Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1
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Title: Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1
Author: Plotinus
Translator: Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie
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Language: English
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PLOTINOS
Complete Works
In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods;
With
BIOGRAPHY by PORPHYRY, EUNAPIUS, & SUIDAS,
COMMENTARY by PORPHYRY,
ILLUSTRATIONS by JAMBLICHUS & AMMONIUS,
STUDIES in Sources, Development, Influence;
INDEX of Subjects, Thoughts and Words.
by
KENNETH SYLVAN GUTHRIE,
Professor in Extension, University of the South, Sewanee;
A.M., Sewanee, and Harvard; Ph.D., Tulane, and Columbia.
M.D., Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE PRESS
P. O. Box 42, ALPINE, N.J., U.S.A.
Copyright, 1918, by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie.
All Rights, including that of Translation, Reserved.
Entered at Stationers' Hall, by
George Bell and Sons, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn, London.
PLOTINOS
Complete Works
In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods;
With
BIOGRAPHY by PORPHYRY, EUNAPIUS, & SUIDAS,
COMMENTARY by PORPHYRY,
ILLUSTRATIONS by JAMBLICHUS & AMMONIUS,
STUDIES in Sources, Development, Influence;
INDEX of Subjects, Thoughts and Words.
by
KENNETH SYLVAN GUTHRIE,
Professor in Extension, University of the South, Sewanee;
A.M., Sewanee, and Harvard; Ph.D., Tulane, and Columbia.
M.D., Medico-Chirurgical College, Philadelphia.
VOL. I
Biographies; Amelian Books, 1-21.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE PRESS
P. O. Box 42, ALPINE, N.J., U.S.A.
FOREWORD
It is only with mixed feelings that such a work can be published.
Overshadowing all is the supreme duty to the English-speaking world,
and secondarily to the rest of humanity to restore to them in an
accessible form their, till now, unexploited spiritual heritage, with
its flood of light on the origins of their favorite philosophy. And
then comes the contrast--the pitiful accomplishment. Nor could it
be otherwise; for there are passages that never can be interpreted
perfectly; moreover, the writer would gladly have devoted to it every
other leisure moment of his life--but that was impossible. As a matter
of fact, he would have made this translation at the beginning of his
life, instead of at its end, had it not been for a mistaken sense of
modesty; but as no one offered to do it, he had to do it himself. If he
had done it earlier, his "Philosophy of Plotinos" would have been a far
better work.
Indeed, if it was not for the difficulty and expense of putting it
out, the writer would now add to the text an entirely new summary of
Plotinos's views. The fairly complete concordance, however, should
be of service to the student, and help to rectify the latest German
summary of Plotinos, that by Drews, which in its effort to furnish a
foundation for Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious, neglected both
origins and spiritual aspects. However, the present genetic insight of
Plotinos's development should make forever impossible that theory of
cast-iron coherence, which is neither historical nor human.
The writer, having no thesis such as Drews' to justify, will
welcome all corrections and suggestions. He regrets the inevitable
uncertainties of capitalization (as between the supreme One,
Intelligence World-Soul and Daemon or guardian, and the lower
one, intelligence, soul and demon or guardian); and any other
inconsistencies of which he may have been guilty; and he beseeches the
mantle of charity in view of the stupendousness of the undertaking,
in which he practically could get no assistance of any kind, and also
in view of the almost insuperable difficulties of his own career. He,
however, begs to assure the reader that he did everything "ad majorem
Dei gloriam."
INDEX.
PLOTINOS' COMPLETE WORKS.
Preface 1
Concordance of Enneads and Chronological Numbers 2
Concordance of Chronological Numbers and Enneads 3
Biography of Plotinos, by Porphyry 5
Biographies by Eunapius and Suidas 39
Amelian Books, 1-21 40
Amelio-Porphyrian Books, 22-23 283
Porphyrian Books, 34-45 641
Eustochian Books, 46-54 1017
PLOTINIC STUDIES
IN SOURCES, DEVELOPMENT AND INFLUENCE.
1. Development in the Teachings of Plotinos 1269
2. Platonism: Significance, Progress, and Results 1288
3. Plotinos' View of Matter 1296
4. Plotinos' Creation of the Trinity 1300
5. Resemblances to Christianity 1307
6. Indebtedness to Numenius 1313
7. Value of Plotinos 1327
Concordance to Plotinos i
An outline of the doctrines of Plotinos is published under the title
"The Message of Plotinos."
CONCORDANCE OF ENNEADS AND CHRONOLOGICAL NUMBERS
i.1 53 iii.1 3 v.1 10
i.2 19 iii.2 47 v.2 11
i.3 20 iii.3 48 v.3 49
i.4 46 iii.4 15 v.4 7
i.5 36 iii.5 50 v.5 32
i.6 1 iii.6 26 v.6 24
i.7 54 iii.7 45 v.7 18
i.8 51 iii.8 30 v.8 31
i.9 16 iii.9 13 v.9 5
ii.1 40 iv.1 4 vi.1 42
ii.2 14 iv.2 21 vi.2 43
ii.3 52 iv.3 27 vi.3 44
ii.4 12 iv.4 28 vi.4 22
ii.5 25 iv.5 29 vi.5 23
ii.6 17 iv.6 41 vi.6 34
ii.7 37 iv.7 2 vi.7 38
ii.8 35 iv.8 6 vi.8 39
ii.9 33 iv.9 8 vi.9 9
CONCORDANCE OF CHRONOLOGICAL NUMBERS AND ENNEADS
1 i.6 19 i.2 37 ii.7
2 iv.7 20 i.3 38 vi.7
3 iii.1 21 iv.2 39 vi.8
4 iv.1 22 vi.4 40 ii.1
5 v.9 23 vi.5 41 iv.6
6 iv.8 24 v.6 42 vi.1
7 v.4 25 ii.5 43 vi.2
8 iv.9 26 iii.6 44 vi.3
9 vi.9 27 iv.3 45 iii.7
10 v.1 28 iv.4 46 i.4
11 v.2 29 iv.5 47 iii.2
12 ii.4 30 iii.8 48 iii.3
13 iii.9 31 v.8 49 v.3
14 ii.2 32 v.5 50 iii.5
15 iii.4 33 ii.9 51 i.8
16 i.9 34 vi.6 52 ii.3
17 ii.6 35 ii.8 53 i.1
18 v.7 36 i.5 54 i.7
Life of Plotinos And Order of his Writings
By PORPHYRY. (_Written when about 70 years of age, see 23._)
I. PLOTINOS, LIKE PORPHYRY, DESPISED HIS PHYSICAL NATURE, BUT A
PICTURE OF HIM WAS SECURED.
Plotinos the philosopher, who lived recently, seemed ashamed of having
a body. Consequently he never spoke of his family or home (Lycopolis,
now Syout, in the Thebaid, in Egypt). He never would permit anybody
to perpetuate him in a portrait or statue. One day that Amelius[1]
begged him to allow a painting to be made of him, he said, "Is it not
enough for me to have to carry around this image[2], in which nature
has enclosed us? Must I besides transmit to posterity the image of this
image as worthy of attention?" As Amelius never succeeded in getting
Plotinos to reconsider his refusal, and to consent to give a sitting,
Amelius begged his friend Carterius, the most famous painter of those
times, to attend Plotinos's lectures, which were free to all. By dint
of gazing at Plotinos, Carterius so filled his own imagination with
Plotinos's features that he succeeded in painting them from memory.
By his advice, Amelius directed Carterius in these labors, so that
this portrait was a very good likeness. All this occurred without the
knowledge of Plotinos.
II. SICKNESS AND DEATH OF PLOTINOS; HIS BIRTHDAY UNKNOWN.
Plotinos was subject to chronic digestive disorders; nevertheless,
he never was willing to take any remedies, on the plea that it was
unworthy of a man of his age to relieve himself by such means. Neither
did he ever take any of the then popular "wild animal remedy," because,
said he, he did not even eat the flesh of domestic animals, let alone
that of savage ones. He never bathed, contenting himself, with daily
massage at home. But when at the period of the plague, which was most
virulent,[3] the man who rubbed him died of it, he gave up the massage.
This interruption in his habits brought on him a chronic quinsy, which
never became very noticeable, so long as I remained with him; but after
I left him, it became aggravated to the point that his voice, formerly
sonorous and powerful, became permanently hoarse; besides, his vision
became disturbed, and ulcers appeared on his hands and feet. All this
I learned on my return, from my friend Eustochius, who remained with
him until his end. These inconveniences hindered his friends from
seeing him as often as they used to do, though he persisted in his
former custom of speaking to each one individually. The only solution
of this difficulty was for him to leave Rome. He retired into Campania,
on an estate that had belonged to Zethus, one of his friends who had
died earlier. All he needed was furnished by the estate itself, or
was brought to him from the estate at Minturnae, owned by Castricius
(author of a Commentary on Plato's Parmenides, to whom Porphyry
dedicated his treatise on Vegetarianism). Eustochius himself told me
that he happened to be at Puzzoli at the time of Plotinos's death,
and that he was slow in reaching the bedside of Plotinos. The latter
then said to him, "I have been waiting for you; I am trying to unite
what is divine in us[4] to that which is divine in the universe." Then
a serpent, who happened to be under Plotinos's death-bed slipped into
a hole in the wall (as happened at the death of Scipio Africanus,
Pliny, Hist. Nat. xv. 44), and Plotinos breathed his last. At that
time Plotinos was 66 years old (in 270, born in 205), according to the
account of Eustochius. The emperor Claudius II was then finishing the
second year of his reign. I was at Lilybaeum; Amelius was at Apamaea
in Syria, Castricius in Rome, and Eustochius alone was with Plotinos.
If we start from the second year of Claudius II and go back 66 years,
we will find that Plotinos's birth falls in the 18th year of Septimus
Severus (205). He never would tell the month or day of his birth,
because he did not approve of celebrating his birth-day either by
sacrifices, or banquets. Still he himself performed a sacrifice, and
entertained his friends on the birth-days of Plato and Socrates; and on
those days those who could do it had to write essays and read them to
the assembled company.
III. PLOTINOS'S EARLY EDUCATION.
This is as much as we learned about him during various interviews
with him. At eight years of age he was already under instruction by a
grammarian, though the habit of uncovering his nurse's breast to suck
her milk, with avidity, still clung to him. One day, however, she so
complained of his importunity that he became ashamed of himself, and
ceased doing so. At 28 years of age he devoted himself entirely to
philosophy. He was introduced to the teachers who at that time were
the most famous in Alexandria. He would return from their lectures
sad and discouraged. He communicated the cause of this grief to one
of his friends, who led him to Ammonius, with whom Plotinos was not
acquainted. As soon as he heard this philosopher, he said to his
friend, "This is the man I was looking for!" From that day forwards
he remained close to Ammonius. So great a taste for philosophy did he
develop, that he made up his mind to study that which was being taught
among the Persians, and among the Hindus. When emperor Gordian prepared
himself for his expedition against the Persians, Plotinos, then 39
years old, followed in the wake of the army. He had spent between 10
to 11 years near Ammonius. After Gordian was killed in Mesopotamia,
Plotinos had considerable trouble saving himself at Antioch. He reached
Rome while Philip was emperor, and when he himself was 50 years of age.
THE SCHOOL OF AMMONIUS.
Herennius, (the pagan) Origen, and Plotinos had agreed to keep secret
the teachings they had received from Ammonius. Plotinos carried out his
agreement. Herennius was the first one to break it, and Origen followed
his example. The latter limited himself to writing a book entitled,
"Of Daemons;" and, under the reign of Gallienus, he wrote another one
to prove that "The Emperor alone is the Only Poet" (if the book was
a flattery; which is not likely. Therefore it probably meant: "The
King (of the universe, that is, the divine Intelligence), is the only
'demiurgic' Creator.")
PLOTINOS AN UNSYSTEMATIC TEACHER.
For a long period Plotinos did not write anything. He contented himself
with teaching orally what he had learned from Ammonius. He thus passed
ten whole years teaching a few pupils, without committing anything to
writing. However, as he allowed his pupils to question him, it often
happened that his school was disorderly, and that there were useless
discussions, as I later heard from Amelius.
AMELIUS, PLOTINOS'S FIRST SECRETARY.
Amelius enrolled himself among the pupils of Plotinos during the third
year of Plotinos's stay in Rome, which also was the third year of the
reign of Claudius II, that is, 24 years. Amelius originally had been
a disciple of the Stoic philosopher Lysimachus.[5] Amelius surpassed
all his fellow-pupils by his systematic methods of study. He had
copied, gathered, and almost knew by heart all the works of Numenius.
He composed a hundred copy-books of notes taken at the courses of
Plotinos, and he gave them as a present to his adopted son, Hostilianus
Hesychius, of Apamea. (Fragments of Amelius's writings are found
scattered in those of Proclus, Stobaeus, Olympiodorus, Damascius, and
many of the Church Fathers.)
IV. HOW PORPHYRY CAME TO PLOTINOS FOR THE FIRST TIME, IN 253.
In the tenth year of the reign of Gallienus, I (then being twenty
years of age), left Greece and went to Rome with Antonius of Rhodes.
I found there Amelius, who had been following the courses of Plotinos
for eighteen years. He had not yet dared to write anything, except a
few books of notes, of which there were not yet as many as a hundred.
In this tenth year of the reign of Gallienus, Plotinos was fifty-nine
years old. When I (for the second, and more important time) joined
him, I was thirty years of age. During the first year of Gallienus,
Plotinos began to write upon some topics of passing interest, and in
the tenth year of Gallienus, when I visited him for the first time, he
had written twenty-one books, which had been circulated only among a
very small number of friends. They were not given out freely, and it
was not easy to go through them. They were communicated to students
only under precautionary measures, and after the judgment of those who
received them had been carefully tested.
PLOTINOS'S BOOKS OF THE FIRST PERIOD (THE AMELIAN PERIOD).
I shall mention the books that Plotinos had already written at that
time. As he had prefixed no titles to them, several persons gave them
different ones. Here are those that have asserted themselves:
1. Of the Beautiful. i. 6.
2. Of the Immortality of the Soul. iv. 7.
3. Of Fate. iii. 1.
4. Of the Nature of the Soul. iv. 1.
5. Of Intelligence, of Ideas, and of Existence. v. 9.
6. Of the Descent of the Soul into the Body. iv. 8.
7. How does that which is Posterior to the First
Proceed from Him? Of the One. v. 4.
8. Do all the Souls form but a Single Soul? iv. 9.
9. Of the Good, or of the One. vi. 9.
10. Of the Three Principal Hypostatic Forms of
Existence, v. 1.
11. Of Generation, and of the Order of Things
after the First, v. 2.
12. (Of the Two) Matters, (the Sensible and
Intelligible). ii. 4.
13. Various Considerations, iii. 9.
14. Of the (Circular) Motion of the Heavens. ii. 2.
15. Of the Daemon Allotted to Us, iii. 4.
16. Of (Reasonable) Suicide, i. 9.
17. Of Quality, ii. 6.
18. Are there Ideas of Individuals? v. 7.
19. Of Virtues. i. 2.
20. Of Dialectics. i. 3.
21. (How does the Soul keep the Mean between
Indivisible Nature and Divisible Nature?) iv. 2.
