON-CENTURY PHILOSOPHY
SOURCE-BOOKS
STERLING P. LAMPRECHT, Editor
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, Concerning Being and Essence, translated

with a preface by George G. Leckie.
JOHN LOCKE, Treatise of Civil Government and A Letter Con-

cerning Toleration, edited with an introduction by Charles
L. Sherman.
BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, Writings on Political Philosophy, edited

with an introduction by A. G. A. Balz.
ST. AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, Bishop of Hippo, Concerning the

Teacher and On the Immortality of the Soul, translated
with a preface by George G. Leckie.
IMMANUEL KANT, The Fundamental Principles of the Meta-

physic of Ethics, translated with an introduction by Otto
Manthey-Zorn.
THOMAS HOBBES, De Cive or The Citizen, edited with an in-

troduction by Sterling P. Lamprecht.
HENRI BERGSON, Selections from Bergson, edited with an intro-

duction by Harold A. Larrabee.
PLOTINUS, The Philosophy of Plotinus, selected and translated

with an introduction by Joseph Katz.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF
PLOTINUS
Representative Books from the Enneads
Selected and Translated with an Introduction by
JOSEPH KATZ
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Vassar College
APPLETON-CENTURY-CROFTS, INC.
New York
COPYRIGHT, 1950, BY
^PPLETON-CENTURY-CROFTS, INC.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts
thereof y must not be reproduced in any
form without permission of the publisher.
618-6
FRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMI

E-7IOI9
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION vii
BIBLIOGRAPHY xxxi
I. THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY i
Dialectic (Ennead I
iii) i
II. THE CHAIN OF REALITIES . . . ... 7

The Three Ruling Hypostases (Ennead V i) . .
7
The Nature of the Soul (Ennead IV ii) . .
23
Intelligence, Ideas, and Being (Ennead V ix) . 28
Nature, Contemplation, and The One (Ennead
III viii) 42
III. COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM 59
\ The Nature of Fate III i) 59
^Ennead
Against the Gnostics or Against Those who Say
that the Maker of the World and the World
Are Evil (Ennead II ix) . .
69
The Descent of the Soul into the Body (Ennead
IV viii) 101
IV. REASON, SENSE, AND EMOTION 114

The Nature of the Organism and of the Self (En-
nead I i) 114
V. TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES AND PROBLEMS .

.127 . .
Actuality and Potentiality (Ennead II v) 127 . . .
Are There Ideal Archetypes of Particulars? (En-

nead V vii) 134
VI. THE ONE AS SOURCE AND GOAL OF EXISTENCE . . .
138
I The Good and the One (Ennead VI ix) ./ . .
138
INTRODUCTION
The philosophy of Plotinus has always exerted a peculiar
fascination upon those whose discontent with things as they
are has led them to seek for true realities beyond what they
took to be merely the appearances of sense. The third century
A. D., which is that of Plotinus who lived from c. 205 to 270,
was such as to amply justify discontent with things as they

were. The world state that governed from Rome
was still
was shaken by constant wars accompanied by the rapid suc-

cession of emperors to the throne. Twenty-nine emperors
succeeded each other in less than seventy years and their
elimination by murder had become a common practice. The
unity of the empire thus was constantly menaced by the
antagonisms within and the barbarians which exerted an
ever increasing pressure from without. Stoic philosophers
had for centuries already exhorted men to bear things and
to achieve that equanimity which would make them in-
vulnerable to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
But it seems that this advice was losing the appeal it once
had had and we find philosophy no longer submissive but
in search of a life in which the human soul would be free
from that prison and tomb which ordinary life so often is.
In the third century such a program did not take for
philosophers the form of a plan towards remodeling things

as they are into what they could be. The release of the .soul
from its prison is not to be accomplished in the sense world,
but by an ascent from this into more ideal worlds. The
life of politics and the ordinary occupations of society are
vii
Vlll INTRODUCTION
written off as something which perhaps we should make as
agreeable as can as long as we need to bother with them

we
but which surely do not constitute the plane on which our
ultimate aspirations are to be satisfied. Thus we do find
a sublime unconcern in Plotinus for matters social and polit-
ical, even for the violence and destructions they imply. In
fact this unconcern for and almost complete silence about
them is almost the only tribute which Plotinus ever pays to

the turbulences which after all must have been an insistent
enough fact in people's lives but a formidable tribute it
is, as signifies the philosopher's sense of powerlessness in

it
regard to the ordinary world.

Plotinus' adult life, as it appears in the short biography
of his disciple Porphyry, seems to have been dominated by
the intellectual desire to map out that world which exists
beyond sense reality and to live as fully in it as was possible

to a soul not entirely free from the bonds that tie it to the
body. He seems to have found his intellectual anchorage

when in his late twenties he discovered Ammonius Saccas
among the teachers at the University of Alexandria. When
eleven years later we find him with the army of the emperor
Gordianus it is, according to Porphyry, only for the purpose
of getting to know the philosophies of Persia and India. But
the imperial expedition failed before it had reached its
goal and Plotinus barely escaped with his life. After this
venture we find Plotinus in Rome where a large group of
students gather around him and where he will stay and
till the end of his life.
teach Among his listeners are senators
and other highly placed persons. He is a friend of the
emperor Gallienus who enjoyed a relatively long span of
rule before he too was murdered, not long before Plotinus'
own death. It is perhaps not difficult to guess what attracted
these people who apparently at least for a while prospered
INTRODUCTION IX
in the world as it was to Plotinus. They too must have found

relief in his teachings from the tensions which inevitably
must have beset their careers. Porphyry even reports a "psy-
chosomatic" cure which the teaching of Plotinus worked
upon the senator Rogatianus who was cured from the gout
by turning from his former way of life. It is not surprising
therefore that many such high-placed persons upon their
death entrusted their children to Plotinus and part of the
household of Plotinus' school was thus constituted by such
wards. Plotinus seems to have taken particular care to pre-
serve the property of his wards and he used to justify such
meticulousness for worldly goods by saying that these chil-
dren would need the money as long as they did not choose
the philosophic life. It is such detachment which must have
made Plotinus an ideal arbitrator and his services in this
capacity were often sought without, as Porphyry reports,

his making a single enemy among the men in public affairs.
It was in Rome that Plotinus first committed his philoso-
phy to writing. These writings mirror his oral instructions.

Plotinus' was the seminar method. The session would begin
with someone reading a philosophic text, particularly from
one of the commentators on the writings of either Plato
or Aristotle of which a large number had just sprung up.
Plotinus would then develop his own views in dealing with
these texts. Often also the questions and objections of his
listeners seem have provided him with the basis on which
to
to proceed to the presentation of his own philosophy. But
divorced from this oral context as we are, it is rather re-
grettable that in his written text Plotinus hardly ever men-

tioned by name the books and even the philosophers he was
dealing with. Thus in the big polemic against the Gnostics

(p. 69 ff. of this volume), the men Plotinus had in mind are
not once referred to by name and only such words as "they"
X INTRODUCTION
indicate that their views are referred to. An
even greater
difficulty isthat Plotinus wrote in an extremely condensed
style, occasionally to the point that his intent can only be
guessed. One reason for this may have been that his eye-
sight was so weak that according to Porphyry he never
rewrote or even reread what he had written. One can cer-
1
tainly agree with Porphyry's judgment that Plotinus style

is richer in thoughts than in words. But it should also be
borne in mind that part of the initial difficulty in reading

Plotinus is due to the fact that he almost always wrote from
the center of his philosophy, approaching the same basic
points in a variety of ways. Apart from a few details there

is little that remains obscure in Plotinus after the initial
difficulties are overcome. Porphyry reports that Plotinus
assigned to him the editing of his writings. It is to Porphyry

that we owe that peculiar grouping of Plotinus' essays into
six main
parts of nine essays or "books" each (the scheme
of 6 x 9 satisfying Porphyry's numerological fancy) and it
is from this arrangement that Plotinus' writings derive their
name, "Enneads" meaning "sets of nine."

The very way in which Plotinus started out his seminars
is indicative of his relation to preceding philosophy. It is
out of the debates current in Hellenistic philosophy that his
own philosophy grew. Plotinus himself in his essay against
the Gnostics emphasized that his own place is within the
Hellenic tradition. (Claims of Asiatic or Egyptian influence
upon Plotinus have been made by scholars, but there is
nothing in Plotinus which, to this writer, cannot be derived

from the context of Greek philosophy.) But if the philoso-
phy of Plotinus is continuous with the philosophies that

preceded him, it is also in many respects new, to the point
that since about the nineteenth century scholars have been
dating the beginning of Neoplatonism with Plotinus. It

INTRODUCTION XI
should be realized that this name Afeoplatonism is a prod-

uct ofmodern scholarship. To Plotinus it appeared that he
himself was only elaborating that ancient wisdom that he
believed he found in Plato. Plato indeed enjoys a peculiar
position in Plotinus' writings. While all the other philoso-

phers were subjected to criticism, sometimes severe criticism,
Plato alone is
exempt from it except for a recognition that
Plato does not seem to say the same everywhere and hence
is difficult to
interpret. It is in Plato that Plotinus found a
text for almost any of his major doctrines. Nevertheless
those who
applied the name Neoplatonism to distinguish
the philosophy of such thinkers as Plotinus from that of
Plato (as well as from those ancient philosophers classified as
Middle Platonists), were perhaps even more right than they
imagined. The contrast between Plato and Plotinus is impor-
tant. It is already flagrantly exhibited in their method. Ploti-
nus taught a doctrine. Plato wrote dialogues in which philoso-
phies are set against each other in living argument. The gap
between the two widens if one does not base oneself on an
interpretation of Plato still current, which tends to over-
look the peculiar way, practically unique in the history of
philosophy, in which Plato expressed himself. Such an in-

terpretation, not unlike that which Plotinus gives of Plato,
in its attempt to distill a doctrine from the writings of
Plato tends to neglect the context in which certain views are
expressed and often naively tends to ascribe to Plato the

views expressed by one of the speakers or in some argument
of the dialogues an approach analogous perhaps to an
attempt to distill a philosophy of Shakespeare out of the

speeches of, say, Polonius.
While a great difference in method thus separates Plato
from Plotinus, the two philosophers are not less separated
by the problems with which they were concerned. A good
Xll INTRODUCTION
many of Plato's discussions grew out of his concern with re-

modeling the Athenian society in which he found himself.
However the interpretations of certain aspects of Plato's
philosophy may vary, nobody will deny that questions of

social and political reform were taken seriously by Plato and
given a major share of his attention. That the focus of Ploti-

nus' philosophy is quite different has already been indicated.
How much Plato shared in the world-transcending tenden-
cies of Plotinus is still being debated vigorously among
scholars. But in evaluating this debate it
ought to be realized
that the tradition in which Plotinus is a major figure is
itself
responsible for an interpretation of Plato which makes
Plato much more of a Neoplatonist than the "Aristotelian"
that he really was. We still have not entirely dropped the
habit of seeing Plato through the eyes of Plotinus, a hnbit
which once made it possible for the Renaissance philosopher
Ficino to declare that Plato was speaking through the mouth
of Plotinus.
Being part of the Hellenic tradition implied commitment

to the method of reason, sometimes stubbornly so; for cer-
tain aspects of Plotinus' philosophy constitute an attempt to
prove by argument conceptions that are essentially poetic

and imaginative in character. Yet, to assert Plotinus' com-
mitment to the method of reason seems at variance with
the fact that he is often spoken of as a mystic. Now if mysti-
cism means the assumption of levels of existence transcend-
ing the sense world, then Plotinus is unquestionably a
mystic. He
even claimed in his writings to have himself
occasionally risen from the world of sense to an experience
of the realities beyond. But the great difference between
Plotinus and many of those that are called mystics is that
he not only did not dwell long on a description of the nature
of his experience of the highest reality, but also did not
INTRODUCTION Xlll
rely upon it as his main claim to authority over the minds

of those who have not risen as far as he. Plotinus' intent
rather is to prove to those who have not had this kind of
experience that there exist realities beyond the sense world.
He did not assume in his readers such an experience and
hence realized that reference to it would not in itself be of
evidential value formost of his listeners. It is thus with the

methods of Aristotelian and Stoic logic that Plotinus pa-
tiently attempted to demonstrate his assertions. It is from
the evidence available to everyone that Plotinus tried to
derive both the fact of the existence of transcendent realities
and their nature.
What is the evidence for the existence of realities beyond
the sense world? Plotinus found it in the
very transitoriness
of sense existence in which no form nor configuration re-
mains. He claimed that the forms imperfectly realized in

sense things derive from and express for a moment the
eternal forms of the intelligible world. The three most im-
portant transcendent realities or "hypostases" distinguished

by him are the One, Intelligence, and soul. It is three out-
standing characteristics in sense existence that imply these

realities. Oneness is implied in sense things because each
thing is what it is by virtue only of having integrated a
variety of discrete factors into a unified whole. Intelligence
is implied in the rational structure that characterizes the
sense world. According to Plotinus all activities aspire
towards the achievement of rational form (whereby aware-
nessand contemplation, not mere possession, are the ulti-
mate aim of the activity not only of men but also of nature
at large, he attempted to show in the essay entitled
as
"Nature, Contemplation, and the One," pp. 42 ff.) Soul is .
implied in the all-pervasive life that characterizes the sense

world. (The Greek word for soul, psyche, is often best
XIV INTRODUCTION
translated as life.) Oneness, intelligence, soul are thus char-

acteristics of the sense world. But to Plotinus they are more
than ingredients in or aspects of it. For when we isolate
unity, intelligence, and soul as such in discourse (expressed
by the very fact of having separate terms for them), this
lingustic distinction for Plotinus rests itself on an ontological
one. The existence of pure oneness, intelligence, and life
does not depend on any of the particular objects which
exhibitthem (for does not every one of them come into
being and pass away again?). They are the eternal exemplars
which find embodiment in sense objects.
their transitory
Plotinus' thus is an ontology in which attributes derive their
existence from a nature which is substantially and eternally
what they only are attributively and transitorily. Thus he
declared that whatever is moved is moved by virtue of
Movement as such whereby Movement as such is not again
moved but rests in eternal sameness. The
itself attributes
of life, rationality, integration which characterize sense ob-
jects have their source in the eternal hypostases of the One,
Intelligence,soul. (In the following translation "Intelli-
gence" has been almost always capitalized, in order to sug-

gest the hypostatized function which the word vovs has
in Plotinus. However, the meaning of these three terms
often shifts back and forth from a more hypostatized to a
more operational character and Plotinus becomes more
plausible if this kind of ambiguity is recognized. Whatever
one may think of their independent existence, unity, intelli-
gence, and life are certainly factors in the world.)
But Plotinus did not stop at merely establishing the ex-
istence of supersensible realities. For the existence of such
realities poses the problem of their relation to the sense
world. One of the central theories therefore of Plotinus'
philosophy is the assertion that the sense world is generated

INTRODUCTION XV
by and depends for its existence on the realities above it.

Such an answer suggests itself to Plotinus for two main
reasons: First, to him the One is the supreme reality, perfect
in all respects. Such perfection must include to him the
highest degree of productivity, too. Thus everything must

ultimately derive from the unbounded productivity of the
One. For if there were any existence whose generative power
were independent of that of the One, it would to the extent
of its own productivity limit the power of the One. There
would be some effect not due to the power of the One
and hence deprive the One of the fullest kind of perfection
possible to it. The other main reason, to which reference
has already been made, is that Plotinus held that the sense
world is not self-sufficient, that it cannot maintain itself in
existence by virtue of its own power alone. The spectacle of
becoming, the growth and decay of sensible things, shows to

him that no thing of sense can keep
itself in existence by itself
alone. A
system of natural causes and effects did not there-
fore seem to Plotinus sufficient to account even for the
events in the sense world. Beside such "horizontal" causation
Plotinus made central a conception ofwhat might be called
"vertical" causation, the derivation of the lower from the
higher levels of reality. It is a view of causation which has
recently been vividly called to attention under its ancient
metaphor of a "chain of being."

There are obvious difficulties to Plotinus' conception of
the One as the source of all existence. If there is to be no
rival power to the One, the question arises whether this
would not mean the extinction of all individuality, the
submergence of all existence in an Absolute which is like
the night in which all cats are grey. Moreover, how can the
One, itself supremely perfect, give rise to existences less
perfect than it? Here indeed Plotinus runs into a difficulty
XVI INTRODUCTION
that is more familiar to us from a similar
problem in theology
which poses the question why God, being perfect and self-
sufficient, created the world, and in what way the world
can be distinguished from God as there is no limit to God's
extension. Plotinus took great pains to show that there is no
rival power to the One. How then can he reconcile with this
assertion a system of increasingly inferior levels of reality?
This difficulty is never fully solved by Plotinus, perhaps be-
cause two conflicting assumptions were necessary to express
the intent of his philosophy. He needed a transcendent One
to have an unchanging, perfect exemplar removed from the
instability of the sense world.But if he wanted to maintain
the perfection of this exemplar, he could set no limit to its
power. The perfection of the One thus seems to be belied

by the fact of the existence of the sense world. Yet it is
to the desire of transcending the sense world that we owe

this vision of perfection. To reconcile this conflict Plotinus
resorted, without being himself aware of it, to metaphors.

He likened the procession of realities from the One to the
emission of light from the sun, of heat from fire and cold-
ness from snow. Such emission does not imply any diminu-
tion of the original substance, no lessening of its perfection,
particularly as the One is not a divisible material substance.

The One, he asserts again and again, remains what it is,
undiminished, while these realities radiate from it. The One
is thus both transcendent and immanent. It is, as Plotinus so
often said, both everywhere and nowhere.

The between an emphasis on the One as the
conflict
source of all and an emphasis on the deficiency
existence
of everything that is not the supreme existence arises in
many different ways. Plotinus tried further to bridge it by

asserting that the One on account of its perfection necessarily
produces, but that what it
produces is necessarily inferior
INTRODUCTION XV11
to its source. (Within "vertical" causation it always holds

that the cause superior to the effect.) The chain of realities
is
is thus a necessary consequence of the power of the One.

In terms of this approach Plotinus frequently and em-
phatically insisted on the excellence of even the sense world

which mirrors in its beauty the perfection of its model. (See
the essay against the Gnostics on pp. 69 ff.) On the other
hand, such an approach would seem to assign to the soul a
an inferior region of the intelligible
fixed, eternal place in
world. Plotinus indeed often spoke of the soul primarily in
such cosmological terms. The soul then is the mediating
agency which endows the sense world with life by means
of the power and patterns which it derives from Intelligence.
But his cosmological emphasis is in conflict with the striv-
ings of the soul towards a better existence. Whenever Plo-
tinus had these strivings in mind, he more fully emphasized
the evil that is found in the sense world and spoke of the
soul, not as one of several levels of reality in the chain of

existences but as an agent that can itself rise and fall to
different levels of reality. Hence it is that the descent of
the soul is sometimes represented as a cosmological necessity
due to the overflowing abundance of the supreme existence
and then again as due to the "arrogant" desire of the soul
to assert her own individuality by cutting herself loose from
the reality above her. (In different terms, the conflict that
we are here speaking of would seem to indicate a wavering
between a rather selfless acceptance of an inferior position
for the soul, provided only that she have a place in a scheme
that supports excellence at its top, and a desire to have the
soul achieve that very excellence herself. Somewhat simi-
larly men have often said with regard to God "Though He

slay me, yet I will trust in Him" and moment
in the next
have proceeded to ask some benefit of Him.)
XV111 INTRODUCTION
Last, it should be mentioned that the conflicting functions

which the One has in Plotinus' philosophy are mirrored even
down to his conception of matter. It is matter which, as Plo-
tinus often asserted, provides the obstacle to the perfect
realization of form. Yet, if the One is to be the source of
all being, no power of opposition can be granted to matter.
Matter in tends to be spoken of as something
this respect
privative. It becomes a name for the deficiency of a thing

when compared to more perfect existences, but is not itself
a force responsible for the deficiency. Matter itself is non-
being (that which a thing not). But such an approach,
is
carried to its conclusions, would make the One responsible

for evil. Plotinus to some extent admitted this when, as we
already saw, he asserted that the products of the activity of
the One are necessarily inferior to it. Still, when he had in
mind not the limitless power of the One but the obstacles
things meet with in their development, matter tends to be-
come a more positive entity, a "mirror," as he often said, in
which the forms are reflected in a distorted way. Matter
becomes real non-being. (See the essay on "Actuality and
Potentiality,'* pp. 127 ff., in which Plotinus discussed the
question in what sense matter can be said to exist.)

The question which still remains open is the order of the
succession of the various hypostases. Why
did Plotinus put
the One first and from it derive Intelligence, soul, and the
sense world ? The reason for the priority of the One can well
be shown by stating why to Plotinus the One must be
superior even to the world of intelligible Forms and Ideas
(the supreme reality for many Platonists). The world of
Intelligence cannot be the supreme reality because it still
ischaracterized by multiplicity. But multiplicity to Plotinus
implies unity; for without some unifying bond the existence

that is
multiple would constitute a disintegrated mass of
INTRODUCTION XIX
unrelated particulars. Without unity the manifold cannot

exist. Hence that which is most fully one is also most fully
existing. (The One of Plotinus is therefore at the opposite
pole of the "One" or unit of the atomists.) If the supreme
existence were not completely one, this would be an indica-
tion that it had not fully reconciled the differences within
itself and thus would constitute a duality and require a supe-
rior unity by virtue of which it is two. The supreme existence

is one, beyond the possibility of any conflict within it, and it
is self-sufficient, beyond any need of anything that it does not

already contain.
It is the world of Intelligence which directly proceeds from
the One. It is closest to the One because Intelligence eternally
contemplates the One. But it is an inferior reality because it

is not completely unified and self-sufficient. Subject and
object of contemplation and the variety of intelligible beings
are distinguishable entities on this level of existence even
though they are not separated from each other like spatial
objects or like subject and object in discursive reasoning.
Moreover, the very activity of knowing betrays a deficiency;
for to know not to possess, and one contemplates only
is
as long as one does not possess the object of one's contempla-

tion.
The next level of reality constituted by the soul which
is
proceeds from Intelligence and has the cosmological func-

tion to animate and administer the sense world in accordance
with the patterns of the Intelligible world. Within the realm
of soul the chief distinction is between the world soul which
governs the entire body of the world and the individual souls
which rule particular bodies. The notion of a world soul
tends to support certain animistic tendencies. Plotinus fol-
lowed an old tradition according to which the universe is
an organism or "animal" and he tended to conceive of
XX INTRODUCTION
processes like the creation of minerals as processes of bio-

logical growth. There is thus an anti-mechanistic tendency
in his writings. (See the essay on "Nature, Contemplation,
and the One," pp. 42 ft.)
It should be noted that Plotinus did not rigidly adhere to
the scheme of the four realities (the One, Intelligence, soul,
body) here distinguished. There is a certain fluidity in the

way in which these made and occasionally
distinctions are
additional hypostases are introduced, such as "nature" (see
the essay on "Nature, Contemplation, and the One," pp.
42 ff.). It should further be noted that, as, according to

Plotinus, each hypostasis is complete in its own way, the
scale of realities repeats the totality of things several times
over. To have several totalities is an awkward "architectonic"
device. Yet the alternative would have been to deny to the
intelligible world certain things that are found in the sense

world. But to Plotinus there must be in the intelligible
world exemplars of everything that is in the sense world
if the intelligible world is not to be denied the perfection of
being as full as the sense world. Each level of reality there-
fore is as "full" as the other, but it contains the totality of
things in a weaker form than the one above it. Thus it is

only in temporal succession that the sense world can imitate
what exists eternally together in the intelligible world. (See
the essay "Are there Ideal Archetypes of Particulars?" on
pp. 134 ft.)

There is a further important difficulty in the "architec-
ture" of Plotinus' system. As we have seen, he maintained
that there is, between Intelligence and the sense world, a
level of soul. Now in terms of their structure there seems to
be a good deal more
similarity between the world of Intelli-
gence and the world of sense objects than between either of
the two and the soul. The objects contained within the level
INTRODUCTION XXI
of Intelligence tend to be a timeless, immutable, and im-

material version of the things of sense. The soul, however,
does not seem, like them, to be a world of objects, but an
agency which administers one of these levels of objects in

accordance with the other. Now as Intelligence, too, ac-
cording to Plotinus, is endowed with life, the question arises
why he does not have the sense world proceed immediately
from Intelligence. The answer suggests itself that it is not
so much for cosmological reasons as for ethical ones that
Plotinus introduced this further hypostasis of soul. His cos-
mological system could have been erected without the hy-

postasis of soul, but the notion of ascent, which is central
in his ethics, required some agent like the soul. Plotinus had
moral agent somewhere in his chain of realities;
to locate this
and the mediating rank he assigned to the soul was a con-
venient device, supported in certain respects by a long tradi-
tion.He nevertheless implicitly contradicted this cosmolog-
icalconception of the soul when, in speaking of the ascent
and descent of the soul, he gave to the soul in cosmological
terms, a level of reality herself a mobility which enables
her to rise toother levels of reality. Plotinus, as often, was
implicitly aware of this conflict and he tried frequently to
bridge it
by distinguishing levels of reality within the soul
itself. He then asserted that one part of the soul remains
forever united with the higher realities. But this device comes
close to making the soul a redundant notion by turning it
into a duplicate of the chain of realities.
It similarly seems that it is for ethical reasons that Plotinus
did not entirely reject the notion of transmigration. The

notion of transmigration implies rewards and punishments
beyond death and continuing opportunity for purification.
(To Plotinus purification, not death, that raises the

it is
soul to a higher state.) Yet both the mobility and the evil
XX11 INTRODUCTION
ascribed to the soul in the notion of transmigration arc
incompatible with her cosmological function and Plotinus

tried to bridge this conflict by asserting that it is not the
soul herself but an image that descends, commits wrong,
and undergoes punishment. (See particularly the conclud-
ing sections of the essay on "The Nature of the Organism
and the Self," p. 114$. for a discussion of this point.)
However, it should again be pointed out that the dis-
crepancies here indicated seem also to flow from a vary-

ing attitude toward the human. There is a fine shifting
in Plotinus' presentation which sometimes suggests that
union with the One means the extinction of the individual
and sometimes that it is the fullest realization of his potenti-
alities. There is a shifting evaluation of individuality and
loneliness. (It is important to realize the "non-humanistic"

aspects of Plotinus' thought. They appear quite clearly in
the fact that the kind of "immortality" that he assigned to
the human soul excludes all memory of her career in the
sense world.)
A full understanding of Plotinus' philosophy requires a
grasp of its ethical intent. There were
in the philosophies
before Plotinus two major ways of dealing with reality, of
conceiving, in Plato's image, the march of men out of the
cave into the sun. The first way, that of Plato and Aristotle,
consisted in exploring the possibilities of transforming ex-
isting reality into one that was more adequate. The second
way, that of the Stoics and Epicureans particularly, consisted
in accepting what was inevitable and in abstaining when
possible. Detachment, moderation, tranquility became the
key words of this approach. Plotinus' is neither of these two
ways. He does not consider the possibility of remolding this
world nearer to the heart's desire. But neither is he led into
Stoic resignation, including some of the tortuous justifica-
INTRODUCTION XX111
tions of the world by which the Stoics tried to make evil a

little bit more palatable by attempting to prove that evil was
good if viewed as a necessary ingredient in the economy
of the whole. Plotinus did not need to do violence to ex-
perience by understressing the evil of this world. But neither

did he need to despair on account of this. For to him there
are other worlds. We have already seen how Plotinus in
terms of his metaphysics arrived at asserting the existence
of such worlds and what nature he ascribed to them. It
remains to explore more fully the ethical side of his tran-
scendentalism.
To understand what is meant by the ascent of the soul one
might turn to certain experiences of transcending the im-

mediate that are familiar to all. For any sort of intellectual
activity frees man from an animal-like confinement to his

immediate sensations, environment, and practical urgencies.
In thinking, man can transcend far beyond the point of his
immediate location to have the distant become part of his
present thought. This process can be carried on by everyone
till more and more
objects become part of one's comprehen-
sion. The kind of intellectual vision which Plotinus had in
mind differs from ordinary intellectual activity in two im-
portant points. First, he believed that thought could be car-
ried to the point of embracing the totality of existence.
Second, the true objects of thought are to him not the things
of sense but their ideal exemplars, the "forms" or "intelli-
gibles" of whose unchanging beauty we sometimes get a

glimpse in some beautiful sense object. But Plotinus did
not stop at the point of even total intellectual comprehension.
Intelligence is not the supreme reality because, as Plotinus
pointed out in an argument which sounds rather modern and
to which reference has already been made, knowledge implies
a want. To know is not to possess, but to look to something
XXIV INTRODUCTION
one does not have. In the words of a contemporary philoso-

pher, "knowledge is a salute, not an embrace."
Hence there still is a higher experience in store for the
soul. It the experience of the One. In it all distinctions
is
are eliminated. The human soul becomes completely identi-

fied with the most powerful existence, an existence that is
completely self-sufficient, completely beyond the strife of op-
posites, the destructive march of time, the limitations of

finiteness. In the sense world with its temporal character,
one thing can be realized only after another, so that the
realization of one good means the exclusion of many others.
This fact and the limitation of our capacities confine us, in
the sense world, to particular occupations and careers in the
pursuit of which the other longings and aspirations of our

souls must remain unfulfilled. We cannot be perfect scien-
tists, musicians, and lovers at once, and certainly not at the
same time. We moreover depend on the cooperation of other

persons and things, which are not in our control. But there
is no
part of our nature that remains unfulfilled, once we
have reached the One. Hence we do no longer even
know; for we are. It is an experience the splendor of which
Plotinus likened to the exuberant brilliance of the sun's
light. Incomparison with this experience, he declared, all

previous pleasures, such as those of office, power, riches,
beauty, even of science, are as nothing. The soul always
longs for this kind of experience. But the way up goes only
over a series of "purifications." We
must train ourselves to
see the excellence of the life beyond, first in beautiful bodies,
then in virtuous actions, finally in the intelligible realm, be-
fore we rise to the unification itself.
In this ascent of the soul the method of reason has a cen-

tral place. Man can lift himself beyond his present condition
only by an intellectual training which leads to increasing
INTRODUCTION XXV
abstraction, that is, abstraction from sense objects. For the

intelligible Forms are to Plotinus not empty generalities,
but realities more full and complete than sense objects. (See
the essay on "Dialectic," p. i
ff.) It is this emphasis on
reason that was to bring the school of Plotinus into conflict
with Christianity. For Christianity did not place as high
a value on the wisdom of the Greeks for the attainment of
salvation and consequently could hold out the hope of re-
demption to the ordinary man, while Plotinus' direct appeal

could not extend beyond the limits of philosophical audi-
ences.
The use of the method of reason is perhaps also largely
responsible for the fact that Plotinus' conception of the
universe is an impersonal one. One must be sure not to con-
fuse Plotinus' One with a personal God. The One is the
supreme existence and whatever

good is flows from
good- its
ness. But it is not an agency to which one can pray, or

which bestows any grace on us, or has a will that is motivated
by mercy or acts arbitrarily. Neither does the One make
any demands on us other than we make upon ourselves in
the face of the existence of its formidable excellence which
could be ours. St. Augustine himself sensed this contrast
very well when he did not find in the pages of the Platonists
the co-eternal son, "the tears of confession, Thy sacrifice,
a troubled spirit, a broken and contrite heart, the salvation
of the people . . . the cup of redemption."
Nevertheless, this use of reason to develop a world view
that is, in spite of
its
opposition to all myth-making (see the
essay against the Gnostics on pp. 69 ff.), perhaps essentially
irrational, had its important consequences. As Greek meta-
physics and the Neoplatonic system in particular became
part of Christian theology, the method of reason, the most

distinctive contribution of Greek civilization, became itself
XXVI INTRODUCTION
part of Western culture and prepared the way for modern

science. In the writings of Plotinus still glows the logos
which gave its
greatness to Greek philosophy.
The preceding considerations were introduced by the re-
mark that an understanding of Plotinus' ethical intent is
essential for an understanding of his philosophy. To grasp
the ethical motivations of Plotinus' thought provides per-
haps the key to what to many may seem a quite bad meta-
physics. The One, the source of things, is also the Good,
all
the goal of all things. The superior words of which Plotinus
spoke can thus easily be seen to be transparent symbols for

human goals. The supreme existence is called the One from
a desire not only to make it simple, but also to make it
harmonious. Harmony, absence of strife, stability, perma-
nence are the rewards which he may who has
expect risen to
complete unification with the One. Plotinus' One

in this
respect seems a reflection of the universal desire for peace

that characterized his times and of which the imperial coins
of the time, for instance, still bear eloquent testimony. Again
it does not seem accidental that Intelligence is
assigned the
second-highest rank in Plotinus' system of realities. Theoria,
intellectual comprehension, had indeed been highly valued
throughout the history of ancient philosophy; and even

when philosophers differed to the extent that one group
made virtue and another made pleasure the supreme good,
it turned out that the one group thought that virtue, and the
other that pleasure consisted in the life of intelligence.
But further still, the very assumption of transcendent
levels of reality has a strong moral motivation. For it lifts
human possibilities beyond this life. Moderation and ac-
ceptance had to be the key words for the Stoic and Epicurean
philosophers who preceded Plotinus because they confined