These twenty-one books were already written when I visited Plotinos; he
was then in the fifty-ninth year of his age.
V. HOW PORPHYRY CAME TO PLOTINOS FOR THE SECOND TIME (A. D. 263-269).
I remained with him this year, and the five following ones. I had
already visited Rome ten years previously; but at that time Plotinos
spent his summers in vacation, and contented himself with instructing
his visitors orally.
During the above-mentioned six years, as several questions had been
cleared up in the lectures of Plotinos, and at the urgent request of
Amelius and myself that he write them down, he wrote two books to prove
that
PLOTINOS'S BOOKS OF THE SECOND PERIOD (THE PORPHYRIAN PERIOD).
22. The One and Identical Existence is Everywhere
Entire, I, vi. 4.
23. Second Part Thereof. vi. 5.
Then he wrote the book entitled:
24. The Superessential Transcendent Principle
Does Not Think. Which is the First Thinking
Principle? And Which is the Second? v. 6.
He also wrote the following books:
25. Of Potentiality and Actualization. ii. 5.
26. Of the Impassibility of Incorporeal
Entities. iii. 6.
27. Of the Soul, First Part. iv. 3.
28. Of the Soul, Second Part. iv. 4.
29. (Of the Soul, Third; or, How do We See?) iv. 5.
30. Of Contemplation. iii. 8.
31. Of Intelligible Beauty. v. 8.
32. The Intelligible Entities are not Outside of
Intelligence. Of Intelligence and of Soul. v. 5.
33. Against the Gnostics. ii. 9.
34. Of Numbers. vi. 6.
35. Why do Distant Objects Seem Small? ii. 8.
36. Does Happiness (Consist in Duration?) i. 5.
37. Of the Mixture with Total Penetration. ii. 7.
38. Of the Multitude of Ideas; Of the Good. vi. 7.
39. Of the Will. vi. 8.
40. (Of the World). ii. 1.
41. Of Sensation, and of Memory. iv. 6.
42. Of the Kinds of Existence, First. vi. 1.
43. Of the Kinds of Existence, Second. vi. 2.
44. Of the Kinds of Existence, Third. vi. 3.
45. Of Eternity and Time. iii. 7.
Plotinos wrote these twenty-four books during the six years I spent
with him; as subjects he would take the problems that happened to come
up, and which we have indicated by the titles of these books. These
twenty-four books, joined to the twenty-one Plotinos had written before
I came to him, make forty-five.
VI. PLOTINOS'S BOOKS OF THE THIRD PERIOD (THE EUSTOCHIAN PERIOD).
While I was in Sicily, where I went in the fifteenth year of the reign
of Gallienus, he wrote five new books that he sent me:
46. Of Happiness. i. 4.
47. Of Providence, First. iii. 2.
48. Of Providence, Second. iii. 3.
49. Of the Hypostases that Act as Means of
Knowledge, and of the Transcendent. v. 3.
50. Of Love. iii. 5.
These books he sent me in the last year of the reign of Claudius II,
and at the beginning of the second.
Shortly before dying, he sent me the following four books:
51. Of the Nature of Evils. i. 8.
52. Of the Influence of the Stars. ii. 3.
53. What is the Animal? What is Man? i. 1.
54. Of the First Good (or, of Happiness). i. 7.
These nine books, with the forty-five previously written, make in all
fifty-four.
Some were composed during the youth of the author, others when in
his bloom, and finally the last, when his body was already seriously
weakened; and they betray his condition while writing them. The
twenty-one first books seem to indicate a spirit which does not yet
possess all its vigor and firmness. Those that he wrote during the
middle of his life, show that his genius was then in its full form.
These twenty-four books may be considered to be perfect, with the
exception of a few passages. The last nine are less powerful than the
others; and of these nine, the last four are the weakest.
VII. VARIOUS DISCIPLES OF PLOTINOS.
Plotinos had a great number of auditors and disciples, who were
attracted to his courses by love of philosophy.
Among this number was Amelius of Etruria, whose true name was
Gentilianus. He did indeed insist that in his name the letter "l"
should be replaced by "r," so that his name should read "Amerius," from
"ameria" (meaning indivisibility, though Suidas states that it was
derived from the town of Ameria, in the province of Umbria), and not
Amelius, from "amellia" (negligence).
A very zealous disciple of Plotinos was a physician from Scythopolis
(or, Bethshean, in Palestine), named Paulinus, whose mind was full of
ill-digested information and whom Amelius used to call Mikkalos (the
tiny).
Eustochius of Alexandria, also a physician, knew Plotinos at the end
of his life, and remained with him until his death, to care for him.
Exclusively occupied with the teachings of Plotinos, he himself became
a genuine philosopher.
Zoticus, also, attached himself to Plotinos. He was both critic and
poet; he corrected the works of Antimachus, and beautifully versified
the fable of the Atlantidae. His sight gave out, however, and he died
shortly before Plotinos. Paulinus also, died before Plotinos.
Zethus was one of the disciples of Plotinos. He was a native of Arabia,
and had married the daughter of Theodosius, friend of Ammonius. He was
a physician, and much beloved by Plotinos, who sought to lead him to
withdraw from public affairs, for which he had considerable aptitude;
and with which he occupied himself with zeal. Plotinos lived in very
close relations with him; he even retired to the country estate of
Zethus, distant six miles from Minturnae.
Castricius, surnamed Firmus, had once owned this estate. Nobody, in our
times, loved virtue more than Firmus. He held Plotinos in the deepest
veneration. He rendered Amelius the same services that might have been
rendered by a good servant, he displayed for me the attentions natural
towards a brother. Nevertheless this man, who was so attached to
Plotinos, remained engaged in public affairs.
Several senators, also, came to listen to Plotinos. Marcellus,
Orontius, Sabinillus and Rogatianus applied themselves, under Plotinos,
to the study of philosophy.
The latter, who also was a member of the senate, had so detached
himself from the affairs of life, that he had abandoned all his
possessions, dismissed all his attendants, and renounced all his
dignities. On being appointed praetor, at the moment of being
inaugurated, while the lictors were already waiting for him, he refused
to sally forth, and carry out any of the functions of this dignity.
He even failed to dwell in his own house (to avoid needless pomp); he
visited his friends, boarding and sleeping there; he took food only
every other day; and by this dieting, after having been afflicted
with gout to the point of having to be carried around in a litter, he
recovered his strength, and stretched out his hands as easily as any
artisan, though formerly his hands had been incapacitated. Plotinos was
very partial to him; he used to praise him publicly, and pointed him
out as a model to all who desired to become philosophers.
Another disciple of Plotinos was Serapion of Alexandria. At first he
had been a rhetorician, and only later applied himself to philosophy.
Nevertheless he never was able to cure himself of fondness for riches,
or usury.
Me also, Porphyry, a native of Tyre, Plotinos admitted to the circle of
his intimate friends, and he charged me to give the final revision to
his works.
VIII. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOTINOS.
Once Plotinos had written something, he could neither retouch, nor even
re-read what he had done, because his weak eyesight made any reading
very painful. His penmanship was poor. He did not separate words, and
his spelling was defective; he was chiefly occupied with ideas. Until
his death he continuously persisted in this habit, which was for us
all a subject of surprise. When he had finished composing something in
his head, and when he then wrote what he had meditated on, it seemed
as if he copied a book. Neither in conversation nor in discussion did
he allow himself to be distracted from the purpose of his thoughts,
so that he was able at the same time to attend to the needs of
conversation, while pursuing the meditation of the subject which busied
him. When the person who had been talking with him went away, he did
not re-read what he had written before the interruption, which, as has
been mentioned above, was to save his eyesight; he could, later on,
take up the thread of his composition as if the conversation had been
no obstacle to his attention. He therefore was able simultaneously to
live with others and with himself. He never seemed to need recuperation
from this interior attention, which hardly ceased during his slumbers,
which, however, were troubled both by the insufficiency of food,
for sometimes he did not even eat bread, and by this continuous
concentration of his mind.
IX. PLOTINOS AS GUARDIAN AND ARBITRATOR.
There were women who were very much attached to him. There was his
boarding house keeper Gemina, and her daughter, also called Gemina;
there was also Amphiclea, wife of Aristo, son of Jamblichus, all
three of whom were very fond of philosophy. Several men and women
of substance, being on the point of death, entrusted him with their
boys and girls, and all their possessions, as being an irreproachable
trustee; and the result was that his house was filled with young boys
and girls. Among these was Polemo, whom Plotinos educated carefully;
and Plotinos enjoyed hearing Polemo recite original verses (?).
He used to go through the accounts of the managers with care, and
saw to their economy; he used to say that until these young people
devoted themselves entirely to philosophy, their possessions should
be preserved intact, and see that they enjoyed their full incomes.
The obligation of attending to the needs of so many wards did not,
however, hinder him from devoting to intellectual concerns a continuous
attention during the nights. His disposition was gentle, and he was
very approachable by all who dwelt with him. Consequently, although he
dwelt full twenty-six years in Rome, and though he was often chosen as
arbitrator in disputes, never did he offend any public personage.
X. HOW PLOTINOS TREATED HIS ADVERSARY, OLYMPIUS.
Among those who pretended to be philosophers, there was a certain man
named Olympius. He lived in Alexandria, and for some time had been a
disciple of Ammonius. As he desired to succeed better than Plotinos,
he treated Plotinos with scorn, and developed sufficient personal
animosity against Plotinos to try to bewitch him by magical operations.
However, Olympius noticed that this enterprise was really turning
against himself, and he acknowledged to his friends that the soul of
Plotinos must be very powerful, since it was able to throw back upon
his enemies the evil practices directed against him. The first time
that Olympius attempted to harm him, Plotinos having noticed it, said,
"At this very moment the body of Olympius is undergoing convulsions,
and is contracting like a purse." As Olympius several times felt
himself undergoing the very ills he was trying to get Plotinos to
undergo, he finally ceased his practices.
HOMAGE TO PLOTINOS FROM A VISITING EGYPTIAN PRIEST.
Plotinos showed a natural superiority to other men. An Egyptian priest,
visiting Rome, was introduced to him by a mutual friend. Having decided
to show some samples of his mystic attainments, he begged Plotinos to
come and witness the apparition of a familiar spirit who obeyed him on
being evoked. The evocation was to occur in a chapel of Isis, as the
Egyptian claimed that he had not been able to discover any other place
pure enough in Rome. He therefore evoked Plotinos's guardian spirit.
But instead of the spirit appeared a divinity of an order superior to
that of guardians, which event led the Egyptian to say to Plotinos,
"You are indeed fortunate, O Plotinos, that your guardian spirit is
a divinity, instead of a being of a lower order." The divinity that
appeared could not be questioned or seen for as long a period as they
would have liked, as a friend who was watching over the sacrificed
birds choked them, either out of jealousy, or fear.
PLOTINOS'S ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE PUBLIC MYSTERIES.
As Plotinos's guardian spirit was a divinity, Plotinos kept the eyes of
his own spirit directed on that divine guardian. That was the motive of
his writing his book[6] that bears the title "Of the Guardian Allotted
to Us." In it he tries to explain the differences between the various
spirits that watch over mankind. Aurelius, who was very scrupulous
in his sacrifices, and who carefully celebrated the Festivals of the
New Moon (as Numenius used to do?) (on the Calends of each month),
one day besought Plotinos to come and take part in a function of that
kind. Plotinos, however, answered him, "It is the business of those
divinities to come and visit me, and not mine to attend on them." We
could not understand why he should make an utterance that revealed so
much pride, but we dared not question the matter.
XI. PLOTINOS AS DETECTIVE AND AS PROPHET; PORPHYRY SAVED FROM SUICIDE.
So perfectly did he understand the character of men, and their methods
of thought, that he could discover stolen objects, and foresaw what
those who resided with him should some day become. A magnificent
necklace had been stolen from Chione, an estimable widow, who resided
with him and the children (as matron?). All the slaves were summoned,
and Plotinos examined them all. Then, pointing out one of them, he
said, "This is the culprit." He was put to the torture. For a long
while, he denied the deed; but later acknowledged it, and returned the
necklace. Plotinos used to predict what each of the young people who
were in touch with him was to become. He insisted that Polemo would
be disposed to amorous relations, and would not live long; which also
occurred. As to me, he noticed that I was meditating suicide. He came
and sought me, in his house, where I was staying. He told me that this
project indicated an unsound mind, and that it was the result of a
melancholy disposition. He advised me to travel. I obeyed him. I went
to Sicily,[7] to study under Probus, a celebrated philosopher, who
dwelt in Lilybaeum. I was thus cured of the desire to die; but I was
deprived of the happiness of residing with Plotinos until his death.
XII. THE PROJECT OF A PLATONOPOLIS COMES TO NAUGHT.
The emperor Gallienus and the empress Salonina, his wife, held Plotinos
in high regard. Counting on their good will, he besought them to have a
ruined town in Campania rebuilt, to give it with all its territory to
him, that its inhabitants might be ruled by the laws of Plato. Plotinos
intended to have it named Platonopolis, and to go and reside there
with his disciples. This request would easily have been granted but
that some of the emperor's courtiers opposed this project, either from
spite, jealousy, or other unworthy motive.
XIII. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOTINOS'S DELIVERY.
In his lectures his delivery was very good; he knew how to make
immediate apposite replies. Nevertheless, his language was not correct.
For instance, he used to say "anamnemisketai" for "anamimnesketai";
and he made similar blunders in writing. But when he would speak, his
intelligence seemed to shine in his face, and to illuminate it with
its rays. He grew especially handsome in discussions; a light dew of
perspiration appeared on his forehead, gentleness radiated in his
countenance, he answered kindly, but satisfactorily. For three days I
had to question him, to learn from him his opinions about the union
of the body with the soul; he spent all that time in explaining to me
what I wanted to know.[8] A certain Thaumasius, who had entered into
the school, said that he wanted to take down the arguments of the
discussion in writing, and hear Plotinos himself speak; but that he
would not stand Porphyry's answering and questioning. "Nevertheless,"
answered Plotinos, "if Porphyry does not, by his questions, bring up
the difficulties that we should solve (notice, in the course of the
Enneads, the continual objections), we would have nothing to write."
XIV. PHILOSOPHICAL RELATIONS OF PLOTINOS.
The style of Plotinos is vigorous and substantial, containing more
thoughts than words, and is often full of enthusiasm and emotion.