INTRODUCTION XXvii
the sphere of human action to the sense world and had a low
evaluation of the possibilities of human action (just as the
Skeptics had a low evaluation of human thought). But to

Plotinus this world needs not so much to be borne and suf-
fered as it needs to be transcended. Hence it is that the tone
of his writings is positive. There are unspeakable possibili-
ties of happiness in store for the human soul.
The soul achieves its ascent by turning inward, away

from the world of politics, society, and sense. It is within
the soul that we encounter realities far richer than these
external ones. Plotinus here part of a long tradition of men
is
who felt that while heard melodies are sweet, those unheard,
beyond the ear of sense, are sweeter still. In a certain way,
though there are many significant differences, even a figure

like Thoreau, who sought a richer world in isolation, belongs
in this tradition. Turning inward means isolation. But it is an
isolation which to Plotinus implies entrance into the society
of intelligible beings, quite different from the other kind of
isolation which the soul experiences when from an arrogant
desire for independence she descends to the level of the sense
world.
In her inward retreat the soul thus finds in a transfigured
form the values she supposedly left behind. Only apparently
are the values of human society, of pleasure and love given
a low estimation; for they are unawares reintroduced in
a different form. Society reappears transfigured as the society
of intelligibles, a society that carries certain human desires
to perfection because it is much more fully integrated than
human society and, in it, each individual shares in the being
of While Plotinus usually scorns "pleasure," with
all others.
a different word he celebrates the "joy" which attends the

union with the One. Eros and Aphrodite too have their
XXV111 INTRODUCTION
counterparts in the intelligible world. All this suggests that

the unused earthly passions sought at least in imagination
what they could not attain in reality.
Thus it is that Plotinus is an important and influential
figure in that tradition which sets an inner world apart from

the outer. In spite of all his emphasis upon unity, his philoso-
phy is marked by a profound dualism between what might

summarily be called nature and spirit. One should remain
open to the contributions which this tradition has made
in developing the possibilities of inner experience and in
keeping alive a sense of the latent ideality of existence. But

we must ultimately consider the separation of spirit and
nature an inadequate division. The antithesis of spirit and
nature is it is only in nature that the
false if spirit can be
actual and without embodiment, it is only a ghost. The
if,
spiritualization of nature, not escape from it, seems man's

ever-renewed endeavor. For it is only in and through the
flesh that the spirit can perform its miracles and achieve its
glories.
The following selections are intended to present the major

aspects of Plotinus' philosophy. All the "books" or essays
which are here given are given complete. They are perhaps
best read in the order in which they are here arranged. But
some readers might find it helpful to turn to the essay on
"The Good and the One" (p. 138 ff.) first. It had originally
been planned to present the selections in a somewhat revised
version of the translation of K. S. Guthrie and grateful
is made to Miss Sylva C. Guthrie for
acknowledgment
her permission to use her father's translation. However, in
the course of several revisions, the original text has been so
completely altered that the translation is now the present

writer's own, though marks of its history will be discernible
INTRODUCTION XXIX
here and there. In preparing this new version I have based

myself, with a few exceptions, on Brehier's Greek text. I have
often puzzled long over certain passages of the text. Plotinus'
condensed style requires more than surface reading and fre-
quently it is only a prolonged attention which transforms
a seemingly inane phrase into a meaningful statement. In
this "detective" work two very excellent recent translations
have often been very helpful, the French translation of
Brehier and the German translation of Harder.
As thisvolume goes to press, the writer is preparing for
publication a book on Plotinus entitled Plotimis' Search for
the Good A Study of the Moral Motivations of His Meta-
physics. There he will make full acknowledgments to those

who have guided and sponsored him in his Plotinic studies.
But also on this occasion he wishes to record his great in-
debtedness to Professors Irwin Edman, Paul O. Kristeller,
and John Herman Randall, Jr., all of Columbia University,
whose intellectual example and friendship have guided him
in this as in many ventures. The editor of this series, Pro-
fessor Sterling P. Lamprecht of Amherst College, has read
the entire book in manuscript. To his keen sense of language
the translation owes many improvements. One of the chief
joys of preparing this volume has been the further oppor-

tunity it brought for association with the mind and the per-
son of Professor Lamprecht.
JOSEPH KATZ
BIBLIOGRAPHY
There are two complete English translations of the Enneads:
GUTHIUE, Kenneth Sylvan: Plottnus, Complete Worlds, Alpine,

N.J., 1918.
MACKENNA, Stephen: Plotinus, London, 1917-1930.
Readers familiar with either French or German will refer with
profit to the following two translations:
BREHIER, mile: Plotin, Enneades, Paris, 1924-1938.

HARDER, Richard: Plotins Schrijten, Leipzig, 1930-1937.
The following is a short bibliography of books about Plotinus.
Only works dealing with the totality of Plotinus' philosophy have

been included. For a full bibliography of books and articles the
reader is referred to Bruno Switalski, Plotinus and the Ethics of
St. Augustine, New York, 1946, pp. IX-XXIX.
ARNOU, Rene: Le dcsir de Dieu dans la philosophic de Plotin,

Paris, 1921.
BREHIER, Emile: La philosophic de Plotin, Paris, 1928.

XXX11 BIBLIOGRAPHY
EDMAN, Irwin: "The Logic of Mysticism in Plotinus," in Studies

in the History of Ideas, Vol. 2, New York, 1925, pp. 49-81.
The Philosophy of Plotinus, London, 1918.
INGE, William Ralph:
WHITTAKER, Thomas: The Neoplatonists, Cambridge, 1918.
1
THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY

DIALECTIC (Ennead I
iii)
i. What method, or study will lead us to the goal we

art,
are to attain? That this goal is the Good, the first principle,
has been agreed upon and demonstrated in many ways
the demonstrations themselves serving to raise the soul to
the superior world. He who is to be promoted to that world
should have seen everything, or most things. He should at
have entered the seed of a future philosopher,
his first birth
a friend of beauty, a musician, or a lover, as Plato says. These
are the kinds of men whose nature makes them most suitable
to be raised to the intelligible world. But how are they going
to be raised to it ? Does a single method suffice for all, or does
each of them need a special method? There is a double way
for all, the one for those who
the intelligible world
rise to
from here below, and the other for those who have already
reached and taken root there and who must proceed from
there they have reached the summit, the highest point
till
in the world of Intelligence, which is the goal of their travels.

But this second road of progress must here be left aside to
discuss the first and to explain the operation of the ascent of
the soul to the intelligible world. The several kinds of men
just mentioned offer themselves to our detailed examina-
tion. We will begin with the musician.
The musician is easily moved and charmed by beauty and
admires it greatly. But he is not as easily able to be moved

from within his own self. He is subject to the stimulation of
accidental impressions. Just as a timid person is affected by
2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
noise, the musician is and their beauty. He

sensitive to tones
avoids all that is harmony and
contrary to unity in song and
rhythm and pursues rhythm and the harmonious. But after
these purely sensuous intonations, rhythms, and figures, he
must come to separate the beauty residing in these propor-
tions and ratios from the matter in which they exist. He
will have to be taught that what excites his admiration in
these things is their intelligible harmony, the beauty con-
tained in this harmony, and, in short, Beauty itself, and not
some particular beautiful thing. He
will have to be intro-
duced to philosophy by arguments that will lead him to
be convinced of truths which he possessed in himself with-
out knowing. What these arguments are will be specified
later.
2. The musician can rise to the rank of the lover, and

either remain there or rise still higher. The lover has some
reminiscence of the Beautiful; but as here below he is
sepa-
rated from it, he is
incapable of clearly knowing what it is.
It isthe beautiful objects which meet his view that arouse

his excitement. He must therefore be taught not to content
himself with admiring a single body, but, by reason, to
embrace all bodies which all share in an identical nature. He
must be told that what is identical in them is something dif-
ferent from the bodies themselves and comes from elsewhere
and exists in an even higher degree in other things, such as
noble occupations and beautiful laws for he is now ac-
customed to seeking the objects of his love in incorporeal
things. He will further be shown the beauty that is found in
the arts, the sciences, the virtues. He will then be made to
see the unity of these things and from what source they
derive. From the virtues he must progress to Intelligence and
Being, and from there to the supreme goal.

THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY 3
3. The philosopher is
naturally disposed to rise to the intel-
ligibleworld. Being, as it were, endowed with wings, he
rushes to it without still
needing to disengage himself from
sense objects, as do the preceding kinds of men. His only
uncertainty will concern the road to be followed and all he

will need is a guide. He must therefore be shown the road,
possessing as he does the desire by his nature and being

already detached from sense objects. For this purpose he will
be asked to apply himself to mathematics, so as to accustom
himself to think of incorporeal things and to believe in their
existence. Being eager for instruction, he will learn easily.
As by nature he is virtuous, he should be led to the
perfection
of his virtues. After mathematics he should be taught dia-
lectic and be made a dialectician.
4. What then is this dialectic which ultimately must be

imparted also to the musician and the lover? It is an art of
reasoning which makes us capable to say about each thing

what it is, in what it differs from other things, in what it
resembles them, what its context is and proper function in
this context, and whether existence belongs to it. It enables
us to say into how many kinds Being falls and to distin-

guish Being from that which is not Being. It treats also of
that which is good and that which is not, that which is sub-
ordinate to the good and that which is subordinate to its
opposite, of the nature of the eternal and that which is not.
It treats of each matter scientifically and not according to
mere opinion. It sets an end to the error attendant upon

dealing with sense objects, and it establishes itself in the in-
its whole attention there; and
telligible world. It concentrates
after having deception behind, it lets the soul, in the
left
words of Plato, feed in the meadow of truth. It uses the

Platonic method of division to discern the Ideas, to define
each object, to distinguish the supreme genera of being. It
alternates between synthesis and analysis until it has gone
through the whole domain of the intelligible and arrives at

the principle. Stopping there, because only there that it
it is
can pause, no longer busying itself with a multitude of ob-

jects, because it has arrived at unity, it
contemplates. The
so-called logical inquiry which treats of propositions and
syllogisms, just as the art of writing, it leaves to be the subject-
matter of another art. Dialectic recognizes that some of these
ways of reasoning arefixed by necessity and precede any art.

Itsubjects them, along with the others, to its examination
and judges one part of them useful, the other part super-
fluous and to be inquired into by those who are interested in
this sort of things.
5. Whence does this science

derive its principles? It is
Intelligence that furnishes clear principles if only the soul

is
capable of grasping them. Thus dialectic resorts to syn-
thesis, combination, and division, until it has arrived at per-
fect intelligence; for, according to Plato, dialectic is the
purest part of intelligence and wisdom. Hence as dialectic

is our most valuable faculty, it must be directed to Being and
to the most valuable existence; that is, wisdom to Being and

Intelligence to that which is beyond Being. But is not philos-
ophy that which is most valuable? Yes, but there is no con-
flict between philosophy and dialectic because dialectic is the
highest part of philosophy. Dialectic is not merely an in-

strument for philosophy; it is not made up of abstiact
theorems and rules. It studies things themselves and its sub-
ject-matter is the real beings. It reaches them by following
a method through which it possesses, together with the state-
ments about them, also the objects themselves. Only indirectly
does dialectic know error and fallacious argument. When
THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY 5
error is committed by someone, when something contrary to
the rules of truth is advanced, dialectic recognizes
it, judging
the error as alien to by the light of the truths it con-

itself
tains. Dialectic, however, does not care for the theories that
deal with propositions which to it are as letters to words.
Nevertheless, because it knows the truth, dialectic also

knows the nature of propositions and in general the op-
erations of the soul. Dialectic knows what it is to affiun and
to deny, whether that is denied which is asserted or some-
thing else, and

distinguishes identity from difference. It
it
grasps these things as immediately as sensation grasps its

objects, but it leaves to another science that enjoys these
details the care of treating them with exactness.
6. Dialectic therefore is only one part of

philosophy,
though the most valuable. Philosophy has other branches.
It studies nature, employing the aid of dialectic as other arts
employ arithmetic, but deriving a much greater benefit from

dialectic. Philosophy further treats of conduct and here again
it is aided by dialectic. This branch includes the

study of
habit and the exercises that produce good habits. The ra-
tional habits derive their characteristics from dialectic and
preserve much of it even in their interaction with material
things. The other virtues also imply the application of reason
and actions. Insight, moreover,
to their respective passions
being concerned with the universal, applies reason in a still

superior manner, and considers whether actions are con-
sistent,whether an action should be engaged in now or be
deferred, or whether there is a better action to take its place.
Dialectic and wisdom in a universal and immaterial form
furnish insight with all the principles it needs.
Could the lower virtues exist without dialectic or wisdom ?
Yes, but they would remain imperfect and deficient. On the
other hand, is it possible to be a wise man and dialectician
without these inferior virtues? No, for a man would never

have become such without them. They must either precede,
or increase with, the progress made in dialectic. The natural
virtues that one possesses will with the assistance of wisdom
become perfect virtues. Wisdom is posterior to the natural
virtues andperfects our habits. The natural virtues either
grow and are perfected along with wisdom or wisdom enters
at one point and perfects them. In general, natural virtue
implies only imperfect vision and conduct and we owe our

perfection primarily to both natural virtue and wisdom.
THE CHAIN OF REALITIES
THE THREE RULING HYPOSTASES (Ennead V i)
i. How does it
happen that souls forget the paternal di-
vinity ?
Having a divine nature, and having originated from
the divinity, how can they ever forget the divinity them-
selves? The origin of the evil that befalls them stems from
an act of recklessness on their part, the fact of birth, their
becoming different, and a desire to be independent. As soon
as they have enjoyed the pleasure of an independent life,
they use this power of self-determination to go into a direc-
tion that leads them away from their origin, and when they
have arrived at a very great distance from it, they even for-
is derived from it. They are like children
get that their life
that were separated from their family since birth and edu-
cated away from home, and thus lose knowledge of their
parents and of themselves. When our souls no longer recog-
nize either their origin or themselves, but despise themselves
because they have forgotten their origin, they admire and
honor anything rather than themselves and bestow their
esteem, love, and interest on anything rather than them-
selves, breaking away as much as possible from the things
above and forgetting their worth. Their ignorance of their
origin is therefore caused by an excessive valuation of sense
objects and by their disdain for themselves. To pursue and
admire a thing implies the acknowledgment of one's inferi-
ority to the thing pursued. As soon as a soul thinks that she

is worth less than the things which are subject to birth and
destruction and considers herself most despicable and perish-
7
able, she can no longer grasp the nature and power of the
divinity. A soul in such conditions can be turned around
and
led back to the world above and the supreme existence, the
One or First, by two kinds of argument. The one consists in
showing her the low value of the things she at present
esteems. The other consists in instructing and reminding her
of her nature and worth. The second argument precedes the
firstand once it has been made clear will support the first
(which we treat elsewhere more fully).
It is the second argument to which we must now turn,
particularly as it is a prerequisite for the study of that

supreme we desire to know. As it is the soul that
object
desires to know that object, she must first examine her
own nature in order to know herself and to determine
whether she possesses the ability of making such an in-
vestigation, whether she has an eye capable of such a vision,
and whether such a search is her function. For if the things
the soul seeks are foreign to her, what good will her search
do? But if she is of a kindred nature with them, she both
may seek them and is able to find them.
2. Each soul should first remember that it was she who

by an infusion of the spirit of life produced all the animals
on earth, in the air, and in the sea as well as the divine stars,
the sun, and the immense heaven. It was she that introduced
order into the heaven and produces its regular revolutions.
She does all that, while yet remaining distinct from the
things to whom she communicates form, movement, and
life. She is
necessarily far superior to them. While they are
born or die in the measure that she imparts to them or with-
draws from them their life, she herself exists eternally be-
cause she remains identical with herself. To understand how
life is imparted to the universe and to each individual, the
THE CHAIN OF REALITIES 9
soulmust rise to the contemplation of the great soul, the
world soul. The individual soul, though different from the
world soul, is herself no small being; but she must become
worthy of contemplation and, by attaining a state of
this
tranquility, be free from the errors and seductions to which

other souls are subject. Let us assume the same tranquility
not only for the body that enfolds her and its agitations, but
also for all that surrounds her, earth, air, sea, and even
heaven. Then let soul from all sides "flow" into this tranquil
mass, stream into and spread in it, and illuminate it. As
the rays of the sun light up and gild a dark cloud, so the
soul by entering the body of the universe gives it life and
immortality and awakens it from inertia. The universe,

eternallymoved by an intelligent soul, becomes a living
being full of happiness. The presence of the soul gives the
universe its value while before it was no more than an inert
corpse, water and earth, or rather dark matter and non-

being, an "object of horror to the gods," as someone has
said. The soul's nature and power reveal themselves still
more clearly in the way she embraces and governs the world
in accordance with her will. She is present in every point of
itsimmense mass, she animates all its parts, great and small.
While two bodies cannot be in the same place and are
separated from each other both spatially and otherwise, the
soul is not similarly extended. She does not need to divide
herself in order to give life to each particular individual.
Though she animates things, she remains whole and is
present in her totality, resembling the Intelligence, from

which she was begotten, in her indivisibility and omni-
presence. It is through her power that this world of plurality
and variety is contained within the bonds of unity. It is
through her presence that this world is divine. The sun, too,
is divine because it has a soul, and likewise the other stars.
We, too, possess some divinity on account of her; for "a
corpse is vilerthan a dunghill." But the cause to which the

deities owe their divinity must necessarily be superior to
them. Our soul is of the same kind as the world soul which
animates the deities. Strip our soul of all the things that
have infested her, consider her in her pristine purity, and you
will see that she is of equal rank with the world soul and
superior to everything that is body. Without the soul, body

isnothing but earth. Or, if one makes fire the basic element,
one still needs a principle that animates its flames. Even if
one combines earth and fire, or even adds water and air to
them, these elements by themselves still do not constitute
life or soul. If then it is the soul that attracts our attention
in the various beings, why do people seek her in others and

not in themselves? If it is the soul that you love in another
being, love yourself, then.
3. Since the soul is such a divine and precious thing, be

assured that you will be able to reach the divinity with the
help of such a power and begin your ascent. You will not
need to search far nor are there many steps that separate you
from your goal. Take as guide the most divine part of the
soul which borders on that superior world from which she
proceeds. Indeed, in spite of the qualities that we have shown

her to have, the soul is no more than an image of Intelligence.
As the spoken word is the image of the word in the soul,
so the soul herself is the image of the word or reason in
Intelligence and
that phase of the activity of Intelligence
is
by which is produced the life of a further level of existence.
(The activity of Intelligence has this further phase, just as

firecontains heat as part of its essence but also gives off heat
to the outside.) Nevertheless the soul does not become com-
pletely separated from Intelligence. She does partly remain

THE CHAIN OF REALITIES II
in it, though she also forms a nature distinct from it. As the
soul stems from Intelligence, she is herself an intellectual
existence. The manifestation of this intellectual power is
discursive reason. From Intelligence the soul derives her per-
fection. Intelligence nourishes her like a father but, in com-
parison with itself, has not produced her perfect. The soul
thus the hypostasis that proceeds from Intelligence and
is
her reason finds its actualization when she contemplates

Intelligence. When the soul contemplates Intelligence, she
possesses the objects of her contemplation within herself and
as her own, and she is fully active. These intellectual and
inner activities alone are the soul's characteristic activities.
Those of an inferior nature are due to a foreign principle

and they are passive rather than active experiences for the
soul. Intelligence makes the soul more divine, because In-
telligence like a father begets the soul and grants its presence
to her. Nothing separates them but the difference of their
natures. The soul stands to Intelligence in the same relation
of succession as matter to form. But this "matter" of In-
telligence is beautiful because it has an intellectual form and

isnot composed of parts. But how great then must Intelli-
gence be, if it is still greater than the soul?
4. The
greatness of Intelligence may be seen also in the
following way. We
admire the magnitude and beauty of
the sense world, the eternal regularity of its movement, the
visible and invisible divinities it contains, its demons, ani-

mals, and plants. Let us then rise to its model, the superior
reality from which this world derives and there contemplate
the whole array of intelligibles which eternally possess their
inalienable intelligence and life. Over them preside pure
Intelligence and incredible wisdom. That world is the true

realm of Cronos, a god whose name means both satiety and
Intelligence. This realm embraces all immortal beings, all
Intelligence, all divinity, and all soul. Everything there is

eternal and immutable. Since it is in a state of bliss, why
should it seek change? Since contains everything, why
it
should it
aspire to
anything? Since it is
perfect, what need
of development does it have? The things it contains are per-
fect, too, so as to have its perfection lack nothing. It contains
nothing that is not of the nature of thought, but this thought

is not a seeking but a having. The felicity of Intelligence is
not contingent on something else. It is eternally all things,
that eternity of which time which abandons one moment
for the next is only a moving image on the level of soul.
Indeed, the soul's action is successive and is divided by the
different objects that attract her attention. Now it is Socrates
and then a horse; but always some particular thing. But
Intelligence embraces all things. It possesses all things in
unchanging identity. It is and it always has this character of
presentness. It has no future, for
it
already is all it could ever
later become. has no past, for no intelligible entity ever
It
passes away. All the things it contains exist in an eternal

present because they remain identical with themselves, satis-
fied, so to say, with their present condition. Each of them
is both Intelligence and Being. Together they form the total-
ity of Intelligence and the totality of Being. Intelligence
gives existence to Being in thinking it.

Being, by being
object of thought, gives to Intelligence its thinking and
its existence. But there must still exist
something else
which makes Intelligence think and Being be and which
consequently is their common cause. It is true that In-
telligence and Being exist simultaneously and together

and do not leave each other. But their oneness which is
simultaneously Intelligence and Being, thinking and object
of thought, consists of two factors, Intelligence inasmuch as
it thinks, and Being inasmuch object of thought. The
as it is
activity of thought implies difference as well as identity. The
leading terms therefore are Intelligence, Being, Identity, Dif-

ference; and we must add Movement and Rest to them.
Movement implied in the thinking activity of the intelli-
is
gible realm; Rest, in its sameness. Difference is required for

the distinction between the thinking subject and the object
thought; for without Difference they are reduced to unity

and hence silence. The objects of thought also require Dif-
ference, in order to be distinguished from each other. Iden-
tity is implied in the self-sufficient unity of Intelligence and
in the common nature in which all intelligible beings share,
just as Difference isimplied in the fact of their being dis-

tinguishable. The multiplicity of these terms creates number
and quantity. The proper character of each of them consti-
tutes quality. From these terms taken as originating princi-
ples everything else proceeds.
5. The realm of divine Intelligence is thus a multiple one

and the soul lives in this realm if only she is intent upon not
seceding from it. Now, when the soul has come close to
Intelligence and as it were, become one with it, she seeks to
know that which has begotten Intelligence, the simple ex-
istence which is prior to Intelligence and which is the cause of
its existence and manifoldness, and the cause of Number.
Number is not something primitive; for unity is prior to the

dyad. The ranks only second, being begotten and made
latter
determinate by unity; by itself it is indefinite. When it be-

comes determinate, Number arises, a number that is a sub-
stance. Thus the soul also is Number. For the things of the
firstrank are not masses or extended quantities. The gross
objects which sensation considers true beings must be ranked
as inferior. It is not the moist mass of a seed that gives it its
value, but its is, Number and the sem-

invisible principle, that
inal reason. The "Number" and "dyad" ascribed to the
intelligible world are rational forms and Intelligence. The
dyad is indeterminate so far as it
plays the part of substrate.
The Number derived from the dyad and the One is
that is
of the nature of form and all things derive their character

from the forms which arise in Number and thus derive
it in one respect from the One and in another
respect from
Number. Intelligence is like the activity of seeing. It is an
active vision and the unity of Intelligence comprises two
factors.
6. In what way does Intelligence see and what does it see?

In what way does it exist and issue from the First? What
gives it the power of vision? We now understand why the
intelligible world must necessarily exist. But we seek to solve

the problem often raised by the ancient philosophers, how
from the One there proceed manifoldness, duality, and
Number. Why did the One not remain within itself, why
did it emit that manifoldness that we find to characterize
Being and which we seek to trace back to the One? In

answering this question let us first invoke the divinity, not
by the utterance of words, but by raising our souls to it, as in
this way we can pray alone to the alone. To see the One
which an inner sanctuary and remains

rests in itself as if in
there undisturbed and removed from all things, we must

observe the things which are like the statues in the temple
or rather that which is like the statue that appears as the
very first and appears to have this message: All that is

moved must have a goal towards which it is moved. But
as the One has no goal towards which it is directed, we must
not assume it to be moved. When things proceed from it,
it must not cease
being turned towards itself. (We must
remove from our minds the idea that this
a process like is
generation in time; for we are here treating of eternal things.

We speak of eternal things metaphorically, in terms of gen-
and their systematic
eration, to indicate their causal relations
order.) What
begotten by the One
is must be said to be
begotten without any motion on the part of the One, for if
the One were moved, that which was begotten would be-
cause of thismovement have to be ranked third, as the move-
ment would be the second term. The One therefore produces
the hypostasis which is ranked second without an act of
inclination, or volition, or any kind of movement. What
conception are we
then to form of this sort of generation
and its relation to its immovable cause ? It must be conceived
as a radiation which though it
proceeds from it, leaves un-
disturbed its self-sameness, as the brilliant light which sur-
rounds and emanates perpetually from the sun does not
affect its self-same and unchanging existence. In fact, all
things, as long as they exist, necessarily produce and emit

out of their own substance some further existence, that de-
pends on their power and is the image of the existence out
of which it grew. Hence fire radiates heat and snow spreads
cold.Perfumes furnish a particularly striking example; for,
as long as they last, they emit exhalations in which every-
thing that surrounds them participates. Everything that has
arrived at its point of perfection becomes productive. That
which is eternally perfect is eternally productive. That which
it
produces is eternal, too, though inferior to the generating
principle. With regard to the existence then that is supremely
perfect, we must
say that it only produces the very greatest
of the things that are found below it. But that which after
it the most perfect, the second principle, is Intelligence.
is
Intelligence contemplates the One and needs nothing but it.

But the One has no need of Intelligence. The One which is
l6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
superior to Intelligence produces Intelligence which is the

best existence after the One since it
superior to all other
is
beings. The soul is the Word and a phase of the activity of
Intelligence just as Intelligence is the word and a phase of

the activity of the One. But the word of the soul is obscure
being only an image of Intelligence. The soul therefore
directs herself to Intelligence, just as the latter, to be Intelli-
gence, must contemplate the One. Intelligence contemplates

the One without being separated from it, because there is
no further existence between the One and Intelligence, just
as there is none between
Intelligence and the soul. Every
begotten being longs for the being that begot it and loves
it, especially when the begetter and the begotten are alone.
But when the begetter is the highest good, the begotten must
be so close to it as to be separated from it only in that it
is distinct from it.
7. We
call Intelligence the image of the One. Let us ex-
plain this. It is its image because that which is begotten by

the One must possess many of its characteristics and resemble
it, as light resembles the sun. But the One is not Intelligence.
How then can it produce Intelligence ?
By its turning towards
itself the One has vision. It is this vision which constitutes
Intelligence. For awareness is either a matter of sensation

or of intelligence; but as in the present case it cannot be sen-
sation because sensation cannot grasp the One, this vision is
Intelligence. But in contrast to the One, Intelligence is divisi-

ble. Intelligence too is one, but it is a oneness which is all
things. The activity of Intelligence consists in contemplating

the things contained in the power of the One and thereby "un-
rolls" them; otherwise, it would not be Intelligence. Intel-
ligence has in itself consciousness of the power to produce

and to define Being out of itself by means of the power it
derives from the One. It sees that Being is a part of that
which belongs to the One and proceeds from it, that it owes
all its force to the One, and that it achieves Being because of
the One. Intelligence sees that, because it becomes multiple
when proceeding from the One, it derives from the One,
which is indivisible, all the entities it possesses, such as life
and thought, while the One is not any of these things. The
totality of things must come after the One, because the One
itself has no determinate form. It simply is one, while Intel-
ligence is what in the realm of Being constitutes the totality

of things. Consequently the One not any of the things
is
that Intelligence contains. It is only the source from which

all of them That
are derived. is why they are
"beings," for
they are already determined and each of them has a kind of
shape. A being cannot be something indeterminate, but must
have definition and stability. Such stability for intelligible
entities consists in the determination and form by which
they have their existence.
The Intelligence of which we speak is worthy to be of the
purest origin and to stem from no other source than the first
existence. It must from its birth have begotten the whole
world of Being, all the beauty of ideas, all the intelligible
deities.Being full of the things it has begotten, it "devours"
them in the sense that it retains all of them, that it does
not allow them to fall into matter or to fall under the rule of
Rhea. This is what the mysteries and myths about the gods
suggest darkly when they say that Cronos, the wisest of the
gods, was born before Zeus and devoured his children. Here
Cronos represents Intelligence big with its conceptions and
in a state of satisfaction. They add that he out of his fullness
begat Zeus. This refers to the fact that Intelligence out of

its perfection begets the soul. It must beget because it is per-
fect and being so great a power, it cannot remain sterile.

l8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
Here again the begotten being had to be inferior, had to be
an image, had likewise, since it was indeterminate by itself,
to be determined and formed by the principle that begat it.
What Intelligence begets is reason, discursive reason. This
reason moves around Intelligence, is the light of Intelligence,
the ray that springs from it. On the one hand, it is bound
to Intelligence, fills itself with it, enjoys its
presence, partici-
pates in it, and is itself an intellectual existence. On the other
hand, it is in contact with inferior things, or rather it too
begets things inferior to it. Being thus begotten by the soul,

these things are necessarily less good than the soul, as we
shall further explain. The sphere of divine things ends with
the soul.
8. This is why Plato establishes three levels in the hier-
archy of Being. He says that "all things are with the king
of all, who is the first reality. That which is of second rank
exists on the second level, and that which is of third rank,
on the third level." Plato further speaks of the "father of the
cause." By cause he means Intelligence; for to Plato Intelli-
gence is the demiurge. Plato adds that it is this power "that

forms the soul in the cup." As the cause is Intelligence, Plato
applies the name of father to the Good, the existence superior
to Intelligence and "superior to Being." In several places he
says that the Idea is Being and Intelligence. He therefore

realized that Intelligence proceeds from the Good, and the
soul from Intelligence. These doctrines indeed are not new.
They have been taught from the most ancient times, though
without being made fully explicit. We claim to be no more
than the interpreters of these earlier doctrines whose antiq-
uity is reliably shown to us by the testimony of Plato's writ-
ings. The first philosopher who taught this doctrine was
Parmenides when he identified Being and Intelligence and
did not place Being among sense objects. He said that
"thought is the same thing as being," and that being is im-
movable. Although he adds thought to being, he denies that
being, if it is remain always the same, has any corporeal
to
movement. He
compares being to a spherical mass because
it contains everything and does not draw thought from
without but has it within itself. When Parmenides in his
writings called Being the One he was criticized because this
unity was found to be manifold. But the Parmenides of