He follows his own inspirations rather than ideas transmitted by
tradition. The teachings of the Stoics and Peripatetics are secretly
mingled among his works; the whole of Aristotle's Metaphysics is
therein condensed. Plotinos was fully up to the times in geometry,
arithmetic, mechanics, optics and music, although he did not take an
over-weening interest in these sciences. At his lectures were read
the Commentaries of Severus, of Cronius;[9] of Numenius,[10] of Gaius
and Atticus (Platonic Philosophers, the latter, setting forth the
differences between Plato and Aristotle);[11] there were also readings
of the works of the Peripatetics, of Aspasius, of Alexander (of
Aphrodisia, whose theory of Mixture in the Universe Plotinos studies
several times), of Adrastus, and other philosophers of the day. None of
them, however, was exclusively admired by Plotinos. In his speculations
he revealed an original and independent disposition. In all his
researches he displayed the spirit of Ammonius. He could readily
assimilate (what he read); then, in a few words, he summarized the
ideas aroused in him by profound meditation thereon. One day Longinus's
book "On the Principles," and his "On Antiquarians" were read. Plotinos
said, "Longinus is a literary man, but not a philosopher." Origen (the
Pagan[12]) once came among his audience; Plotinos blushed, and started
to rise. Origen, however, besought him to continue. Plotinos, however,
answered that it was only natural for lecturers to cease talking when
they were aware of the presence, in the audience, of people who already
knew what was to be said. Then, after having spoken a little longer, he
rose.
XV. PORPHYRY EARNED RECOGNITION AT THE SCHOOL OF PLOTINOS.
At a celebration of Plato's birthday I was reading a poem about the
"Mystic Marriage" (of the Soul) when somebody doubted my sanity,
because it contained both enthusiasm and mysticism. Plotinos spoke
up, and said to me, loud enough to be heard by everybody, "You have
just proved to us that you are at the same time poet, philosopher, and
hierophant." On this occasion the rhetorician Diophanes read an apology
on the utterances of Alcibiades in Plato's "Banquet," and he sought to
prove that a disciple who seeks to exercise himself in virtue should
show unlimited "complaisance" for his teacher, even in case the latter
were in love with him. Plotinos rose several times, as if he wanted to
leave the assembly; nevertheless, he restrained himself, and after the
audience had dispersed, he asked me to refute the paper. As Diophanes
would not communicate it to me, I recalled his arguments, and refuted
them; and then I read my paper before the same auditors as those who
had heard what had been said by Diophanes. I pleased Plotinos so much,
that several times he interrupted me by the words, "Strike that way,
and you will become the light of men!" When Eubulus, who was teaching
Platonism at Athens, sent to Plotinos some papers on Platonic subjects,
Plotinos had them given to me to examine them and report to him about
them. He also studied the laws of astronomy, but not as a mathematician
would have done; he carefully studied astrology; but realizing that no
confidence could be placed in its predictions, he took the trouble to
refute them several times, in his work.[13]
XVI. PLOTINOS'S POLEMIC AGAINST THE GNOSTICS.
At that time there were many Christians, among whom were prominent
sectarians who had given up the ancient philosophy (of Plato and
Pythagoras), such as Adelphius and Aquilinus. They esteemed and
possessed the greater part of the works of Alexander of Lybia,
of Philocomus, of Demostrates and of Lydus. They advertised the
Revelations of Zoroaster, of Zostrian, of Nicotheus, of Allogenes, of
Mesus, and of several others. These sectarians deceived a great number
of people, and even deceived themselves, insisting that Plato had not
exhausted the depths of intelligible "being," or essence. That is why
Plotinos refuted them at length in his lectures, and wrote the book
that we have named "Against the Gnostics." The rest (of their books)
he left me to investigate. Amelius wrote as much as forty books to
refute the work of Zostrian; and as to me, I demonstrated by numerous
proofs that this alleged Zoroastrian book was apocryphal, and had only
recently been written by those of that ilk who wished to make people
believe that their doctrines had been taught by Zoroaster.
XVII. START OF THE AMELIO-PORPHYRIAN CONTROVERSY, OVER NUMENIUS.
The Greeks insisted that Plotinos had appropriated the teachings of
Numenius. Trypho, who was both a Stoic and a Platonist, insisted
on this to Amelius, who wrote a book that we have entitled, "On
the Difference Between the Teachings of Plotinos and Numenius." He
dedicated it to me under the title, "To Basil" (the King, recently used
as a name, "Royal"). That was my name before I was called "Porphyry,"
the "Purple One." In my own home language (Phoenician) I used to be
called "Malchus"; that was my father's name, and in Greek "Malchus"
is translated by "Basileus" (Basil, or King). Indeed, Longinus, who
dedicated his book "On Instinct" to Cleodamus, and me jointly, there
calls me "Malchus"; and Amelius has translated this name in Greek, just
as Numenius translated "Maximus" (from Latin into Greek by) "Megaos"
(the great one). (I will quote the letter in full).
"Greetings from Amelius to Basil (Royal, or Purple One):
"You may be sure that I did not have the least inclination even
to mention some otherwise respectable people who, to the point of
deafening you, insist that the doctrines of our friend (Plotinos) are
none other than those of Numenius of Apamea. It is evident enough that
these reproaches are entirely due to their desire to advertise their
oratorical abilities. Possessed with the desire to rend Plotinos to
pieces, they dare to go as far as to assert that he is no more than a
babbler, a forger, and that his opinions are impossible. But since you
think that it would be well for us to seize the occasion to recall
to the public the teachings of which we approve (in Plotinos's system
of philosophy), and in order to honor so great a man as our friend
Plotinos by spreading his teachings--although this really is needless,
inasmuch as they have long since become celebrated--I comply with your
request, and, in accordance with my promise, I am hereby inscribing to
you this work which, as you well know, I threw together in three days.
You will not find in it that system and judiciousness natural to a book
composed with care; they are only reflections suggested by the lectures
(received from Plotinos), and arranged as they happened to come to
mind. I, therefore, throw myself on your indulgence, especially as the
thought of (Plotinos, that) philosopher whom some people are slandering
to us, is not easy to grasp, because he expresses the same ideas in
different manners in accordance with the exigencies of the occasion.
I am sure you will have the goodness to correct me, if I happen to
stray from the opinions of Plotinos. As the tragic poet says somewhere,
being overwhelmed with the pressure of duties, I find myself compelled
to submit to criticism and correction if I am discovered in altering
the doctrines of our leader. You see how anxious I am to please you.
Farewell!"
XVIII. POLEMIC BETWEEN AMELIUS AND PORPHYRY; AMELIUS TEACHES PORPHYRY.
I have quoted this letter in full to show that, even in the times
of Plotinos himself, it was claimed that Plotinos had borrowed and
advertised as his own teachings of Numenius; also that he was called
a trifler, and in short that he was scorned--which happened chiefly
because he was not understood. Plotinos was far from the display and
vanity of the Sophists. When lecturing, he seemed to be holding a
conversation with his pupils. He did not try to convince you by a
formal argument. This I realized from the first, when attending his
courses. I wished to make him explain himself more clearly by writing
against him a work to prove that the intelligible entities subsist
outside of intelligence.[14] Plotinos had Amelius read it to him; and
after the reading he laughingly said to him, "It would be well for you
to solve these difficulties that Porphyry has advanced against me,
because he does not clearly understand my teachings." Amelius indeed
wrote a rather voluminous work to answer my objections.[15] In turn,
I responded. Amelius wrote again. This third work at last made me
understand, but not without difficulty, the thought of Plotinos; and I
changed my views, reading my retraction at a meeting. Since that time,
I have had complete confidence in the teachings of Plotinos. I begged
him to polish his writings, and to explain his system to me more at
length. I also prevailed upon Amelius to write some works.
XIX. HOW THE WORKS OF PLOTINOS WERE PUT INTO SHAPE.
You may judge of the high opinion of Plotinos held by Longinus, from a
part of a letter he addressed to me. I was in Sicily; he wished me to
visit him in Phoenicia, and desired me to bring him a copy of the works
of that philosopher. This is what he wrote to me about the matter:
"Please send me the works; or rather, bring them with you; for I shall
never cease begging you to travel in this one of all other countries,
were it only because of our ancient friendship, and of the sweetness of
the air, which would so well suit your ruined health;[16] for you must
not expect to find any new knowledge here when you visit us. Whatever
your expectations may be, do not expect to find anything new here,
nor even the ancient works (of myself, Longinus?) that you say are
lost. There is such a scarcity of copyists here, that since I have been
here I have hardly been able to get what I lacked of Plotinos here, by
inducing my copyist to abandon his usual occupations to devote himself
exclusively to this work. Now that I have those works of Plotinos you
sent me, I think I have them all; but these that I have are imperfect,
being full of errors. I had supposed that our friend Amelius had
corrected the errors of the copyist; but his occupations have been too
pressing to allow of his attending to this. However passionately I
desire to examine what Plotinos has written about the soul, and about
existence, I do not know what use to make of his writings; these are
precisely those of his works that have been most mis-written by the
copyists. That is why I wish you would send them to me transcribed
exactly; I would compare the copies and return them promptly. I repeat
that I beg you not to send them, but to bring them yourself with the
other works of Plotinos, which might have escaped Amelius. All those he
brought here I have had transcribed exactly; for why should I not most
zealously seek works so precious? I have often told you, both when we
were together, and apart, and when you were at Tyre, that Plotinos's
works contained reasonings of which I did not approve, but that I
liked and admired his method of writing; his concise and forceful
style, and the genuinely philosophical arrangement of his discussions.
I am persuaded that those who seek the truth must place the works of
Plotinos among the most learned."
XX. OPINION OF LONGINUS, THE GREAT CRITIC, ABOUT PLOTINOS.
I have made this rather long quotation only to show what was thought
of Plotinos by the greatest critic of our days, the man who had
examined all the works of his time. At first Longinus had scorned
Plotinos, because he had relied on the reports of people ignorant (of
philosophy). Moreover, Longinus supposed that the copy of the works of
Plotinos he had received from Amelius was defective, because he was not
yet accustomed to the style of Plotinos. Nevertheless, if any one had
the works of Plotinos in their purity, it was certainly Amelius, who
possessed a copy made upon the originals themselves. I will further add
what was written by Longinus about Plotinos, Amelius, and the other
philosophers of his time, so that the reader may better appreciate
this great critic's high opinion of them. This book, directed against
Plotinos and Gentilianus Amelius, is entitled "Of the Limit (of Good
and Evil?)" and begins as follows:
"There were, O Marcellus Orontius[17] many philosophers in our
time, and especially in the first years of our childhood--for it
is useless to complain of their rarity at the present; but when I
was still a youth, there were still a rather goodly number of men
celebrated as philosophers. I was fortunate enough to get acquainted
with all of them, because I traveled early with our parents in many
countries. Visiting many nations and towns, I entered into personal
relations with such of these men as were still alive. Among these
philosophers, some committed their teachings to writings, with the
purpose of being useful to posterity, while others thought that it
was sufficient for them to explain their opinions to their disciples.
Among the former are the Platonists Euclides, Democritus (who wrote
Commentaries on the Alcibiades, on the Phaedo, and on the Metaphysics
of Aristotle), Proclinus, who dwelt in the Troad, Plotinos and his
disciple Gentilianus Amelius, who are at present teaching at Rome;
the Stoics Themistocles, Phebion, and both Annius and Medius, who
were much talked of only recently, and the Peripatetician Heliodorus
of Alexandria. Among those who did not write their teachings are the
Platonists Ammonius (Saccas) and (the pagan) Origen,[18] who lived
with him for a long while, and who excelled among the philosophers
of that period; also Theodotus and Eubulus, who taught at Athens. Of
course, they did write a little; Origen, for instance, wrote about "The
Guardian Spirits"; and Eubulus wrote Commentaries on the Philebus,
and on the Gorgias, and "Observations on Aristotle's Objections
against Plato's Republic." However, these works are not considerable
enough to rank their authors among those who have seriously treated
of philosophy; for these little works were by them written only
incidentally, and they did not make writing their principal occupation.
The Stoics Herminus, Lysimachus,[19] Athenaeus and Musonius (author
of "Memorable Events," translated in Greek by Claudius Pollio),
who lived at Athens. The Peripateticians Ammonius and Ptolemy, who
were the most learned of their contemporaries, especially Ammonius,
whose erudition was unequalled, none of these philosophers wrote any
important work; they limited themselves to writing poems, or festal
orations, which have been preserved in spite of them. I doubt very
much that they wished to be known by posterity merely by books so
small (and unrepresentative), since they had neglected to acquaint us
with their teachings in more significant works. Among those who have
left written works, some have done no more than gather or transcribe
what has been left to us from the ancient (philosophers); among these
are Euclides, Democritus and Proclinus. Others limited themselves to
recalling some details extracted from ancient histories, and they
tried to compose books with the same materials as their predecessors,
as did Annius, Medius, and Phebio; the latter one trying to make
himself famous by style, rather than by thought. To these we might
add Heliodorus, who has put in his writings nothing that had not been
said by the ancients, without adding any philosophical explanation.
But Plotinos and Gentilianus Amelius, have shown that they really made
a profession of being writers, both by the great number of questions
they treated, and by the originality of their doctrines. Plotinos
explained the principles of Pythagoras and Plato more clearly than his
predecessors; for neither Numenius, nor Cronius, nor Moderatus,[20] nor
Thrasyllus,[21] come anywhere near the precision of Plotinos when they
touch on the same topics. Amelius tried to follow in his footsteps,
and adopted the greater part of his ideas; but differs from him in
the verbosity of his demonstrations, and the diffusion of his style.
The writings of these two men alone deserve special consideration;
for what is the use of criticizing the works of imitators; had we
not better study the authors whose works they copied, without any
additions, either in essential points, or in argumentation, doing no
more than choosing out the best? This has been our method of procedure
in our controversy with Gentilianus Amelius's strictures on justice,
in Plato's works; and in my examination of Plotinos's books on the
Ideas.[22] So when our mutual friends Basil of Tyre, (Porphyry[23]),
who has written much on the lines of Plotinos, having even preferred
the teachings of Plotinos to my own (as he had been my pupil),
undertook to demonstrate that Plotinos's views about the Ideas were
better than my own, I have fully refuted his contentions, proving that
he was wrong in changing his views on the subject.[24] Besides, I have
criticized several opinions of Gentilianus Amelius and Plotinos,
as for instance in the "Letter to Amelius" which is long enough to
form a whole book. I wrote it to answer a letter sent me from Rome by
Amelius, which was entitled "The Characteristics of the Philosophy of
Plotinos."[25] I, however, limited myself to entitling my little work,
"A Letter to Amelius."
XXI. RESULTS OF LONGINUS'S CRITICISM AND VINDICATION OF PLOTINOS'S
ORIGINALITY.
From the above it will be seen that Plotinos and Amelius are superior
to all their contemporaries by the great number of questions they
consider, and by the originality of their system; that Plotinos had
not appropriated the opinions of Numenius, and that he did not even
follow them; that he had really profited by the opinions of the
Pythagoreans (and of Plato); further, that he was more precise than
Numenius, Cronius, and Thrasyllus. After having said that Amelius
followed in the footsteps of Plotinos, but that he was prolix and
diffuse in his expositions, which characteristic forms the difference
between their styles, he speaks of me, who at that time had known
Plotinos for only a short time, and says, "Our mutual friends, Basil
(King) of Tyre (Porphyry), who has written much, taking Plotinos
as his model." By that he means that I have avoided the rather
unphilosophical diffuseness of Amelius, and have imitated the (concise)
style of Plotinos. The quotation of the judgment of this famous man,
the first critic of his day, should decide of the reverence due to
our philosopher, Plotinos. If I had been able to visit Longinus when
he begged me to do so, he would not have undertaken the refutation he
wrote, before having clearly understood Plotinos's system.