Plato speaks with greater accuracy and distinguishes be-
tween (i) the first One which is one in the proper sense, (2)
the manifold one, and (3) the one and the manifold. This
latter Parmenides therefore also distinguished the three
levels here discussed.
9. Anaxagoras in teaching the simplicity of pure and un-
mingled Intelligence also asserted that the One is first and

separate. But, as he lived in times too ancient, he did not treat
this matter in sufficient detail. Heraclitus also taught of a
One that is eternal and intelligible; for he held that bodies
are in a perpetual process of becoming and flux. According
to Empedocles, Strife is the principle of division but Love is
the One. This principle to him is incorporeal, while the
elements play the part of matter.
Aristotle says that the first existence is separated from
sense objects and is an intelligible existence. But when he
says that "it thinks itself," he takes the first rank away from
it. He also asserts the existence of a plurality of other intelli-
gible entities in a number equal to the celestial spheres, so

that each of them might have its principle of motion. About
the intelligible entities, therefore, Aristotle advances a doc-
trine different from that of Plato, and as he has no good
reason for this change, he brings in necessity. Even if he had
2O THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
good reasons, one might well object that it seems more

reasonable to suppose that the spheres as they are coordinated
in a single system are directed towards the one end, the su-
preme existence. The question also might be raised whether

for Aristotle the intelligible entities derive from one first
originating principle or whether there are several originating

principles for the intelligible entities. If the intelligible enti-
ties proceed from one principle, their condition will be
analogous to that of the sense spheres where each contains

and dominates all the others. In this case, the first existence
will contain all intelligible entities and be the intelligible
world. Just as the spheres in the world of sense are not
empty, for the first is full of stars and each of the others
has its stars, so their movers in the intelligible world will
contain many beings that are more real than sense
entities,
things. On the other hand, if each of the movers is an in-
dependent principle, their interrelation will be subject to

chance. How then will they unite their actions and agree in
producing that single effect which is the harmony of the
heaven? What also is the reason for the assertion that the
sense objects that are in the heaven equal in number their
intelligible movers? Further, why is there a plurality of

movers since they are incorporeal and since no matter sep-
arates them from one another?
Thus those among the ancient philosophers who faithfully
followed the doctrines of Pythagoras, of his disciples, and of
Pherecydes, have maintained the existence of the intelligible
world. Some of them have recorded their views in their
written works. Others have set them forth in their seminars.
There are others who have left us nothing on the subject.
10. That beyond Being there exists the One we have at-
tempted to prove as far as such a thesis admits of proof. In

the second rank are Being and Intelligence; in the third, the
soul. Nowit must be held that as these three realities exist
in nature, they also exist in us. (I do not mean that these

three realities exist in the sense part of our self. For the in-
telligible exists separate from sense, that is, it exists outside

the sense part of our nature in the same way in which we say
that it exists outside the celestial spheres.) Thus is constituted
what Plato calls "the inner man." Our soul, too, then is some-
thing divine. It has a nature different from sense nature.
nature to the world soul, and the soul that pos-
It is like in
sesses Intelligence is
perfect. (But we must still
distinguish
between the intellectual activity that consists in reasoning
discursively and that which furnishes the principles to dis-

cursive reason.) The soul's discursive reasoning has no need
of any bodily organ. In its operations it remains separate
from the body in order to be capable of reasoning purely. As
it is
separated from the body, it must without any hesitation
be ranked with the highest intellectual entities. There is no
need of seeking to locate it in space as it exists outside any
space. Such then is the condition of the immaterial entities
that are separable from the body, when they are alone by
themselves and are not affected by the body. That is why
Plato says, with regard to the world, that the demiurge "has
the soul envelop the world from outside." What he here
indicates is that a part of the soul remains in the intelligible
world. Thus, in speaking of our soul, he says that "her head
touches heaven." When he advises us to separate the soul
from the body, he does not mean any local separation (that
the sort of separation that is established by nature). He
is,
means that the soul must not incline towards the body and
towards thoughts concerned with sense objects, but must
become alienated from the body. We
achieve this separation
when we elevate to the intelligible world the lower part of
the soul which is established in the sense world and which
isthe sole agent which produces and fashions the body and
busies itself about it.
11. Since discursive reason inquires about what is just
or beautiful, and decides whether a certain object is beauti-

ful and whether a certain action is just, there must exist an
immutable Justice and an immutable Beauty from which
discursive reason draws its principles. Otherwise, how could
such reasonings take place? Moreover, since the soul only
intermittently reasons about such topics, it cannot be dis-
cursive reason, rather it must be Intelligence, that in us
always possesses the immutable exemplars. We must also

within us possess the source and the cause of Intelligence, the
divinity, which is not divisible and exists not in any place,
but in Even though it is in no
itself. place, it is found in the
multitude of beings that are capable to receive it, as if it
were divisible, just as the center of the circle remains within
itself,while yet all the radii have a point in it, and owe their
individuality to their being different lines. Thus we our-
selves, by one of the parts of ourselves, touch the supreme
existence, unite ourselves with it and are suspended from it.
We establish ourselves in it when we turn towards it.
12. How happen that, while we possess in us such

does it
great things, we aware of them, but some of us often,

are not
and some always, do not activate those capacities? These
realities themselves, Intelligence and the self-sufficient ex-
istence superior to Intelligence, are always active. The soul,
too, is always in motion. But the operations that go on within

her are not always perceived. They reach us only when they
become objects of perception. When anything that is active
within us does not transmit its action to the part that per-
ceives, this action is not communicated to the entire soul.
Hence we are not conscious of it; for the faculty of percep-
tion is
part of us and the whole soul, with all its parts,
it is
which constitutes the man. Each part of the soul is always

and always
alive exercises its
proper function, but we know
it
only whencommunicated and perceived. In order to
it is
perceive the things within us we must turn our perceptive

faculties inward and have them apply their whole attention
there. Just as the person that desires to hear a certain sound
must neglect all others, and keep his ears tuned to the ap-
proach of the sound he prefers to those he hears, so we too
must here close our senses to all the noises that besiege us
(with the exception of what necessity prescribes) and pre-
serve the perceptive power of the soul pure and ready to
listen to the tones that come from above,
THE NATURE OF SOUL (Ennead IV ii)
i. In our examinations of the nature of the soul, we have

shown that she is not a body, and that, while incorporeal,
she isnot the "harmony" of the parts of the body. have We
also shown that she is not an "entelechy" because this term,
as it is used, does not
express a true idea and reveals nothing
about the nature of the soul. To say that the soul is an in-
being and is part of the divine realm is to say

telligible
something true about her nature; but it will be better if we

further develop this thesis. We have formerly established the
distinction between intelligible and sense objects, placing the
soul among intelligible objects. Assuming then that the soul
forms part of the intelligible world, we wish now in another
way to approach the study of her nature.

To begin with, there are things which are by nature divis-
ible and extensible. No part of them is identical with any
other part nor with the whole; each part necessarily is smaller
than the whole. Of this nature are physical magnitudes and
masses; each occupies a place apart without being able to be
simultaneously in several places. On the other hand, there
exists another kind of nature which admits of no division
and is neither divided nor divisible. It has no extension, not

even does not need any place and is not, either
in thought. It
in part or whole, contained in any particular thing. All
beings are, so to say, its vehicle, not because it needs them

for support, but because they neither can nor wish to exist
without it. is always identical with itself and
This nature yet
shared by things that
all come after it, just as in the circle
the radii drawn from the center to the circumference leave
the center undisturbed though they derive from it and
though it is the cause of their existence; the radii thus par-

ticipate in the center and have their origin in the indivisible,
and while they separate in every direction, they yet remain
attached to it.
Now between the supreme indivisible existence which

occupies the first rank in the world of Intelligence and Being
and that sense existence which is entirely divisible, there
exists above the sense world, near it, even within it, a being
of another nature which is not, like bodies, divisible as such,
but which nevertheless becomes divisible in the bodies.
Now when you divide bodies, the form in them is also
divided, but in such a way that it remains entire in each
part. It remains identical with itself; but because it is
completely divisible, it turns into a manifold whose parts

are separated from one another. Such with is the case
colors and and forms which can remain iden-
all qualities
tical in several things that are separate, but whereby no
part is affected in the same way as another. We must

therefore consider also this sort of nature completely di-
visible. Still there exists beneath the completely indivisible
nature another that derives from it and participates in the
indivisibility ofits source. But as it descends towards another
nature, comes to occupy a position intermediate between

it
that which is indivisible and primary and that which is divis-

ible on and in bodies. It is not of the same nature as color
and the other qualities; for though the same quality may
exist in several bodies, the quality in one body is neverthe-
less as completely separate from that in another as the one
body is separate from the other. Even when the quality is

found in one and the same body, the fact that the quality is
identical in each part does not bind the various segments of
the quality into a unit of common experience because, in
spite of this identity, each segment is a separate thing. This

is an attribute, not an
identical quality independent sub-
stance. But the nature of which we said that it is close to
the indivisible being is an independent substance. It enters
the bodies and consequently is divided with regard to them.
But before this being, which is the soul, gives herself to the
bodies, it is not divided. Yet, even when the soul enters the
body, even the greatest and most extended of them, she does
not cease to be one, although she is extended over the whole
length of the body. For in no way does her unity resemble

that of the body. The unity of the body consists in the con-
is different from the others
tinuity of its parts; but each part
and occupies a different place.That nature, simultaneously
divisibleand which we call soul, is not one in
indivisible,
the sense of being continuous and thus possessing different
parts. No, it is divisible because
it is in every
part of the
body occupies,
it but it is also indivisible because it is
present
in its entirety in each and any part of its body. If we grasp
this, we well recognize the magnitude and power of the

soul and see that sheis an admirable and divine thing, and
that she belongs to a superior world. Without being herself

extended the soul is
present throughout the whole of ex-
tension. She is
present in many places, but it is always the
same soul that is present. She is simultaneously divided and
undivided, or rather, she never is really divided or can be

divided; for she remains entire within herself. She is divided
only in regard to the bodies which by virtue of their own
dividedness cannot receive her indivisibly. Thus division is
undergone by the body, not by the soul.
2. That the nature of the soul had to be such that she

could not be either purely indivisible or purely divisible, but
necessarily had to be both in the manner indicated, will
also be clear from the following consideration. If the soul,
like the body had several parts differing from one another,
the sensation of one part would not convey itself to another
part. Each part, for instance a finger, would have its own
soul which would have her individual affections and remain
foreign, in her isolation, to all the rest. In short, each one

of us would be managed by several souls, and likewise this
universe would be managed, not by one single soul, but by
an infinite number of souls separated from one another. To
invoke the continuity of these parts does not help unless this
continuity is brought to the level of unity. For we cannot
admit, as do certain philosophers who deceive themselves,
that sensations travel by means of transmission to the gov-
erning part of the soul. To begin with, they speak without

careful consideration when they assume a governing part
of the soul. For how would they divide the soul and dis-
tinguish several parts in her? By what quantitative or quali-
tative measure are they going to make distinctions within
a single continuous mass? Further, which part, under this
hypothesis, is going to have sensation ? Will it be the govern-

ing part exclusively or the other parts too? If the governing
part exclusively, will it be located in a definite place and

there have its sensation? Then if some sensation impinges
on some other part of the soul which is incapable of sensa-
tion, this part will not be able to transmit the impression
to the governing part and there will be no sensation. Grant-
ing even that the impression does reach the governing part,
itwill be received either by a part which, having perceived
the sensation, will not transmit it to the other parts, or there
will be many or even infinite sensations which will all differ
from each other. One part, then, will say: it is I who first
received the impression; and another part will say: I received

the impression received by another. And none, except the
first, will know the location of the impression; or each part
will make the mistake of thinking that the impression oc-
cured where it itself is. If on the other hand one assumes
that every part of the soul, and not the governing part alone,
has sensation, what will make one part a governing part
and another one not? Why will sensation have to be trans-
mitted to it? moreover, will it know when the reports
How,
of various senses, such as sight and hearing, refer to one and
the same object?
On the other hand, if the soul were absolutely one, com-
pletely indivisible and unity as such, if her nature were in-
compatible with manifoldncss and division, she would not,

when entering a body, ensoul it in its entirety. Placed in the
body, she would leave the entire mass of the animal unen-
souled. The soul therefore must be simultaneously one and
manifold, divided and undivided, and we must not doubt

that the soul, though one, can be in several parts of the
body simultaneously. To deny

this is to deny that there is
a nature that contains and administers everything, which

embraces everything at once and directs everything with
wisdom, a nature that is both manifold, because things are
manifold, and one, because the principle that comprehends

all things must be one. It is by her being a manifold
unity
that she gives life to all parts of the universe, while it is
by her being an in divisible unity that she directs everything

with wisdom. In things that are not ruled by wisdom, the
governing part imitates this superior unity. That is what
Plato wishes to indicate allegorically by these divine words:
"From the being that is indivisible and ever unchanging and
from the being which becomes divisible in the bodies, the
demiurge formed a mixture, a third kind of being." The soul
thus primarily one and secondarily manifold. The forms
is
that are found in the bodies are primarily manifold and
secondarily one. Bodies are only manifold; while the su-

preme existence is only one.
INTELLIGENCE, IDEAS, AND BEING (Ennead V ix)
i. From their birth men exercise their senses earlier than

their intelligence and they are by necessity forced to direct
their attention to sense objects. Some stop there and spend
their life without progressing further. Good and evil to them
are the pleasures and pains of sense-life; and they think it
is sufficient to spend their lives by pursuing the one and
avoiding the other. This is considered wisdom even by those

among them that lay claim to being men of reason. They are
likethose heavy birds who, having weighted themselves
down by picking up too much from the earth, cannot take
flight, though by nature provided with wings. There are
others who have raised themselves a little above earthly ob-
jects because the better part of their soul moves them from
pleasure to something higher. But as they are not capable of

achieving the vision of the things above, and as they do not
have another place where to lodge, they sink back, with a
corresponding conception of virtue, to those inferior actions
THE CHAIN OF REALITIES 2p
and choices which they had at first attempted to leave be-
hind. Finally there is a third kind of men, that of divine
men, who are endowed with a greater power and sharper
vision, whose penetrating eye contemplates the splendor of
the intelligible world, and who finally take their flight, as
it were, beyond the clouds and the darkness of this world.
Then, full of scorn for terrestial things, they remain up there

and reside in their true and proper place with the bliss of
the man who after long wandering has at last returned to his
well-governed fatherland.
2. Which is this higher region? What must be done to

reach it? One must be naturally disposed to love and be
really from the In the presence of beauty
start a philosopher.
such a lover feels something similar to the pangs of child-

birth; but far from halting at bodily beauty, he rises to the
beautiful that is in the soul, in virtue, science, noble occupa-
tions, and laws. Then he ascends from there to the cause of

this beauty and stops only when he has reached the existence
which occupies the first rank, that which is beautiful in and
by itself. Then only, and not before, is he free from his
pangs. But how will he rise to this level? How does he have
the power to do so? How does he learn to love in this way?
Here is our answer: The beauty seen in bodies is a derived
beauty. It consists in the shapes of which the bodies are the
matter. This matter changes and a beautiful body is seen
changing into an ugly one. The body is beautiful only by

participation. What imparted that beauty to the body? In
one sense, Beauty by its presence; in another sense, the soul
by fashioning the body and giving it the shape it possesses.
But is the soul, by herself, beautiful? No; for though some
souls are wise and beautiful, others are foolish and ugly.
It is therefore only by wisdom that the soul is beautiful. But
is her wisdom derived ?
from what Necessarily from Intelli-
gence, not from an intelligence that is only
intermittently
active, but from the genuine Intelligence which is beautiful
by itself and not ir a derived way. Shall we stop at Intelli-
gence or must we still rise above it? We must rise above it;
for though to us Intelligence presents itself first, yet it is,
so to speak, located in the antechamber of the Good, and is
not the highest reality. Intelligence bears within itself the
totality of things displaying the imprint of the Good in its

manifoldness, while the Good itself remains in complete
unity.
3. Let us now examine Intelligence which is said to be

true Being and substance and whose existence we have
already established in another investigation. It might per-

haps seem ridiculous to inquire whether there is such a thing
as Intelligence. But there are men who doubt even this.
Still, there even more debate as to whether Intelligence

is
possesses the nature we ascribe to it, whether it is separated

from the world of sense, whether it is identical with Being,
and whether it contains the Ideas. To these questions we
must now turn. We see that all things that are said to exist
are composites. None of them is simple, whether produced
by art or by nature. Works of art contain such things as
metal, wood, stone, and are derived from these materials

only by the labor of the artist, whose art provides the forms
in the making of a statue or bed or house. Among the prod-
ucts of nature those that are multiple composites and com-
pounds can be analyzed in terms either of their form or of

their elements.So we may, for instance, distinguish, in a
man, and body, or in his body, four elements. But the
soul
elements themselves will be found to be composed of matter
and of some principle that gives it form; for the matter of
THE CHAIN OF REALITIES 3!
*
elements itself is formless. Thus we are led to ask whence
itterderives its form, and to seek whether the soul itself
one of the simple beings. Now the soul too is composite,
e part of her is analogous to matter and another to form,
telligence in the soul in part analogously to the way in

is
lich form in the bronze of a statue, and in part analo-

is
usly to the way in which the artist produces this form,

ith regard to the universe at large we will find Intelligence
*
true maker and demiurge of the world. Thus matter be-
mes water, air, earth, and fire only by receiving forms,
icse forms come to it through the mediation of another
inciple, the soul. The soul gives the four elements their
>mic form, but it is
Intelligence that provides her with her
ms, just as an artisan receives his instructions from his
as it is handed to him. Intelligence thus in one respect
the "form" of the soul. In another respect it is that which
parts form, like the sculptor who
gives the statue all it
ssesses. Nowthat which it imparts to the soul is close to
ie reality, but what the body receives are only images and
itations.
\. Whymust we go beyond the soul and not consider her

*
first We
principle? do so, because there exists a
must
wer different from the soul
and better than the soul, and
lat is better must by nature be prior. Those are wrong
10 think that it is the soul which on reaching perfection
5ets Intelligence. How could that which is potential pass

actualization unless there were some cause that effected
1 actualization? If it were due to chance, it was possible
it not to have occurred at all. That which comes first
*
ast therefore be actual, perfect, and in want of nothing,
ie things that are imperfect come after the perfect and
ly be perfected by the principles that begat them, which

principles, in respect to them, play a paternal part, perfecting

what they had originally produced imperfect. What is thus
produced matter with regard to the creating principles;
is
it becomes determinate on
receiving its form. Now as the
soul is must be some thing
subject to various affections, there
that impassive (otherwise everything would be dissolved
is
by time), and there thus must exist some principle higher

than the soul. Moreover, as the soul is in the world, and as
there must be something that resides outside of the world,
there must be something that is superior to the soul. (For
that which is in the world resides in body and matter in
which nothing remains what it is, and which do not support
a realm of eternal and immutable exemplars.) The result of
these considerations as well as of many others is the assertion
of the existence of Intelligence beyond the soul.
5. Intelligence in the true sense of the word is not a poten-

tial existence nor does it arrive at being intelligent after hav-
ing been unintelligent (for otherwise we would be forced

to seek out a further Intelligence that is
prior to it) but is
an actual and eternal existence. As it is intelligent not by

derivation, it is out of its own self that it thinks what it
thinks and possesses what it possesses. Now since it thinks

out of and by itself, it itself is what it thinks. If we could
distinguish between its being and its thought, its being
would as such not be object of thought and thus would be
potential, not actual. The two therefore must not be sep-
arated, although, from the example of sense objects, we have
become accustomed to conceive of intelligible entities as
distinct from each other. What objects then does Intelligence
think to justify the assertion that it is what it thinks? Evi-
dently Intelligence which is true Being thinks Being, causes
Being to exist, and is Being. For Being will either exist out-
side of it or within it and be That it should
identical with it.
exist outside of Intelligence is impossible. For where would

it be located ? It must therefore exist within it and be identical
with it. is not found in the sense world, as certain

Being
people believe.For what is found in sense objects is derived
from elsewhere. Their forms are conjoined to matter; and
any form which exists in anything other than itself comes
to it from a different entity and is its image. Moreover, if
Intelligence is the power that produces this universe it can-

not, as it is
prior to the sense world, think beings that do not
yet exist. Intelligible entities therefore must exist before the
world and cannot be derived from sense objects, being on the
contrary their archetypes and constituting the being of In-
telligence. It might be objected that the assumption of sem-
inal reasons is our purpose. We grant this if
sufficient for
these reasons are assumed to be eternal; for if they are

eternal and impassive, they must exist within Intelligence as
we have described
Intelligence is prior to habit, nature,
it.
and soul, because these entities are potential.

Intelligence therefore constitutes the world of true Being
which does not exist outside of it, prior, or posterior to it.
Intelligence is toBeing like a first legislator, or rather like

the very law itself. It was rightly said therefore that
"thought
is identical with being," that "the science of immaterial
U
things is identical with its object." The statement I have
sought myself," that is, have sought myself as one of the
true beings, and the theory of reminiscence are rightly as-
serted too. Indeed none of the true beings is outside of In-
telligence or resides in any spatial location. They remain in
themselves, suffering neither change nor destruction. That

is why they are true beings. If they were born or
perished,
they wouldpossess only a borrowed being, they would no
longer be true beings, but that from which they borrowed
their being would be true being. It is only by participation
that sense things are what they are. They are made of matter
that derives its form from elsewhere, just as bronze receives
its form from the sculptor and wood from the carpenter. The
effect of the art is visible in the products; but the art itself
remains outside of matter in its self-identity and possesses

the true statue and the true bed. That is how the bodies
and the sense world, by participating in images that are dif-
ferent from the true beings, give evidence for their existence.
But while sense objects are subject to change, true beings are
immutable. They are in want of nothing, not even of space,
since they have no extension, but are immaterial and self-
sufficient entities. The existence of the bodies depends on
some other principle, while Intelligence, which by a marvel-
ous power sustains the existence of objects in themselves
need of nothing outside of it to maintain its
perishable, has
existence,
6. Thus Intelligence actually constitutes the realm of

Being. It contains all true beings, not in the way in which
extended things contain one another, but in the sense of
being identical with them. But though all entities are simul-
taneously contained within it, they nevertheless remain
distinct.Analogously, many sciences simultaneously exist
within the soul without becoming indistinct or keeping any
particular science when needed, from fulfilling its proper
function, and without dragging in all the others, but each
thought has its activity independent of the other thoughts.

In an even stronger way does Intelligence exhibit the to-
getherness of the beings it contains and their distinctiveness

as eacha special power. Considered in its totality Intelli-
is
gence contains all entities, as the genus contains all species
and as the whole contains all parts. The powers contained

in seeds provide an illustration. Each seed, considered in its
totality, is a center which contains all the parts of the organ-

ism in an undivided form. Nevertheless in this seed the
seminal reason of the eye differs from that of the hands, and
is manifested in the organs begotten through
this diversity
the seminal reasons. The powers that are contained in seeds
thus constitute each a unified seminal form with the parts
implied in it. What in the seed is corporeal, its humidity,

for instance, contains matter; but the seminal reason is en-
tirely form. It is identical with the generative kind of soul,

a soul which herself isthe image of a superior soul. This
generative power contained in the seeds is sometimes called

nature. Proceeding from the superior powers as light radiates
from the fire, it alters and fashions matter by imparting to
matter its seminal reasons, without mechanical pushes and
without using those much talked about levers.
7. The sciences that the rational soul develops of sense
objects (if one must call them sciences; for the name "opin-
ions" seems more appropiate) are posterior to the objects
they deal with and consequently are no more than images

of them. But the sciences dealing with intelligibles, the true
sciences, which the rational soul derives from Intelligence,
do not contain the conceptions of anything sensuous. As far
as they are trueknowledge, they are the very things of which
they are the conception, and achieve the union of intelligible
object and thought. For Intelligence is self-contained and
identical with Being. It resides within itself eternally and is
pure activity. It does not direct its activity outside of itself

as if it itself and needed
did not possess everything within
to acquire and run discursively through objects which it has
not present. These latter operations are characteristic of the
soul. But Intelligence remains unmoved within itself and is
all things simultaneously. It is not by thinking things that
Intelligence brings them into existence. It is not when In-

telligence thinks the divinity or movement that divinity or
movement comes into being. When it is said that the Forms
are thoughts, one is mistaken if thereby one means that the
intelligible comes into being or exists only because Intelli-
gence thinks it. On the contrary the intelligible object must

exist before Intelligence Otherwise, how would
can think it.
Intelligence come to think the intelligible? It cannot be due

to chance or random encounter.
8. Intelligence thus thinks the objects contained in it.

These objects are the Forms or Ideas. What are these Forms
or Ideas? They are Intelligence and the intellectual realm.
No Idea is different from Intelligence, but each is Intelli-
gence. The whole Intelligence is the totality of Forms and

each particular Form is a particular Intelligence, just as a
science, taken in its totality, is all the theorems it embraces,
whereby each theorem is a part of the total science being a

part, not in the spatial sense of the word, but in the sense
that it has its
meaning only with regard to the whole
science. Intelligence resides within itself in the peace of self-
sufficiency and thus is eternal fullness. If we conceived it
as prior to Being, we would have to say that it was the action

and thought of Intelligence which produced and begat Be-
ing. But as we must think of Being before Intelligence, we
must put Being within the thinking principle and say that
the activity of Intelligence is as closely related to Being as
the activity of fire is to fire itself, so that Intelligence is the
proper activity of Being. Now as Being is active too, Being

and Intelligence will have the same activity, or rather the
activity of both is one and the same. Intelligence and Being
thus form but a single nature; hence also all true beings,
the activity of Being, and Intelligence. The thoughts of
Intelligence are the form and the activity of Being. Our

thought, however, separates Being from Intelligence and
subordinates one to the other. Our intelligence which makes
these separations is indeed different from that indivisible
Intelligence which does not separate either Being or any-
thing.
9. What then are the things contained within the unity

of Intelligence which we separate in thinking of them?
They must be expressed discursively while they themselves
remain at rest, just as we discursively express the theorems
of a science that is itself undivided. Since the sense world
is an animal which embraces all animals, since it derives
both its existence and its manner of existence from a reality
different from itself, a reality which in turn is derived from
Intelligence, it is
Intelligence that must contain all arche-
types and be that intelligible world which Plato calls "the
truly real animal." Just as the simultaneous presence of the

seminal reason of an animal and of matter fit to receive it,
must necessarily result in the birth of a new animal, the mere
existence of a nature that is rational, all-powerful, and not
hindered by any obstacle, must, since nothing can interpose
between it and that which is
capable of receiving its in-
fluence, necessarily result in its giving form to that which is

below it. But that which thus is fashioned contains form in
only a divided way, so that, for instance, it exhibits here the
form of a man, and there the form of the sun, while Intelli-
gence possesses everything in unity.
10. Therefore, in the sense world, all the things that are
forms proceed from Intelligence, but those which are not
forms do not proceed from it. In the intelligible world there-
fore we do not find any of the things that are contrary to
nature, any more than we find what is contrary to the arts
in the arts themselves or lameness in the seed itself. (Lame-
ness, if
congenital, is due to the failure of the seminal reason
to dominate matter, while lameness from accident is due
to later mutilation of the form.) Qualities and quanti-
ties, numbers and magnitudes, processes and configurations,
doings and undergoings in accordance with nature, move-

ments and states of rest, either general or particular, if they
are of the kind appropriate to it, are among the contents
of the intelligible world. Time is replaced by eternity. Space
is replaced by the telescoping of intelligible entities within
each other. As all entities are undivided in the intelligible
world, whatever entity you select will be an intellectual being

and participate in life; it will be both identity and difference,
movement and rest, that which is moved and that which is
at rest, substance and quality, in short, everything that is

of the nature of Being. Further, as each being is fully actual-
ized, instead of merely being potential, its quality is not
separated from its substance.

Does the intelligible world contain only what is found in
the sense world or does it contain additional objects? Let us
consider first whether it contains all of the sort of things that
are found in the sense world. Now the intelligible world
does not contain evil. For evil, which is found in the sense
world, is due to want, privation, and

deficiency. It charac-
terizes matter, or anything similar to matter, which fails to
achieve completion.
ii. Let us next consider the arts. The arts of imitation

cannot well be expected in the intelligible world (except of
course in human
reason). Painting, sculpture, dancing, or
acting are born here below and take sense objects as models,
representing and rearranging their forms, motions, and visi-
ble proportions. The faculty however which from studying

the symmetry found in animals rises to a study of the gen-
eral characteristics of this symmetry forms parts of the in-
tellectual power which in the world above contemplates
universal symmetry. Music also, inasmuch as it studies
rhythm and harmony, is analogous to that music that deals
with intelligible rhythm. The arts which produce sense ob-
jects, such as architecture and carpentry, so far as they make
use of symmetry, have their principles in the intelligible
world and participate in its wisdom. But as they also involve
sense objects, they cannot be wholly found in the intelligible
world, unless in so far as they are contained within human
reason. The case is similar with agriculture which assists
the growth of plants, with medicine which is concerned with
health in thislife and cares for the strength and well-being
of the body (for in the world above there is another power,

another health, through which all living beings achieve
stability and self-sufficiency). Whenever the sciences of rhet-
oric, strategy, private and public rule, cause actions to par-
ticipate in beauty, and whenever they direct their attention

to what is above, they impart to their science a contribution
from the science that exists in the intelligible world. The
science of geometry however which deals with intelligible
entities must be assigned to the intelligible world. The same
holds for the science of wisdom which occupies the first rank
among the sciences because it studies Being. That much let

us say about the arts and their products.
12. If the intelligible world contains the Idea of man, of

the rational man and of the artistic man, it must also contain
the Ideas of the various arts of these men. It is granted that
the intelligible world contains the Ideas of universals, the
Idea of Man as distinguished from that of Socrates. Still we
shall intelligible world does not also
have to see whether the
contain the Ideas of individual men. There must be Ideas of
individual men because the traits of one differ from those of
another, as when the one has a snub nose and the other
a hook nose. These differences are differences in Form or
between the various species of
Idea, just as the differences
between the kinds of hook or
animals. But the differences
snub noses are derived from matter. Of the differences
among colors some are due to the rational form, while others
are due to matter and physical location.
remains for us to study whether the

13. It intelligible
world contains only what is in the sense world. Or should
we assign further entities to it, such as, similar to the distinc-
tion between man and Man himself, a Soul itself beside
soul, and an Intelligence itself beside Intelligence? To an-

swer this let us first say that we should not consider all
things here below as images of archetypes, the soul, for in-
stance, as the image of a Soul itself. One soul is indeed dif-
ferentiated from another by her degree of excellence; but
each soul is, even here below, the genuine soul itself, though
of course not in the particular function implied in her resi-
dence here below. As all genuine souls possess justice and
wisdom and as also our souls possess such true wisdom, our
souls are not sense images or reflections of intelligible souls
but are these very intelligible souls, being characterized here
below by a different manner of existence. For the intelligible
isnot confined to any particular space. Hence whenever the
soul emerges from the body, there she finds the intelligible.
The sense world exists only in a determinate place, but the
intelligible world exists everywhere. Therefore all that such

a soul contains here below is also in the intelligible world.
THE CHAIN OF REALITIES 4!
Thus by sense objects we mean visible things, then indeed
if
the intelligible world contains entities not present in this

sense world. But if we include within the sense world the
soul and all she implies, then all things that are above are
present here below also.
14. Must we then assert that the intelligible world is the
supreme reality? No, because the supreme principle must

be truly one and entirely simple, while the intelligible world
is constituted
by a multitude of beings. must explain the We
existence of this multitude, given the existence of perfect
Oneness, and the manner of their existence. are they Why
intellectual entities, and whence do they proceed? These
questions we shall have to study elsewhere.
It may further be asked whether the intelligible world
contains Ideas of objects which are derived from decay or are

otherwise repugnant, such as Ideas of mud or excreta. We
answer that the things that Intelligence receives from the
all
supreme reality are excellent. Among them are not found

the objects just mentioned. Intelligence does not contain
them either. But the soul, though she derives certain things
from Intelligence, receives other things from matter, among
which are found the above mentioned objects. (A more
thorough answer to this question will be given when we
return to the problem of how the multiple proceeds from the
One.) The accidental composites which are formed not by
Intelligence but by the conjunctions of sense objects have
no Ideas corresponding to them in the intelligible world.
Things that proceed from decay are produced only because
the soulis unable to
produce anything better; for otherwise
she would rather have produced some object agreeing with
nature as she does when she can. All the arts concerned with
things in accordance with nature are contained within Man

himself. Above the soul that enters the universe, resides the
soul herself, that is, the life that is in Intelligence before be-
coming soul.
NATURE, CONTEMPLATION, AND THE ONE

(Ennead III viii)
i. If as a preliminary jest,
before we seriously start with
our inquiry, we said that all beings, rational but also irra-
tional animals, plants and the earth that begets them, aspire
to contemplation and are directed towards that end and that
due to their differing capacities some really achieve contem-
plation while others only accomplish a reflection or image
of it, we should no doubt be told that this was an absurd
statement. But as we are among ourselves, there isno danger
in a playful treatment of our own doctrines. While thus
jesting are we ourselves not actually engaging in contempla-
tion? Yes, not only we but anyone who jests aspires to
contemplation. A joking child as well as a seriously thinking
man both aim at reaching contemplation when the one
jokes and the other meditates. Indeed, all action aspires

towards contemplation. Compulsory action draws contem-
plation more towards external objects, voluntary action less
so. In any case its ultimate aim is
contemplation. But more
of this later.
Let us say now what is the nature of the contemplation
that we and plants in general,
attribute to the earth, to trees
how the things produced and begotten by the earth can be
ascribed to the activity of contemplation, and how nature,
that is
usually considered to lack reason and sensation, never-
theless possesses contemplation and produces all its works
through that contemplation which it
supposedly does not
possess.
2. It is evident that nature uses neither hands, nor feet,
nor any natural or artificial instrument. But it needs matter
on which to work and to which to give form. The works of

nature exclude all mechanical operations. What sort of push,
or what application of levers, would produce the variety of
colors and forms? Even the manufacturers of wax figures,
to whose work the operations of nature are often compared,
cannot endue objects with colors without taking them from
elsewhere. We must understand that even these artisans
possess a power which remains immutable and by means of

which they produce their works with their hands. Likewise
nature possesses a power which remains immutable in its
entirety and which does not produce with hands. It has no

need to consist of certain parts that remain immutable while
others change. It is matter alone that undergoes movement.
The forming power is in no way moved. Were the forming
power moved, it would no longer be the first mover. It may
be objected that reason is unmoved but that nature is dif-
ferent from reason and is moved. But if one means the to-
tality of nature, then reason will move too. If, however, one
says that a part of nature is unmoved, this part will also be
reason. For nature must be a form and not a composite of
matter and form. What need would it have of a matter that,
for instance, is cold or hot, since the particular matter, the
substratum on which it acts, either already possesses these
qualities or receives them through the influence of reason.