XXII. THE APOLLONIAN ORACLE ABOUT PLOTINOS.
(But when I have a long oracle of Apollo to quote, why should I delay
over a letter of Longinus's, or, in the words of the proverb, quoted in
Iliad xxii. 126 and Hesiod Theogony 35), "Why should I dally near the
oak-trees, or the rock?" If the testimony of the wise is to be adduced,
who is wiser than Apollo, a deity who said of himself, "I know the
number of the grains of sand, and the extent of the ocean; I understand
the dust, and I hear him who does not speak!" This was the divinity who
had said that Socrates was the wisest of men; and on being consulted by
Amelius to discover what had become of the soul of Plotinos, said:
"Let me sing an immortal hymn to my dear friend!
Drawing my golden bow, I will elicit melodious sounds from
my lyre.
I also invoke the symphonic voice of the choir of Muses,
Whose harmonious power raises exultant paeans,
As they once sang in chorus in praise of Achilles,
A Homeric song in divine inspiration.
Sacred choir of Muses, let us together celebrate this man,
For long-haired Apollo is among you!
"O Deity, who formerly wert a man, but now approachest
The divine host of guardian spirits, delivered from the
narrowing bonds of necessity
That enchains man (while in the body), and from the tumult
caused by the
Confusing whirlwind of the passions of the body,
Sustained by the vigor of thy mind, thou hastenest to swim
(And like the sage Ulysses in Phaeacia), to land on a shore
not submerged by the waves,
With vigorous stroke, far from the impious crowds.
Persistently following the straightening path of the
purified soul,
Where the splendor of the divinity surrounds you, the home
of justice,
Far from contamination, in the holy sanctuary of initiation,
When in the past you struggled to escape the bitter
waves,[26]
When blood-stained life eddied around you with repulsive
currents,
In the midst of the waters dazed by frightening tumult,
Even then the divinities often showed you your end;[27]
And often, when your spirit was about to stray from the
right path,
The immortals beckoned you back to the real end; the eternal
path,
Enlightening your eyes with radiant beams in the midst of
gloomy darkness.
No deep slumber closed your eyelids, and when shaken by the
eddies (of matter),
You sought to withdraw your eyes from the night that pressed
down upon them;
You beheld beauties hidden from any who devote themselves to
the study of wisdom.
"Now that you have discarded your cloak of mortality, and
ascended
Climbing out from the tombs of your angelic soul,
You have entered the choir of divinities, where breathes a
gentle zephyr.
There dwell friendship, and delightful desire, ever
accompanied by pure joy;
There may one quench one's thirst with divine ambrosia;
There bound by the ties of love, one breathes a gentle air,
under a tranquil sky.
There dwell the sons of Jupiter, who lived in the golden age;
The brothers Minos and Rhadamanthus, the just Aeacus,
The divine Plato, the virtuous Pythagoras,
And all those who formed the band of immortal love,
And who by birth belong to the most blessed of divinities.
Their soul tastes continual joy amidst perpetual feasts!
And you, blessed man, after having fought many a valiant
fight,
In the midst of chaste angels, you have achieved eternal
Felicity.
"Here, O Muses, let us close this hymn in honor of Plotinos;
Cease the mazes of the dancing of the graceful choir;
This is what my golden lyre had to say of this eternally
blessed man!"
XXIII. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PLOTINOS; THE ECSTATIC TRANCES.
This oracle (pieced out of numerous quotations) says (in some now lost
lines, perhaps) that Plotinos was kindly, affable, indulgent, gentle,
such as, indeed we knew him in personal intercourse. It also mentions
that this philosopher slept little, that his soul was pure, ever
aspiring to the divinity that he loved whole-heartedly, and that he did
his utmost to liberate himself (from terrestrial domination) "to escape
the bitter waves of this cruel life."
That is how this divine man, who by his thoughts often aspired to the
first (principle), to the divinity superior (to intelligence), climbing
the degrees indicated by Plato (in his Banquet), beheld the vision
of the formless divinity, which is not merely an idea, being founded
on intelligence and the whole intelligible world. I, myself, had the
blessed privilege of approaching this divinity, uniting myself to him,
when I was about sixty-eight years of age.
That is how "the goal (that Plotinos sought to achieve) seemed to
him located near him." Indeed, his goal, his purpose, his end was to
approach the supreme divinity, and to unite himself with the divinity.
While I dwelt with him, he had four times the bliss of reaching that
goal, not merely potentially, but by a real and unspeakable experience.
The oracle adds that the divinities frequently restored Plotinos to the
right path when he strayed from it, "enlightening his eyes by radiant
splendor." That is why it may truthfully be said that Plotinos composed
his works while in contemplation of the divinities, and enjoying that
vision. "Thanks to this sight that your 'vigilant' eyes had of both
interior and exterior things, you have," in the words of the oracle,
"gazed at many beauties that would hardly be granted to many of those
who study philosophy." Indeed, the contemplation of men may be superior
to human contemplation; but, compared to divine knowledge, if it be of
any value whatever, it, nevertheless, could not penetrate the depths
reached by the glances of the divinities.
Till here the oracle had limited itself to indicating what Plotinos
had accomplished while enclosed in the vesture of the body. It then
proceeds to say that he arrived at the assembly of the divinities where
dwell friendship, delightful desire, joy, and love communing with the
divinity, where the sons of God, Minos, Rhadamanthus, and Aeacus are
established as the judges of souls. Plotinos joined them, not to be
judged, but to enjoy their intimacy, as did the higher divinities.
There indeed dwell Plato, Pythagoras, and the other sages who formed
the choir of immortal love. Reunited with their families, the blessed
angels spend their life "in continued festivals and joys," enjoying the
perpetual beatitude granted them by divine goodness.
XXIV. CONTENTS OF THE VARIOUS ENNEADS.
This is what I have to relate of the life of Plotinos. He had, however,
asked me to arrange and revise his works. I promised both him and his
friends to work on them. I did not judge it wise to arrange them in
confusion chronologically. So I imitated Apollodorus of Athens, and
Andronicus the Peripatetician, the former collecting in ten volumes
the comedies of Epicharmus, and the latter dividing into treatises the
works of Aristotle and Theophrastus, gathering together the writings
that referred to the same subject. Likewise, I grouped the fifty-four
books of Plotinos into six groups of nine (Enneads), in honor of the
perfect numbers six and nine. Into each Ennead I have gathered the
books that treat of the same matter, in each case prefixing the most
important ones.
The First Ennead contains the writings that treat of Morals. They are:
1. What is an Animal? What is a Man? 53.
2. Of the Virtues, 19.
3. Of Dialectics, 20.
4. Of Happiness, 46.
5. Does Happiness (consist in Duration)? 36.
6. Of Beauty, 1.
7. Of the First Good, and of the Other Goods, 54.
8. Of the Origin of Evils, 51.
9. Of (Reasonable) Suicide, 16.
Such are the topics considered in the First Ennead; which thus contains
what relates to morals.
In the Second Ennead are grouped the writings that treat of Physics, of
the World, and of all that it contains. They are:
1. (Of the World), 40.
2. Of the (Circular) Motion (of the Heavens), 14.
3. Of the Influence of the Stars, 52.
4. (Of both Matters) (Sensible and Intelligible), 12.
5. Of Potentiality and Actuality, 25.
6. Of Quality (and of Form), 17.
7. Of Mixture, Where there is Total Penetratration, 37.
8. Of Vision. Why do Distant Objects Seem Smaller? 35.
9. (Against Those Who say that the Demiurgic
Creator is Evil, as well as The World Itself),
Against the Gnostics, 33.
The Third Ennead, which also relates to the world, contains the
different speculations referring thereto. Here are its component
writings:
1. Of Destiny, 3.
2. Of Providence, the First, 47.
3. Of Providence, the Second, 48.
4. Of the Guardian Spirit who was Allotted to Us, 15.
5. Of Love, 50.
6. Of the Impassibility of Incorporeal Things, 26.
7. Of Eternity of Time, 45.
8. Of Nature, of Contemplation, and of the One, 30.
9. Different Speculations, 13.
We have gathered these three Enneads into one single body. We have
assigned the book on the Guardian Spirit Who has been Allotted to Us,
in the Third Ennead, because this is treated in a general manner, and
because it refers to the examination of conditions characteristic
of the production of man. For the same reason the book on Love was
assigned to the First Ennead. The same place has been assigned to the
book on Eternity and Time, because of the observations which, in this
Ennead, refer to their nature. Because of its title, we have put in the
same group the book on Nature, Contemplation, and the One.
After the books that treat of the world, the Fourth Ennead contains
those that refer to the soul. They are:
1. Of the Nature of the Soul, the First, 4.
2. Of the Nature of the Soul, the Second, 21.
3. Problems about the Soul, the First, 27.
4. Problems about the Soul, the Second, 28.
5. (Problems about the Soul, the Third, or) Of
Vision, 29.
6. Of Sensation, of Memory, 41.
7. Of the Immortality of the Soul, 2.
8. Of the Descent of the Soul into the Body, 6.
9. Do not all Souls form a Single Soul? 8.
The Fourth Ennead, therefore, contains all that relates to Psychology.
The Fifth Ennead treats of Intelligence. Each book in it also contains
something about the principle superior to intelligence, and also about
the intelligence characteristic of the soul, and about Ideas.
1. About the three Principal Hypostatic Forms of
Existence, 10.
2. Of Generation, and of the Order of Things
Posterior to the First, 11.
3. Of the Hypostatic Forms of Existence that Transmit
Knowledge, and of the Superior Principle, 49.
4. How that which is Posterior to the First Proceeds
from it? Of the One, 7.
5. The Intelligibles are not Outside of Intelligence.
Of the Good, 32.
6. The Super-essential Principle Does Not Think.
Which is the First Thinking Principle?
Which is the Second? 24.
7. Are there Ideas of Individuals? 18.
8. Of Intelligible Beauty, 31.
9. Of Intelligence, of Ideas, and of Existence, 5.
We have gathered the Fourth and Fifth Ennead into a single volume. Of
the Sixth Ennead, we have formed a separate volume, so that all the
writings of Plotinos might be divided into three parts, of which the
first contains three Enneads, the second two; and the third, a single
Ennead.
Here are the books that belong to the Sixth Ennead, and to the Third
Volume.
1. Of the Kinds of Existence, the First, 42.
2. Of the Kinds of Existence, the Second, 43.
3. Of the Kinds of Existence, the Third, 44.
4. The One Single Existence is everywhere Present
in its Entirety, First, 22.
5. The One Single Existence is everywhere Present
in its Entirety, Second, 23.
6. Of Numbers, 34.
7. Of the Multitude of Ideas. Of the Good, 38.
8. Of the Will, and of the Liberty of the One, 39.
9. Of the Good, or of the One, 9.
This is how we have distributed into six Enneads the fifty-four books
of Plotinos. We have added to several of them, Commentaries, without
following any regular order, to satisfy our friends who desired to have
explanations of several points. We have also made headings of each
book, following the chronological order, with the exception of the book
on The Beautiful, whose date of composition we do not know. Besides,
we have not only written up separate summaries for each book, but also
Arguments, which are contained among the summaries.[28]
Now we shall try to punctuate each book, and to correct the mistakes.
Whatever else we may have to do besides, will easily be recognized by a
reading of these books.
LIFE OF PLOTINOS, BY EUNAPIUS.
The philosopher Plotinos came from Egypt; to be accurate, I will add
that his home was Lycopolis. This fact was not set down by the divine
Porphyry, though he himself, as he reports, was a student of Plotinos,
and had spent a great part of his life near him.
The altars dedicated to Plotinos are not yet cold; and not only are his
books read by the learned more than are even those of Plato, but even
the multitude, though incapable of clearly understanding his doctrine,
nevertheless conforms its conduct of life to his suggestions.
Porphyry has set down all the details of the life of this philosopher,
so that little can be added thereto; besides Porphyry seems to have
clearly expounded many of Plotinos's writings.
LIFE OF PLOTINOS, BY SUIDAS.
Plotinos of Lycopolis, philosopher, disciple of that Ammonius who
had once been a porter, was the teacher of Amelius, who himself had
Porphyry as pupil; the latter formed Jamblichus, and Jamblichus
Sopater. Plotinos prolonged his life till the seventh year of the reign
of Gallienus. He composed fifty-four books, which are grouped in six
enneads. His constitution was weakened by the effects of the sacred
disease (epilepsy). He wrote besides other works.
FIRST ENNEAD, BOOK SIXTH.
Of Beauty.
REVIEW OF BEAUTY OF DAILY LIFE.
1. Beauty chiefly affects the sense of sight. Still, the ear perceives
it also, both in the harmony of words, and in the different kinds of
music; for songs and verses are equally beautiful. On rising from the
domain of the senses to a superior region, we also discover beauty
in occupations, actions, habits, sciences and virtues. Whether there
exists a type of beauty still higher, will have to be ascertained by
discussion.
PROBLEMS CONCERNING HIGHER BEAUTY.
What is the cause that certain bodies seem beautiful, that our ears
listen with pleasure to rhythms judged beautiful, and that we love the
purely moral beauties? Does the beauty of all these objects derive
from some unique, immutable principle, or will we recognize some one
principle of beauty for the body, and some other for something else?
What then are these principles, if there are several? Or which is this
principle, if there is but one?
WHAT IS THE PRINCIPLE BY PARTICIPATION IN WHICH THE BODY IS BEAUTIFUL?
First, there are certain objects, such as bodies, whose beauty exists
only by participation, instead of being inherent in the very essence
of the subject. Such are beautiful in themselves, as is, for example,
virtue. Indeed, the same bodies seem beautiful at one time, while at
another they lack beauty; consequently, there is a great difference
between being a body and being beautiful. What then is the principle
whose presence in a body produces beauty therein? What is that element
in the bodies which moves the spectator, and which attracts, fixes and
charms his glances? This is the first problem to solve; for, on finding
this principle, we shall use it as a means to resolve other questions.
POLEMIC AGAINST SYMMETRY, THE STOIC DEFINITION OF BEAUTY.
(The Stoics), like almost everybody, insist that visual beauty consists
in the proportion of the parts relatively to each other and to the
whole, joined to the grace of colors. If then, as in this case,
the beauty of bodies in general consists in the symmetry and just
proportion of their parts, beauty could not consist of anything simple,
and necessarily could not appear in anything but what was compound.
Only the totality will be beautiful; the parts by themselves will
possess no beauty; they will be beautiful only by their relation with
the totality. Nevertheless, if the totality is beautiful, it would seem
also necessary that the parts be beautiful; for indeed beauty could
never result from the assemblage of ugly things. Beauty must therefore
be spread among all the parts. According to the same doctrine, the
colors which, like sunlight, are beautiful, are beautiful but simple,
and those whose beauty is not derived from proportion, will also be
excluded from the domain of beauty. According to this hypothesis, how
will gold be beautiful? The brilliant lightning in the night, even
the stars, would not be beautiful to contemplate. In the sphere of
sounds, also, it would be necessary to insist that what is simple
possesses no beauty. Still, in a beautiful harmony, every sound, even
when isolated, is beautiful. While preserving the same proportions, the
same countenance seems at one time beautiful, and at another ugly.
Evidently, there is but one conclusion: namely, that proportion is
not beauty itself, but that it derives its beauty from some superior
principle. (This will appear more clearly from further examples). Let
us examine occupations and utterances. If also their beauty depended on
proportion, what would be the function of proportion when considering
occupations, laws, studies and sciences? Relations of proportion could
not obtain in scientific speculations; no, nor even in the mutual
agreement of these speculations. On the other hand, even bad things may
show a certain mutual agreement and harmony; as, for instance, were we
to assert that wisdom is softening of the brain, and that justice is a
generous folly. Here we have two revoltingly absurd statements, which
agree perfectly, and harmonize mutually. Further, every virtue is a
soul-beauty far truer than any that we have till now examined; yet it
could not admit of proportion, as it involves neither size nor number.
Again, granting that the soul is divided into several faculties, who
will undertake to decide which combination of these faculties, or of
the speculations to which the soul devotes itself, will produce beauty?
Moreover (if beauty is but proportion), what beauty could be predicated
of pure intelligence?
BEAUTY CONSISTS IN KINSHIP TO THE SOUL.
2. Returning to our first consideration, we shall examine the nature
of the element of beauty in bodies. It is something perceivable at the
very first glance, something which the soul recognizes as kindred, and
sympathetic to her own nature, which she welcomes and assimilates.
But as soon as she meets an ugly object, she recoils, repudiates it,
and rejects it as something foreign, towards which her real nature
feels antipathy. That is the reason why the soul, being such as it is,
namely, of an essence superior to all other beings, when she perceives
an object kindred to her own nature, or which reveals only some traces
of it, rejoices, is transported, compares this object with her own
nature, thinks of herself, and of her intimate being as it would be
impossible to fail to perceive this resemblance.
BEAUTY CONSISTS IN PARTICIPATION IN A FORM.
How can both sensible and intelligible objects be beautiful? Because,
as we said, sensible objects participate in a form. While a shapeless
object, by nature capable of receiving shape (physical) and form
(intelligible), remains without reason or form, it is ugly. That which
remains completely foreign to all divine reason (a reason proceeding
from the universal Soul), is absolute ugliness. Any object should be
considered ugly which is not entirely molded by informing reason,
the matter, not being able to receive perfectly the form (which the
Soul gives it). On joining matter, form co-ordinates the different
parts which are to compose unity, combines them, and by their harmony
produces something which is a unit. Since (form) is one, that which it
fashions will also have to be one, as far as a composite object can
be one. When such an object has arrived at unity, beauty resides in
it, and it communicates itself to the parts as well as to the whole.
When it meets a whole, the parts of which are perfectly similar, it
interpenetrates it evenly. Thus it would show itself now in an entire
building, then in a single stone, later in art-products as well as in
the works of nature. Thus bodies become beautiful by communion with
(or, participation in) a reason descending upon it from the divine
(universal Soul).
THE SOUL APPRECIATES THE BEAUTIFUL BY AN AESTHETIC SENSE.
3. The soul appreciates beauty by an especially ordered faculty, whose
sole function it is to appreciate all that concerns beauty, even
when the other faculties take part in this judgment. Often the soul
makes her (aesthetic) decisions by comparison with the form of the
beautiful which is within her, using this form as a standard by which
to judge. But what agreement can anything corporeal have with what
is incorporeal? For example, how can an architect judge a building
placed before him as beautiful, by comparing it with the Idea which he
has within himself? The only explanation can be that, on abstracting
the stones, the exterior object is nothing but the interior form, no
doubt divided within the extent of the matter, but still one, though
manifested in the manifold? When the senses perceive in an object the
form which combines, unites and dominates a substance which lacks
shape, and therefore is of a contrary nature; and if they also perceive
a shape which distinguishes itself from the other shapes by its
elegance, then the soul, uniting these multiple elements, fuses them,
comparing them to the indivisible form which she bears within herself,
then she pronounces their agreement, kinship and harmony with that
interior type.
INSTANCES OF CORRESPONDENCE OF OUTER SENSE BEAUTY WITH ITS IDEA.
Thus a worthy man, perceiving in a youth the character of virtue, is
agreeably impressed, because he observes that the youth harmonizes
with the true type of virtue which he bears within himself. Thus also
the beauty of color, though simple in form, reduces under its sway
that obscurity of matter, by the presence of the light, which is
something incorporeal, a reason, and a form. Likewise, fire surpasses
all other bodies in beauty, because it stands to all other elements
in the relation of a form; it occupies the highest regions;[29] it is
the subtlest of bodies because it most approaches the incorporeal
beings; without permitting itself to be penetrated by other bodies, it
penetrates them all; without itself cooling, it communicates to them
its heat; by its own essence it possesses color, and communicates it
to others; it shines and coruscates, because it is a form. The body
in which it does not dominate, shows but a discolored hue, and ceases
being beautiful, merely because it does not participate in the whole
form of color. Once more, thus do the hidden harmonies of sound produce
audible harmonies, and also yield to the soul the idea of beauty,
though showing it in another order of things. Audible harmonies can be
expressed in numbers; not indeed in any kind of numbers, but only in
such as can serve to produce form, and to make it dominate.
TRANSITION FROM SENSE BEAUTY TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY.
So much then for sense-beauties which, descending on matter like images
and shadows, beautify it and thereby compel our admiration. 4. Now we
shall leave the senses in their lower sphere, and we shall rise to the
contemplation of the beauties of a superior order, of which the senses
have no intuition, but which the soul perceives and expresses.
INTERIOR BEAUTIES COULD NOT BE APPRECIATED WITHOUT AN INTERIOR MODEL.
Just as we could not have spoken of sense-beauties if we had never
seen them, nor recognized them as such, if, in respect to them, we had
been similar to persons born blind, likewise we would not know enough
to say anything about the beauty either of the arts or sciences, or of
anything of the kind, if we were not already in possession of this kind
of beauty; nor of the splendor of virtue, if we had not contemplated
the ("golden) face of Justice," and of temperance, before whose
splendor the morning and evening stars grow pale.
MORAL BEAUTIES MORE DELIGHTFUL THAN SENSE-BEAUTIES.
To see these beauties, they must be contemplated by the faculty our
soul has received; then, while contemplating them, we shall experience
far more pleasure, astonishment and admiration, than in contemplation
of the sense-beauties, because we will have the intuition of veritable
beauties. The sentiments inspired by beauty are admiration, a gentle
charm, desire, love, and a pleasurable impulse.
THEY WHO FEEL THESE SENTIMENTS MOST KEENLY ARE CALLED LOVERS.
Such are the sentiments for invisible beauties which should be felt,
and indeed are experienced by all souls, but especially by the most
loving. In the presence of beautiful bodies, all indeed see them; but
not all are equally moved. Those who are most moved are designated
"lovers."[30]
THE CAUSE OF THESE EMOTIONS IS THE INVISIBLE SOUL.
5. Let us now propound a question about experiences to these men who
feel love for incorporeal beauties. What do you feel in presence of the
noble occupations, the good morals, the habits of temperance, and in
general of virtuous acts and sentiments, and of all that constitutes
the beauty of souls? What do you feel when you contemplate your inner
beauty? What is the source of your ecstasies, or your enthusiasms?
Whence come your desires to unite yourselves to your real selves, and
to refresh yourselves by retirement from your bodies? Such indeed are
the experiences of those who love genuinely. What then is the object
which causes these, your emotions? It is neither a figure, nor a color,
nor any size; it is that (colorless) invisible soul, which possesses
a wisdom equally invisible; this soul in which may be seen shining
the splendor of all the virtues, when one discovers in oneself, or
contemplates in others, the greatness of character, the justice of the
heart, the pure temperance, the imposing countenance of valor, dignity
and modesty, proceeding alone firmly, calmly, and imperturbably; and
above all, intelligence, resembling the divinity, by its brilliant
light. What is the reason that we declare these objects to be
beautiful, when we are transported with admiration and love for them?
They exist, they manifest themselves, and whoever beholds them will
never be able to restrain himself from confessing them to be veritable
beings. Now what are these genuine beings? They are beautiful.
LOVE OF BEAUTY EXPLAINED BY AVERSION FOR OPPOSITE.
But reason is not yet satisfied; reason wonders why these veritable
beings give the soul which experiences them the property of exciting
love, from which proceeds this halo of light which, so to speak,
crowns all virtues. Consider the things contrary to these beautiful
objects, and with them compare what may be ugly in the soul. If we
can discover of what ugliness consists, and what is its cause, we
shall have achieved an important element of the solution we are
seeking. Let us picture to ourselves an ugly soul; she will be given
up to intemperance; and be unjust, abandoned to a host of passions,
troubled, full of fears caused by her cowardliness, and of envy by her
degradation; she will be longing only for vile and perishable things;
she will be entirely depraved, will love nothing but impure wishes,
will have no life but the sensual, and will take pleasure in her
turpitude. Would we not explain such a state by saying that under the
very mask of beauty turpitude had invaded this soul, brutalized her,
soiled her with all kinds of vices, rendering her incapable of a pure
life, and pure sentiments, and had reduced her to an existence obscure,
infected with evil, poisoned by lethal germs; that it had hindered her
from contemplating anything she should, forcing her to remain solitary,
because it misled her out from herself towards inferior and gloomy
regions? The soul fallen into this state of impurity, seized with an
irresistible inclination towards the things of sense, absorbed by her
intercourse with the body, sunk into matter, and having even received
it within herself, has changed form by her admixture with an inferior
nature. Not otherwise would be a man fallen into slimy mud, who no
longer would present to view his primitive beauty, and would exhibit
only the appearance of the mud that had defiled him; his ugliness
would be derived from something foreign; and to recover his pristine
beauty he would have to wash off his defilement, and by purification be
restored to what he once was.
UGLINESS IS ONLY A FOREIGN ACCRETION.
We have the right to say that the soul becomes ugly by mingling with
the body, confusing herself with it, by inclining herself towards it.
For a soul, ugliness consists in being impure, no longer unmingled,
like gold tarnished by particles of earth. As soon as this dross is
removed, and nothing but gold remains, then again it is beautiful,
because separated from every foreign body, and is restored to its
unique nature. Likewise the soul, released from the passions begotten
by her intercourse with the body when she yields herself too much to
it, delivered from exterior impressions, purified from the blemishes
contracted from her alliance with the body--that is, reduced to
herself, she lays aside that ugliness which is derived from a nature
foreign to her.
VIRTUES ARE ONLY PURIFICATIONS.
6. Thus, according to the ancient (Platonic or Empedoclean) maxim,
"courage, temperance, all the virtues, nay, even prudence, are but
purifications." The mysteries were therefore wise in teaching that the
man who has not been purified will, in hell, dwell at the bottom of a
swamp; for everything that is not pure, because of its very perversity,
delights in mud, just as we see the impure swine wallow in the mud
with delight. And indeed, what would real temperance consist of, if it
be not to avoid attaching oneself to the pleasures of the body, and
to flee from them as impure, and as only proper for an impure being?
What else is courage, unless no longer to fear death, which is mere
separation of the soul from the body? Whoever therefore is willing to
withdraw from the body could surely not fear death. Magnanimity is
nothing but scorn of things here below. Last, prudence is the thought
which, detached from the earth, raises the soul to the intelligible
world. The purified soul, therefore, becomes a form, a reason, an
incorporeal and intellectual essence; she belongs entirely to the
divinity, in whom resides the source of the beautiful, and of all the
qualities which have affinity with it.
THE SOUL'S WELFARE IS TO RESEMBLE THE DIVINITY.
Restored to intelligence, the soul sees her own beauty increase;
indeed, her own beauty consists of the intelligence with its ideas;
only when united to intelligence is the soul really isolated from all
the remainder. That is the reason that it is right to say that "the
soul's welfare and beauty lie in assimilating herself to the divinity,"
because it is the principle of beauty and of the essences; or rather,
being is beauty, while the other nature (non-being, matter), is
ugliness. This is the First Evil, evil in itself, just as that one (the
First Principle) is the good and the beautiful; for good and beauty
are identical. Consequently, beauty or good, and evil or ugliness, are
to be studied by the same methods. The first rank is to be assigned to
beauty, which is identical with the good, and from which is derived
the intelligence which is beautiful by itself. The soul is beautiful
by intelligence, then, the other things, like actions, and studies,
are beautiful by the soul which gives them a form. It is still the
soul which beautifies the bodies to which is ascribed this perfection;
being a divine essence, and participating in beauty, when she seizes an
object, or subjects it to her dominion, she gives to it the beauty that
the nature of this object enables it to receive.
APPROACH TO THE GOOD CONSISTS IN SIMPLIFICATION.
We must still ascend to the Good to which every soul aspires. Whoever
has seen it knows what I still have to say, and knows the beauty of
the Good. Indeed, the Good is desirable for its own sake; it is the
goal of our desires. To attain it, we have to ascend to the higher
regions, turn towards them, and lay aside the garment which we put on
when descending here below; just as, in the (Eleusynian, or Isiac)
mysteries, those who are admitted to penetrate into the recesses of the
sanctuary, after having purified themselves, lay aside every garment,
and advance stark naked.
THE SUPREME PURPOSE OF LIFE IS THE ECSTATICAL VISION OF GOD.
7. Thus, in her ascension towards divinity, the soul advances until,
having risen above everything that is foreign to her, she alone with
Him who is alone, beholds, in all His simplicity and purity, Him from
whom all depends, to whom all aspires, from whom everything draws
its existence, life and thought. He who beholds him is overwhelmed
with love; with ardor desiring to unite himself with Him, entranced
with ecstasy. Men who have not yet seen Him desire Him as the Good;
those who have, admire Him as sovereign beauty, struck simultaneously
with stupor and pleasure, thrilling in a painless orgasm, loving
with a genuine emotion, with an ardor without equal, scorning all
other affections, and disdaining those things which formerly they
characterized as beautiful. This is the experience of those to whom
divinities and guardians have appeared; they reck no longer of the
beauty of other bodies. Imagine, if you can, the experiences of those
who behold Beauty itself, the pure Beauty, which, because of its
very purity, is fleshless and bodiless, outside of earth and heaven.
All these things, indeed are contingent and composite, they are not
principles, they are derived from Him. What beauty could one still wish
to see after having arrived at vision of Him who gives perfection to
all beings, though himself remains unmoved, without receiving anything;
after finding rest in this contemplation, and enjoying it by becoming
assimilated to Him? Being supreme beauty, and the first beauty, He
beautifies those who love Him, and thereby they become worthy of love.
This is the great, the supreme goal of souls; this is the goal which
arouses all their efforts, if they do not wish to be disinherited of
that sublime contemplation the enjoyment of which confers blessedness,
and privation of which is the greatest of earthly misfortunes. Real
misfortune is not to lack beautiful colors, nor beautiful bodies,
nor power, nor domination, nor royalty. It is quite sufficient to
see oneself excluded from no more than possession of beauty. This
possession is precious enough to render worthless domination of
a kingdom, if not of the whole earth, of the sea, or even of the
heavens--if indeed it were possible, while abandoning and scorning all
that (natural beauty), to succeed in contemplating beauty face to face.