For it is not by fire that matter becomes fire, but by reason.
Consequently in animals and plants it is the reasons that
produce, and nature is a reason that produces another reason

which imparts something of itself to the substratum while
remaining unmoved itself. The reason that manifests itself
in things of a visible shape occupies the last rank. It is dead

and produces no further reason. The living reason however,
being brother to the reason that produces the visible forms
and possessing the same power, exerts its productivity within
the begotten being.
3. How
does nature, being a productive agent and pro-
ductive in this particular way, arrive at contemplation?
Since she produces while remaining unmoved and within
herself,and since she is a reason, she is a contemplation also.
For every action is produced according to a reason and con-
sequently differs from it. Reason assists and presides over
action and consequently is not an action. Since it is not an
action, but is reason, it is a contemplation. With all reason,

that which holds the lowest rank proceeds from contempla-
tion and is contemplation in the sense of being object of
contemplation, but that which is of superior rank is divided

into two kinds the one which changes with the beings and
:
is not nature but soul, and the other which is in nature and
is nature. Does the latter also derive from contemplation?
Yes, it too contemplates itself in a certain way. It is produced

by a contemplation and a principle which contemplates. But
what kind of contemplation does it itself possess ? It does not
possess the kind of contemplation which results from dis-
cursive reason (by discursive reason I mean that procedure
which consists in the investigation of what one has in
oneself). But as it is
living reason and a productive power,
why does it fail to inquire into what it contains ? Because one
inquires only when one does not yet possess. Now nature
possesses and she produces by the mere fact that she posses-
ses. To be what she is is to her the same thing as to produce.
She simultaneously is contemplation and contemplated ob-

ject because she is reason. As she is all three, contemplation,
contemplated object, and reason, she produces through the

mere fact that she these things.
is We
have shown then that
production is a sort of contemplation; for it is the result of
contemplation, of a contemplation that remains immutable

and does not act on an object different from itself but pro-
duces because it is
contemplation.
4. If anybody were to ask nature why she produces, nature

if at all willing to listen and answer would say: "You should
not have questioned me, but should have tried to understand
silently as I am silent and not in the habit of speaking. What
were you to understand ? You were to understand that what
is born is the object of my contemplation and is it by my
nature; for as I myself am born of contemplation, mine is a
contemplative nature. That in me which contemplates pro-
duces the object of contemplation, as geometricians while
contemplating draw their figures. But it is not in drawing
figures, I, so to say, let drop from
but in contemplating, that
within me the which constitute the forms of the bodies.
lines
I preserve within me the disposition of my mother and of
the principles that begot me. They too are born of contem-
plation and gave birth to me without any action on their

part; but they aremore powerful reasons than myself, they
contemplated themselves, and thus I was born.**
These words signify that nature is a soul begotten by a
superior soul that possesses a more potent life and contains
her contemplation silently within herself without inclining
towards that which is higher or lower. Abiding within her
own realm in her own immobility and self-awareness she
sees due to this knowledge and self -awareness the things that
are below her, so far as it is possible for her, without further
search, and produces the object of her contemplation with its
splendor and charm. If one desires to attribute some sort of

cognition or sensation to nature, these resemble the usual
cognition and sensation only as those of a man who is asleep

resemble those of a man who is awake. For nature remains
at rest while contemplating her object which was born in
her because she abides within and with herself and because
she is an object of contemplation herself, a silent, if weak,
contemplation. There is indeed another power that contem-
plates more clearly but nature is only the image of another
contemplation. Consequently what nature produces is very
weak, because a weak contemplation can beget a weak object
only. Likewise it is men too weak for contemplation who
seek a shadow of contemplation and reason in action. Being
incapable of rising to contemplation and weak in soul, they

are not sufficiently able to grasp the object of contemplation
and thus to fill themselves. But they desire to see it and
seek by action to achieve that which they could not obtain
by thought. When they produce an object, they wish to see
it,contemplate and perceive it, and they wish the same for
other men. Thus we find everywhere that production and
action are either weak contemplation or accompaniment of
contemplation. It is the former, when beyond having acted

we possess nothing further; it is the latter, when we can
contemplate something better than the thing we have pro-
duced. What man indeed who could contemplate that which
is true would prefer its image? This is also proved by the
fact that the more simple-minded children who have no
capacity for learning and science are given over to the
mechanical and manual arts.
5.
After having spoken of nature and having explained
how generation is a sort of contemplation, let us pass to the
soul that occupies a rank superior to nature. Let us say how
the soul by her contemplation, by her love for science and
discovery, by her pregnancy with knowledge and fullness
thereof, having herself become
entirely object of contempla-
tion, gave birth to another object of contemplation. In a
similar way each art upon reaching fullness begets a lesser
art in the young disciple who then possesses the images of
all its But his objects of contemplation and theories
contents.
are weak and not capable of supporting each other. The
highest part of the soul always dwells in the upper region
which illuminates and fills it while the other part participates
in what the superior part has received and proceeds eternally
from what is above it as life from life; for the activity of
true reality extends to everything and is present everywhere.
In her procession the soul has her superior part remain in
the upper world; for if she detached herself from the supe-
rior part, she would no longer be present everywhere but
only at that place where her procession ends. But the part
of the soul that thus proceeds is not equal to what remains
within it. Therefore if the soul must be present and must
exert her activity everywhere, and if that which occupies the
superior rank differs from that which occupies the inferior,

if, besides, activity proceeds either from contemplation or
action and there is no action as yet on this level (because
contemplation precedes action), it follows with necessity

that each succeeding activity is weaker than the preceding
one. Nonetheless, each activity is a contemplation. What
seems to be action guided by contemplation is only the
weakest contemplation; for that which is begotten must
always remain of the same kind with its generating princi-
ple, though it is weaker because it is of lower rank. All
things proceed silently from the soul because she stands in
no need of any visible or external object for contemplation
and because she does not engage in action. Thus the soul
contemplates; and the contemplating part of the soul, since
it is different from what is
superior and is more directed
towards what is outside,
produces what is below it. Thus one
contemplation begets another contemplation. There is no
boundary for contemplation or its object. It extends here
below because it extends everywhere. Where is it not? It is
every soul. It is not confined to a certain space. But

itself in
it does not inhere in all beings in the same way. Conse-
quently it is not present in the same way to all parts of the

soul. That is
why Plato says that the charioteer communi-
cates to his horses what he has seen. The latter receive it
from him and clearly desire to possess what they have seen,
though they have not received it in its entirety. When they
act upon this desire, they act in view of the object of their
desire, that is, in view of contemplation and of its object.
6. The purpose of action is to contemplate and to have an

object of contemplation. The end of activity therefore is
contemplation. It seeks to achieve indirectly what it is un-
able to accomplish directly. When one has achieved the
object of one's desires, it is evident that one's real desire is
not to possess the desired object without knowing it, but to
know it and have it present to the sight of the soul as it is
embedded in her as an object of contemplation. Indeed activ-
ity always has in view some good. One does not desire to have
this good outside of oneself, or not to possess it. Rather one
desires to possess it as the result of one's action. It is in the
soul that this good is found, and activity once more brings
us back to contemplation. Since the soul is a rational object,
what else does she grasp if not an unspoken rational object?
The soul grasps this object better the more rational it is.
Then the soul remains at rest and seeks nothing further. Her
contemplation rests within her and she is sure of the posses-

sion of her object. The greater this assurance, the more peace-
ful is the contemplation and the more does it
unify the soul.
There identity between knowing subject and known object
is
we mean this seriously. If they were two, they would be

different, lying, at it were, side by side without being in their
duality assimilated by the soul, just as certain rational forms

without producing any effect. Theory there-
exist in the soul
fore must not remain outside of the soul of the learner, but
must become united with her until it becomes part of her
own being. When the soul has appropriated theory and as-
sumed a corresponding disposition, she, as it were, draws
the theory out and manipulates it. She thus gets to know
the thing that she already possessed. By examining it she be-
comes, as it were, different from herself, and by thinking it
discursively she sees it as something foreign to her. Never-

theless, the soul herself is a rational principle and a kind
of intelligence, but an intelligence that sees an object differ-
ent from herself. For she does not possess fullness and is
defective in respect to what precedes her. But it is without
moving that she observes what she has brought forth; for
she does not bring forth things which she has not first seen.
But she brings them forth because she is defective and needs
investigation to know what she contains. (In the case of
practical activity the soul adapts the notions she possesses to

the external objects.) As the soul is richer in content than
is nature, she is more at rest and more contemplative. But as
her possessions are not complete, she desires to increase the

knowledge of her object and the contemplation which stems
from inquiry. Even while she is withdrawn from her own
higher parts and has entered the variety of things and only
returns to herself later, she contemplates with her remaining
higher part. But the soul that abides wtihin herself does this
Consequently the wise man is penetrated by reason and
less.
within himself possesses what he manifests to others. He

contemplates himself. He achieves unity and immobility not
only in respect to external objects but also in respect to the

things within himself and finds all things within himself.
7.
Thus everything from contemplation and ev-
derives
erything is
contemplation. This holds for the truly real
beings as well as for the existences which they beget by their

contemplation and which are objects of contemplation either
knowledge and opinion. Actions, and
for sensation, or for
aim at knowledge. Begetting originates in con-
also desire,
templation and ends in the production of a form, that is,

a new
object of contemplation. In general, all things as they
are images of their generating principles produce forms and
objects of contemplation. The begotten existences, being im-

itations of truly real beings, show that the purpose of gen-
eration is neither generation nor action, but the production
of works which are to be contemplated. Contemplation is
aimed at by discursive thought and, below it, by sensation
the end of which is knowledge. Further, below discursive
thought and sensation is nature which, bearing within her-

self an object of contemplation and rational form, produces
another rational form. Such are the arguments that devel-

oped in the course of this inquiry or that we recalled from
elsewhere they ought to be clear now. Besides it is clear
that since the supreme realities devote themselves to contem-
plation, all other beings must aspire to it; for the origin of
all things is also their end. Moreover, animals generate due
to the activity within them of seminal reasons. Generation

is a contemplation. It results from the longing of pregnancy
to produce a multiplicity of forms and objects of contempla-
tion, to fill everything with reason, and never to cease from
contemplation. Begetting means to produce some form; and

this means to spread contemplation everywhere. All the
faults met with in begotten things or in actions are due to

the fact that one did stray from the object of one's contem-
plation. The poor workman resembles the producer of bad

forms. Also lovers must be counted among those who con-
template and pursue forms. But enough of this.
8. rises from nature to the soul, from

Since contemplation
the soul to Intelligenceand becomes more and more charac-
teristic of, and more and more united to the being that con-
templates and since in the soul of the wise man the things
known are identical with the knower, it follows that the
knower, because he aspires to Intelligence, must then within
Intelligence be identical with what is known. This identity
is more than a close association such as we
find in the per-
fect soul; for "being and thinking are the same thing."
Within Intelligence we no longer have on one side the object
of contemplation and on the other that which contemplates;
otherwise we would need another principle where this dif-
ference no longer exists. Within Intelligence the two things
are one. This means that it is a living contemplation, and
not an object of contemplation, which inheres in something
else. For that which lives within a living being is not living
by itself alone. Therefore if the object of contemplation and

of thought is to be alive, it must not have the life of plants,
animals, or any other animate existence. Those beings too are

various kinds of thought, the vegetative, sensuous, and
psychic ways of thought. They are thoughts because they are

rational forms. All life some sort of thought which, like
is
life itself, shows various degrees of strength. The clearest

thought is also the highest life, and the highest life is iden-
tical with the highest intelligence. The supreme life is
also the supreme thought, the life of the second rank is also
thought of the second rank, and the last rank of life is also
the last rank of thought. Every life is of this kind and is
thought. Men readily distinguish the different kinds of life

but do not do the same in the case of thought. They call
some things thought, but others not; for they do not seek
to find out what life really is. We should also observe that
this discussion again shows us that all beings are contempla-
tions. If the truest life through thought and is identical
is life
with the truest thought, then the truest thought must be

alive. Then contemplation and the object of this contempla-
tion are aliveand are life, and both form but one thing.
Since the two are identical, how does it happen that their
unity becomes manifold? It becomes manifold because it
does not contemplate unity, or, when it does so, does not
contemplate unity as unity; otherwise there would be no

Intelligence. It begins by being one, but does not remain
so. Unconsciously it becomes manifold as if pressed down by
its own weight. It unrolls itself, desiring to become all

things, though it would have been better for it not to have
desired this and thus to have put itself into the second rank.
In a similar way a circle unrolls into figure and surface,
circumference, center, radii, upper and lower points. The
origin is better than the goal. The origin is not equivalent
to both origin and goal, and that which is both origin and
goal is not equivalent to that which is no more than origin.

In other words, Intelligence is not the intelligence of a
single thing, but universal intelligence. Being universal, it
is the intelligence of all things. If Intelligence is universal
intelligence, and the intelligence of all things, each of its

parts must also be universal intelligence and intelligence of
all things. Otherwise Intelligence would contain a part that
was not intelligence. It would then be composed of non-
intelligencesand be a conglomoration of things which were
awaiting completion to become Intelligence. Intelligence
therefore is infinite. When something proceeds from it, it
is not itself diminished. This holds both for that which pro-
ceeds from it (because it is also all things) and for the in-
telligence from which it

proceeds (because it is not put
together of parts).
9. Such is the nature of Intelligence. That is why it does

not occupy the first rank. Above it there must be a principle
the discovery of which is the ultimate object of all our pre-
vious discussion. The manifold must be posterior to unity.
Intelligence number, but the origin of number and like
is
things is the truly one. Intelligence is at once intelligence and

is therefore two
the intelligible, and things at once. As it is
two things, we must seek what is higher to this duality.
Could this principle be Intelligence alone? But Intelligence
is always bound to the intelligible. If it is not bound to
the intelligible, cannot be Intelligence. If then

it this princi-
ple is not Intelligence but transcends duality, it must be

superior to this duality and thus be above Intelligence.
Could it be the intelligible alone? But we have already seen
that the intelligible is inseparable from Intelligence. If this
principle can be neither Intelligence nor the intelligible,

what can it be? It must be the principle from which are
derived Intelligence and, with it, the intelligible.
But what is this principle and how are we to conceive it?
It must be either a thinking being or not. If it is a thinking
being, it will be Intelligence. If it is not, it will be ignorant
of itself and will not be in any way venerable. To say that
it is theor the most Simple as long as we do not have
Good
something on which we can base our thought when we use
these phrases would be true, but would not be clear or
perspicuous. The knowledge
of other objects came about
through Intelligence, even the knowledge of a thinking

thing. But by what immediate apprehension can we grasp
this principle that is
superior to Intelligence? We may an
swer that we apprehend it by that part of us which resemble:
it. For there is in us something of it; or, rather, there is nc
place where it is not for those that can participate in it. A:

it is everywhere, we can at any place receive something oj
it by directing to it that part of us which is capable of re
ceiving it. Take the illustration of a sound in a desert anc
imagine a man
located at any spot in that desert. Wherevei
it is that he listens to this sound, we will in one sense heai
all of it and in another sense not. What then do we grasp
by directing our intelligence towards this principle? In ordei
to see what it seeks, Intelligence must, so to speak, turn back-
wards and, in spite of its duality, must deliver itself to whal
is behind itself, and must cease to be entirely Intelligence
Indeed, Intelligence is the first life and activity which com-

prehends things, not by a movement which still is in
all
progress, but by a movement which already is accomplished

Intelligence is life, comprehends all things, and possesses all
things in detail, not just in their general traits; for otherwise
itwould possess them in an imperfect and vague manner. It
must therefore necessarily proceed from a superior principle
which, instead of being in the motion by which Intelligence
runs through all things, is the origin of this motion, of life,
of intelligence, and of all things. The originating principle
is not the totality of all things; but from it all things proceed,
The originating principle is neither all things nor any one of

them. Otherwise it could not beget allthings, but would be
a multitude and not the origin of that multitude. Indeed,
that which begets is
always simpler than that which is
begot-
ten. Therefore, if this principle begets Intelligence, it neces-
sarily is simpler than Intelligence. On the assumption that

the One is also the totality of things, the One is either all
things at once or each thing individually. Now if it origi-

nated from an assembling of all
things, it would be
posterior
to all things. If the One coexisted with things, the One
all
would not be an But if it is

origin. prior to all things, it
will be different from all things. The One must be an
originating principle and must exist before all things if all
things are to originate from it. If we assume that the One
is each
particular thing, then any one thing would be iden-
tical with any other thing and all things would be together
and there would be no differentiation. Thus the One is none

of the totality of things, but prior to all things.
10. What then is the One? It is that which makes all
things possible. Without it nothing would exist, not even

Intelligence, the primary and universal life. What is above
life is the cause of life. The activity of life, being all things,
is not the principle. It flows from this principle as from

first
a spring. Imagine a spring which has no further origin,

which pours itself into all rivers without becoming ex-
hausted by what it yields, and remains what it is, undis-
turbed. The streams that issue from it, before flowing away
each in its own direction, mingle together for a while, but
each already knows where it will take its floods. Or think
of the that circulates in a great tree. The originating
life
principle of this life remains at rest and does not spread
through the tree; for it has, as it were, its seat in the root.
This principle gives to the plant all its life in its manifold-
ness, but remains itself at rest. It is not a plurality but the
source of plurality. This is not surprising. Why should it
be surprising that the manifoldness of life issues from that

which is not manifold, and that the manifold would not
exist without the prior existence of that which is not mani-
fold? Theprinciple is not distributed through the universe;
if it were, the universe would be annihilated and could not
be born again unless the principle remained within itself in its
otherness.
That is why everywhere things are reduced to unity.
There is for each ihing a unity to which it may be reduced;
and there is for each unity that which is superior to it but is
not unity as such. This continues until one reaches Unity
as such which cannot be reduced to any other. To grasp the
oneness in a tree, that is, its stable principle, or in an animal,
or in a soul, or in the universe, is to
grasp, in each of these
cases, that which most powerful and precious. If at last
is
we is found in the true realities

try to grasp the oneness that
and is their principle, source, and productive power, how
can we, all of a sudden, become doubtful and believe that this
principle amounts to nothing? Certainly this principle is
none of the things of which it is the principle. It is such
that nothing can be predicated of it, neither being, substance,
nor life, because it is superior to all these things. But if you
grasp it by abstracting from it even being, you will experi-

ence wonder. By directing your glance towards it, by reach-
ing it, and resting in it, you will achieve a deep and im-
mediate awareness of it and will at the same time see its
greatness in the things which come after it and exist through
it.
ii. Consider also the following. Since Intelligence is a

sort of seeing, that a seeing that is active, it really is a
is,
potentiality that passes into actualization. One will there-

fore have to distinguish in it form and matter. For the
act of vision implies a duality; while before its actualization
itwas unity. Thus unity has become duality and duality has
become unity. Ordinary vision achieves the goal and attains
its kind of perfection through sense objects. But the vision of
Intelligence achieves its goal through the Good. For if Intelli-
gence were the Good itself, why would it need to seek or

engage in any other activity? The activity of all things is
oriented towards the Good and is due to it. But the Good
itself does not need anything and therefore possesses nothing
but itself. After one has pronounced this name "Good," one
should ascribe nothing further to it. For what you add to it, of
that you suppose it to be in need. Not even Intelligence
should be attributed to it. That would be introducing a
it two
difference into it, distinguishing in things, Intelligence
and the Good. Intelligence needs the Good, but the Good
does not need Intelligence.On achieving the Good, Intelli-
gence becomes like the Good; for it derives its form from the
Good and is perfected by the Good. The model should be
conceived by the trace it leaves in Intelligence; the true
Good, by the imprint it leaves. It is this trace of the Good
which Intelligence possesses in its vision. That is

why In-
telligence aspires. Intelligence always aspires and always

achieves its
goal. The Good itself, however, never aspires to
anything. For what could it desire? Nor does it achieve
anything, since it desires nothing. Therefore it is not the

same as Intelligence which does desire and does aspire to its
form.
No doubt Intelligence is beautiful. It is the most beautiful
of things. It is illuminated by a pure light and shines with
a pure splendor; it contains the intelligible beings of which
our world, in spite of its beauty, is but a shadow and an
image. It lies in full resplendence because it contains nothing
unintelligent or obscure or indefinite. It enjoys a blissful

life. Wonder seizes him who sees it and who enters it
properly and becomes one with it. Just as the view of
heaven and the splendor of the stars lead one to seek and
think of their author, so the contemplation of the intelligi-
ble world and the admiration it induces lead one to seek its
author and to ask who has given existence to the intelligible
world, where this author is, and how this author produced
that world. Who is it that begot such a beautiful son as
Intelligence which derives all of its fullness from it author?

This supreme principle itself is neither Intelligence, nor
plentitude, but is superior to them. They come after it be-
cause they need both to think and to be filled. They are
close to the principle which wants nothing and does not even
need to think. Nevertheless Intelligence possesses true plen-
titude and thought because it immediately participates in
the Good. But that which is above Intelligence does not
need or possess these things. Otherwise it would not be the
Good.
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM
THE NATURE OF FATE (Ennead III i)
i. Both become and the things that always

the things that
are either (i) do, or (2) do not have causes; or (3) in both
groups some do and some do not have causes; or (4) those

that become do have causes while of those that always are
either some or none have causes; or (5) all things that always
are do have causes while of those that become either some
or none have causes.
In the case of eternal things, those that are supreme cannot
be derived from other causes just because they are supreme.
But those that depend on the supreme entities do indeed
thence derive their being. To each thing we should also
attribute its particular actions; for a thing's being is con-
stituted by the activity it displays.
Now with regard to the things that become and with
regard to those which, though eternal, do not always exercise
the same activity, it must be asserted that they all have
causes. We should not admit the contention, with regard to
them, that something happens without a cause, nor accept
the thesis of the arbitrary deviations of the atoms, nor be-
lieve that any body initiates a movement suddenly and with-
out a precipitating event, nor suppose that the soul under-
takes some action by a blind impulse, without any motive.
Thus to suppose that the soul has no control over herself,
thatone could be carried away by involuntary movement
and act without motive, would mean to subject her to the
most crushing determinism. But the will and the desire
59
must be excited by some internal or external stimulus. No
movement is possible without a motive factor.
As everything that happens has a cause, it is
easy to dis-
cover the proximate causes of each thing and to trace it from
them. For example, people go downtown because they think
it necessary to see a person or collect a bill. In general it is
because they have made such and such a choice and gone
after this or that, that they deem it good to do so and so.
The arts too enter into this causal nexus. The cause of health,
for instance, can be traced to the art of medicine and the
physician. Again, when man
has become rich, this is due
a
to his rinding some treasure, or receiving some donation,
to hard work, or the practice of some art. The birth of a
child is conditioned by its father and whatever external
circumstances there are that cooperate towards procreation,
such as a certain kind of food, or, to mention a more remote
cause, the fertility of the mother, or, more generally, the
agency of nature.
2. To stop on arriving at these proximate causes and to
refuse to go further is to show superficiality and not to heed

the advice of those who have ascended to the first causes.
For why, during the same full moon, does one man steal
and another not? Given the same environing circumstances,
why does one man become sick and another not? Why, by
use of the same means, does one man become rich and
another poor? The differences of dispositions, characters,
and fortunes demand that we seek their ulterior causes.
Hence no philosopher has made halt at proximate causes.
(i) Some thinkers assume that the basic entities are material
who explain everything in terms
in character, such as those
of the motions of atoms, their collisions and combinations
and ascribe all things and events, including human desires
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM 6l
and dispositions, to the particular ways in which these atoms

are arranged and act or are acted upon. Ultimate necessity
is thus conceived by them in terms of atoms. Those who
make other physical units their ultimate principles and

deduce everything therefrom have a similar conception of
the necessity to which things are ultimately subject. (2)
Others derive everything from a supreme principle of the
universe of which they say that it penetrates everything and
not only moves but also produces everything. This principle
they say constitutes fate and the supreme cause. From its
motions they derive all events and even our thought, just
as thelimbs of an animal do not move themselves but are
moved by the governing principle within it. (3) Others ex-
plain everything by the motion of the heaven, by the relative
positions of the planets and fixed stars and the resulting
configurations. Convinced by the predictions based on these
phenomena, they hold that all events arc determined by
them. (4) Still others define fate as the concatenation of
causes, a hierarchy of causes inwhich each cause is the con-
sequence of a prior cause, would not exist without it, and
is subject to it. Those who hold this view seem to fall into
two groups; those that derive everything from one single

principle and those that do not. We shall study their views
later. But we will begin with the views that we mentioned
first.
3. To derive everything
from physical causes, whether
atoms or elements, and to assume that their unregulated
motion will create order, reason, and the motive power of
the soul, is absurd and impossible. To deduce everything
from atoms is, if one may so speak, even more impossible
than to deduce it from elements. Many valid objections have

indeed been raised against this theory. To begin with, even
if we admit such principles, their existence does not in any
way inevitably imply either necessity or fate. Let us then

grant the existence of atoms. In this case, some will move
downwards (if there be a down in the universe) others, ;
sideways wherever chance will carry them. As these atoms

are not subject to any priciple of order there will be no
orderly movement. (Only what is born from them will be

determinate.) It will therefore be impossible to predict or
prophesy events, whether by science (how could there be any

science with regard to things that follow no pattern?) or by
divination and inspiration; for prediction implies that the
future is determined. True, bodies will necessarily obey the
impulses that govern the atoms. But how could one explain
the operations and experiences of the soul by movements of
atoms? Which push, moving the soul either downward or
in any other direction, could produce in the soul any par-
ticular act of reasoning or any particular desire? Or which
could produce reasoning, desire, thought in general, whether
due to necessity or not? What explanation could this theory
give of the soul's resistance to the passions of the body? By
what concourse of atoms will one man of necessity become
a geometrician, or study arithmetic and astronomy, or be-
come a philosopher? In general, this theory denies us our
proper function, our very character as living beings, since

it makes us undergo the impulsion of bodies that push us
around just as if we were inanimate things. The same ob-
jections apply to those also who explain everything in terms
of other physical causes. Physical causes might indeed be
able to explain such processes as those that warm and cool
us, or those that make the weaker part of us decay; but they
cannot explain any of the operations of the soul. These
require an entirely different principle of explanation.
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM 63
Docs it then hold that a single soul pervades the uni-
4.
verse and produces everything whereby each part is moved
in accordance with the whole ? Is there then a chain of causes
which derives from this primary cause in continuity and
interdependence a chain which these philosophers call
fate? This view is analogous to one which would define the
"fate" of a plant in terms of a system of causes and effects
that is unified by a principle which, starting from the root,
pervades all parts. But to this view we must first object that
the extreme way in which it conceives of necessity and Fate
destroys these very notions of fate and of the chain and

concatenation of causes. Thus it would be unreasonable to
speak of fate in connection with the governing principle that

issaid to move our limbs, if the part which imparts motion
is not different from the part which receives and utilizes
it. Likewise, if in the universe there exists but a single
principle that constitutes all causes and effects, if things do
not derive from a series of causes that are different from
one another, it will not be correct to say that things arise
from causes; for the totality of things will constitute a
single being. In that case we would no longer possess any

individuality, nor could an action be called "ours." It would
no longer be we who reason, but our deliberations would be
the reasonings of another being. Our actions would not be
ours, just as it is not our feet that walk but it is we who
walk by the agency of our feet. Nevertheless, every person
lives, acts, and thinks as and by himself, his good and evil
actions stem from himself, and his evil actions must not be
charged to the universe.
5. But perhaps this is not the

way things happen. Perhaps,
instead, their career depends upon the all-governing move-
ment of the heaven, on the course of the stars and their
positions with regard to one another at the time of their

rising and and their conjunction. These
setting, their zenith
phenomena serve as signs for prognostications of what is to
happen, not only in the universe but also to each individual

(with regard to both his fortunes and his thoughts). It is
said that animals and plants are seen to wax and wane and
otherwise to be affected according to the bond of sympathy
that ties them to the stars, that the various regions of the
earth derive their differences from their respective positions
with regard to the universe and especially the sun, and that
from the various characters of these regions derive not only
the natures of plants and animals, but also the shapes, sizes,
colors, emotions, desires, occupations, and customs of men.
The course of the stars therefore is said to be the supreme
cause of everything.
To this view we object that it too in its way attributes to
the stars that ours, namely, will, emotion, vice, and
which is
desire. It allows to men no role other than to be passively

thrown like stones, instead of treating their actions as aris-
ing from themselves and in accordance with their own
nature. But we should not be denied our individuality, even
when it is recognized that our individualities are subject
to the influences which come from the universe. One should
distinguish then those acts which are due to us from those
in which we are subject to necessity. One should not deduce
everything from the stars. The differences of place and

climate exert, indeed, an influence over us, creating, for
instance, coldness or warmth in the mixture which consti-
tutes us. Heredity also should be considered; for children
usually resemble their parents in their features and in cer-

But people may resemble
tain irrational affections of the soul.
each other in their features because they are born in the
same place, and still differ in habits and thoughts, because
these things depend on an entirely different cause. We can
well adduce here the resistance which the soul offers to
the body's temperaments and to the appetites. To claim that
the stars are the causes of everything, because one can
predict what is to happen from an inspection of their posi-
tions, would be just as reasonable as to assert that the birds

and the other signs which the augurs consult produce the
events of which they are the signs.
This leads us to consider more in detail the kind of pre-
dictions that are based on an inspection of the positions oc-
cupied by the stars at the time of the birth of a man. It is

asserted that the various constellations not only indicate a
man's future, but also produce it. But if some person's horo-
scope indicates birth from noble parents on the mother's or
the father's side, how can this nobility of birth be attributed
to the stars? For this nobility existed already in the parent
before the constellation arose on which the horoscope is
based. Sometimes the notion is held that one can discover
the parents' fortune from the horoscope of their children,
and from the horoscope of the parents the disposition and
fate of the unborn offspring. Some people seek to predict
from a child's horoscope, a brother's death, or, from a
woman's horoscope, the fortunes of her husband, and con-
versely. But how can one's own constellation be the cause
of what has been a consequence of the parental constella-
tion ? For the cause lies either in these antecedent constella-
tions or, if not, then certainly not in the present ones. The
resemblance which children bear to their parents shows,
however, that beauty and ugliness derive, not from the move-
ments of the stars, but from the parents. Moreover, since at
any one moment there are born more than one human being
and all kinds of animals, they ought, as they are born under
the same constellation, all to have the same nature. For how
can the stars in the same position simultaneously produce
the different sorts of men and other beings?
6. Each being comes into existence in accordance with its
nature. One being is a horse because it is born from a horse,

another ishuman, because born from a human being. Each
being is what it is because born from such and such a
being. No doubt, the course of the stars is an influence. It is
on the bodies that the stars act, by physical means, imparting
to them and the ensuing variety of bodily tempera-
heat, cold,
ments. But how
could they determine a man's habits and
occupations, particularly those which do not seem to depend
on the bodily temperaments, such as the occupations of
grammarian, geometrician, gambler, or inventor?
Moreover, nobody would admit that perversity could come
from beings who are divinities, and the stars are divinities.
How could one believe that they are the authors of the evils
charged to them and themselves become evil because they
set or pass under the earth? The stars can not possibly be
affected by the fact that, from our point of view, they seem
to set; for they continue to travel on the heavenly spheres
and remain in the same relation to the earth. Besides, it must
not be said that, because a star is in such and such a position
in respect to another star, it becomes better or worse, and
that it affects us with goodness when it is in a good state
and with evil when in a contrary one. It must rather be said
that by their movement the stars make their particular con-
tributions towards the maintenance of the universe, and that
they have moreover an additional function. They serve as

letters for those who are skilled in deciphering this kind of
writing and who, by the observation of the configurations

formed by the stars, read in them future events. These skilled
persons may investigate the meaning of constellations me-
thodically by the use of analogy (as others might say, for
instance, that a bird flying high signifies high deeds).
There remains to be considered the view which asserts