THE METHOD TO ACHIEVE ECSTASY IS TO CLOSE THE EYES OF THE BODY.
8. How shall we start, and later arrive at the contemplation of this
ineffable beauty which, like the divinity in the mysteries, remains
hidden in the recesses of a sanctuary, and does not show itself
outside, where it might be perceived by the profane? We must advance
into this sanctuary, penetrating into it, if we have the strength to do
so, closing our eyes to the spectacle of terrestrial things, without
throwing a backward glance on the bodies whose graces formerly charmed
us. If we do still see corporeal beauties, we must no longer rush at
them, but, knowing that they are only images, traces and adumbrations
of a superior principle, we will flee from them, to approach Him
of whom they are merely the reflections. Whoever would let himself
be misled by the pursuit of those vain shadows, mistaking them for
realities, would grasp only an image as fugitive as the fluctuating
form reflected by the waters, and would resemble that senseless
(Narcissus) who, wishing to grasp that image himself, according to the
fable, disappeared, carried away by the current. Likewise he would wish
to embrace corporeal beauties, and not release them, would plunge,
not his body, but his soul into the gloomy abysses, so repugnant to
intelligence; he would be condemned to total blindness; and on this
earth, as well as in hell, he would see naught but mendacious shades.
HOW TO FLY TO OUR FATHERLAND.
This indeed is the occasion to quote (from Homer) with peculiar force,
"Let us fly unto our dear fatherland!" But how shall we fly? How escape
from here? is the question Ulysses asks himself in that allegory
which represents him trying to escape from the magic sway of Circe
or Calypso, where neither the pleasure of the eyes, nor the view of
fleshly beauty were able to hold him in those enchanted places. Our
fatherland is the region whence we descend here below. It is there that
dwells our Father. But how shall we return thither? What means shall
be employed to return us thither? Not our feet, indeed; all they could
do would be to move us from one place of the earth to another. Neither
is it a chariot, nor ship which need be prepared. All these vain helps
must be left aside, and not even considered. We must close the eyes of
the body, to open another vision, which indeed all possess, but very
few employ.
HOW TO TRAIN THIS INTERIOR VISION.
9. But how shall we train this interior vision? At the moment of
its (first) awakening, it cannot contemplate beauties too dazzling.
Your soul must then first be accustomed to contemplate the noblest
occupations of man, and then the beautiful deeds, not indeed those
performed by artists, but those (good deeds) done by virtuous men.
Later contemplate the souls of those who perform these beautiful
actions. Nevertheless, how will you discover the beauty which their
excellent soul possesses? Withdraw within yourself, and examine
yourself. If you do not yet therein discover beauty, do as the artist,
who cuts off, polishes, purifies until he has adorned his statue
with all the marks of beauty. Remove from your soul, therefore, all
that is superfluous, straighten out all that is crooked, purify and
illuminate what is obscure, and do not cease perfecting your statue
until the divine resplendence of virtue shines forth upon your sight,
until you see temperance in its holy purity seated in your breast.
When you shall have acquired this perfection; when you will see it in
yourself; when you will purely dwell within yourself; when you will
cease to meet within yourself any obstacle to unity; when nothing
foreign will any more, by its admixture, alter the simplicity of your
interior essence; when within your whole being you will be a veritable
light, immeasurable in size, uncircumscribed by any figure within
narrow boundaries, unincreasable because reaching out to infinity,
and entirely incommensurable because it transcends all measure and
quantity; when you shall have become such, then, having become sight
itself, you may have confidence in yourself, for you will no longer
need any guide. Then must you observe carefully, for it is only by the
eye that then will open itself within you that you will be able to
perceive supreme Beauty. But if you try to fix on it an eye soiled by
vice, an eye that is impure, or weak, so as not to be able to support
the splendor of so brilliant an object, that eye will see nothing, not
even if it were shown a sight easy to grasp. The organ of vision will
first have to be rendered analogous and similar to the object it is to
contemplate. Never would the eye have seen the sun unless first it had
assumed its form; likewise, the soul could never see beauty, unless she
herself first became beautiful. To obtain the view of the beautiful,
and of the divinity, every man must begin by rendering himself
beautiful and divine.
THE LANDMARKS OF THE PATH TO ECSTASY.
Thus he will first rise to intelligence, and he will there contemplate
beauty, and declare that all this beauty resides in the Ideas. Indeed,
in them everything is beautiful, because they are the daughters and the
very essence of Intelligence.
Above intelligence, he will meet Him whom we call the nature of the
Good, and who causes beauty to radiate around Him; so that, to repeat,
the first thing that is met is beauty. If a distinction is to be
established among the intelligibles, we might say that intelligible
beauty is the locus of ideas, and that the Good, which is located above
the Beautiful, is its source and principle. If, however, we desire to
locate the Good and the Beautiful within one single principle, we might
regard this one principle first as Good, and only afterwards, as Beauty.
REFERENCES.
Page 40, line 4, Equally Beautiful, Phaedrus p. 250, Cary 63-65;
Hippias Major, 295, Cary 44; Philebus p. 17, Cary 20, 21.
Page 41, line 11, Stoic definition, Cicero, Tusculans, iv. 13.
Page 44, line 30, Obscurity of Matter, Timaeus, p. 31, Cary 11;
Philebus, p. 29, Cary 52.
Page 45, line 22, Superior Order, Banquet 210, Cary 34; Timaeus, p. 31,
Cary 11.
Page 45, line 35, Golden Face of Justice, Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae,
xii. 546.
Page 46, line 10, Pleasurable Impulse, Banquet, p. 191, Cary 17, 18;
Cratylos, p. 420, Cary 78-80.
Page 47, line 5, Justice of the Heart, Banquet, p. 209, Cary 33;
Republic, iii. 402, Cary 12.
Page 48, line 23, Ugliness, Banquet, p. 215-217, Cary 39, 40; Philebus,
p. 66, Cary 158, 159.
Page 49, line 4, Purifications, Phaedo, p. 69, Cary 37.
Page 49, line 32, Assimilating to Divinity, Republic x. p. 613, Cary 12.
Page 50, line 1, Good and Beautiful, Timaeus, p. 35, Cary 12.
Page 50, line 5, Identical with Good, Philebus, p. 64, Cary 153-155;
First Alcibiades, p. 115, Cary 23, 24.
Page 51, line 1, 2, He who Beholds, Phaedrus, p. 278, Cary 145.
Page 51, line 8, Ardor without Equal; line 15, Very Purity; Banquet, p.
210, 211; Cary 34, 35.
Page 51, line 29, Confers Blessedness, Phaedrus, p. 250, Cary 64.
Page 53, line 16, Interior Vision, Republic, x., p. 533, Cary 13.
Page 53, line 34, Temperance Seated, Phaedrus, p. 279, Cary 147.
Page 54, line 19, Organ of Vision, Timaeus, p. 45, Cary 19.
Page 54, line 23, Assumed its form, Republic, vi., p. 508, Cary 19.
Page 54, line 29, Rise to Intelligence, Philebus, p. 64, Cary 153-155.
FOURTH ENNEAD, BOOK SEVEN.
Of the Immortality of the Soul: Polemic Against Materialism.
IS THE SOUL IMMORTAL?
1. Are we immortal, or does all of us die? (Another possibility would
be that) of the two parts of which we are composed, the one might be
fated to be dissolved and perish, while the other, that constitutes our
very personality, might subsist perpetually. These problems must be
solved by a study of our nature.
THE BODY AS THE INSTRUMENT OF THE SOUL.
Man is not a simple being; he contains a soul and a body, which is
united to this soul, either as tool, or in some other manner.[31] This
is how we must distinguish the soul from the body, and determine the
nature and manner of existence ("being") of each of them.
THE BODY IS COMPOSITE, AND THEREFORE PERISHABLE.
As the nature of the body is composite, reason convinces us that it
cannot last perpetually, and our senses show it to us dissolved,
destroyed, and decayed, because the elements that compose it return
to join the elements of the same nature, altering, destroying them
and each other, especially when this chaos is abandoned to the soul,
which alone keeps her parts combined. Even if a body were taken alone,
it would not be a unity; it may be analyzed into form and matter,
principles that are necessary to the constitution of all bodies, even
of those that are simple.[32] Besides, as they contain extension,
the bodies can be cut, divided into infinitely small parts, and thus
perish.[33] Therefore if our body is a part of ourselves,[34] not all
of us is immortal; if the body is only the instrument of the soul, as
the body is given to the soul only for a definite period, it still is
by nature perishable.
THE SOUL IS THE INDIVIDUALITY, AS ITS FORM, AND AS A SKILLED WORKMAN.
The soul, which is the principal part of man, and which constitutes man
himself,[35] should bear to the body the relation of form to matter, or
of a workman to his tool;[36] in both cases the soul is the man himself.
IF THE SOUL IS INCORPOREAL, WE MUST STUDY INCORPOREALITY.
2. What then is the nature of the soul? If she is a body, she can be
decomposed, as every body is a composite. If, on the contrary, she is
not a body, if hers is a different nature, the latter must be examined;
either in the same way that we have examined the body, or in some other
way.
A.--THE SOUL IS NOT CORPOREAL (AS THE STOICS THOUGHT).
(a.) (Neither a material molecule, nor a material aggregation of
material atoms could possess life and intelligence.) First, let
us consider the nature of this alleged soul-body. As every soul
necessarily possesses life, and as the body, considered as being the
soul, must obtain at least two molecules, if not more (there are three
possibilities): either only one of them possesses life, or all of
them possess it, or none of them. If one molecule alone possesses
life, it alone will be the soul. Of what nature will be that molecule
supposed to possess life by itself? Will it be water (Hippo), air
(Anaximenes, Archelaus, and Diogenes), earth, or fire (Heraclitus,
Stobaeus?[37]) But those are elements that are inanimate by themselves,
and which, even when they are animated, possess but a borrowed life.
Still there is no other kind of body. Even those (philosophers, like
the Pythagoreans) who posited elements other (than water, air, earth
and fire) still considered them to be bodies, and not souls, not even
attributing souls to them. The theory that life results from the union
of molecules of which, nevertheless, none by itself possesses life, is
an absurd hypothesis. If further any molecule possesses life, then a
single one would be sufficient.
NEITHER MIXTURE NOR ITS PRINCIPLE WILL EXPLAIN LIFE AS A BODY.
The most irrational theory of all is that an aggregation of molecules
should produce life, that elements without intelligence should beget
intelligence. Others (like Alexander of Aphrodisia) insist that to
produce life these elements must be mingled in a certain manner. That
would, however, imply (as thought Gallen and Hippocrates[38]) the
existence of a principle which produces order, and which should be the
cause of mixture or, temperament,[39] and that should alone deserve
being considered as soul. No simple bodies could exist, much less
composite bodies, unless there was a soul in the universe; for it is
(seminal) reason which, in, adding itself to matter, produces body.[40]
But surely a (seminal) reason could proceed from nowhere except a soul.
NO ATOMIC AGGREGATION COULD PRODUCE A SELF-HARMONIZING UNITY.
3. (b.) (No aggregation of atoms could form a whole that would be one
and sympathetic with itself.) Others, on the contrary, insist that the
soul is constituted by the union of atoms or indivisibles (as thought
Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus.[41]) To refute this error, we have
to examine the nature of sympathy (or community of affection, a Stoic
characteristic of a living being,[42]) and juxtaposition.[43] On the
one hand an aggregation of corporeal molecules which are incapable of
being united, and which do not feel cannot form a single sympathetic
whole such as is the soul, which is sympathetic with herself. On
the other hand, how could a body or extension be constituted by (a
juxtaposition of) atoms?
SOUL IS A SIMPLE SUBSTANCE, WHILE EVERY BODY IS COMPOSED OF MATTER AND
FORM.
(c.) (Every body is a composite of matter and form, while the soul is
a simple substance.) Inasmuch as matter possesses no quality,[44] the
matter of no simple body will be said to possess life in itself. That
which imparts life to it must then be its form. If form is a "being,"
the soul cannot simultaneously be matter and form; it will be only
matter or form. Consequently, the soul will not be the body, since
the body is not constituted by matter exclusively, as could be proved
analytically, if necessary.
IF SOUL IS ONLY AN AFFECTION OF MATTER, WHENCE THAT AFFECTION?
(d.) (The soul is not a simple manner of being of matter, because
matter could not give itself a form.) Some Stoics might deny that form
was a "being," asserting the soul to be a mere affection (or, manner
of being) of matter.[45] From whence then did matter acquire this
affection and animating life? Surely matter itself could not endow
itself with a form and a soul. That which endows matter or any body
with life must then be some principle alien and superior to corporeal
nature.
NO BODY COULD SUBSIST WITHOUT THE POWER OF THE UNIVERSAL SOUL.
(e.) (No body could subsist without the power of the universal soul.)
Besides no body could subsist without the power of the universal Soul
(from Numenius[46]). Every body, indeed, is in a perpetual flow and
movement (as thought Heraclitus, in Plato, Cratylus[47]), and the world
would soon perish if it contained nothing but bodies, even if some one
of them were to be called soul; for such a soul, being composed of
the same matter as the other bodies, would undergo the same fate that
they do; or rather, there would not even be any body, everything would
remain in the condition of shapeless matter, since there would exist
no principle to fashion it. Why, there would not even be any matter,
and the universe would be annihilated to nothingness, if the care of
keeping its parts united were entrusted to some body which would have
nothing but the name of soul, as for instance, to air, or a breath
without cohesion,[48] which could not be one, by itself. As all bodies
are divisible, if the universe depended on a body, it would be deprived
of intelligence and given up to chance. How, indeed, could there be
any order in a spirit which itself would need to receive order from a
soul? How could this spirit contain reason and intelligence? On the
hypothesis of the existence of the soul, all these elements serve to
constitute the body of the world, and of every animal, because all
different bodies together work for the end of all; but without the
soul, there is no order, and even nothing exists any more.
IF THE SOUL IS NOT SIMPLE MATTER, SHE MUST BE A SUBSTANTIAL FORM.
4. (f) (If the soul is anything but simple matter, she must be
constituted by a substantial form.) Those who claim that the soul
is a body are, by the very force of the truth, forced to recognize
the existence, before and above them, of a form proper to the soul;
for they acknowledge the existence of an intelligent spirit, and an
intellectual fire (as do the Stoics, following in the footsteps of
Heraclitus, Stobaeus[49]). According to them, it seems that, without
spirit or fire, there cannot be any superior nature in the order of
beings, and that the soul needs a location where she may be built
up. On the contrary, it is bodies alone that need to be built up on
something, and indeed, they are founded on the powers of the soul.
If really we do believe that the soul and life are no more than a
spirit, why add the qualification "of a certain characteristic,"[50]
a meaningless term employed when forced to admit an active nature
superior to that of bodies. As there are thousands of inanimate
spirits, not every spirit is a soul. If only that spirit is a
soul which possesses that "special characteristic," this "special
characteristic" and this "manner of being" will either be something
real, or will be nothing. If they are nothing, there will be nothing
real but spirit, and this alleged "manner of being" is nothing more
than a word. In that system, therefore, nothing but matter really
exists. God, the soul, and all other things are no more than a word;
the body alone really subsists. If, on the contrary, that "manner of
being" is something real, if it is anything else than substrate or
matter, if it resides in matter without being material or composed of
matter, it must then be a nature different from the body, namely, a
reason (by a pun).[51]
THE BODY EXERTS A UNIFORM ACTION, WHILE THE SOUL EXERTS A VARIED ONE.