7.
the concatenation and interrelation of all things, and the
derivation of everything from an originating principle
through seminal reasons. This doctrine is similar to that

which deduces from the activity of the world soul the con-
and movements of the individuals and the universe;
stitution
but intends to grant us some freedom and independence.
it
This doctrine nevertheless implicitly subjects everything to

a thoroughgoing necessity; for it implies that, from the
whole series of causes, each particular event must come about
with necessity. If all causes are included in fate, there is noth-
ing which could prevent the occurrence of a certain event or
could alter it. If everything obeys the impulsion of a single
is left to us but to obey its pushes. Our
principle, nothing
imagination would be determined by previous causes and
would in turn determine our will. Our liberty would then
become a mere word. Neither could we be called free, even
though it is we who
experience the desire; for our desires
would themselves be determined by anterior causes. We
would have no more liberty than animals or babies, who
follow blind impulse, or than the insane, who obey their
impulses too, or than, by Zeus, even fire and all things whose
activities are determined by their construction. These asser-
tions are evident and will be granted by all. It is necessary

therefore to seek causes beyond the impulses just discussed.
What other cause, besides the preceding, will we have

8.
to adduce which will permit us to let nothing occur without

a cause, to maintain the sequence and order of things, to
grant individual freedom, and to preserve the possibility of

predictions and prophesies? We
shall have to introduce
among the number

of beings another principle, the soul, and
not only the world soul, but also the individual soul. The
soul is a principle of no little importance. She is the force
that binds all things together. Unlike the other things she
is not born of some seed, but is a primary cause. When she
is outside the body, she remains absolute mistress of her-
self, free and independent even of the cause which adminis-
ters the world. As soon as she has descended into a body, she
is no longer fully independent, for she then forms part of
an order with other things. She yields in part to the influence
of the accidental circumstances into which she fell, but also
dominates and directs them in accordance with her wishes.
This power of domination depends on the degree of her ex-
cellence. When she yields to temperaments of the body, she
isnecessarily subjected to desire or anger, is discouraged in
poverty, is proud in prosperity, and is tyrannical in the
exercise of power.But when she resists all these evil tenden-
ciesand her nature is a good one, she changes her surround-
ings more than she is changed by them. Then she alters some
things, while she tolerates others without herself falling into
vice.
Necessity, therefore, is of two sorts; the one is a product

9.
of choice, the other of chance. From the totality of causes
(including among the external causes the influence exercised
by the course of the stars) all things are determined. When

the soul, under the influence of external things, acts on a
blind impulse, we should not consider her action and dis-
position to be free. The soul is not free when by her own

doing she does not follow the right impulses, namely, those
that enable her to retain control. But when she follows the
guide she possesses in herself, pure reason unaffected by
the passions, then she can be called free and independent.
Then the act she performs is really her own and not the
consequence of something outside. It derives from within

the soul, from the soul as such, from a primary sovereign,
and controlling principle. Such an act is not a blind one due
to ignorance. It is not subjected to the power of appetites;
for when the appetites invade the soul, they subdue her, they
drag her with them by their violence and make us passive

rather than active in what we do.
10. The conclusion of our discussion is that all things are
indicated by signs and that all things are produced by

causes. But there are two kinds of causes, the human soul
and external circumstances. When the soul acts comformably
to right reason, she acts freely. Otherwise she passive rather
is
than active. Hence, whenever she lacks wisdom, external

circumstances are the causes of her actions. One then has
good reason to say that she obeys fate, especially if fate is
considered an external cause. But our best actions are de-
rived from ourselves. When we are free from encumbrances
it is natural for us to produce good actions. Good men have
it in their power to produce good actions. Others, when they
are allowed to catch their breath, perform good actions too;
and they receive their insight, not from some other source,
but from within themselves, as soon as the obstacles to such
insight are removed.
AGAINST THE GNOSTICS OR AGAINST THOSE WHO SAY THAT

THE MAKER OF THE WORLD AND THE WORLD ARE EVIL
(Ennead II ix)
i. We have already seen that the nature of the Good is
simple and primary, for nothing that is not primary can be

simple. We have also demonstrated that the Good contains

nothing, but something unitary and is identical with what
is
is called the One. For the One is not something to which

unity is added any more than the Good is something to
which goodness is added. Consequently when we speak of
the One and the Good, these two words express but one and
the same nature. They attribute no predicates to it but repre-
sent it to us as far as is possible. This nature is called the
First because it is
very simple. It is considered self-sufficient
it were, it would
because it is not composite; if depend on
the things of which it was composed. Neither is it part of
another thing; for all that is in another thing depends on
this thing. Ifthen this nature is not in anything else nor

derived from anything else, and if it contains nothing com-
posite, it must not have anything above it. Consequently

it is not necessary to seek further principles. The first rank
will have to be assigned to the One, the second to Intelli-
gence, the first thinking principle, and the third to the soul.
Such indeed is the natural order and we must not admit
either more or fewer principles in the intelligible world. If
fewer are claimed, it is because of an identification of soul
and Intelligence, or Intelligence and the First. But we have
often pointed out their respective differences. The only thing
examine if there might not be more than these three
left is to
principles. But what kind of realities could there still be

beside them?
There can be no reality simpler or higher than the orig-
inating principle of all things such as we have described
it. One would be wrong potential and
in separating
it into a
an actual existence; for would be ridiculous, merely in

it
order to increase the number of realities, to seek to apply

that distinction of actuality and potentiality to principles
that are immaterial and are actualities. Neither can we,
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM JI
below the supreme principle, distinguish two intelligences,
one at rest, and the other in motion. What would we mean
by the resting and what by the movement or utterance of
Intelligence? For Intelligence remains always identical with
itself and is its immobile activity. Move-
characterized by
ment towards Intelligence and around it is the proper func-
tion of the soul. Reason, descending from Intelligence into
the soul, intellectualizes her the soul not some nature
which is distinct from her and Intelligence and is inter-
mediate between them.
Nor should we admit the existence of several intelligences,
merely because we distinguish knowing from awareness of
knowing. Even if there is a difference between knowing and
knowing that one knows, these two nevertheless constitute,
in the realm of Intelligence, a single act immediately aware
of its own activity. It would be ridiculous to divide that
which is genuinely Intelligence. It is therefore the same In-
telligence that knows and that knows that it knows. Other-
wise there would be two principles of which the one would
have thought and the other awareness of thought; but neither
would itself be the real thinking principle. A mere logical
distinctionbetween thought and consciousness of thought
would not mean a multiplication of realities. But we shall
have to consider whether it is possible to admit, even by
logical separation, an Intelligence that only thinks without
an accompanying consciousness of its thought. Such a sep-
aration would be a sign of lack of thought; for even we pay
attention, even when we are only moderately reflective, to
our impulses and reasonings. But true Intelligence thinks
itself in its thoughts; and the intelligible, far from being
outside of Intelligence, is identical with it. Therefore, In-
telligence, by thinking, necessarily possesses and sees itself.

When Intelligence sees itself, it does not see itself as not
thinking, but as thinking. Therefore in the highest form of

thought, Intelligence contains also consciousness of thought.
These two things form but a single one and are, in the in-
telligible world, not even logically two. If Intelligence always
thinks that which it is, is there any reason to separate, even
by a simple logical distinction, thought and the conscious-

ness of thought? The absurdity of the doctrine we are con-
troverting will be still more evident if we suppose that a

third intelligence is conscious that the second intelligence is
conscious of the thought of the first. We might thus go on to
infinity. Finally, we suppose that reason is derived from
if
Intelligence, and then from reason derive another reason,

which is in the soul, so as to constitute a principle inter-
mediate between Intelligence and soul, the soul would be
deprived of real intelligence. For instead of receiving reason
from Intelligence, she would receive reason from an inter-
mediate principle. Instead of possessing reason itself, the soul
would possess only an image of reason. The soul would not
have knowledge of Intelligence and would not be able to
think in the real sense of the word.
2. In the intelligible world therefore we shall not recog-

nize more than three principles, and shall reject any further
entities as fictitious. We
shall insist that there is a single
Intelligence that is immutable, does not swerve, and imitates

its father as much as it can. Then there is our soul of which
one part always remains among the things above, while

another part descends to sense objects, and another abides
in an intermediate region. As our soul, though one nature,
is characterized by several powers, she may at times in her
entirety rise to the level of her best part and thus to the
level of Being. At other times the soul's lower part allows
itself to be dragged down and carries with it the intermediate
portion. But the soul cannot be entirely dragged down.

She undergoes these experiences because she does not abide
in the region of the highest Beauty in which dwells that soul
which is not a part and of which we are not a part and
which gives to the body of the universe all that it is capable
of receiving. This soul governs while remaining at rest,
without need of reasoning, without having to correct any-
thing. With wonderful power she administers the universe
by the contemplation of the intelligible world. The more
the soul attaches herself to contemplation, the more power-
ful and beautiful she is. What she receives from above she
communicates to the sense world. She illuminates the sense
world as she herself is always illuminated from above.
3. Thus the soul,

which is herself always illuminated, in
turn illuminates the lower things that exist only through her
light and so participate in life, each according to its capacity.
In a similar way a fire heats the objects that surround it, each
in proportion to its nature. If such is the effect of fire whose
power is limited, how would it be possible for those beings
whose powers are unlimited to exist without causing the
things around them to participate in their nature? Each of
them must therefore communicate some degree of its per-
fection to other beings. The Good would no longer be the
good, Intelligence would no longer be intelligence, the soul

would no longer be soul, if, beneath that which possesses the
first degree of life, there was not some other thing which
possessed the second degree of life and which existed as long

as that which occupies the first rank exists. It is therefore
necessary that all things always exist in hierarchical depend-

ence. The things that are begotten derive their existence
from a source other than themselves. They were not just be-
gotten at a definite moment. But they always were and will
be begotten. Nor will they be dissolved, except into the
elements of which they are composed. That which is indis-
soluble will not perish. It may be asked why, as these objects
can be resolved irto matter, matter also should not be liable
to dissolution? But if matter also were liable to destruction,
why was its existence necessary in the first place? But if it
is said that the existence of matter necessarily results from

the existence of other principles, then this necessity still
Further, if matter is considered as isolated from the
exists.
intelligible world, then the divine principles, instead of being

it were, be walled
present everywhere, will, as up in a limited
place. But if this is
impossible, matter must be illuminated
by the intelligible world.
4. They produced the things beneath her

will say the soul
because she had lost The universal soul, however,
her wings.
could not have been subject to such a loss. Those who claim
that she produced the things below her because of a fall
should explain the nature of that fall. When did this fall
occur? If she fell from all eternity, she must always remain
in that state. If she fell at a determinate time, why not
earlier? We however believe that the soul produced the
world, not in inclining downward, but rather in not doing

so. Toincline downward would obviously have meant to
forget the intelligible world. But if she had forgotten it, she
could not have fashioned the world. From what other
models can the soul make the world than from those she
has seen there? If she remembered them while creating, she
had not at all inclined downward. She did not have an
obscure vision of the intelligibles but she rather inclined
upward to get a clear vision of the intelligible. As long as
she kept some memory of the intelligible world, why would
she not have wished to reascend to it? Besides, what ad-
vantage could she have imagined she was gaining by creat-
ing the world? That she did so in order to be honored is a
ridiculous assertion which means to conceive of her as
analogous to a human sculptor. If she created the world by

way of deliberation, if the actand power of creation did not
inhere in her nature, how could she have produced this
world? Moreover, when will she then destroy it? If she
repents of her creation, what is she waiting for ? If, however,
she has not yet repented, she will not repent; for time and
habit have accustomed her to her work and made her more
kindly disposed towards it. If however she is waiting for the

return of the individual souls, the latter should no longer
enter into generation, since in their former careers they
have already experienced the evils here below and hence
should have ceased to descend down here.
Nor should the world be considered badly made merely
because there are so many unpleasant things in it. This
idea resultsfrom entertaining unjustifiable expectations of
itsperfections and from confusing it with the intelligible
world, while it is only an image of it. Could a more beautiful
image indeed be imagined ? After the celestial fire, could
we imagine a better fire than our own ?
After the intelligible
earth, could we imagine a better earth than ours? After the
self-sufficient plenitude of the intelligible world, could we
imagine a sphere more perfect or better ordered in its move-

ments ? After the intelligible sun, how could we imagine any
sun superior to the one we see?
5. There are peoplewho, like other men, have a body,

desires, pains and wraths, and who still hold a high enough
idea of their own powers to believe themselves capable of
attaining the intelligible. Yet these very people absurdly

enough deny that the sun possesses a power less subject to
passions and more ordered and immutable than themselves.

They deny absurdly enough that the sun has a wisdom
superior to that which we have who were born only yester-
day and who find so many obstacles in our search after truth.
We certainly are surprised to find them asserting that the
souls of both themselves and of the vilest men are immortal
and divine, while they at the same time refuse immortality
to the entire heaven and all the stars. Yet the heaven and
composed of elements more beautiful and pure

the stars are
and manifest a marvelous harmony and order, while they
themselves complain much about disorder here below. This
is as if the immortal soul would pick out the worse part of
the world for herself, while giving up the better part to
mortal souls.
It is also absurd to see them introduce into the world this
other soul which they say is composed of elements. How

could a composite of elements possess life? mixture of A
elements does produce heat or cold, humidity or dryness, or
any combination thereof. But how could this soul hold the
four elements together if she herself were composed of them
and therefore posterior to them ? What shallone say when
they ascribe in addition perception, will, and many other
things to this soul?
Besides, as they have no appreciation of this creation, or
of this earth, they insist that a new earth has been created
for them which is destined to receive them when they shall
have left here below and which is the reason-exemplar of
the world. But why do they care to inhabit the model of a
world that they hate? Further, whence does this model
come? According to them this model was created only when
its author inclined towards the things here below. But what
was the use of a further model, if its creator was concerned

with creating a world already inferior to the intelligible
world which he already possessed? If the model was created
before the world, what could have been its use? Was it to
serve as a reminder to the souls? Why then did the souls
not heed this warning? As
they did not, the creation of the
model, on this hypothesis, was useless. If the model, however,
was created after this world, and its author derived it from
this world by abstracting the form from matter, the experi-
ence of this world should already have constituted a suffi-
cientwarning to the souls. Lastly, if they only mean that

model of the universe that is found in the souls, what is new
about their assertion ?
6. We
hardly know what to say of the other new things
they have introduced into the universe, such as their exiles,
imprints, and repentances. If they mean certain affections of
the soul, when she yields to repentance, or certain images of
the intelligible beings that the soul contemplates instead
of the intelligible beings themselves, they are using mean-
ingless words invented merely for the sake of having a sect

of their own. They imagine such fictions because they have
failed to understand the ancient wisdom of the Greeks. The
Greeks had and spoke with-
clear ideas about these matters
out turgidity of the ascent from the cave which gradually
leads to a truer contemplation. In general, their doctrines
are partly taken from Plato, while the remainder, which
were invented merely to form a new system of their own,
are contrary to truth. It is from Plato that they borrowed
their tribunals, the rivers of Hades, and the transmigrations.
They speak of several intelligible principles, Being, Intel-

ligence, a second demiruge, and the soul. But all that comes
from Plato's Timaeus where he says: "As the Ideas contained
in the truly real Animal were seen by Intelligence, so many
the maker of the world thought should be contained in this
world." But not clearly understanding Plato, they here im-
agine an intelligence at rest which contains all beings, a

second intelligence that contemplates them, and a third
intelligence that thinks discursively (they often replace this
discursive intelligence with the creating soul), and they be-
lieve this to be Plato's demiurgic creator, being themselves
ignorant of the true nature of this demiurgic creator. They

falsely ascribe to him a certain doctrine of creation as well as
many other doctrines and make them out to be of inferior
value. They imagine that they alone have rightly conceived
of intelligible nature, while Plato and many other blessed
men have not. By introducing a large number of intelligible
principles, they think that they seem to possess an exact
knowledge of them, while really they degrade them, assim-
ilating them to lower and sensuous beings by increasing
their number. They ought to reduce the principles that exist
in the realm above to the smallest number possible, and to
eliminate duplications. To do this, they must ascribe to the
principle below the First the totality of beings; for this level
contains all beings and is the
supreme Intelligence, Being,
and all else that is beautiful beneath the First. They must
assign the soul to the third rank. The differences obtaining

between souls they must explain by the differences of their
experiences or natures. Instead of besmirching the reputa-
tion of divine men, they should receive their doctrines in
recognition of their age in a friendly way, taking from them

what they rightly assert, such as the immortality of the soul,
the existence of the intelligible world, the first divinity, the
necessity for the soul to flee from intercourse with the body,
and the separation of the soul from the body, the flight from
generation to Being. They do well to borrow these ideas
from Plato if they understand them clearly. They are even
at liberty to express diverging views. But they should not
seek to establish their own doctrines in the minds of their
followers by affronting and insulting the Greeks. They
should demonstrate the correctness of their own tenets
whenever they differ from those of the ancient philosophers,
should expound their tenets in a philosophical manner and
with good will, and should be just even when they con-
trovert an opposing view. They should seek nothing but the
truth, without any attempt at self-glorification by attacking
men whose teachings have long since been approved by
not unworthy men. They should do so without claiming
superiority to the latter. For that which the ancients taught

on the subject of the intelligible world will always be con-
sidered as the best and wisest by all who do not permit
themselves to be misled by the errors that today mislead so
many. If from their doctrines we remove what they have
borrowed from the teachings of the ancients, the remaining
additions will be seen to be very inappropriate. In order to
contradict the ancients they introduce a great number of
births and destructions, complain of this universe, blame the
soul for its association with the body, criticize the administra-
tion of the universe, identify the demiurgic creator with the
universal soul and attribute to her the same affections as to
the particular souls.
7. That this world never began and will never end, and
it must last as
that long as the world above, has been said
already. That the soul's intercourse with the body is not
advantageous to the soul has been asserted even before them.

But to judge the universal soul according to ours is akin
to condemning the whole of a well governed city after an
examination limited to its workers in earth or matter. The
differencesbetween the universal soul and our souls are very

important. The universal soul does not govern the world in
the same manner in which our soul governs the body; fc
she governs the world without being bound to it. In additio

to the many points of difference elsewhere noted, it shoul
be realized that we are chained to a body that has becom
a fetter. The body which is chained to the universal soul itse
enchains all that it embraces. But the universal soul herse.

is not bound by the things she binds. She rules them an
therefore cannot be affected by them, while we ourselvc
do not That part of the universal soul whic
rule our bodies.
rises world remains pure and independen
to the divine
That part which communicates life to the body receive
nothing from the body. In general, that which is affected b
another being necessarily receives something of the characte
of that being, but does not in turn give to that which ha
its own individual life something of its own. That is wh)
when one grafts something on a plant, the graft participate

in the life of the plant; but if the graft itself should withei
it would leave the life of the plant untouched. Likewise
if fire within yourself is extinguished, the universal fir

the
is not extinguished thereby. Even if all fire were extir
guished, not the soul above, but only the body of the worL
would be affected by it; for the soul would not be concerns
as long as a world composed of the remaining elements i
possible. The world

does not have a constitution similar t
that of each of the particular organisms. On the world a
a whole the universal soul which is above the world impose
a sort of permanence; but the constituent parts of the worl
which, as it were, are in flux, are maintained in their plac
by a second bond. The world as a whole has no place int<
which it might flee. There is no need of containing i
within nor of pressing it from without to force it bad

within. It remains in the place where the soul wished to pu
it from the beginning. Those things which are moved in
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM 8l
natural motion dominate those which are not. They carry

out well ordered motions because they conform to the
whole. But other things perish because they cannot conform
to the universal order. This might be illustrated by the fate
of a tortoise which happened to be caught in the midst of
a choric ballet that was dancing in perfect order. The tortoise
would be trampled down because it could not escape the
effects of the order that regulates the feet of the dancers.
If, on the contrary, it conformed to that order, it would
suffer no harm.
8. To ask why the world was created, is the same as to ask
why there is a soul, and why the demiurge creates. To ask

such questions is characteristic of men who first assume a
beginning of that which is eternal and who then believe that
the demiurge became the creating force only as a result
of a change or alteration. If they are at all willing to listen
to us fairly, we shall have to teach them the nature of these
principles. Thus we may end their habit of so easily slander-
ing these venerable beings instead of speaking of them with

the proper caution. No
one has the right to find fault with
the constitution of the world for it reveals the
greatness of
intelligible nature. must We
recognize that the world is
the visible and beautiful image of the intelligible divinities
from the fact that the world achieves existence in a life that
is not disorganized, as is that of the smaller organisms it
contains which the productiveness of universal life never
ceases to bring forth by day or by night. On the contrary,
its life is continuous, perspicuous, manifold; it extends every-
where, and exhibits a marvelous wisdom. It is no more than
natural that the world does not equal the model it imitates
or it would no longer be an imitation. It is an error, how-
ever, to think that the world imitates its model badly. It
lacks none of the things that characterize a beautiful and
natural image. by necessity, not by reasoning or delibera-
It is
tion, that this image exists. For Intelligence could not be

the lowest level of reality. It had to develop a double activity,
one within itself and another directed towards other beings.

It necessarily had to produce beings after it; for only the
most impotent being fails to produce something. Intelli-
gence possesses a wonderful power and hence could not help
creating.
What would be the nature of a world better than the
present one if The present one is already

such were possible ?
a faithfulimage of the intelligible world. It exists necessarily
and there is no better world. The whole earth is peopled
with all sorts of animals and even immortal beings. From
here below up to the heaven, the world is full of them. Why
should the stars in the highest region and those in the lower
spheres not be divinities, in view of their regular motion
and their orderly circular paths? Why should they not
possess virtue? What obstacle could hinder them from ac-
quiring it? Up there are not found the things which here
below make for evil beings or the evil nature of the body
which both is itself troubled and causes troubles. With their
perpetual leisure, why should they not possess intelligence
and thus grasp the supreme divinity and all the other in-
telligible deities? Why, however, should we possess a wis-

dom greater than theirs? Only a foolish man would enter-
tain such thoughts. How could our souls be superior when
at the hand of the universal soul they undergo the constraint
of descending here below? For the soul that commands is

the better one. If, on the contrary, it is assumed that souls
descend here below voluntarily, how can one find fault with
a world whither one came voluntarily and from which one
can depart if it does not suit oneself? That this universe is
attached to the things above
is
proved by the fact that this
world such that during this life we are able to acquire
is
wisdom and live in accordance with the beings above.
9. No one would complain of poverty and the unequal dis-

tribution of wealth if he realized that the sage does not seek
equality in such things because he does not think that the rich
man possesses any more than the poor man, the political ruler
more than the subjects. The sage leaves such pursuits to
other people; for he knows that there are two kinds of lives
here, that of the sage and that of the multitude. The sage
aims for the supreme good and the things above. The life
of ordinary men is of two kinds, that of those who do not
forget virtue and participate somewhat in the good, and

that of the common crowd whose function is like servants
to satisfy the necessary wants of the more virtuous. There
is no reason to be surprised if men commit murder or,
through weakness, yield to their passions; for such acts are

due, not to intelligence, but to souls that are like immature
children. If this life is like a struggle in which one is either
victor or vanquished, is not this also a proof of good ar-
rangement? If you are wronged, what harm does it do to

your immortal part? If you are killed, you achieve the fate
that you desired. If you complain of your world, you are
not forced to retain citizenship. Besides, even here below,
there evidently are rewards and punishments. Why then
complain of a society where distributive justice is exercised,

where virtue is honored, and where vice meets its deserved
punishment? Not only are there here below statues of the
divinities; but the divinities themselves, who are, as is said,
beyond reproach, look on us and direct everything in an

orderly manner from beginning to end, apportioning to
everyone the fate that is
appropriate for him and consistent
with his career in his previous lives. This is unknown only
to persons who most vulgarly ignorant of divine things.
are
One must try to become as good as one can. But one must
not on that account imagine that one alone is capable of be-
coming good; for then one is not yet as good as possible.

One must know that other men are perfect too, that the
demons and even more the deities (who, while inhabiting
this world, contemplate the world above) and, further still,
the blissful soul that manages the universe are among the
good. Above them one must honor the intelligible divinities
and, above all, the great King of the beings in the world
above whose greatness is especially manifested in the very
multitude of the divinities. It is not by reducing the divine
to unity, but by setting forth the manifoldness exhibited by
the divine that one manifests one's knowledge of the power
of the divinity which, though remaining what it is, produces
many which
divinities depend on it, proceed from and exist
it. In the same this world derives existence from it
by way
and contemplates it along with all the celestial divinities
which reveal to men the things beyond and act as an oracle
of what is cherished in the world above. If these divinities
are not what the supreme divinity is, this is in accordance
with the nature of things. But if you wish to scorn these
divinities and hold yourself in high esteem as being not
inferior to them, learn first that the better a man is the
more he well disposed to all beings and men. In the
is
second place, learn that one's self-esteem should be subject

to an adequate evaluation, be free from insolence, and take
into account the bounds of human possibilities. One must not
is no
believe that there place by the side of the divinity for
these other beings, but only for oneself. Such a belief is
like a flight in a dream; it results in depriving one of the
possibility, to the extent to which the human soul is

capable
f it, of becoming divine. The soul is capable of becoming
ivine to the degree to which she is guided by Intelligence,
lut to be beyond Intelligence means to fall outside of it.
liere are people unintelligent enough to believe without

^flection claims such as the following: "You will be better
lan everybody, men as well as deities." These people are
pollen with presumptuousness and even those who before
'ere humble, moderate, and without station become con-
*ited on hearing: "You are god's child; the others that you
sed to honor are not his children, not even the stars whose
orship had been handed down by tradition. You yourself,

r
'ithout a special effort, are better than the starry heaven

self." To this the people around shout their approval. A
erson of this kind resembles a man who, though not know-
tg how to count, should in the midst of a crowd of men
qually ignorant with himself hear it said and believe that
e was a thousand feet tall, while the others were only five
:et tall. He would not realize what was meant by a thou-

ind feet, but he would suppose it to be some very great
umber.
The people we are discussing say further that the divinity
certs a special providence on their behalf. then could How
ie divinity neglect the world that contains them? If this
ere due to the divinity's having no leisure or no right

look at the world, how would it not transgress its own
i
alm and look at the universe when it directs its glance

Dwnward to them who after all are found in this universe?
the divinity does not direct its look beyond itself but
mains unconcerned with the universe, it will not be con-
:rned with these men either.
There the objection that men have no need that the
is
vinity should care for the world. But the world does need
ie care of the divinity. The divinity knows the place of the
world in the order of things and the way in which the
inhabitants of the world are part of this world and the way
in which they are part of the world above. Those that are
beloved by god know this too. They accept with equanimity
allthose events that result by necessity from the course of
the universe. For one should have regard, not for what is
agreeable to the individual, but for the whole. In honoring

everyone according to his merit and directing oneself to-
wards the goal to which beings aspire according to their

all
ability (many are those that have this aspiration; those that
realize are blessed, the other attain their proper share in
it
proportion to their capacity), one will not ascribe to oneself

alone this power of achieving the goal. Mere assertion of
possession is not the same as real possession. There are many
men who, though conscious that they do not have such a
possession, nevertheless boast of having it, or who believe
they have it when the opposite is true, or that they ex-

clusively possess it when they are not the only ones to
it.
possess
10. On examining all the assertions of our opponents, we

would find copious material to correct their doctrines one
by one. But we are restrained, out of consideration for some

of our friends who had come across their doctrines before
becoming friends of ours and who, I do not know how, still
persevere in their doctrines. Our opponents, however, have

no such inhibitions; they either try to give to their doctrine
the appearance of trustworthiness and truth or believe that
things really are as they say they are. But we are here ad-
dressing our friends, not them; for them it would be vain
for us to try to persuade. We
ask our friends not to let them-
selves be confused by men who furnish no proof how
could they indeed ? but who only impose on others by their
>ldness. We would have followed a different procedure
id we wanted to write a refutation of these men who are
ipudent enough to slander the teachings of those divine
en of old who spoke well and in accordance with truth.
r
e shall not, however, embark on this examination. For
tioever well understands what we have already said will
Dm that be able to judge of the remainder.
But before we dismiss this argument we must discuss one
dnt which tops others in absurdity if absurdity is still
all
e right word. They say that the soul and a certain Wisdom
dined downward towards things here below, either because

e soul first inclined downward, or because she was led
Wisdom, or because in their view, soul and Wisdom are
entical. The other souls, they say, then descended here
low too and, as the members of Wisdom, entered into
dies such as those of men. Nevertheless, that soul on ac-
unt of which the other souls descended here below, they
y, did not herself descend
and did not incline downward,
it
only illuminated the darkness. From this illumination
is born in matter an image. After that, they assume, an
lage of the image was formed by means of matter or
ateriality (or whatever name they wish to give to it; for
ey differentiate the two and they make use of many other

mes to increase the obscurity of their utterances). Thus
ey derive their demiurgic creator. They also suppose that
is
demiurgic creator separated himself from his mother;
d from him they deduced the whole world to the last image
the image. The perpetration of such assertions amounts
a bitter sarcasm concerning the power that created the
3rld.
ii. To begin with, if the soul did not descend, if she

nited herself to illuminating the darkness, by what right
could it be asserted that the soul inclined downward? If
indeed something like life issued from the soul, this does
not justify one in speaking of an inclination of the soul,
unless we admit the existence of something beneath her that
she approached by a local movement and illuminated on
arriving by it. If, on the contrary, the soul gave forth this
illumination while remaining within herself, without doing
anything to promote that illumination, why is the soul alone

the source of the illumination and not the other more pow-
erful existences in the realm of Being? Further, if this radia-
tion occurred when the soul conceived the notion of the

universe and, indeed, by virtue of this conception, why did
her radiation not create the world at the same time, instead
of waiting for the generation of "images"? Moreover, why
did this notion of the world which they call the "foreign
earth" and which was produced by the superior powers, as
they say, not move its authors to a downward inclination?
Further, why does this illuminated matter produce psychic
images and not bodies? An image of the soul can have no
use for darkness or matter; but after it has come into ex-
istence, if indeed it comes into existence, it follows that

which made it and is bound to it. Further, what is this
image? Is it a real entity, or is it, as they say, a conception?
(i) If it is a real entity what difference is there between it
and its source? If it is some kind of a soul, it must be a

soul of growth and generation, if its source is a rational soul.
If so, how could she be said to have created for the purpose
of being honored or because of presumption and audacity?
Still less would we have the right to say that this creation
was due to imagination or rational conception. Besides, what

necessity was there to introduce a creator formed of matter
and of an image? (2) If it is a conception, it would be
necessary to explain the origin of this term. Then, unless
a creative force is predicated of a conception, it would be
necessary to show how it exists. But apart from the fact that
this term is a fiction, how is creation to be explained ? They
was produced first and that afterwards;
say at will that this
but they permit themselves to assert it without any proof.
For instance, how can it be said that fire was produced first?
12. How could this newly formed image have undertaken
to create by remembering the things it knew? As it did not

exist before, it could not have known anything, nor could
the mother which is ascribed to
it is
quite sur- it. Besides,
prising that, though the people here discussed descended
into this world, not as images of souls, but as veritable,
genuine souls, hardly one or two of them succeed in detach-

ing themselves from the sense world and, by gathering
together their memories, succeed in remembering things
they previously knew, but that this material image which
was just born as well as its mother, which is a materialimage
too, are capable of conceiving intelligible entities (though in
a feeble manner, as they say). It not only does conceive in-
telligible things and forms an idea of the sense world from
the intelligible world, but it also learns what elements con-
stitute the sense world. Why did it first create fire? Why
did it believe that fire must come first? Why not some other
element? If it was able to produce fire because it had the
conception of it, why as it had the conception of the world
(the whole must be conceived before the parts), did it not
create the whole at one single stroke? Its conception of the
world embraced the whole and the parts. Its creation would
have to have been more like that of nature, not like that of
the arts. For all the arts are posterior to nature and to the
creation of the world. Even now we do not see that in things
produced through natural processes fire is produced first,

pO THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
then the other elements successively, and finally their mix-
ture. On the contrary, the outline and organization of the
entire organism are formed already in the germ born at the
monthly periods in the animal. Why then, in creation,
should there not have been imprinted in matter a plan of the
world that also contained fire, earth, and so forth? The
people here discussed might perhaps have made the world
in this way because they possess a genuine soul. But the
creating principle they assume, a principle which is inferior

to the genuine soul, could not have proceeded in this way.
Nevertheless, to provide for the greatness, and especially

the exact dimension of the heavens, the inclination of the
zodiac, the course of the stars, and to do all this so as to
furnish a rational cause for each of these things, could have
been the work, not of an image, but only of the power that
proceeded from the best existences. Our opponents, in spite
of themselves, acknowledge this. For if they examine atten-
tively the meaning of this "illumination of the darkness,"
they will be led to a recognition of the true principles of the

world. Why had there to be this illumination of the dark-
it was
ness, unless absolutely necessary? This necessity was
either in conformity with, or in opposition to nature. If the
former, it must have been so from all time. If the latter,

something contrary to nature would be found also in the
world above, and evil would be prior to this world. Then it
would no longer be this world that is the cause of evil, but
the world above. The sense world would not be the cause of
but the soul to the world, and evil would even
evil to the soul,
be introduced into the first existences. If, further, matter

is said to be the cause of evil, where did it
originate? For
the darkness, they say, existed already when the soul in in-
clining downward saw and illuminated it. Whence then

comes matter? If they say that the soul herself created it
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM pi
by inclining downward, then evidently matter did not exist
before the inclination of the soul. Darkness therefore is not

the cause of this inclination; the cause is in the nature of
The cause is thus found in the necessary existences
the soul.
which precede matter, hence in the supreme existences.
Those who complain of the nature of this world do

13.
not know what they are doing nor the extent of their
audacity. Many men are ignorant of the orderly concatena-
tion which unites the entities of the first, second, and third
ranks, and the ensuing ones down to the very lowest. In-
stead of criticizing those entities that are inferior to the first
principles, they should gently accept

the laws of the universe,
and stop their tragic recitals of
rise to the first principles,
the terrors which they believe are found in the spheres
(which really only exert a beneficient influence on them).

What is so terrible about the spheres to frighten men un-
schooled in argument and, without good education and
sound knowledge? Though these spheres have bodies made
of fire, these bodies should not inspire any fear in us, be-
cause they are in harmony with the universe and with the
earth. We should besides look to their souls. (It is on ac-
count of the souls in themselves that the men here discussed

consider themselves so valuable.) Still also the bodies of
the spheres are superior in size and beauty, and effectively
cooperate in the production of the things of nature which

must be produced as long as the first principles exist. They
complete the universe and are important members of it. If

men are superior to the other animals, there is a still much
greater superiority in the stars which exist, not to exert a
tyrannical influence on the universe, but to establish beauty
and order in it.
Concerning the assertion that events are
caused by the stars, it must be held that they are signs rather
than causes of future events. Differences among things come
about through chance (it is not possible that the same thing
should happen to each individual, even to those born simul-
taneously), the circumstances of their births, the differences
of the regions they inhabit, and the dispositions of their
souls. One should also not expect men
to be good, nor,
all
because of the impossibility of this should one at once com-
plain and demand that sense objects should be similar to

intelligible objects. One must see evil as something which
shows only a degree of participation in wisdom, which
lesser
is
only a lesser good on a scale of less and ever lesser goods.
To do otherwise would be like calling vegetative nature evil
because it is not sensation or like calling sensation evil be-
cause it is not reason. If one reasoned thus, one would be
forced to say that there is evil also in the intelligible world,
because the soul is inferior to Intelligence and Intelligence
to the One.
14. Our opponents impair very severely the purity of the

world above. They do so particularly in the following way.
When they compose magic incantations and address them
to the beings above, not only to the soul, but to the principles
superior to her, what are they trying to do except to bewitch,

to charm, and to influence them ? They therefore believe that
these beings listen to and obey the voices of those who skill-
fully emit these songs, cries, breathings, and whistles, and

all the other devices to which they ascribe magic power. If
they do not really wish to assert this, how can they claim that
that which incorporeal obeys the sound of words? These
is
very things by which they try to make their doctrines worthy

of respect rob them without their knowing it of all claim to
respect.
They also pride themselves on ridding themselves of dis-
*s. If they claimed to do thisthrough temperance and a
11
regulated life, as do the philosophers, they would be
rect. But they insist that diseases are demons which they
el by their words. And they boast of this in order to
ieve reputation among the common people who are al-
^s inclined to stand in awe of magic. They will not
suade intelligent people that diseases do not have their

ses in such things as fatigue, too much or too little food,
ay, or, in general, some change in some internal or ex-

lal factor. This is
proved in therapy. Diseases are driven
vn and expelled by purging the bowels or by the adminis-
ion of some potion. Diet and bleeding are also often
>rted to. Is this kind of treatment successful because the
ion is hungry or the potion makes him vanish, so that
:n a person is demon departs? Or does
cured the the
ion remain? If he remains, how does his presence not
vent recovery? If he departs, why does he? What has
pened to him? Was he fed by the disease? If so, the dis-
: was an entity distinct from the demon. If he entered
hout any cause, why does the individual into whose body
enters not always remain sick? If he enters into a body
: has already a cause for its disease, what does he con-
ute to the disease? That cause is sufficient to produce
fever. It would beridiculous to suppose that the disease
a cause, but that, as soon as this cause is active, there is
^mon ready to come and assist it.
will now be clear what kind of doctrine

is taught
by
opponents and what purpose. This is the reason why
for
also have brought up here their teachings about demons,
nr other views I leave to be judged by you when you read
r books. Remember always that the kind of philosophy
pursue, beside all its other values, leads to simplicity of

it and
purity of thought. It aims at dignity, not super-
ciliousness.The confidence it inspires is based on reason,
much verification and caution, and the utmost circumspec-
tion. The views of the people here discussed are everywhere
most opposite to ours and it would not be appropriate to
say still more about them.
15. We should, however, observe the effect produced in the

souls of those who listen to the speeches of these men and
who are persuaded to have contempt for the world and what
it contains. About man's highest good there are two principal
doctrines. The one makes physical pleasure the supreme
goal; the other, nobility and virtue, the desire of which comes
from the divinity and leads back to the divinity (as will
have to be shown elsewhere). Epicurus, denying providence,
advises us to seek the only thing that remains, the enjoyment
of pleasure. But the doctrine here discussed is still more
bold. finds fault with the lord of providence and with
It
providence itself. It refuses respect to the laws established

here below and the virtue which has been honored by
all centuries. It ridicules rational self-control. To annihilate
the last vestiges of nobility in this universe, it destroys tem-
perance and justice which are inborn in the human char-

acter and perfected by reason and exercise. In one word,
itdestroys everything that could lead to virtue. Hence noth-
ing remains for its advocates but to seek pleasure, to pursue
a selfish path, to renounce the community, to think only of
personal interest unless this or that one of them possesses

a nature which is The things that
better than his doctrines.
we regard as
good are not esteemed by them, but something
else at some later point pursue. Nevertheless,
which they will
if they are already in the possession of knowledge, they
should start from here with their pursuit and first correct
earthly things by applying their divine nature to them. The
divine nature, disdaining physical pleasure, understands
what nobility is. Those who have no virtue can never rise to
the intelligible world. But their indifference with regard to
these matters is further confirmed by the fact that they have
no doctrine about virtue, but have omitted this subject en-
tirely, give no definition of virtue, do not say how many
virtues there are, and ignore the many beautiful discussions
on by the ancients. They do not discuss
this topic left to us
how one can acquire and preserve virtue, how one can heal
and purify the soul. Their precept, "Look to the divinity!"
is useless if they do not also teach how this is to be achieved.
One might ask them whether such contemplation of the
divinity is not compatible with lust or anger. What would

hinder one from repeating the name of the divinity while
remaining under the domination of the passions and doing
nothing to remove them ? Virtue, when it becomes perfected
in the soul, accompanied by wisdom, shows us the divinity.
Without real virtue god is no more than a name.
16. One does not become a good man merely by scorning

the world, the divinities, and the other beautiful things.
Scorn of the divinities characterizes those that are evil. If a
man is not otherwise evil, this vice is sufficient to make him

such. The
respect which the people here discussed pretend to
have for the intelligible beings is not in accordance with their
other feelings. For when one loves something, he loves all that
is related to it. He extends to the children the affection for
the parent. Now every soul is a daughter of the father above.
The souls that preside over the stars are intellectual, good,
and closer to the world above than ours. For how could this
sense world and the divinities it contains exist if separated
from the intelligible world ? We have already spoken of this.
Here we wish to say that when one scorns beings akin to
those that hold the front rank, it can only be that one knows
them by name only.
How could it ever be considered pious to claim that prov-
idence does not extend to sense objects and everywhere? Is
such an assertion consistent with even their own views ? For
they claim that providence interests itself in them, though
only in them. Is this the case while they are living in the
world above or while they live here below? If the first,
why did they descend to this earth? If the second, why do
they remain here below? Why should the divinity not be
present here below? For how could he otherwise know that
they are here below, that they, being here below, have not
forgotten him and have not become evil? If he knows those
that have not become evil, he must also know those who
have become so, in order to be able to distinguish the former
from the latter. He must therefore be present to all men and
be in this world in some manner or other, and thus the
world must participate in the divinity. If the divinity de-
prived the world of his presence, he would deprive them also
of it, and they could not say anything of him or of the
beings that come after him. The world certainly derives its
existence from the existences above, whether providence ex-
tends to them or whatever else they may wish to say. The
world never was deprived of the divinity and never will be.
Providence is much more concerned with the whole than
with the parts, and the universal soul participates in it more
than do the others. This is proved by the existence and wise
arrangement of the world. Which of those individuals who
from lack of intelligence overestimate their intelligence is as
well constructed and as rational as the universe and could
even enter into such a comparison without ridicule or ab-
surdity ? Indeed, unless made merely in the course of a dis-
cussion, such a comparison is really an impiety. To ask such
questions is really the characteristic of a blind man without

sense or reason who is far removed from knowledge of the
intelligible world because he does not even know the sense
world. Would any musician who had once heard the in-
telligible harmonies not also be moved by those of sense?
What skillful geometrician or arithmetician will fail also to
enjoy the symmetry, order, and proportion that he finds in

the objects of sense? Though people look at the same objects
in a painting, they see in them different things. Some recog-
nize in the sense objects an image of the intelligible, they
are thrown into an uproar and recall the memory of true
Thisis the origin of love. One person rises to the in-
reality.
telligible by seeing a good image

of true beauty in a human
face. Another is lethargic in his thought and is not carried
beyond the immediate, so that he contemplates the physical
beauties, the harmony and imposing order of this world,

the grand view furnished by the stars in spite of their dis-
tance, without being stirred to enthusiasm and admiration
of this splendor and that which produced it. He who reacts
thus has failed to understand sense objects and has not seen
the intelligible world.
17. If their hate for the body stems from the fact that
Plato complains much of it as being an obstacle to the soul
and far inferior to her, they should, going beyond the cor-
poreal, consider the rest, the intelligible sphere which con-
tains within it the form of the world and the souls in their
order. Though themselves incorporeal, the souls give phys-
ical magnitude to the world by extending it in space ac-
cording to the intelligible model in order that what is
begotten might, as far as possible, through its magnitude,

equal the indivisible nature of its model. For the magnitude
of mass here below corresponds to the magnitude of power
in the world above. Whether they think of this sphere in
motion (which caused by the divine power that contains

is
its beginning, middle, and end), or at rest, before it exerts

its rule over oth^r things, they must in both cases hold a
proper conception of this soul that presides over this uni-

verse. When one conceives of united to a body,
this soul as
one must conceive of her as remaining unaffected by it, but

giving it as much as it is capable to receive (for the divine is
incapable of jealousy). One will form a proper idea of the
world when one recognizes in the world soul the power by
which she makes the body which is not beautiful by itself
participate in her beauty as much as possible. This beauty
moves the souls because they are divine.
If they should say that they have no appreciation for all
this and that they feel no difference when they see beautiful
or ugly bodies, they will also not distinguish good from
bad actions, nor recognize beauty in the sciences, in contem-
plation, or in the divinity itself. Sense beings possess beauty
only because of the first existences. But if they were not
beautiful, the first existences would not be beautiful either.
Sense beings show in a lower degree the beauty found in
intelligible beings. The scorn professed by our opponents
for sense beauty might be praiseworthy enough if it referred
to the beauty of women and of young boys, so as to gain a
victory over incontinence. But you may be sure that they do
not boast of scorning what is ugly. They boast of scorning
only what they first declare to be beautiful. We must further
observe that it is not the same beauty that is seen in the
parts and in the whole (in individuals and in the universe).
But there are beauties great enough in sense objects and in
particular beings, in demons, for instance, to lead us to
admire their creator, and to convince us that they stem from
above. In this way we may attain a conception of the im-
mense beauty of the world above and may rise, without at-
taching ourselves to sense objects and yet without slandering
them, to the intelligible world. If the interior of a sense being
is also beautiful, we shall have a harmony of inner and
outer beauty. If it is it is inferior to its

ugly inside, principle.
But it is
impossible for a being really to be beautiful in its
exterior while ugly within; for the outer is beautiful only in
so far as dominated by the inner. Those who are called
it is
seem to be externally beautiful

beautiful but are ugly within
only by deception. If someone claims that he has seen men

who possess beautiful bodies but are ugly within their soul,
I believe that he has not really seen beautiful men but falsely
takes certain people to be such. Or, if he is right, their
ugliness is acquired and they are by nature beautiful; for

many are the obstacles here below which hinder us from
reaching our goal. But the universe cannot by any obstacle
be hindered from possessing inner beauty in the same way
that it possesses outer beauty. The beings to whom nature
has not from the beginning given perfection may indeed not
attain their goaland consequently may become perverted.
But the universe never was, like a child, in an incomplete
state. It did not develop nor receive physical increase. Such
a development would have been impossible, because it al-
ready possessed everything. Neither can it be admitted that
its soul ever in the course of time gained any increase. But
even if this were granted, it could not have been an addition

of something evil.
1 8. They might perhaps object that their doctrines inspire

revulsion from and hate for the body, while ours attach
the soul to the body. But this is hardly so. We may illustrate
the difference of the two positions by the example of two
guests who dwell together in a beautiful house. The first

IOO THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
guest criticizes the construction of the house and its architect,

though he still remains in it. The other guest does not
criticize but praises the great skill of the architect and waits
for the time when he can leave for a place where he no

longer even needs a house. Should the guest be thought
first
wiser and better prepared for his eventual departure because

he has learned to say that his present walls are composed of
lifeless stones and beams and that the present house is far re-
moved from the kind of habitation found in the world of

true reality? He is not aware that the difference between
him and his companion is that he does not know how to
accept necessary things. Unless he stops grumbling and ap-

preciates the beauty of the stones, he will not be thought
wiser or better prepared. As long as we have bodies, we
have to abide in the houses constructed by the soul which is
sister to ours and good and which has the power to produce
these things effortlessly. While they do not hesitate to call
the lowest of men their brothers, do they wish to be so mad
as to refuse this name to the sun, the other celestial beings,
and the world soul? Doubtless, to admit those who are bad
to kinship with the things above is not right. To be kin to
them one must have become good and, instead of being a
body, be a soul in a body, and one must be able to dwell in
the body in a manner which approximates most closely the
way in which the universal soul dwells in the body of the

universe. For this purpose one must be firm and must not
allow oneself to be charmed by the pleasures and sights
that come from outside nor to be confused by adversity. The
soul of the world is not troubled by anything, because there
is
nothing which can cause trouble for her. We, however,
who here below are exposed to such blows must repel them
by our virtue, lessening the effects of some by the power of
our wisdom, and foiling others by developing our strength.
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM IOI
*n we shall thus have come closer to achieving this
er of not being subject to blows from outside, we shall
nble the soul of the universe and the souls of the stars.
e increase this resemblance still
further, then, through
re and exercise, we towards the same thing
also will rush
will contemplate what these souls have been contem-
ng since the beginning. When they say that they alone

:the ability to contemplate, they do not achieve a richer
>n thereby, nor when they say that they can leave their
es after death, while this is impossible to the souls which
.ys fill the same function in heaven. They speak in this
only because they do not know in what way the soul

>utside" the body nor in what way the universal soul
rns all that is inanimate. It is possible not to love the
', to become pure, to scorn death, and both to know and

ursue the things that are superior to earthly things,
out jealously denying this power to others who not only
:apable of pursuing the same goal but who eternally
ue it. Let us not fall into the error of those who deny
the stars move because their senses show them to be at
for such a reason that the people here discussed
It is
ot believe that the stars see what is outside of them; it

cause these people do not see the souls of the stars in
nal things.
DESCENT OF THE SOUL INTO THE BODY

lead IV viii)
Sometimes wake from the slumber of the body to re-

I
and turning my attention from external

to myself;
js to what is within me, I behold the most marvelous
ty. I then fully believe that I have a superior destiny,

e the highest life and am at one with the divinity,
blished there, my activity raises me above all the other
intelligible beings. But if, after this rest in the divine, I
descend from Intelligence to discursive reasoning, I do not

understand the manner of and reason for my descent, how
my soul ever could have entered into a body, being what I
have seen her to be herself, even when she still is associated
with a body.
Heraclitus who exhorts us to this research asserts that
contraries necessarily change into each other; he speaks of
"the way up and the way down," saying that "in change
is rest" and that "it is troublesome to continue in the same
kind of work/' But he seems to speak in metaphors and
neglects to explain himself clearly, perhaps thinking that we
should seek for ourselves as he found for himself the answers
to his questions. Empedocles says that it is a law for souls
that have done wrong to fall down here below, and that he
himself was a "fugitive from the divine" and came here
"slave to the madness of Strife." His revelations, I believe,
are the same Pythagoras; and his disciples have
as those of
given an allegorical interpretation of this and many other

of his statements. But Empedocles is obscure because he
uses the language of poetry. Lastly, we have the divine Plato
who said many beautiful things about the soul. In his dis-
cussions he often speaks of the arrival of the soul in this
world. He makes us hope that he will have something clear
to say on this matter. But unfortunately he does not every-
where say the same thing and so does not enable one easily
to knowhis intent. Still he everywhere holds corporeal
things inlow esteem, deplores the association of the soul with

the body, and says that the body is to the soul a chain and
a tomb, thinking very important the assertion of the mys-
teries that the soul here below is in a prison. What Plato
calls the cave, like Empedocles' "grotto," seems to me to
signify the sense world. To break the chains and to ascend

from the cave is for the soul, as Plato says, to rise to the
intelligible world. In the Phaedrus the cause of the fall of the

soul the loss of her wings. According to Plato, cycles of
is
periodic recurrence bring the soul back here below, and it

is also by judgments, lots, chance, and necessity that souls
are sent down into this world. In
all these cases he deplores
the association of the soul with the body. But, speaking of

the sense world in the Timaeus, he praises the world and
calls it a happy divinity. He states that the demiurge, being
good, gave it a soul to make it a rational universe which
without the soul it could not have been. That is the reason
why the divinity sent the world soul into the world and
similarly the soul into each of us. If the sense world is to be

complete, it is necessary that it contain as many kinds of
organisms as the intelligible world.
2. Thus, as we seek in Plato an answer to our questions

about the human soul, we are necessarily led to ask about the
soul in general: How has she been led into association with
the body ? What is the nature of this world in which the soul
lives, whether voluntarily or necessarily or in any other

way? Further questions are whether the demiurge acted
rightly or not in making this universe, and whether it is
right that our souls associate with the body? It would seem
that our souls, charged with the administration of bodies
less perfect than they, had to plunge into them deeply if
they were really to manage them. For bodies tend to dis-
integrate and their elements to return to their natural place
(in the universe all things have their natural places). More-
over, bodies need to be ruled by an agency capable of great
foresight, because they are always exposed to the attacks of
other bodies that are alien to their nature, and are always
pressed by wants, and require continual aid in the many

adversities that beset them. But the body of the world is
complete, perfect, self-sufficient, not subject to any influences

that prevent from expressing its own nature. Hence it
it
requires only a light rule. That is why the world soul can
remain free from care and molestations, and can keep her
natural disposition intact without loss or entanglement.
Hence it is that Plato
says that our soul, when she dwells
with this perfect soul, becomes herself perfect, resides in
the celestial region, and governs the whole world. So long
as the soul does not withdraw from the world soul to enter
into a body and be attached to some individual, she adminis-
ters the world together with the world soul, and in the same
effortless manner. It is not necessarily evil for the soul to
give to the body the power to exist; for the providential

care exercised with regard to an inferior nature does not
necessarily hinder the agency which exercises it from re-
maining itself in a state of perfection.

In the universe there are indeed two kinds of providence.
The first providence is directed to the whole and
regulates
everything in the manner of kings by giving orders to be
executed by others. The second is concerned with the details
and engages in direct action, adapting the agent and that
which is acted upon to each other. Now the divine soul
always administers the whole world in the first way, en-
throning herself above the world by virtue of her superior
part, while she injects into the world only her lowest power.
We cannot therefore accuse the divinity of having assigned
an inferior place to the world soul. Indeed, the world soul
was never deprived of the things which are in accordance
with her nature. She possesses from all eternity and will
always possess that which cannot be in opposition to her
nature. Plato further says that the relation of the souls of
the stars to their bodies is the same as that of the world
soul to the world (for to him the bodies of the stars too are
ruled by souls). Thus he grants also to the stars their ap-
propriate happiness. Neither of the usual two objections to
the intercourse of the soul with the body ((i) that it hinders
the soul in her intellectual pursuits and (2) that it fills her
with pleasures, lusts, and fears) holds for the kind of soul
that has not plunged deeply into the body and does not
depend on some particular individual. She rules the body,
rather than is ruled by it. Her body neither needs nor lacks
anything. Hence the soul is free from both desires and fears.
Since her body is what it is, she has no cause to fear any
disturbance on account of it. Nothing will interrupt her
leisure and make her incline downward, thus taking away
the superior happiness of her contemplation. She is always
with the things in the world above and governs the sense
world while remaining herself undisturbed.
3. now consider the human soul which is subject

Let us
to and suffering while in the body, a prey to griefs,
ills
lusts, fears, and evils of all kinds, for which the body is a
chain and a tomb, and the sense world a "cave" or "grotto."
The different assertions about the world soul and the human
soul are not contradictory; for the causes of the descent
of these two souls are not the same. Intelligence dwells entire
in that intellectual region which we call the intelligible
world, but comprises within the variety of intellectual
itself
powers and particular Intelligences (for Intelligence is not

merely one, but both one and many). Hence there are both
many souls and one; and from the one soul proceed the
multiplicity of different souls as from one and the same
genus proceed species of various ranks, some of which are
more and others, at least in their actual existence, less rational
in form. In the intelligible world there thus is on the one
IO6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
hand the Intelligence which, like some great animal, po-
tentially contains the other Intelligences, and on the other
hand there are the individual Intelligences, each of which
is an actuality. We may illustrate this by speaking of the
soul of a city that contains the souls of its inhabitants. The
soul of the city would be more perfect and powerful, but
nothing would hinder the other souls from being of the

same nature with her. Or we might take the analogy of
universal Fire from which proceed the particular fires, big
and little. They all are included in the total substance of
Fire (a substance inferior to substance as such). The func-
tion of the rational soul is to think, but is not limited to
thinking alone. Otherwise there would be no difference be-

tween her and Intelligence. Beside her intellectual character-
istics the soul has further characteristics by virtue of which
she does not remain mere Intelligence. These too define her
particular existence. The soul, like every other being, has
her specific function. In directing herself to what is superior
to her, she thinks; in directing herself to herself, she pre-
serves herself; in directing herself to what is inferior to her,
she orders, administers, and governs it. It is not possible that
existence should come to an end with the intelligible world
as long as a succession of further existences is
possible which,
though less perfect, nevertheless necessarily exists as long as
that from which it proceeds exists.
4.
The individual souls follow their intellectual aspira-
tions in turning again towards the existence from which they
proceeded. But they also possess a power that is directed
towards the sense world, just as light, though attached to the
sun on high, does not begrudge its rays to the things below.
The souls that dwell with the world soul in the intelligible
world are free from suffering. Dwelling in the celestial
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM IOy
region with the world soul they share with her the adminis-
tration of the world. They are like kings who live with the
supreme King, share the government with him, and, like

him, do not descend from their royal abode. The souls in
this state are all assembled in the same region. But they
pass from this state of universal to one of particular existence.

They wish to be independent; they are weary, as it were, of
dwelling with somebody else. Each of them withdraws into
what is her own individuality. When a soul does that for
a long while, withdraws from the whole and separates her-
self from it, and does not keep her attention fixed on the
intelligible world, then, having become a fragment, she is

isolated and weakened. Her activity lacks concentration and
she directs her attention to the particular. She separates her-
self from the whole, and attaches herself to some particular
object. Withdrawing from all others, she concentrates on

some single object which is subject to the destructive actions
of the other beings. Thus she is removed from the whole.
She governs the particular with difficulty, the care of which
forces her to busy herself with external things, to be present
to and to plunge deeply into the body. Thus there comes
about what is called "the loss of wings" or the soul's im-
prisonment in the body, when she fails to preserve the in-
nocent existence she enjoyed when, with the world soul, she
shared the administration of superior things. When she was
in the world above, she spent a much better life. The fallen
soul chained and imprisoned, obliged to have recourse
is
to sensation because she cannot make use of Intelligence.

She is said to be buried in a tomb or cave. But by turning
towards intellectual activity she breaks her bonds and re-

turns upwards. This happens when, starting from the in-
timations of reminiscence, she rises to the contemplation of
Being; for even when the soul falls, she retains within her-
I08 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
self a superior part. The
souls lead necessarily a double life.
They the intelligible world and, in part, in

live, in part, in
the sense world. They live more fully in the intelligible
world when thev can achieve a fuller association with
Intelligence. They more immersed in
are the sense world
when nature or chance imposes on them a contrary fate.
This is what Plato subtly wishes to indicate when he
has the souls separated out of the second mixture in the
cup. He says that after they have been thus divided, they
must necessarily enter into generation. Plato's statement
that the divinity "sows" the souls must be understood in
the same way as when he makes out of the divinity a
sort of orator by having him "speak." For the purposes of
his argument, he metaphorically describes the things con-
tained in the universe as begotten and created. Thus by
successive description he presents things that in truth exist
in an eternal state of becoming or being.
5. There is no contradiction between the assertions that

the souls are "sowed" into generation and that they descend
here below for the sake of making the universe complete,
that they merit punishment and that they are shut up in a
cave, that their descent is due to necessity and that it is an

effect of their will (as necessity does not exclude voluntari-
ness), that they share in evil as long as they are in bodies and
that, as Empedocles says, they have withdrawn from the
divinity and lost their way, that they have committed some
wrong which they are expiating and that, as Heraclitus says,

their rest consists in their flight. In general, there is no con-
tradiction between asserting that the descent of the souls is
voluntary and that it is subject to necessity. No one ever falls
voluntarily into what is worse. But as it is by one's own mo-

mentum that one descends to lower things and suffers the
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM IOQ
onsequences, may be said that one bears the punishment

it
or what oneself has done. Besides, as it is by eternal law of

tature that one acts and is acted upon in this manner, one
nay assert, without contradicting either oneself or the truth,
hat the being who descends from the world above for the
ake of assisting some lower being is sent by the divinity.
The effects of any originating principle, however far they are
emoved from it by intermediate effects, can always be
eferred back to it. There are two wrongs which the soul
ommits. The first consists of her descent itself; the second,
n the evil she commits after having arrived here below. The
irst
wrong is punished by the very condition of her descent.
The punishment of the latter wrong is to pass again into other
odies and to remain there more or less long according to
he judgment of her deserts (the word "judgment" indicates
hat thishappens in consequence of divine law). If, however,
he perversity of the soul passes all measure, she undergoes,
inder the charge of avenging guardians, an even more
evere punishment according to her deserts. Thus, although
he soul has a divine nature and stems from the intelligible
/orld, she enters into a body. Being one of the lower divini-
ies, she descends here below by a voluntary inclination to
xpress her potentialities and to administer what is below
ier. If she soon flees from here below, she suffers no harm
or having become acquainted with evil and the natuie of
ice, for having brought her potentialities into the open and
manifested the consequent activities and deeds. Indeed,

hese capacities would be useless if they slumbered in the
ncorporeal world without ever becoming actualized. The

oul herself would not know what she possesses if these
otentialities did not manifest themselves by proceeding
rom her. For everywhere it is the actual that manifests the
otential which is hidden and invisible and does not as such
really exist. As it is,

everyone marvels at the inner greatness
of the soul, the beauty of which is manifested in the richness
of the external effects.
6. The One must not exist alone; for then all things would
have remained unrealized, because in the One there is no
differentiation of forms. No beings would exist if the One
remained fixed in itself. Further, the multitude of beings that
proceed from the One would not be what it is, if, from the
beings that proceed from the One, there did not issue those
beings that are in the rank of souls. Likewise, it was not
enough that souls should exist without bringing forth what
they are capable of begetting. For each thing by nature
produces something and develops from a seedlike indivisible
principle into a visible effect. The principle remains always
in its proper place, while that which springs from it is the
product of the inexpressible power that resides in it. It must

not stop this power and, as if jealous, limit its effects. But it
must continuously proceed until all things, to the very last,
have, within the limits of the possible, come forth as a result
of this inexaustible power which communicates its
gifts to
allthings and which cannot let any of them remain without
a share in it. There is nothing which hinders any of them
from participating in the Good in the measure that each is
capable of doing so. The same holds even with regard to

matter. For if, on the one hand, it is assumed to have
existed from all eternity, it is
impossible that since it exists,
it should not participate in that which communicates good-
ness to all things according to their capacity of receiving it.
If, on the other hand, matter is assumed to be due to an act

of generation that is the necessary consequence of superior
causes, it still will not be separated from the supreme reality,
as if that which by a sort of grace gives it its very existence
COSMIC ORDER AND FREEDOM III
ked the power to extend to matter. The excellence, power,

j goodness of the intelligible world is revealed in what
nost excellent in sense objects. There is an eternal nexus

ween intelligible and sense objects. The former exist
their own power. The latter eternally derive their ex-
mce from the former by participation, and imitate the
elligible world to the extent of their ability.
'. As there are these two worlds, the intelligible and the
iseworld, better for the soul to live in the intelligible
it is
rid. But as a result of her nature, it is necessary for her

^ to participate in the life of sense. Since she occupies only
intermediate rank, one must not complain that she is not
>erior in all respects. Though her nature is divine, she
ocated at the lowest point of the intelligible world and
ders on the sense world. She gives to the sense world
nething of herown power. But she in turn is affected by
when, instead of managing the body without endanger-
;
her own security, she permits herself to be carried away
too much ardor and plunges deeply body and
into the
ses to be completely united with the world soul. But the
1 can
again rise above this condition and can, because
he experience of the things she has seen and suffered here
DW, better appreciate the life above and know more
irly the better by its contrast to its opposite. Indeed the
Dwledge of the good becomes clearer by the experience

svil for those who are not capable enough to know evil
science instead of by experience. Discursive reason is a
cent to the lowest level of Intelligence. Intelligence can-
rise to the level of the existence beyond. But as it is not
e to remain within and necessarily produces, it
itself
ceeds by the necessity and law of its nature to the level

ioul. There it stops; and leaving the care of lower realities
to the soul, it
again returns to the intelligible world. It is
similar with the soul. What comes after her are the things
of sense. What is above her is the contemplation of Being.
For many souls this contemplation is fragmentary and di-
vided by time; their ascent therefore starts from an inferior
condition. But the world soul is never involved in the
activities of the inferior world. She is impassive to evil.
She comprehends what is below her intellectually, but she

is always attached to what is above her. She therefore is
able simultaneously to receive from what is above her and

to give to the things below. Since she is a soul, it would
be absurd if she were not concerned with the objects of
sense.
8. If one must have the courage to say in opposition to

current beliefs what seems to be more true to oneself, let
us state that no soul, not even ours, enters into the body
completely. By her higher part the soul always remains

united to the intelligible world. But if the part that is in the
sense world dominates or rather dominated and troubled,
is
it
keeps us from being conscious of what the higher part of
the soul contemplates. Indeed that which the soul contem-
plates reaches us only if it descends to our awareness. For

we do not know what goes on in some part of the soul before
it is grasped
by the entire soul. For instance, an appetite, as
long as it remains in the faculty of desire, does not become
known to us. It does so only when we perceive it by the
faculty of inner sense, or by the faculty of discursive reason,
or by both. Every soul has a lower part turned towards the
body, and a higher part turned towards Intelligence. The

world soul, without effort, manages the universe by that
part of her that is directed towards the body. For she governs
her body, not, as we do, by discursive reasoning, but by
intelligence, in a manner entirely different from that found

in the practice of the arts. The individual souls, each of
which administers a part of the universe, also have a superior
part. But they are distracted by sensations and impressions.
They perceive many things which are contrary to nature
and which cause them trouble and confusion. This is so, be-
cause the body of which they take care is defective, is sur-
rounded by alien objects, many of which it nevertheless
needs, and is deceived by the pleasures it experiences. But
the higher part of the soul is insensible to the attraction of
these transitory pleasures and leads an undisturbed life.
REASON, SENSE, AND EMOTION
THE NATURE OF THE ORGANISM AND OF THE SELF
(Ennead I i)
1. To what part of our nature do pleasure and pain, fear
and boldness, desire and aversion, and suffering belong?
Is it to the soul, or to the soul when she uses the body as
an instrument, or to some combination of both? This last
possibility twofold, being either the mixture of the soul

is
and the body, or some new product resulting from it. The
same uncertainty exists with regard to the actions and
opinions that result from the emotions. We
must ask whether
discursive reason and opinion belong to the same part of
our nature as the emotions, or whether only some of them
do. We must also inquire about the nature of non-discursive
thought and to what part it belongs. Lastly we must study

the agency in us that undertakes this inquiry, puts and
resolves these questions. But, first of all, to which part of us
belongs the activity of sensation? This is the proper start-

ing point of our inquiry; for the emotions are either sensa-
tions or at least do not exist without them.
2. Let us first examine whether there is any difference
between the actual soul and that which is purely soul? If

there is, the soul is a composite; and it would no longer be
a matter of surprise she received forms and, as far as reason
if
permits, experienced emotions such as those just mentioned,

and in general habits and dispositions that are either good
or bad. But if the actual soul is purely soul, then she is a
114
REASON, SENSE, AND EMOTION
Form and does not herself engage in any of the activities
which she can produce in other things, but possesses in her-
self her own proper activity which reason reveals to us. In
this case we must acknowledge that she is immortal, for
it isan immortal and imperishable being that is not subject
to the passions. Such a being gives of itself to others with-
out receiving anything in return from them. It receives only
from the beings that are above it and better than it and
from which it is never separated. A being that is so un-
receptive to anything external has no ground to fear; for fear
is natural to a being that is subject to the influence of ex-
ternal things. Neither is it characterized by boldness, for
this emotion implies the presence of objects of fear. Further,
in the case of such desires as are satisfied by the emptying
or filling of the body, it is not the soul that is emptied or
filled. Howcould she desire to mix with other things,
inasmuch as that which is of the nature of Being is not sub-
ject tocomposition? She could not wish to have anything
added to her; for thus she would strive to destroy what she
is. She also far removed from suffering. How could she be
is
in pain, and about what? For the being that is simple is

self-sufficient and rests in its own being. Neither will she
experience pleasure because of any supposed expansion.