(g.) (The body exerts an uniform action, while the soul exerts a very
diverse action.) The following considerations further demonstrate the
impossibility of the soul being a body. A body must be hot or cold,
hard or soft, liquid or solid, black or white, or qualities differing
according to its nature. If it is only hot or cold, light or heavy,
black or white, it communicates its only quality to what comes close
to it; for fire could not cool, nor ice heat. Nevertheless, the soul
produces not only different effects in different animals, but contrary
effects even in the same being; she makes certain things solid, dense,
black, light, and certain others liquid, sparse, white, or heavy.
According to the different quality of the body, and according to its
color, she should produce but a single effect; nevertheless, she exerts
a very diverse action.
THREE MORE PROOFS OF THE INCORPOREITY OF THE SOUL.
5. (h.) (The body has but a single kind of motion while the soul has
different ones.) If the soul is a body, how does it happen that she
has different kinds of motion instead of a single one, as is the
case with the body? Will these movements be explained by voluntary
determinations, and by (seminal) reasons? In this case neither the
voluntary determinations, nor these reasons, which differ from each
other, can belong to a single and simple body; such a body does not
participate in any particular reason except by the principle that made
it hot or cold.
BODIES CAN LOSE PARTS, NOT SO THE SOUL.
(i.) (Souls cannot, as do bodies, lose or gain parts, ever remaining
identical.) The body has the faculty of making its organs grow within
a definite time and in fixed proportions. From where could the soul
derive them? Its function is to grow, not to cause growth, unless
the principle of growth be comprehended within its material mass. If
the soul that makes the body grow was herself a body, she should, on
uniting with molecules of a nature similar to hers, develop a growth
proportional to that of the organs. In this case, the molecules that
will come to add themselves to the soul will be either animate or
inanimate; if they are animate, how could they have become such, and
from whom will they have received that characteristic? If they are not
animate, how will they become such, and how will agreement between
them and the first soul arise? How will they form but a single unity
with her, and how will they agree with her? Will they not constitute a
soul that will remain foreign to the former, who will not possess her
requirements of knowledge? This aggregation of molecules that would
thus be called soul will resemble the aggregation of molecules that
form our body. She would lose parts, she would acquire new ones; she
will not be identical. But if we had a soul that was not identical,
memory and self-consciousness of our own faculties would be impossible.
THE SOUL IS EVERYWHERE ENTIRE; THAT IS NOT THE CASE WITH THE BODY.
(j.) (The soul, being one and simple, is everywhere entire, and has
parts that are identical to the whole; this is not the case with
the body.) If the soul is a body, she will have parts that are not
identical with the whole, as every body is by nature divisible. If then
the soul has a definite magnitude of which she cannot lose anything
without ceasing to be a soul, she will by losing her parts, change her
nature, as happens to every quantity. If, on losing some part of its
magnitude, a body, notwithstanding, remains identical in respect to
quality, it does not nevertheless become different from what it was,
in respect to quantity, and it remains identical only in respect to
quality, which differs from quantity. What shall we answer to those who
insist that the soul is a body? Will they say that, in the same body,
each part possesses the same quality as the total soul, and that the
case is similar with the part of a part? Then quantity is no longer
essential to the nature of the soul; which contradicts the hypothesis
that the soul needed to possess a definite magnitude. Besides the soul
is everywhere entire; now it is impossible for a body to be entire in
several places simultaneously, or have parts identical to the whole.
If we refuse the name of soul to each part, the soul is then composed
of inanimate parts. Besides, if the soul is a definite magnitude, she
cannot increase or diminish without ceasing to be a soul; but it often
happens that from a single conception or from a single germ are born
two or more beings, as is seen in certain animals in whom the germs
divide;[52] in this case, each part is equal to the whole. However
superficially considered, this fact demonstrates that the principle
in which the part is equal to the whole is essentially superior to
quantity, and must necessarily lack any kind of quantity. On this
condition alone can the soul remain identical when the body loses its
quantity, because she has need of no mass, no quantity, and because her
essence is of an entirely different nature. The soul and the (seminal)
reasons therefore possess no extension.
THE BODY COULD NOT POSSESS SENSATION.
6. (k.) (The body could not possess either sensation, thought, or
virtue.) If the soul were a body, she would not possess either
sensation, thought, science, virtue, nor any of the perfections that
render her more beautiful. Here follows the proof.
IMPOSSIBILITY FOR THE BODY TO HAVE SENSATION.
The subject that perceives a sense-object must itself be single, and
grasp this object in its totality, by one and the same power. This
happens when by several organs we perceive several qualities of a
single object, or when, by a single organ, we embrace a single complex
object in its totality, as, for instance, a face. It is not one
principle that sees the face, and another one that sees the eyes; it
is the "same principle" which embraces everything at once. Doubtless
we do receive a sense-impression by the eyes, and another by the ears;
but both of them must end in some single principle. How, indeed, could
any decision be reached about the difference of sense-impressions
unless they all converged toward the same principle? The latter is
like a centre, and the individual sensations are like radii which
from the circumference radiate towards the centre of a circle. This
central principle is essentially single. If it was divisible, and if
sense-impressions were directed towards two points at a distance from
each other, such as the extremities of the same line, they would either
still converge towards one and the same point, as, for instance, the
middle (of the line), or one part would feel one thing, and another
something else. It would be absolutely as if I felt one thing, and you
felt another, when placed in the presence of one and the same thing (as
thought Aristotle, de Anima[53]). Facts, therefore, demonstrate that
sensations centre in one and the same principle; as visible images are
centred in the pupil of the eye; otherwise how could we, through the
pupil, see the greatest objects? So much the more, therefore, must
the sensations that centre in the (Stoic) "directing principle"[54]
resemble indivisible intuitions and be perceived by an indivisible
principle. If the latter possessed extension, it could, like the
sense-object, be divided; each of its parts would thus perceive one
of the parts of the sense-object, and nothing within us would grasp
the object in its totality. The subject that perceives must then be
entirely one; otherwise, how could it be divided? In that case it could
not be made to coincide with the sense-object, as two equal figures
superimposed on each other, because the directing principle does not
have an extension equal to that of the sense-object. How then will we
carry out the division? Must the subject that feels contain as many
parts as there are in the sense-object? Will each part of the soul, in
its turn, feel by its own parts, or will (we decide that) the parts of
parts will not feel? Neither is that likely. If, on the other hand,
each part feels the entire object, and if each magnitude is divisible
to infinity, the result is that, for a single object, there will be an
infinity of sensations in each part of the soul; and, so much the more,
an infinity of images in the principle that directs us. (This, however,
is the opposite of the actual state of affairs.)
AGAINST THE STOICS, SENSATIONS ARE NOT IMPRESSIONS OF A SEAL ON WAX.
Besides, if the principle that feels were corporeal, it could feel only
so long as exterior objects produced in the blood or in the air some
impression similar to that of a seal on wax.[55] If they impressed
their images on wet substances, as is no doubt supposed, these
impressions would become confused as images in water, and memory would
not occur. If, however, these impressions persisted, they would either
form an obstacle to subsequent ones, and no further sensation would
occur; or they would be effaced by the new ones, which would destroy
memory. If then the soul is capable of recalling earlier sensations,
and having new ones, to which the former would form no obstacle, it is
because she is not corporeal.
SENSATION CANNOT BE RELAYED FROM SENSE-ORGAN TO DIRECTING PRINCIPLE.
7. The same reflections may be made about pain, and one's feeling of
it. When a man's finger is said to give him pain, this, no doubt,
is a recognition that the seat of the pain is in the finger, and
that the feeling of pain is experienced by the directing principle.
Consequently, when a part of the spirit suffers, this suffering is felt
by the directing principle, and shared by the whole soul.[56] How can
this sympathy be explained? By relay transmission, (the Stoic) will
answer; the sense-impression is felt first by the animal spirit that
is in the finger, and then transmitted to the neighboring part, and
so on till it reaches the directing part. Necessarily, if the pain is
felt by the first part that experiences it, it will also be felt by the
second part to which it is transmitted; then by the third, and so on,
until the one pain would have caused an infinite number of sensations.
Last the directing principle will perceive all these sensations, adding
thereto its own sensation. Speaking strictly, however, each of these
sensations will not transmit the suffering of the finger, but the
suffering of one of the intermediate parts. For instance, the second
sensation will relay the suffering of the hand. The third, that of
the arm, and so on, until there will be an infinity of sensations.
The directing principle, for its part, will not feel the pain of the
finger, but its own; it will know none but that, it will pay no
attention to the rest, because it will ignore the pain suffered by the
finger. Therefore, relayed sensation is an impossibility, nor could
one part of the body perceive the suffering felt by another part; for
the body has extension, and, in every extension, parts are foreign to
each other (the opposite of the opinion of Cleanthes, Nemesius).[57]
Consequently, the principle that feels must everywhere be identical
with itself; and among all beings, the body is that which is least
suitable to this identity.
THE BODY CANNOT THINK.
8. If, in any sense whatever, the soul were a body, we could not think.
Here is the proof. If feeling[58] is explained as the soul's laying
hold of perceptible things by making use of the body, thinking cannot
also of making use of the body. Otherwise, thinking and feeling would
be identical. Thus, thinking must consist in perceiving without the
help of the body (as thought Aristotle[59]). So much the more, the
thinking principle cannot be corporeal. Since it is sensation that
grasps sense-objects, it must likewise be thought, or intellection,
that grasps intelligible objects. Though this should be denied, it will
be admitted that we think certain intelligibles entities, and that we
perceive entities that have no extension. How could an entity that
had extension think one that had no extension? Or a divisible entity,
think an indivisible one? Could this take place by an indivisible part?
In this case, the thinking subject will not be corporeal; for there
is no need that the whole subject be in contact with the object; it
would suffice if one of its parts reached the object (as Aristotle said
against Plato).[60] If then this truth be granted, that the highest
thoughts must have incorporeal objects, the latter can be cognized only
by a thinking principle that either is, or becomes independent of body.
Even the objection that the object of thought is constituted by the
forms inherent in matter, implies that these forces cannot be thought
unless, by intelligence, they are separated from matter. It is not by
means of the carnal mass of the body, nor generally by matter, that
we can effect the abstraction of triangle, circle, line or point. To
succeed in this abstraction, the soul must separate from the body, and
consequently, the soul cannot be corporeal.
THE BODY CANNOT POSSESS VIRTUE.
Neither do beauty or justice possess extension, I suppose; and their
conception must be similar. These things can be cognized or retained
only by the indivisible part of the soul. If the latter were corporeal,
where indeed could virtues, prudence, justice and courage exist? In
this case, virtues (as Critias thought),[61] would be no more than
a certain disposition of the spirit, or blood (as Empedocles also
thought).[62] For instance, courage and temperance would respectively
be no more than a certain irritability, and a fortunate temperament of
the spirit; beauty would consist in the agreeable shape of outlines,
which cause persons, in whom they occur, to be called elegant and
handsome. Under this hypothesis, indeed, the types of spirit might
possess vigor and beauty. But what need would it have of temperance?
On the contrary, the spirit would seek to be agreeably affected by the
things it touches and embraces, to enjoy a moderate heat, a gentle
coolness, and to be in contact only with sweet, tender, and smooth
entities. What incentive would the spirit have to apportion rewards to
those who had deserved them?
IF VIRTUE WERE CORPOREAL IT WOULD BE PERISHABLE.
Are the notions of virtue, and other intelligible entities by the soul
thought eternal, or does virtue arise and perish? If so, by what being,
and how will it be formed? It is the same problem that remains to be
solved. Intelligible entities must therefore be eternal and immutable,
like geometrical notions, and consequently cannot be corporeal.
Further, the subject in whom they exist must be of a nature similar to
theirs, and therefore not be corporeal; for the nature of body is not
to remain immutable, but to be in a perpetual flow.
BODIES ARE ACTIVE ONLY BY MEANS OF INCORPOREAL POWERS.
(9.) There are men who locate the soul in the body, so as to give her
a foundation in some sphere of activity, to account for the various
phenomena in the body, such as getting hot or cold, pushing on or
stopping, (and the like). They evidently do not realize that bodies
produce these effects only through incorporeal powers, and that those
are not the powers that we attribute to the soul, which are thought,
sensation, reasoning, desire, judiciousness, propriety and wisdom, all
of them entities that cannot possible be attributes of a corporeal
entity. Consequently, those (materialists) attribute to the body all
the faculties of incorporeal essences, and leave nothing for the latter.
WHY BODIES ARE ACTIVATED BY INCORPOREAL POWERS.
The proof that bodies are activated only by incorporeal faculties may
be proved as follows: Quantity and quality are two different things.
Every body has a quantity, but not always a quality, as in the case of
matter, (according to the Stoic definition, that it was a body without
quality, but possessing magnitude[63]). Granting this, (you Stoic) will
also be forced to admit that as quality is something different from
quantity, it must consequently be different from the body. Since then
every body has a quantity, how could quality, which is no quantity, be
a body? Besides, as we said above,[64] every body and mass is altered
by division; nevertheless, when a body is cut into pieces, every
part preserves the entire quality without undergoing alteration. For
instance, every molecule of honey, possesses the quality of sweetness
as much as all the molecules taken together; consequently that
sweetness cannot be corporeal; and other qualities must be in a similar
case. Moreover, if the active powers were corporeal, they would have to
have a material mass proportional to their strength or weakness. Now
there are great masses that have little force, and small ones that have
great force; demonstrating that power does not depend on extension, and
should be attributed to some (substance) without extension. Finally,
you may say that matter is identical with body, and produces different
beings only by receiving different qualities (the Stoics considering
that even the divinity was no more than modified matter, their two
principles being matter and quality;[65] the latter, however, was also
considered as body). How do you (Stoics) not see that qualities thus
added to matter are reasons, that are primary and immaterial? Do not
object that when the spirit (breath) and blood abandon animals, they
cease to live; for if these things are necessary to life, there are
for our life many other necessities, even during the presence of the
soul (as thought Nemesius).[66] Besides, neither spirit nor blood are
distributed to every part of the body.
THE SOUL CAN PENETRATE THE BODY; BUT TWO BODIES CANNOT PENETRATE EACH
OTHER.