Nothing, not even the good, comes to her by way of addition.
For she always is what she is. Neither can we attribute to
her sensation, discursive reason, or opinion. For sensation
consists in the reception of physical forms or feelings, while
discursive reason and opinion depend on sensation. But we
shall have to examine what the nature of non-discursive
thought is, if we would determine whether we must at-
tribute this kind of thought to the soul. shall also have We

to inquire whether pure pleasure is to be attributed to the
soul as such (rather than to the composite of soul and body).
Il6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
3. The soul that is in the body, whether she exists directly

in the body or remains above it, forms with the body the
whole called the organism. Now, if the soul uses the body
like a tool, she not forced to undergo its experiences, any
is
more than workmen undergo the experiences of their tools.

But it would seem must have perception, be-
that the soul
cause, in order to use her instruments, she would by means

of perception have to know that which the body experiences,
just as it is in using the eyes that seeing consists. But then

the soul will also feel any harm which may affect the sight
and thus will undergo pains, suffering, and whatever else
happens to the body. She will thus also experience want in
seeking to minister to some affected organ. But in what
sense do these affections from the body get to the soul?
A body can communicate its properties to another body,
but how can it communicate them to the soul ? In this latter
case one thing would undergo the experiences of another
thing. But as long as the body is instrument and the soul

its user, soul and body are separate, and whoever makes the
soul a power that uses the body like a tool admits this
separation. There still is the question what the condition
of the soul is before she is again separated from the body
by philosophy. The answer is that she forms some sort of

association with it. But such an association will consist in
some sort of fusion, in mutual juxtaposition or in that
the soul is the form of the body and is not separated from
it, or in that she is a form that only governs the body as
a pilot governs the ship. It is further to be considered whether

it is not a
part only of the soul that forms this association,
while the other part remains separated from the body. I
mean by the separate part that which uses the body like
a tool, while the other part is itself lowered to the rank of
instrument. Philosophy raises the latter part to the rank of
REASON, SENSE, AND EMOTION 1 17
the formerand turns, as far as our needs allow, the separate

part away from the body it uses, so that it may not con-
tinuously occupy itself with the body.
4. When the soul assumed fused with the body, the

is
worse part will gain and the better part will lose. The body
will gain by this participation in life and the soul will lose
by this association with death and irrationality. How then

can the soul which thus loses part of her life gain the ac-
cession of sensation? For it would seem that it is the
body which by its participation in life acquires the power

of sensation and the emotions which derive from sensation.
It would be the body then which will have desires and
wants, and which will experience pleasure upon the acquisi-

tion of the desired objects. The body also will feel fear for
itself, as it will be it which will fail to achieve pleasure
and which will experience destruction. Let us then inquire

whether this union of body and soul is not as impossible as
the union of two incommensurables, such as a geometrical
line and a color like white. If souland body are mutually
juxtaposed, the soul does not necessarily share the body's
experiences. It is possible for juxtaposed things to remain
unaffected by each other and the soul may extend through
the body and not be affected by it. She may be like light in
this respect, particularly if hers is

only a relation of juxta-
position to the body. Thus the soul would remain a stranger
to the body's experiences and be in the body as form is in
matter. If she really is a substance by herself, she will be a
form that is separate from the body and will use the body
only like a tool. If, however, the soul is like the form which,
when imposed on the iron, constitutes the ax, whereby only
the combination of iron and form (the iron provides the
material, but the form determines the function) constitutes
Il8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
the functioning unit, we will have all the more reason to
attribute the affections of the composite of soul and body to
the body, to a body, however, that is a "natural, organized
existence that possesses life potentially." For just as "it is
absurd to suppose that it is the soul that weaves," it is not
any more reasonable to attribute desire and pain to the
soul instead of to the living organism.
5. This living organism

must either be the body as just
defined, or the composite of soul and body, or some third
thing which proceeds from the two. In any of these cases,
the soul will either have to remain impassive while being
the cause of the affections of the body, or she will have
to share the body's affections. In this latter case, she will
have to experience affections either identical or similar to
those of the body, similar in the way in which the act of
desire of thewhole organism is similar to, though also dis-
tinct from, the activity engaged in or undergone by its
faculty of desire.
We shall later consider the organized body. Here we
must examine how the composite of soul and body experi-
ences affections, such as that of pain. The theory that these
experiences have their origin in a certain state of the body,
are then transmitted to the senses, and from there to the
soul, leaves the nature of sensation itself unexplained. There

isthe further theory that pain is due to the opinion or judg-
ment that something bad is happening either to ourselves
or someone close to us and that from this result disagreeable
emotions in the body and in the whole organism. Never-
theless, it is as yet uncertain whether opinion belongs to
the soul or to the composite of soul and body. Besides, the
opinion that something evil is present does not entail the

experiences of pain. It is possible that, in spite of holding
REASON, SENSE, AND EMOTION Up
such an opinion, one might feel no pain, just as one may
not become angry though one believes oneself slighted, or
might not be moved by desire even though one believes some
good to be present.
In what sense then are these experiences common to the
soul and the body ? Are they common to both because desire
arises in the faculty of desire, or because spiritedness and, in
short, all impulses arise in their corresponding faculties?
But then they will not be common to soul and body but
will belong exclusively to the soul.
No, they will also be-
long to the body, because the excitation of desire, for in-
stance of sexual desire, depends on the temperature of
blood and bile and the particular condition of the body. But
the desire of the good and several others should not be as-
cribed to the composite, but to the soul alone. Reason does
not allow us to consider all impulses as common to soul
and body. Is it
possible, however, that for example in sexual
love the whole man
experiences the desire in one sense,
and the faculty of desire in another? In this case, if we
assume that the man has the desire first while the faculty
follows, how can the man experience the desire while the
faculty of desire is not active? If on the contrary we assume
that it is the faculty of desire that begins the process, how
could it be excited, unless a certain disposition of the body
preceded it?
6. It would probably be better, however, to say that, by

their presence alone, the faculties of the soul determine the
activity of that which participates in them and that, while

they themselves remain unmoved, they furnish the power
of movement. But in this case when the living organism
experiences its affections, the cause which imparts life to
the composite must itself remain unaffected by that which
the being which receives life does or undergoes. In this case,
therefore, lifewill not belong to the soul, but to the composite

of soul and body. Or, at least, the life of the composite will
not be that of the soul; nor will that which senses be the
faculty of sensation, but the being in whom that faculty
inheres. But if sensation is a corporeal motion that cul-
minates in the soul, how

will the soul not possess sensation ?
It is true that sensation is due to the presence of the faculty
of sensation and that it is the composite of soul and body
that has the sensation. Nevertheless, if the faculty of sen-
sation remains unmoved, how can we still speak of a com-
if we exclude from it both the soul and her faculties ?
posite
7. The composite
results from the presence of the soul,
but not in the sense that the soul enters as she is into the
composite or into any one of its elements. But she produces,
out of the organized body and out of a kind of "illumina-
tion" furnished by herself, a new being, the animal organism
to which belong sensation and the other affections attributed
to it.
If now we should be as^ed how it happens that it is we

who have sensation, we answer that we do not exist
apart
from the living organism, though there are other things of a
higher nature in us, for man is a being that consists of many
parts. The
faculty of sensation which is in the soul does not
perceive sense objects themselves, but only their counter-
parts that arise in the living being due to sensation; for
these are already of the order of the realm of Intelligence.
Sensation of external objects is only the image of the sensa-
tion peculiar to the soul which is truer and more real and
consists in the unperturbed contemplation of forms. It is
because of these forms, to which the soul owes her exclusive
rule over the organism, that arise discursive reason, opinion,
REASON, SENSE, AND EMOTION 121
and non-discursive thought. This sort of activity primarily
constitutes our self. No doubt, that which

is
superior to this
kind of activity belongs to our
self, too; but on a lower level,
our self is that which from above directs the organism.
Nothing prevents us from calling "animal organism" that

whole which includes an inferior part, mingled with the
body, and a superior part. The latter really is the human self,
while the former is like a lion or an insatiable beast. As man
is identified with the rational soul when there is
reasoning,
it is we who reason because reasoning is an activity of the
soul.
8. What is our relation with the world of Intelligence? I
mean by Intelligence not the intellectual power in the soul

which derives from Intelligence, but Intelligence itself. We
possess indeed that Intelligence which is above us. But do
we all share in the same Intelligence, or does each individual
have his own? Both are the case. Intelligence is held by all
in common because it is indivisible, one, and everywhere

the same. It is particular because everyone possesses it in
itsentirety in the supreme part of his soul. Of it we may

speak as we speak of the Ideas which we possess in a
double manner, too. In the soul the Ideas are as if divided
by extension and separate from one another. In Intelligence
they all exist indivisibly together. Next, what is our relation
to the divinity? The divinity resides above the world of In-
telligence and Being, while we are in the third rank.
The soul, Plato says, is made "of an indivisible element
that stems from above and another that is divisible with
regard to the bodies." She is divisible with regard to the
bodies in the sense that she permeates all bodies throughout
the length of each animal, though there still is only one
soul for the whole universe. She may also be said to be divis-
being present to the bodies and illuminat-

ible in the sense of
ing them. She makes living beings, not by mixing herself

and body, but by emitting, while she remains unchanged
herself, reflections of herself, just as a single face is re-
flected in several mirrors. Of these reflections the first is

sensation which resides in the composite. After sensation
come all the other characteristics of the soul. These succes-
sively derive, each from the other, down to the faculties

of generation and vegetation, and, in general, to the power
which produces and executes something that is different
from itself and which turns in doing so towards the object
it executes.
9. It would seem that the soul as we conceive it is free

from responsibility for the evils which man does and suffers.
These evils seem to be due to the organism, the composite of
soul and body, in accordance with what was said before.
But as opinions are deceiving and make us commit much
evil, and as opinion and discursive reason belong to the
soul, how the soul guiltless? She is guiltless because evil

is
is due we are mastered by the worse part

to the fact that
of our nature. For man is a being of many parts, of appetite,
anger, or evil imagery. False reasoning is due to an uncritical

imagination that does not await the judgment of reason.
We yield to the lower part of ourselves, just as in the case
of sensation we have illusions because we rely on the sensa-
tion without having subjected it to critical reflection. But
Intelligence was not involved in this process, and therefore

it is not
Intelligence that is responsible for evil. We, too,
are guiltless to the extent to which we grasp the intelligible
object that is in Intelligence, or rather in us. But it is possible

to possess such an object without actually utilizing it.
We thus distinguish things common to soul and body
id those peculiar to soul. The former are corporeal or at
ast cannot exist without body. The activity of the latter
independent of body and belongs to the soul. Among the

tter is discursive reason. It critically examines the notions
tat are due to sensation and it, too, contemplates the Ideas
at contemplates them in a sort of conjunction with sensa-
3n. I
speak of discursive reason proper which belongs to
ie
truly functioning soul. Discursive reason proper consists
the activity of understanding by Intelligence and is the
ency which frequently assimilates and connects external

internal things. The soul, nevertheless, remains unmoved
ith and in herself. But the changes and troubles which arise
us derive from the things that have been attached to the
ul, from the affections which belong to the composite of
ul and body and which we have described above.
10. But if our self is identical with the soul, it would seem
at, when weexperience these sensations and emotions, the
ul experiences them too, that our acts are also acts of the
ul. It must therefore be stated that the word self also
:notes the composite of soul and body, especially before we
e in a state of separation from the body. In fact, we even
y that "we" suffer when our body suffers. "We" or "self"

erefore means two things, either the soul together with the
limal part or only the upper part. The animal part is
e body endowed with life. The real man differs from the
mposite and is free from
animality. He possesses the vir-
es that are characteristic of the world of Intelligence,
rtues which reside in the soul when she is separated from
e body, a separation which can be achieved even in this
e; for when the soul withdraws from that part of her

tiich is the product of her illumination, her product follows
r in the ascent. But the virtues which are due, not to
wisdom, but to habit and exercise, belong to the composite.

To belong the vices, envy, jealousy, and tearfulness. In the
it
case of love, however, one kind is found in the composite,

another in the inner man.
ii. In childhood, it is the faculties of the composite that

are exercised and these are rarely illuminated from above.
But while the superior principle is inactive in regard to us,
itremains active in the world above. It is active with regard
to us when
it advances as far as the middle
part of the soul.
But the self not also this superior principle? Yes, but
it is
only when the self is conscious of it; for we do not always

utilize what we possess. We realize our possessions, how-
ever, when we direct this middle part either towards the
upper or towards the lower world, and thus activate capaci-
ties which before were only potentialities or dispositions.
But in what sense do animals possess soul? If it is true,

according to a common view, that the bodies of animals con-
tain human committed wrong, the separable
souls that have
and superior part of the soul does not properly belong to
these bodies but assists these bodies without being actually
present in them. Animal awareness then comprises only the

image of the soul that is with the body and the body is
fashioned by this image of the soul. But if it is not true

that human souls enter animal bodies, animal life is due to
an illumination issuing from the universal soul.
12. There is a contradiction between the view that the soul

is
guiltless and any view which holds that the soul commits
wrong, straightens herself out, undergoes punishments in
Hades, and passes into new bodies. Although we seem to be
forced to choose between opposing views, it might be pos-
sible to show they are not incompatible. When we attribute
guiltlessness to the soul, we

are supposing her to be one
and simple, identifying the actual soul with that which is
purely soul. When, however, we consider her capable of
wrong, we are looking at her as a complex and are adding
to her another kind of soul which can experience terrible
passions. The soul thus becomes a combination of various
elements, and it is not the pure soul, but this combination,
which experiences passions, commits wrong, and undergoes
punishments. It was this sort of soul Plato was referring to
when he said that "we see the soul as we see Glaucus, the
sea god," and that, if we wish to know the nature of the soul
herself, we must strip her of all that is
foreign to her, see
her love for truth and to what things she attaches herself
and by virtue of which affinities she really is what she is.
We must therefore differentiate the life and activities of
the soul from those of that part which is punished. The
soul's ascent and separation, moreover, consist in her de-
tachment not only from the body but from all alien accre-
tions. Such accretion is made by virtue of birth. Birth is
the creation of the other kind of soul. We have elsewhere
described this birth. It consists in the soul's descent whereby,
when she inclines towards the world below, she produces
another thing which then descends. The soul, however, must
not be blamed for emitting this image, nor is the soul's
inclining towards the world below a wrong. For her inclin-

ing is to shed light on what is below her; and this is no
more wrong than to produce a shadow. That which is
responsible the illuminated object; for if

is it did not exist,
the soul would have nothing to illuminate. The descent of
the soul or her inclining to the world below means only that
the illuminated objects live with and through her. She sends
forth her image because that which receives it is not close to
her. She emits it, not by driving it out of herself, but by
rising from where she was, a state she attains when she
gives herself over entirely to contemplation. Homer seems
to speak of this separation when he says that the image of
Heracles is in Hndes while Heracles himself is with the
gods. This seems the idea implied in this double assertion
that Heracles is in Hades and that he is among the gods.
The poet, therefore, distinguished in Heracles two phases.

He seems to say that Heracles, because he possessed practical
virtue and because of his great qualities, was judged worthy
of being a god, but that, as he possessed only practical virtue,
but not the contemplative virtue (in which case all of him
would have been above), he could not be admitted into the
world above entirely and something of him remained below.
13. Is it "we" or the "soul" which makes these present

researches? It is we by means of the soul. We make these
researches "by means of the soul" not in the sense of simply
possessing her, but to the extent to which we are soul. Does

this imply that the soul is in motion? Yes, if we do not
mean physical motion, but the kind of motion which con-
stitutes her life. It is we, too, who engage in the activity
of Intelligence, because the soul is an intelligible being and
the activity of Intelligence constitutes the superior life for
her. We engage in this activity when the soul thinks the
and when Intelligence is active in regard
intelligible objects
to us. For Intelligence is both a part of us and something
superior to which we ascend.
5
TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES AND

PROBLEMS
ACTUALITY AND POTENTIALITY (Enncad II v)
i. One speaks of things existing "potentially" and "actu-
ally." One also speaks of that which is actuality itself. We
shall have to examine what is meant by saying that a thing
whether there is pure actuality,
exists potentially or actually,
and, if is, whether

there pure actuality itself also exists
actually or not, and whether actuality itself and the thing
that is active must not be two different things. It is evident
that among sense objects there are things that exist poten-
tially. Are there also such among the intelligibles, or do the
intelligibles exist only actually? If among intelligibles some

things exist potentially, they will eternally remain so and
never become actual, because the intelligible world is out-
side of time.
Let us first say what is. The term
potentialitypotential
must not be understood in an absolute sense; for a thing is
potential only in relation to some other thing. For example,

bronze is the statue potentially. If nothing could be made
out of it
upon it, if it could not become some-
or imposed
thing beyond no other thing could arise from it,
itself, if
the bronze would simply remain what it always was. But

in this case it would have no development and could not
change into another thing and hence would contain no

potentiality. Consequently, when we say that a thing exists
potentially, we mean a thing that can become different from
127
what it is, whether (i), after having produced this different
thing, it continues to exist, or whether (2), on becoming this

different thing which it is potentially, it ceases itself to exist.
The bronze is potentially a statue in the first sense. Water is
potentially snow, or air is potentially fire, in the second sense.
Shall we say that what thus exists potentially also has the
power to produce what is to be, that, for instance, bronze

has the power to produce a statue? Not at all, for the power
that produces cannot qua such be said to exist potentially. If
existing potentially were not only analogous to existing

actually but also analogous to actuality, then existing po-
tentially would coincide with productive power. But it is
better and clearer to say that existing potentially is analo-
gous to existing actually, and that productive power is analo-
gous to actuality. The thing which exists potentially is the
substrate of the affections, shapes, and forms which by its
nature it is fitted to receive and to which it aspires for its
betterment or deterioration, working the destruction of the
actuality which characterizes them originally.
2. As to matter, we shall have to examine whether it con-

stitutes some
actual thing beside being in a state of poten-
tiality with regard to the forms it receives, or whether it is

never something actual. In general, do the things, of which
we say that they are potentially other things and which
persist after having received their forms, themselves in this
new state constitute something actual? Or is the term ac-
tuality used to contrast, for instance, an actual statue with

a potential one, but is not to apply to that which has been
said to be the statue potentially? In this case, one must not
say that a potential thing becomes an actual thing, but that,

from what was previously one thing, the potential thing,
proceeds another, the actual thing. Indeed, when a new being
TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES AND PROBLEMS
is produced, as for example, a statue from bronze, the thing

called actual is a composite of form and matter, not the
matter alone, but also the form added to it. The statue is
what it is by virtue of being more than the bronze, by being
composed of it and a form. In the case of things that do not
survive in those actual things with regard to which they
are said to be potential, it is clear that the actual thing is
entirely different from the potential.

But when the man who is potentially a grammarian be-
comes one actually, are, in this case, that which is potential
and that which is actual not identical? Is it not the same
Socrates that is potentially and actually wise? Does it then
hold that the ignorant man, who is potentially learned, is
the same as the learned? No, the ignorant man is said to
be learned only relatively. For it is not his ignorance that
makes him potentially wise. He
is ignorant relative to the
capacities contained in his soul which make him potentially

learned. Does he preserve the potential when he has trans-
formed it into something actual ? Is the actual grammarian
stillalso a potential grammarian? Yes, but the manner is
different. Before, the man is only a potential grammarian.
Now this potentiality has acquired a form.
If what potential is the substrate, while the actual, as
is
in the statue, is the composite of substrate and form, what

then shall we call theform? We might well call the form
the active; for it is due to form that things are actual and
not merely potential. It is called activity, not in an absolute
sense, but in the sense of being the activity of some particular
thing. But the name activity would perhaps better be applied

which is superior to the activity which arises
to that activity
from a previous potentiality. That which is potential be-
comes actual by virtue of another thing. But the superior
activity that we are speaking of now operates by virtue of
a power contained in itself. Within this activity the actual
and potential are differentiated only in a way similar to the
way in which a habit and its corresponding activity, courage
and the act of courage, are differentiated. But enough of
this.
3.
The purpose of the preceding considerations was to
determine in what sense one can say that intelligibles are
actual, to decide whether they only participate in actuality
or whether each or the totality of intelligibles is actuality
itself, and whether in the intelligible world there can also
exist things that are potential. But in the intelligible world

there is no matter in which resides the potential, nothing
becomes something which it not yet is, or changes into
something else whereby it creates something while remain-
ing what it is, or gives place to another being by going out
of existence itself. Hence there is no room for the potential
in that world of eternal beings outside of time. But what
would one say if one still would like to speak of the existence
of matter in the intelligible world? Would this imply the in-
troduction of potentiality into the intelligible world? (Even
ifthe word matter is here used in a different sense, one still
would have in the case of every intelligible to distinguish
matter, form, and the composite.) The answer is that what in
the intelligible world plays the part of matter is really form,
just as the soul is a form, is "matter" relative to some
which
other form. then potential in respect of some other
Is it
thing? No, for intelligible form is constitutive, not acquired.

The distinction between form and matter is only a logical
one. The terms form and matter applied to intelligible things
present a reality that is undivided. Hence it is that Aristotle
said that the fifth kind of body is immaterial. But what shall
we say about the soul? For she seems to be potentially the
TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES AND PROBLEMS 13!
living being when not united to her prospective body.

she is
She seems to be potentially musical, and all the other things

that she becomes but not always is. Do we then have to
admit potentiality into the intelligible world? No, these
things do not exist potentially there. Rather the soul is the
power which produces these things.
In what sense does one ascribe actuality to intelligible
things? Is it in the sense in which a statue, the composite of

form and matter, is said to be actual? That is, is it in the
sense of having an acquired form? No, because each in-
telligible is pure form and because its being is completely

realized. The activity of Intelligence does not consist in
passing from a state of potential thought to a state of actual
thought (that would require a prior Intelligence that would
always be active) for Intelligence comprehends everything
;
at once. A potential being depends on the activity of another
being to be brought to actuality. But a being that always is

what it is by itself is an actuality. Therefore the supreme
existences areall actualities; for they possess in themselves
allthey need and possess it eternally. Such is the state of the

soul which is not in matter, but in the intelligible world.
Yet also the soul which is in matter, as for instance the
vegetative soul, is an actuality; for she is what she is because
she is active.
Does it then follow that, because all truly real beings are
always actual, they are identical with actuality itself? If it
has rightly been said that the intelligible world is "always
awake," that it is life itself and the best life, then the highest
degree of activity must be found in the intelligible world.
Then allthings are actual and are actuality itself in the
intelligible world, all beings are alive and the intelligible
region is the region of life and truly the principle and source
of soul and Intelligence.
4. All the objects which are something potentially are

actually something else. They are things that exist actually
but are said to be potential in regard to some other thing.
But can matter, which we call that which is potentially all
beings, be said to be an actually existing being? If it were,
it would no longer be all beings potentially. But if matter
is none of the beings, it must be non-being. How then can it
be an actuality? Still, even if matter is none of the beings
which arise in it, nothing prevents it from being something
else, as there are also existences beyond those that arise in it.
Hence if matter is none of the beings that are in it, then at
first it is only in reference to them that it is non-being.
Nevertheless, since matter is considered to be formless, it

cannot be a Form and thus be included in the realm of
Forms. Hence it will also in this sense be non-being. As
matter thus not being in respect to both sensible and in-
is
telligible objects, it is non-being preeminently. But if matter

does not possess the nature of true Being, and if it cannot
even claim a place among the objects to which Being is
falsely ascribed (for not even, like sense objects, is matter

at least an image of reason), what kind of existence can be
ascribed to it? If no kind of existence can be ascribed to
it, what sort of actuality can it possess ?
5. What conception then shall we form of matter? In

what sense does matter exist ? Its existence consists in poten-
tiality. It is in the sense that it is potential. It exists inasmuch

as it is a substrate of existence. "Existence" with regard to it
signifies possibility of existence. The being

of matter is only
what is to be. Matter is
potentially not just some particular
thing, but Being nothing by itself and being what
all things.
it is, nothing actually. If it were something actually,
matter is
it would no longer be matter, that is, it would no longer be

TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES AND PROBLEMS 133
matter in the absolute sense of the term, but only in the
sense in which bronze is matter.
Matter is not non-being in the sense in which movement
is differentfrom being. Movement is dependent on being
because it is always some being that moves or is moved. But
matter is outside and apart from being. It cannot change,
and so it remains forever what it always was; that is, it is
forever non-being. It never was or became an actual being
because it is separate from all beings. It never was able to
keep even a reflection of the beings whose form it aspires to
assume. Its eternal condition is to be potentially the things
that will be. It end of the world of intelligible
appears at the
beings, is occupied by the sense beings which are begotten

after it, and is the lowest limit also of these sense beings.
Being found both in intelligible and sense things, it is

neither of them. Only potentiality is left to it. It is a sort of
feeble and obscure image which cannot assume any form.
Matter thus has the actuality of a shadow, the actuality of
an illusion. It is illusion in the absolute sense of the term and
thus that which really is not real. If matter then is actual
non-being, non-being preeminently, that which really is not
real, it is far removed from being any actual thing; for non-
being is its real nature. If it exists at all, it must not be

an actual thing, but, far from real being, must have its being
in not being. Just as to remove the illusory from illusions is
to destroy whatever existence they had, so to introduce
actuality into beings whose being and substance consist in

being potential is to annihilate the principle of their existence,
because their existence consists in existing potentially. There-
fore, if matter is to be imperishable, it is first necessary to
preserve proper character. It seems then that to be matter
its
is necessarily to be potential existence. The only alternative
is to refute the arguments we have advanced.

ARE THERE IDEAL ARCHETYPES OF PARTICULARS?
(Ennead V vii)
i. Are there Ideas

of particular things? Yes; if I and each
individual can be traced back to the intelligible world, we
must find there the originating principle of each individual.
If Socrates and the soul of Socrates always exist together,
then there is an Idea of Socrates in the intelligible world, as
souls exist in the intelligible world. But if they do not always
exist together; if the same soul can successively belong to
several individuals, first to Socrates, then to Pythagoras or

some other person, then there are not Ideas of each individual
in the intelligible world. Nevertheless, if the soul, though
she successively belongs to different individuals, always con-
tains the seminal reasons of all the individuals she belongs
to, then there are Ideas of all individuals in the intelligible
world, particularly as we hold that each individual soul con-

tains as many seminal reasons as the entire world. Thus, if
the world contains not only the reasons of men but also
those of all animals, the same holds for the soul. The num-
ber of these reasons would be infinite if the world did not
traverse identical series of existence in cycles of eternal re-
currence and thus set a limit to the number of reasons be-
cause the same things eternally return. But in terms of such
recurrence the number of sense objects is larger than that
of their ideal archetypes. Why
then must, in each particular
cycle, the number of sense objects be the same as that of
their reasons or archetypes? It would seem that one arche-
type would be sufficient for all men, just as a limited number

of souls animate an infinite number of men in the cycles of
recurrence. But this cannot be the case; for it is
impossible
for different things to have the same rational exemplars,
that is, one Idea of man does not suffice as a model for
several men who differ from each other not only by their
matter, but also by a thousand differences of form. They do

not differ from each other in the way in which the statues
from
of Socrates differ their model. Their difference results
from the difference of their rational exemplars. Each cycle
manifests the totality of rational forms. In the next cycle
the same things will arise again because of the same rational
exemplars. We
need not fear that as a consequence a discrete
infinity would be introduced into the intelligible world.
For intelligible infinity is indivisible and becomes discrete
only in the act of proceeding from Intelligence to another

level of existence.
might be objected that it is the mixture of the rational

2. It
forms in the male and the female which produces the
diversity of individuals, and that thus there is not a special

rationalexemplar for each individual. The generating prin-
male, for example, will then not propagate accord-
ciple, the
ing to one of a variety of rational exemplars possessed by

it, but only according to a single rational form, its own or
that of its father. To this we answer
that nothing prevents
it from begetting according to a variety of rational forms for
it contains the totality of rational forms in itself but acts
according to those that are prevalent. Differing individuals

are bornfrom the same parents because of the uneven prev-
alence of the rational forms. The offspring does not take its
characteristics from a mixture of the male and the female

forms whereby either the one or the other dominates (how-
ever external appearances may favor this view). Both parties
make an equal contribution. They both furnish the totality
of rational forms; and the totality of rational forms thus
dominates in the new birth the matter furnished by either
of the two parties or by one of them. Further, if the dif-
ferences between animals born at the same time were due
to their differing positions in the womb and hence to an
unequal domination of the matter by form, none of the
individuals, except one, would be in accordance with nature.
But if these beings, in spite of their differences, can each be
beautiful, there is not just one ideal form for them. Only
is due to the fact that the forms do not
ugliness, not beauty,
dominate matter sufficiently. These forms are perfect and
present in their totality, even though this may not be ob-
vious. In the light of the variety of rational forms, why
should there be as many of them as there are individuals
which achieve existence in any one cycle? For it is possible
that beings which have the same rational forms differ in ex-
ternal appearance. This last statement is true in the sense
that each being contains all rational forms and yet differs
from the other. But the question is whether in any two
individuals it is the same forms that are dominant. Is this
possible when, while absolutely the same things recur in the

various cycles, within the same cycle there is nothing abso-
lutely identical?
3. But
how can one say that the rational exemplars of
twins are different, particularly if one includes the non-
human animals, and among them, particularly, those that
produce many individuals at one birth? If twins were in-
distinguishable, there would indeed be only one rational ex-
emplar for them; and, in this case, the number of individuals
would not be identical with that of rational forms. But there
are asmany rational forms whose
as there are individuals dif-
ference is not due only to a deficiency of realizing their form
completely. What prevents us from assuming such rational

forms also for beings that show no difference? (We may here
leave it open whether there really can be two totally indis-
tinguishable things.) An artisan who produces identical

objects nevertheless distinguishes them in his thought, and
thus can add one identical object to another and yet dis-
tinguish them. In nature the differences do not derive from
discursive reasoning, but from differing rational forms, and
hence must be found within the forms. But we are not able
to discern them.
It would be a different matter if the number of things
born were due to chance. But if the number of things

born is determinate, this quantity will be limited to the
temporal unrollment of all rational forms, so that, when
the series is finished, another cycle will begin. The quantity
suitable to the world and the number of beings that are to
exist in determined since the beginning by the being
it is
which contains the rational exemplars. Is it then really true

that, also in the case of non-human animals which produce
several animals at one birth, the number of rational ex-
emplars is identical with the number of the offspring?
Yes, one must not, since the soul contains all things, be
afraid of an infinity of seeds and rational forms. The infinite

exists even in the world of Intelligence, as it exists in the
soul due to the incessant activity of the intelligibles.

THE ONE AS SOURCE AND GOAL
OF EXISTENCE
THE GOOD AND THE ONE (Ennead VI ix)
i. All beings, both the supreme beings as well as those

who are called beings on any pretext whatsoever, are beings
only because of their unity. What indeed would they be
without it? Deprived of their unity, they would cease to be
what they are. An army cannot exist unless it is one. The
same holds for a chorus or a flock. Neither a house nor a
ship can exist without unity. By losing unity, they would
cease to be what they are. The same is true for continuous
quantities which could not exist without unity. On being

divided, they lose their unity and simultaneously lose their
nature. Consider further the bodies of plants and animals
of which each is a unity. On losing their unity by being
broken up into several parts, they simultaneously lose their
nature. They are no more what they were. They have be-
come new and different beings which in turn exist only as
long as each of them is one. Health, too, is due to the fact
that the parts of the body are coordinated in unity. Beauty
is due to the unity which regulates the parts. Virtue is unifi-
cation of soul and harmonious integration.

The soul imparts unity to all things when producing
them, fashioning them, forming, and arranging them.
Should we therefore, after rising to the soul, say that she
not only imparts unity, but herself is unity in itself? We
should not. For as the soul imparts form and figure to
138
THE ONE AS SOURCE AND GOAL OF EXISTENCE 139
bodies without being identical therewith, she imparts unity
without being unity. She unifies each of her products only
by contemplation of the One, just as she produces man only
by contemplating Man-in-himself and the unity implied in
this ideal archetype. Each of the things that are called "one"
has a unity proportionate to its nature. It participates in
unity more or less according to the degree of its being. Thus
the soul is not the One; but as she possesses a higher degree
of being, she also possesses more unity, without being unity
itself. She is one, but her unity is contingent. There is a dif-
ference between the soul and unity, just as between the body
and unity. A discrete quantity such as a chorus is very far
from being unity. A continuous quantity is closer to unity.
The soul gets still nearer to it and participates in it still
more. If this fact that the soul cannot exist without being
one leads someone to suggest the identity of the soul and
the One, two answers can be given. First, other things too
possess individual existence because they possess unity and

nevertheless are not the One itself. Thus the body is not
identical with unity, but participates in unity. Second, the
soul is manifold as well as one, even though she is not com-
posed of parts. She possesses several faculties, such as dis-

cursive reason, desire, and perception all of them faculties
joined together in unity as if by a bond. Thus the soul

imparts unity because she herself possesses unity. But this
unity is received by her from some other source.
2. If being is not identical with unity in each particular

thing, is
perhaps the totality of being identical with unity?
Then on discovering Being, the One also would be dis-
covered, and the two would be identical, so that if Being
is
Intelligence, the One must be Intelligence, and In-
also
telligence as the supreme being and supreme unity would

be imparting being and unity to other things in the same
degree. What indeed is the One? Is it identical with Being
as "man" and "one man" are equivalent? Or is it the number
of each thing t^ken individually? (As one object and another
joined to it are spoken of as two, so an object taken singly

is referred to as one.) In the latter case, if number belongs
to the class of Being, evidently the One will belong so, too;
and we shall have what kind of being it is. If,
to discover
however, unity is not more than a numbering device of the
soul, then the One will possess no real existence. But this
last eliminated by our previous observation

possibility is
that each object on losing unity loses eixstence, too. It re-

mains therefore to investigate whether being and unity are
identical either in each individual object or in their totality.
As the being of each thing consists in manifoldness and
the One cannot be manifoldness, the One must differ from
being. Now man is animal, rational, and many things be-
sides;and this manifoldness is held together by unity as
a bond. There is therefore a difference between man and
unity. Man is divisible while unity is indivisible. The totality
of Being, containing all beings, is still more manifold.
Therefore it differs from Unity itself, though it does possess
unity by participation. Being possesses life and intelligence,
for it is not inert. It must therefore be manifold. Besides, if
it is Intelligence, it must in this respect also be manifold and
the more so if it contains the ideal Forms. For the Forms,
individually and in their totality, are a sort of number, and

arc one only in the way in which the universe is one.
In sum, the One is the first existence. But Intelligence, the
Forms, and Being arc not first. Every form is manifold and
composite, and consequently something derived; for the
parts are prior to the composite they constitute. That Intelli-
gence cannot be primary will also appear from the following
THE ONE AS SOURCE AND GOAL OF EXISTENCE 14!
considerations. The
activity of Intelligence consists neces-
sarily in thinking. The best intelligence which does not
turn to external objects, contemplates what is superior to
it; for in turning towards itself it turns towards its origin.
But if
Intelligence both thinker and thought, this implies
is
duality and Intelligence is not simple and hence not the

One. If, moreover, Intelligence contemplates some object
other than itself, then surely there is an object better than
and superior to it. Even if Intelligence contemplates itself

and simultaneously that which is better than it, it still is
only of secondary rank. We must conceive Intelligence as
enjoying the presence of the Good, the First, and contem-
plating it, while it is also present to itself, thinks itself, and
thinks itself as being all
things. Constituting such a diversity,
Intelligence is farfrom being the One. Thus the One is not
all
things, for then it would no longer be one. It is not
Intelligence either; for since Intelligence is all things, the
One, too, would be all things. It is not Being; for Being is
all things.
3. What then is the One? What is its nature? It is not
surprising that it is difficult to say what it is, when it is
difficult to explain even what Being is or Form is. Yet, with

the latter, our knowledge still deals with objects that have
form. But the more the soul advances towards what is
formless, not being able to grasp it because it has no bound-

aries and having received a confused impression, she skids
and meet nothingness. That is why, in the
fears she will
presence of such things she grows troubled and is glad to

descend to the world below. She falls till she arrives in the
world of sense objects where she pauses as if on solid ground,
just as the eye, fatigued by the contemplation of small ob-
jects, glady turns to large ones. But when the soul wishes
to contemplate in accordance with her nature, then, as she
has her vision only because she is with the object of her
vision, and as she is one because she is one with this object,
she does not believe that she has found the object of her
search; for she herself is not distinct from the object that
she thinks. Nevertheless, a philosophical study of unity will
follow this course. Since it is the One
that is sought, since
indeed it is the origin of all things, the Good, the First that
is inquired after, a man who will wish to reach it must not
withdraw from that which is of the first rank to sink to

what occupies the last. Rather he must withdraw from sense
objects which occupy the last rank in the scale of existence
and turn to those entities that occupy the first. Such a man
will have to free himself from all evil, since he aspires to
rise to the Good. He will then rise to the principle that
he possesses within himself. From the manifoldness that he

was, he will again become one and thus will contemplate
the supreme principle, the One. Having become Intelligence,
having trusted his soul to and established her in Intelligence,

so that with vigilant attention she may grasp all that In-
telligence sees, he will, by Intelligence, contemplate unity,

without the use of any senses, without mingling perception
with the activity of Intelligence. He will contemplate the
purest object through pure intelligence, through that which
is
supreme in Intelligence. Thus when a man applies him-
self to the contemplation of such an object and represents
it to himself as a physical
magnitude, or a figure, or a mass,
it isnot Intelligence that guides him in his contemplation,
because it is not in the nature of
Intelligence to see such
things. But it is sensation and
opinion, the associates of
sensation, that are active in him. From Intelligence, how-
ever,one must expect the communication of things that
belong to its realm.
Now the function of Intelligence to contemplate the
it is
things that are above it, those which belong to it, and the
things that proceed from it. The things that belong to In-
telligence are pure. But still more pure and more simple are
the things, or rather the single thing, above Intelligence.
This existence is not Intelligence but superior to Intelli-
gence. Intelligence is in the class of Being while the existence
above it is
superior to all things and hence is not even Being.
Being has, as were, the form of Being, but the One is

it
formless. It does not even possess the form which the in-
telligible possesses. As the One begets all things, the One
cannot be any one of them. It is therefore neither any par-
ticular thing, nor quality, nor quantity, nor Intelligence,
nor soul, nor what is moved, nor what is stable. It is neither
in place nor in time. But it is the uniform in itself, or
rather it is formless, as it is above all forms, above move-
ment and stability which are characteristic of Being and
make Being manifold.
But if the One does not move, why does it not possess
stability? It or motion, or both to-
does not, because rest
gether, are characteristic of Being, and because that which

possesses stability is stable on account of the existence of
stability as such and is not identical with stability as such.
The One, consequently, would possess stability only by ac-
cidentand would no longer remain simple. Let no one
object thatsomething contingent is attributed to the One
when we call it the first cause. For it is to ourselves that we
are thereby attributing contingency, since it is we who are
receiving something from the One, while the One remains,

within itself. When we wish to speak with precision, we
should not say that the One is this or that. We
must, as we
"revolve" around it, try to express what we feel in regard to
it. We must do this in the light of the experiences we un-
dergo when at times we approach the One and then again

withdraw from it as a result of the difficulties involved.
4. The
principal difficulty is due to the fact that our
knowledge of the One comes to us neither by science nor
by pure thought, as does the knowledge of other intelligible
things, but by a presence which superior to science. When

is
the soul acquires scientific knowledge of something, she

withdraws from unity and ceases being fully one; for science
implies discursive reason and discursive reason implies man-
ifoldness. She then misses the One and falls into number
and multiplicity. We
must therefore rise above science and
never withdraw from unity. We must renounce science, the
objects of science, and every other object, even beauty; for
even beauty is posterior to the One and is derived from it as
the daylight comes from the sun. That is why Plato says
of the One that "it can neither be spoken nor written of."
If nevertheless speak of and write about it, we do so only
we
to give direction, to stimulate towards that vision beyond
discourse, as one might point out the road to somebody who

desired to see some indeed goes as far
object. Instruction
as showing the road and guiding in the way; but to obtain
the vision is the work of him who desires to obtain it.
If one does not succeed in enjoying this spectacle, if one's
soul does not attain the knowledge of that life beyond, if
she does not within herself feel a rapture such as that of

a lover who sees the beloved object and rests within it,
if, because of one's proximity to the One, one receives the
true light and has one's whole soul illuminated but still in
one's ascent is oppressed by a weight which hinders one's
contemplation, if one does not rise in a purified state but

retains within oneself something that separates one from
the One, if one is not yet unified enough, if one has not
yet risen so far but still is at a distance, either because of the

obstacles of which we just spoke or because of the lack of
such instruction as would have given one direction and con-
fidence in the existence of things beyond, one has no one
to blame but oneself and should try to become pure by
detaching oneself from everything. (For the One is not
absent from anything, though in another sense it is absent
from all things. It is present only to those who are able to
receive it and are prepared for it, so as to enter into harmony
with it, to "grasp" and to "touch" it by virtue of their
similarity to it, by virtue of an inner power analogous to and
stemming from the One when this power is in that state in

which it was when it originated from the One. Thus they
will see it as far as it can become an object of contempla-
tion.) He who still lacks confidence in these arguments

should consider the following.
5. Those who believe that the world of Being

is governed
by luck or chance and that it depends on material causes,

are far removed from the divinity and from the conception
of unity. It is not such men that we are addressing but such
as admit the existence of a world different from the cor-
poreal and at least acknowledge the existence of the soul.
These men should then apply themselves to the study of the
soul, learning among other things that she proceeds from

Intelligence and achieves virtue by participating in that
reason which proceeds from Intelligence. After that, they
must realize that Intelligence is different from the faculty
of reasoning or discursive reason, and that reasoning im-
plies, as it were, separate steps and movement. They must

see that scientific knowledge consists in the manifestation
of the rational forms that exist in the soul and comes to the
soul from Intelligence which is the source of scientific

knowledge. After one has seen Intelligence, which seems

like a thing of sense because it is immediately perceived, but
which transcends the soul and is her father because it con-
stitutes the intelligible world, one must say that Intelligence
in its calm and undisturbed movement contains everything
and is
everything. In its multiplicity it is both indivisible
and divisible. It is not divisible like the contents of discursive
reason which are conceived item by item. Still its contents

are not indistinctly confused, either. Each of its elements is
distinct from the others, just as in a science all the theories
form an indivisible whole and yet each theory has its own
separate status. This multitude of co-existing beings, the
intelligible world, is near to the First. Its existence is neces-
sary, as reason demonstrates, if there is also to be soul. But

though the intelligible world is
something superior to the
soul, it is nevertheless not yet the supreme existence, because

it is neither one, nor simple, while the One, the source of
all is
things, simple.
There is an existence that is
superior to even what is
highest in the world of Being. There must indeed be an
existence above Intelligence; for Intelligence does aspire to
become one, but is not one and only resembles the One. It
resembles the One because it is not divided but has all its
parts co-existing. On account of itsproximity to the One,

it did not break apart, though it dared to withdraw from
it. This marvelous existence above Intelligence is the One
itself which is not the same as Being. Its unity is not the
attribute of something else, as is the case with the other

existences that are one.No name should really be given to
it. however, it must be named, it may appropriately be
If,
called One, but only on the understanding that it is not a

substance that possesses unity only as an attribute. Hence
the One is difficult to know and is rather known by its off-
spring, that is,by Being. It brings Intelligence into being,

and its nature is such that it is the source of the most ex-
cellent things. It is the
power which begets the things while
remaining within itself without undergoing any diminution.
It does not
pass into the things to which it gives birth
because it is prior to them. We
are necessarily led to call
this existence theOne in order to designate it to one another,
to lead up with this name to an indivisible conception, and
to unify our soul. But when we say that this existence is
one and indivisible, it is not in the same sense that we say
it of the
geometrical point or the numerical unit. What is
one in this latter sense is a quantitative principle which
would not exist unless substance were there first and that
which precedes substance and Being. It is not of this kind
of unity that we must think. But we should see the analogy
of things here with those beyond in regard to simplicity and
the absence of manifoldness and division.
6. In what sense do we call the supreme existence one,
and how can we conceive of it? We shall have to insist that

itsunity is much more perfect than that of the numerical unit
or the geometrical point. For with regard to these, the
soul, abstractingfrom magnitude and numerical plurality,
indeed stops which is most minute and comes to rest
at that
in something indivisible. This kind of unity is found in
something that is divisible and exists in a subject other than

itself, but the One is neither in a subject other than itself,
nor in anything divisible, nor is it indivisible in the sense
in which that which is most minute is indivisible. On the
contrary, the One is the greatest of all things, not by physi-

cal magnitude, but by power. Hence it is indivisible, not
in regard to physical magnitude but in regard to power.
So too the beings that proceed from it, since they are incor-
poreal, are indivisible and without parts in regard to power,
not to mass. We must also insist that the One is infinite, not
as extension or the number series is infinite, but because its
power has no When you conceive it as Intelligence

limits.
or divinity, more powerful. When you unify it in

it is still
your thought, it is still more powerful. Its unity is superior

to any that your thought possesses. For it exists by and
in itself and has no attributes.
unity can also be well understood by its self-sufficiency.

Its
For is necessarily the most powerful, the most self-

it
sufficient existence of all, and that which least needs any-
thing else. Anything that is not one, but manifold, needs
something else; its

being want of unification. But the
is in
One is already one; it does not even need itself. The being
that is manifold, in order to be what it is, needs the mul-
it contains; and each of the
tiplicity of things that things
contained what it is only by its union with the others
is
and not by itself and thus needs the others. Therefore such
a being is deficient with regard to both its parts and the
whole. If then there must be something that is fully self-
sufficient, it must be the One which alone needs nothing
either of itself or of the other things. It needs nothing out-
side itself either to exist, or to achieve well-being, or to be
sustained in existence. As it is the cause of the other things,
it does not owe its existence to them. How could it derive
itswell-being from outside itself well-being is not
as its
something contingent but is its very nature? Since it does
not occupy any space, it does not need any support or founda-
tion as if it could not sustain itself. That which needs a
foundation is inanimate and, without support, is no more
than a mass ready to fall. The One is the foundation of all
other things. them existence and at the same time

It gives
a location. That which needs a location is not self-sufficient.
A principle has no need of the things under it. The prin-
ciple of all things has no need of anything at all. Every
deficient being is deficient because it
aspires to its
principle.
But if the One would evidently seek
aspired to anything, it
not to be the One, that is, it would aspire to that which

destroys it. Everything that is wanting wants well being and
preservation. Hence the One cannot aim at any good or
desire anything. It is superior to the good. It is the Good,
not for itself, but for the other things, to the extent to which
they can participate in it. The One is not a thinking ex-

istence. If it were, it would constitute a duality. It is not
in motion, because it is
prior to motion much as to
as think-
ing. Besides, what would it think? itself? Would it think

In this case would be in a state of ignorance before think-
it
ing, and that which is self-sufficient would be in need of

thought. Neither should it be
thought to be in a state of
ignorance on the ground that it does not know itself and
does not think itself. Ignorance presupposes a relation be-
tween two things and consists in one thing not knowing
another. But the One in its aloneness can neither know nor
be ignorant of anything. Being with itself, it has no need of
knowing itself. We should not even attribute to it presence

with itself if we
are to preserve its unity. should exclude We
from it
thinking of itself and thinking of other things. It is
not like that which thinks, but rather like the activity of
thinking. The activity of thinking itself does not think;
it is the cause which makes some other
being think and the
cause cannot be identical with that which is caused. The
cause therefore of all existing things cannot be any one of
these things. This cause therefore must not be thought
identical with the good it dispenses. But in another sense
it is the Good which is above all other goods.
7. You are in a state of uncertainty because the One is
none of the things we mentioned. Start them with these

things, and from them proceed with your contemplation.
While doing so, do not let yourself be distracted by any-
think exterior. For the One is not in some definite place,
depriving the remainder of its presence, but is present to
those who can enter into contact with it and only absent to
those who
cannot. Just as in the case of other objects one
cannot concentrate on one thing by thinking of another and
hence should not connect something else with the object that
isthought, if one wishes to get hold of it, so one must like-
wise understand that it is impossible for anyone whose
soul contains any alien impression to conceive of the One as
long as such an impression occupies the soul's attention.

It is equally impossible that the soul, at the moment when
she is attentive to other things, should receive the form of
what is contrary to them. Just as it is said of matter that it
must be absolutely deprived of all qualities in order to be

susceptible of receiving all forms, so the soul must likewise,
and for a stronger reason, be stripped of all form if she
desires to be filled with and illuminated by the supreme
existence without any hindrance from within herself. Hav-
ing thus liberated herself from all exterior things, the soul
must entirely turn inward. She will not allow herself to be
turned towards the external objects and she must forget
all things, first by her attitude and later by the absence of
any conception of their forms. She must not even know that
it is she who is
applying herself to the contemplation of
the One. Then, after having sufficiently dwelled with it,
she should, ifshe can, reveal to others this transcendent com-

munion. It doubtless was enjoyment of this communion
thatwas the basis of calling Minos the confidant of Zeus.
In memory of this union he made an image of it in his laws,
inspired by his contact with the divine to legislation. But if

one looks down on civic pursuits as not worthy of oneself,
one should, if one so desires, remain in the world above.
This does indeed happen to those who have contemplated
much. The divinity, it is said, is not outside of any being
but, on the contrary, is present to all beings, though they may
it. This
be ignorant of happens because they are fugitives
from the divine, wandering outside of the divine, or rather
outside of themselves. They no longer grasp that from which
they are fleeing nor, having lost themselves, can they seek
some other being. A
son who is mad and beside himself is
not likely to recognize his father. But he who has learned
to know himself will at the same time discover whence he
comes.
8. Self-knowledge reveals to the soul that her natural

motion is not in a straight line, unless it is deflected. On the
contrary, her natural motion is motion around

like a circular
some interior object, around a center. The center is that fiom

which proceeds that which is around it. If the soul knows
this, she will move around the center from which she pro-
ceeds, and she will attach herself to it and commune with it,
as indeed all souls should do but only divine souls always do.
That is the secret of their divinity. For divinity consists in
being attached to the center. Anyone who withdraws much
from it becomes an ordinary man or an animal.
Is the "center" of the soul then the principle that we are
seeking? No, we must look for some other principle towards

which all "centers" converge and to which, only by analogy
to the visible circle, the word "center" is
applied. By saying
that the soul has a circular motion, we do not mean that she
describes a geometrical figure, but that in her and around
her exists the primordial nature, that she derives her exist-
ence from the existence, and especially that she is en-
first
tirely separated from the body. Now, however, as we have

a part of our being contained in the body, we resemble a
man whose feet are plunged in water while the rest of his
body remains above it. Raising ourselves above the body by
that part of us which is not immerged, we are, by our own
center, attaching ourselves to the "center" of all things; and
so we rest, just as we make the centers of the great circles
coincide with that of the sphere that surrounds them. If
these circles were corporeal, not "circles" described by the
soul, the center and circumference would have to occupy

certain places. But since the souls are of the order of in-
telligible beings and the One is still above Intelligence, we
shall have to assert that the union of the thinking being
with its object proceeds by different means. The thinking
object is in the presence of its object by virtue of its similarity
and identity, and it is united with its kindred without any-
thing to separate them. Bodies are by their very bodies kept
from union. But the incorporeal cannot be arrested by
bodies. That which separates incorporeal beings from one
another is not local distance, but their difference and diver-
sity. When there is no difference between them, they are
present in each other.

As the One does not contain any difference, it is always
present, and we are present to it as soon as we contain no
more difference. It is not the One which is
aspiring to us,
so as to move around us. But it is we who are aspiring to
it, so as to move around it. Though we always move around
it, we do not always keep our glance fixed on it. We resemble

a chorus which surrounds its leader, whose members, none-
theless, do not always sing
in time because they allow their
attention to be distracted by some exterior object. If, how-
ever, they turned towards their leader, they would sing well
and really be with him. In a similar way, we too always turn
around the One. If not, we should dissolve and cease to
exist. But our glance does not remain fixed on the One.
When, however, we look to it, we attain the end of our

desires and find rest. Then we dance around it, without
dissonance, a truly divine dance.
9.
In this dance the soul sees the source of life, the source
of Intelligence, the origin of Being, the cause of the good,
and the root of the soul. All these entities proceed from the
One without diminishing it; for it is not a corporeal mass.
Otherwise the things that are born of it would be perishable.
They are eternal because their originating principle always
remains the same and does not divide itself in
producing
them, but remains therefore persist too, just as
entire. They
the light persists as long as the sun remains. Neither are
we separated from the One or distant from it, even though
corporeal nature by intruding itself has drawn us to it.
But it is through the One that we breathe and are preserved.
It does not bestow its
gifts atone moment, only to leave us
again; but its giving is
perpetual, as long as it remains what
it is. As we turn towards it, we exist to a higher degree,
while to withdraw from it is to fall. Our soul rests delivered
from all evils by rising to that place free from all evil. There
she really thinks, there she impassive, there she really lives.
is
Our present life, in which we are not united with the
divinity, only a trace or copy of real

is life. The life beyond
consists in the activity of Intelligence. It is this activity of
Intelligence which, without motion and by its contact with

154 E PHILOSOPHY OF PLOTINUS
the One, begets the divinities and beauty, justice, and virtue.
These are begotten by the soul that is filled with divinity,
and this is her starting point and goal. It is her starting
point because it is from the world above that she proceeds.
It is her goal because in the world above is the good to which
she aspires and by returning to it she regains her proper

nature. Life here below in the midst of sense objects is for
the soul a degradation, an exile, a loss of wings.
Another proof that our good is found in the world above
is the love that is innate in our souls, as is shown in the
pictures and myths which couple Eros with Psyche. In

though different from the divinity, pro-
fact, since the soul,
ceeds from it, she must necessarily love it. But when she
is in the world above, her love is celestial. Here below her
love is only commonplace. It is in the world above that

dwells the celestial Aphrodite, while here below resides
the vulgar Aphrodite who is similar to a concubine. Now
every soul is an Aphrodite as it suggested in the myth of
the birth of Aphrodite and the simultaneous birth of Eros.
As long as the soul remains faithful to her nature, she loves
the divinity and desires to be united with it, as a virgin loves
a noble father with a noble love. When, however, the soul has
descended into the world of generation, as if deceived by
the false promises of an adulterous lover, she has exchanged
her divine love for a mortal one. Then, at a distance from
her father, she yields to all kinds of excesses. But when she
begins to hate these excesses, purifies herself, and returns to

her father, she finds true happiness. How great her bliss then
is can be conceived,
by those who have not tasted it, by
thinking of earthly love unions, observing the joy felt by
the loverwho succeeds in obtaining what he desires. But
this love is directed to mortal and harmful objects, to shad-
ows. It soon disappears because they are not the real objects
of our love nor the good we are really seeking. Only in the
world beyond is the real object of our love, the only one
with which we can unite ourselves, which we can have part
of, and which we can intimately possess without being sep-
arated by the barrier of flesh. He who has had this experience
will know what I am talking about. He will know that the
soul lives another life as she advances towards the One,
reaches and participates in it, and in this condition recog-
nizes the presence of the dispenser of the true life. Then she
needs nothing more. On the contrary, she has to renounce
everything else and to remain fixed in it alone, to identify
herself with it, and to cut off all the encumbrances that at-
tach themselves to us. We then hasten to leave from here
below and regret the chains which bind us to other things,
in order so to embrace the real object of our love by our
whole being that no part of us is not in contact with it.
Then one can see it and oneself, as far as it is permitted to
see. One sees oneself shining brilliantly, filled with intelligi-
ble light. Or rather one oneself pure light, that is, subtle
is
and weightless. One has become divine, or rather one is
part of the eternal Being of the divine that is beyond becom-

ing. In this condition one is like a flame; but if later one is
weighted down again by the sense world, one is like a
light that is
extinguished.
10. Why does one who has risen to the world above not
stay there? He
does not stay there because he has not yet
entirely detached himself from things here below. But a

time will come when he will uninterruptedly enjoy the
vision, when he will no longer be troubled by the body. The
part of us that has the vision is not the one that is troubled,
but the other part which, even when we cease from our
vision, does not cease from its activity, namely, from the
scientific operations ofdemonstration, proof, and dialectic.
But the vision and the agency that has it do not consist in
discursive reasoning, but in something greater than, prior,
and superior to reason, and the same holds for the object
of the vision. When he who sees looks upon himself in the
act of vision, he will see himself as like his object or rather
as united to himself in the way in which an object of this
kind is united to itself. That is, he will experience himself
as simple, just as such an object is simple. We should not
even say "he will see." That which is seen, in case that it
still is possible to distinguish here that which sees from that

which is seen, or to assert that these two
things do not form
a single one a rash assertion indeed ,
is not seen, distin-
guished or represented as a thing apart. He who has the
vision becomes, as it were, another being. He ceases to
be himself, he retains nothing of himself. Absorbed in the
beyond he is one with it, like a center that coincides with
another center. While these centers coincide, they are one;
but they become two when they separate. It is in this
sense only that we can speak of the One as something
separate. Hence it is very difficult to describe this vision.
For how can we represent as different from us that which

did not seem, while we were contemplating it, other than
ourselves but in perfect at-oneness with us?
ii. This, no doubt, is the meaning of the injunction of
the mystery rites which prohibits their revelation to the un-

initiated. As that which is divine is not expressible, the
initiate is forbidden to talk of it to anyone who has not
had the happiness of beholding it. The
vision did not imply
a duality, but he who saw was identical with what he saw.
Hence he did not "see" it but rather was united with it. If
only he could preserve the memory of what he was while

thus absorbed into the One, he would, within himself, pos-
sess an image of the One. In that state he had attained
unity
and contained no difference, in regard either to himself or
to other beings. In his ascent there was within him no move-
ment, no anger, desire, reason, nor thought. In sum, he was
no longer himself; but, swept away and filled with en-
thusiasm, he was tranquil, solitary, and unmoved. He did
not withdraw from the One nor did he turn towards him-
self. He was indeed in a state of
perfect stability, having,
so to say,become stability itself. In this condition he busies
himself no longer even with beauty. For he has risen above
Beauty and has passed beyond even the choir of virtues, just
as he who penetrates into the innermost sanctuary of a temple
leaves behind him the statues placed in the rest of the temple.
These statues are the first objects that will strike his view
on his exit from the sanctuary afterhe has experienced the
vision it offers. The intimate communion, however, is not
with an image or statue (which is contemplated only when
he comes out), but with that which it represents. That ex-
perience was hardly a vision, but a quite different kind of
seeing, a self-transcendence, a simplification, a self-abandon-
ment, a striving for contact, a quietude, an intentness on
adaptation. This is the way one sees in the sanctuary. Anyone
who seeks to see in any other way will see nothing.
By making use of these images the wise among the priests

wished to suggest how the divinity might be seen. A wise
priest, penetrating behind the image, will, when he has ar-

rived in the world beyond, achieve the true vision of the
sanctuary. If he has not yet arrived there, he will, in know-

ing that the true sanctuary is invisible, also know that it is
the source and principle of everything, that only through
the principle is the principle seen, and that like only joins
like. He will leave aside no divine thing which the soul
is capable of acquiring. If he has not yet completed his vision,
he will see to it that it iscompleted. This completion for
him who has risen above all things consists in the existence
that is above all things. When the soul descends, she will by
her nature never reach complete nothingness. She will fall
into evil and, in this sense, into nothingness, but not into
complete nothingness. In a similar way, when the soul

reverses her direction, she does not arrive at something dif-
ferent, but at herself. She thus is not in anything different
from herself, but in herself. But as she is in herself alone and
not even in the world of Being, she is in the existence
beyond. We too transcend Being by virtue of the soul with

which we are united. Now if one sees oneself in this state,
one finds oneself an image of the One. If one rises beyond
oneself, an image rising to its model, one has reached the
goal of one's journey. When one falls from this vision, one
will, by arousing the virtue that is within oneself, and by
remembering the perfections that one possesses, regain one's

lightness and through virtue rise to Intelligence, and through
wisdom to the One. Such is the life of gods and of divine
and blessed men, detachment from all things here below,
scorn of all earthly pleasures, and flight of the alone to the
alone.

The Philosophy of Plotinus, Representative Books From The Enneads, Selected and Translated With An Introduction by Joseph Katz, 1950

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OSMAN1A UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, Concerning Being and Essence, translated

JOHN LOCKE, Treatise of Civil Government and A Letter Con-

BENEDICT DE SPINOZA, Writings on Political Philosophy, edited

ST. AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, Bishop of Hippo, Concerning the

IMMANUEL KANT, The Fundamental Principles of the Meta-

THOMAS HOBBES, De Cive or The Citizen, edited with an in-

HENRI BERGSON, Selections from Bergson, edited with an intro-

PLOTINUS, The Philosophy of Plotinus, selected and translated

Representative Books from the Enneads

Selected and Translated with an Introduction by

FRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMI

I. THE METHOD OF PHILOSOPHY i

II. THE CHAIN OF REALITIES . . . ... 7

IV. REASON, SENSE, AND EMOTION 114

V. TRADITIONAL CATEGORIES AND PROBLEMS .

Actuality and Potentiality (Ennead II v) 127 . . .

Are There Ideal Archetypes of Particulars? (En-

was such as to amply justify discontent with things as they

was shaken by constant wars accompanied by the rapid suc-

philosophers the form of a plan towards remodeling things

agreeable as can as long as we need to bother with them

them is almost the only tribute which Plotinus ever pays to

enough fact in people's lives but a formidable tribute it

is, as signifies the philosopher's sense of powerlessness in

regard to the ordinary world.

beyond sense reality and to live as fully in it as was possible

body. He seems to have found his intellectual anchorage

in the world as it was to Plotinus. They too must have found

capacity were often sought without, as Porphyry reports,

phy to writing. These writings mirror his oral instructions.

grettable that in his written text Plotinus hardly ever men-

dealing with. Thus in the big polemic against the Gnostics

style, occasionally to the point that his intent can only be

tainly agree with Porphyry's judgment that Plotinus style

borne in mind that part of the initial difficulty in reading

points in a variety of ways. Apart from a few details there

assigned to him the editing of his writings. It is to Porphyry

name, "Enneads" meaning "sets of nine."

nothing in Plotinus which, to this writer, cannot be derived

phy of Plotinus is continuous with the philosophies that

dating the beginning of Neoplatonism with Plotinus. It

should be realized that this name Afeoplatonism is a prod-

position in Plotinus' writings. While all the other philoso-

philosophy, in which Plato expressed himself. Such an in-

Plato tends to neglect the context in which certain views are

expressed and often naively tends to ascribe to Plato the

attempt to distill a philosophy of Shakespeare out of the

many of Plato's discussions grew out of his concern with re-

philosophy may vary, nobody will deny that questions of

given a major share of his attention. That the focus of Ploti-

Being part of the Hellenic tradition implied commitment

prove by argument conceptions that are essentially poetic

rely upon it as his main claim to authority over the minds

evidential value formost of his listeners. It is thus with the