(10). The soul penetrates the whole body, while an entire body cannot
penetrate another entire body. Further, if the soul is corporeal, and
pervades the whole body, she will, with the body, form (as Alexander
of Aphrodisia pointed out) a mixture,[67] similar to the other bodies
(that are constituted by a mixture of matter and quality, as the Stoics
taught). Now as none of the bodies that enter into a mixture is in
actualization[68] the soul, instead of being in actualization in the
bodies, would be in them only potentially; consequently, she would
cease to be a soul, as the sweet ceases to be sweet when mingled with
the bitter; we would, therefore, have no soul left. If, when one body
forms a mixture with another body, total penetration occurs, so that
each molecule contains equal parts of two bodies and that each body
be distributed equally in the whole space occupied by the mass of the
other, without any increase of volume, nothing that is not divided will
remain. Indeed, mixture operates not only between the larger parts
(which would be no more than a simple juxtaposition); but the two
bodies must penetrate each other mutually, even if smaller--it would
indeed be impossible for the smaller to equal the greater; still, when
the smaller penetrates the larger it must divide it entirely. If the
mixture operates in this manner in every part, and if no undivided
part of the mass remain, the body must be divided into points, which
is impossible. Indeed, were this division pushed to infinity, since
every body is fully divisible, bodies will have to be infinite not only
potentially, but also in actuality. It is therefore impossible for
one entire body to penetrate another in its entirety. Now as the soul
penetrates the entire body, the soul must be incorporeal (as thought
Nemesius).[69]
THE STOIC DEVELOPMENT FROM HABIT TO SOUL AND INTELLIGENCE WOULD MAKE
THE PERFECT ARISE FROM THE IMPERFECT, AN IMPOSSIBILITY.
(11). (If, as Stoics claim, man first was a certain nature called
habit,[70] then a soul, and last an intelligence, the perfect would
have arisen from the imperfect, which is impossible). To say that
the first nature of the soul is to be a spirit, and that this spirit
became soul only after having been exposed to cold, and as it were
became soaked by its contact, because the cold subtilized it;[71] this
is an absurd hypothesis. Many animals are born in warm places, and do
not have their soul exposed to action of cold. Under this hypothesis,
the primary nature of the soul would have been made dependent on the
concourse of exterior circumstances. The Stoics, therefore, posit as
principle that which is less perfect (the soul), and trace it to a
still less perfect earlier thing called habit (or form of inorganic
things).[72] Intelligence, therefore, is posited in the last rank
since it is alleged to be born of the soul, while, on the contrary,
the first rank should be assigned to intelligence, the second to the
soul, the third to nature, and, following natural order, consider
that which is less perfect as the posterior element. In this system
the divinity, by the mere fact of his possessing intelligence, is
posterior and begotten, possessing only an incidental intelligence.
The result would, therefore, be that there was neither soul, nor
intelligence, nor divinity; for never can that which is potential pass
to the condition of actualization, without the prior existence of some
actualized principle. If what is potential were to transform itself
into actualization--which is absurd--its passage into actualization
will have to involve at the very least a contemplation of something
which is not merely potential, but actualized. Nevertheless, on the
hypothesis that what is potential can permanently remain identical, it
will of itself pass into actualization, and will be superior to the
being which is potential only because it will be the object of the
aspiration of such a being. We must, therefore, assign the first rank
to the being that has a perfect and incorporeal nature, which is always
in actualization. Thus intelligence and soul are prior to nature; the
soul, therefore, is not a spirit, and consequently no body. Other
reasons for the incorporeality of the soul have been advanced; but the
above suffices (as thought Aristotle).[73]
II. THE SOUL IS NEITHER THE HARMONY NOR ENTELECHY OF THE BODY--THE SOUL
IS THE HARMONY OF THE BODY; AGAINST THE PYTHAGOREANS.
(12). a. Since the soul is not corporeal, its real nature must be
ascertained. Shall we assert that she is something distinct from the
body, but dependent thereon, as, for instance, a harmony? Pythagoras,
indeed, used this word in a technical sense; and after him the harmony
of the body has been thought to be something similar to the harmony
of a lyre. As tension produces in the lyre-strings an affection
(or, manner of being, or state) that is called harmony, likewise,
as contrary elements are mingled in our body, an individual mixture
produces life and soul, which, therefore, is only an individual
affection of this mixture.
WHY THE SOUL IS NOT A HARMONY.
As has already been said above[74] this hypothesis is inadmissible for
several reasons. To begin with, the soul is prior (to the body), and
the harmony is posterior thereto. Then the soul dominates the body,
governs it, and often even resists it, which would be impossible if
the soul were only a harmony. The soul, indeed, is a "being," which
harmony is not. When the corporeal principles of which we are composed
are mingled in just proportions, their temperament constitutes health
(but not a "being," such as the soul). Besides, every part of the body
being mingled in a different manner should form (a different harmony,
and consequently) a different soul, so that there would be several
of them. The decisive argument, however, is that this soul (that
constitutes a harmony) presupposes another soul which would produce
this harmony, as a lyre needs a musician who would produce harmonic
vibrations in the strings, because he possesses within himself the
reason according to which he produces the harmony. The strings of the
lyre do not vibrate of themselves, and the elements of our body cannot
harmonize themselves. Nevertheless, under this hypothesis, animated and
orderly "being" would have been made up out of inanimate and disordered
entities; and these orderly "beings" would owe their order and
existence to chance. That is as impossible for parts as for the whole.
The soul, therefore, is no harmony.
THE SOUL IS NOT THE ENTELECHY OF THE BODY (POLEMIC AGAINST ARISTOTLE).
ARISTOTLE'S STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM.[75]
(13). b. Now let us examine the opinion of those who call the soul an
entelechy. They say that, in the composite, the soul plays the part of
form in respect to matter, in the body the soul animates. The soul,
however, is not said to be the form of any body, nor of the body as
such; but of the natural body, that is organized, and which possesses
life potentially.[76]
IF THE SOUL IS AN ENTELECHY, SHE IS A DIFFERENT ONE THAN ARISTOTLE'S.
If the soul's relation to the body is the same as that of the statue
to the metal, the soul will be divided with the body, and on cutting
a member a portion of the soul would be cut along with it. According
to this teaching, the soul separates from the body only during sleep,
since she must inhere in the body of which she is the entelechy, in
which case sleep would become entirely inexplicable. If the soul be an
entelechy, the struggle of reason against the passions would become
entirely impossible. The entire human being will experience but one
single sentiment, and never be in disagreement with itself. If the
soul be an entelechy, there will perhaps still be sensations, but mere
sensations; pure thoughts will have become impossible. Consequently
the Peripateticians themselves are obliged to introduce (into human
nature) another soul, namely, the pure intelligence, which they
consider immortal.[77] The rational soul, therefore, would have to be
an entelechy in a manner different from their definition thereof, if
indeed this name is at all to be used.
IF AN ENTELECHY BE GRANTED, IT IS INSEPARABLE FROM THE BODY.
The sense-soul, which preserves the forms of sense-objects previously
perceived, must preserve them without the body. Otherwise, these forms
would inhere in the body like figures and corporeal shapes. Now, if
the forms inhered in the sense-soul in this manner, they could not
be received therein otherwise (than as corporeal impressions). That
is why, if we do grant the existence of an entelechy, it must be
inseparable from the body. Even the faculty of appetite, not indeed
that which makes us feel the need of eating and drinking, but that
which desires things that are independent of the body, could not either
be an entelechy.[78]
NEITHER COULD THE SOUL OF GROWTH BE AN ENTELECHY.
The soul's faculty of growth remains to be considered. This at least
might be thought an inseparable entelechy. But neither does that suit
her nature. For if the principle of every plant is in its root, and if
growth takes place around and beneath it,[79] as occurs in many plants,
it is evident that the soul's faculty of growth, abandoning all the
other parts, has concentrated in the root alone; it, therefore, was not
distributed all around the soul, like an inseparable entelechy. Add
that this soul, before the plant grows, is already contained in the
small body (of the seed). If then, after having vivified a great plant,
the soul's faculty of growth can condense into a small space, and if
later it can, from this small space, again spread over a whole plant,
it is evidently entirely separable from the (plant's) matter.
THE ENTELECHY IS NOT A FORM OF THE BODY, AS THE SOUL TRANSMIGRATES.
Besides, as the soul is indivisible, the entelechy of the divisible
body could not become divisible as is the body. Besides, the same soul
passes from the body of one animal into the body of some other. How
could the soul of the first become that of the second, if she were only
the entelechy of a single one? The example of animals that metamorphose
demonstrates the impossibility of this theory. The soul, therefore, is
not the simple form of a body; she is a genuine "being," which does
not owe its existence merely to her being founded on the body, but
which, on the contrary, exists before having become the soul of some
individual animal. It is, therefore, not the body that begets the soul.
THE SOUL IS AN INCORPOREAL AND IMMORTAL ESSENCE. THE SOUL BEING NONE OF
CORPOREAL POSSIBILITIES, MUST BE INCORPOREAL.
c. What then can be the nature of the soul, if she is neither a
body, nor a corporeal affection, while, nevertheless, all the active
force, the productive power and the other faculties reside in her, or
come from her? What sort of a "being," indeed, is this (soul) that
has an existence independent of the body? She must evidently be a
veritable "being." Indeed, everything corporeal must be classified as
generated, and excluded from genuine "being," because it is born, and
perishes, never really exists, and owes its salvation exclusively to
participation in the genuine existence, and that only in the measure of
its participation therein.
THE PERSISTENCE OF THE CHANGEABLE IMPLIES THE ETERNAL IN THE
BACKGROUND.[80]
9. (14). It is absolutely necessary to postulate the existence of
a nature different from bodies, by itself fully possessing genuine
existence, which can neither be born nor perish. Otherwise, all other
things would hopelessly disappear, as a result of the destruction of
the existence which preserves both the individuals and the universe,
as their beauty and salvation. The soul, indeed, is the principle of
movement (as Plato thought, in the Phaedrus); it is the soul that
imparts movement to everything else; the soul moves herself. She
imparts life to the body she animates; but alone she possesses life,
without ever being subject to losing it, because she possesses it by
herself. All beings, indeed, live only by a borrowed life; otherwise,
we would have to proceed from cause to cause unto infinity. There
must, therefore, exist a nature that is primarily alive, necessarily
incorruptible and immortal because it is the principle of life for
everything else. It is thereon that must be founded all that is divine
and blessed, that lives and exists by itself, that lives and exists
supremely, which is immutable in its essence, and which can neither
be born nor perish. How indeed could existence be born or perish? If
the name of "existence" really suited it, it must exist forever, just
as whiteness is not alternately black and white. If whiteness were
existence itself, it would, with its "being" (or nature) (which is, to
be whiteness), possess an eternal existence; but, in reality, it is no
more than whiteness. Therefore, the principle that possesses existence
in itself and in a supreme degree will always exist. Now this primary
and eternal existence can not be anything dead like a stone, or a piece
of wood. It must live, and live with a pure life, as long as it exists
within itself. If something of it mingles with what is inferior, this
part meets obstacles in its aspiration to the good; but it does not
lose its nature, and resumes its former condition on returning to a
suitable condition (as thought Plato, in his Phaedo[81]).
THE SOUL IS INCORPOREAL BECAUSE OF HER KINSHIP WITH THE DIVINE.
10. (15). The soul has affinities with the divine and eternal nature.
This is evident, because, as we have demonstrated it, she is not a
body, has neither figure nor color, and is impalpable. Consider the
following demonstration. It is generally granted that everything that
is divine and that possesses genuine existence enjoys a happy and wise
life. Now let us consider the nature of our soul, in connection with
that of the divine. Let us take a soul, not one inside of a body, which
is undergoing the irrational motions of appetite and anger, and the
other affections born of the body, but a soul that has eliminated all
that, and which, so far as possible, had no intercourse with the body.
Such a soul would show us that vices are something foreign to the
nature of the soul, and come to her from elsewhere, and that, inasmuch
as she is purified, she in her own right possesses the most eminent
qualities, wisdom, and the other virtues (as thought Plato[82]). If
the soul, when re-entering into herself, is such, how could she not
participate in this nature that we have acknowledged to be suitable
to every thing that is eternal and divine? As wisdom and real virtue
are divine things, they could not dwell in a vile and mortal entity;
the existence that receives them is necessarily divine, since it
participates in divine things by their mutual affinity and community.
Anyone who thus possesses wisdom and virtue in his soul differs little
from the superior beings; he is inferior to them only by the fact of
his having a body. If all men, or at least, if many of them held their
soul in this disposition, no one would be sceptic enough to refuse to
believe that the soul is immortal. But as we consider the soul in her
present condition of being soiled by vices, no one imagines that her
nature is divine and immortal.
THE SOUL, LIKE OTHER THINGS, SHOULD BE JUDGED IN HER PUREST CONDITION.
Now when we consider the nature of some being, it should be studied
in its rarest condition, since extraneous additions hinder it from
being rightly judged. The soul must be therefore considered only after
abstraction of foreign things, or rather, he who makes this abstraction
should observe himself in that condition. He then will not doubt that
he is immortal, when he sees himself in the pure world of intelligence.
He will see his intelligence occupied, not in the observation of some
sense-object that is mortal, but in thinking the eternal by an equally
eternal faculty.[83] He will see all the entities in the intelligible
world, and he will see himself become intelligible, radiant, and
illuminated by the truth emanating from the Good, which sheds the light
of truth on all intelligible entities.[84] Then (like Empedocles, in
Diog. Laertes[85]), he will have the right to say:
"Farewell, I am now an immortal divinity."
For he has ascended to the divinity, and has become assimilated
thereto. As purification permits one to know the better things, so the
notions we have within us, and which constitute real science, are made
clear. Indeed, it is not by an excursion among external objects that
the soul attains the intuition of wisdom and virtue, but by re-entering
into herself, in thinking herself in her primitive condition. Then she
clears up and recognizes in herself the divine statues, soiled by the
rust of time. Likewise, if a piece of gold were animated and released
itself from the earth by which it was covered, after first having been
ignorant of its real nature because it did not see its own splendor,
it would admire itself when considering itself in its purity; it would
find that it had no need of a borrowed beauty, and would consider
itself happy to remain isolated from everything else.[86]
EVEN ON THE STOIC HYPOTHESIS THE SOUL MUST BE IMMORTAL.
11. (16). What sensible man, after having thus considered the nature
of the soul, could still doubt of the immortality of a principle which
derives life from naught but itself, and which cannot lose it? How
could the soul lose life, since she did not borrow it from elsewhere,
and since she does not possess it as fire possesses heat? For, without
being an accident of fire, the heat, nevertheless, is an accident
of its matter; for fire can perish. But, in the soul, life is not an
accident that comes to add itself to a material subject to constitute a
soul. In fact, there is here an alternative: either life is a genuine
"being," which is alive by itself; in which case this "being" is
the soul that we are seeking to discover, and immortality cannot be
refused her; or the soul is a composite, and she must be decomposed
until we arrive at something immortal which moves by itself; and such
a principle could not be subject to death. Further, when (Stoics)
say that life is only an accidental modification of matter, they are
thereby forced to acknowledge that the principle that imparted this
modification to matter is immortal, and incapable of admitting anything
contrary to what it communicates (that is, life, as said Plato, in his
Phaedo[87]), but there is only a single nature that possesses life in
actualization.
THERE IS NO CONCEIVABLE WAY IN WHICH SOUL COULD PERISH.
12. (17). (The Stoics), indeed, claim that every soul is perishable.
In this case, everything should long since have been destroyed. Others
might say that our soul were mortal, while the universal Soul were
immortal. On them, however, is the burden of proof of a difference
between the individual and universal souls. Both of them, indeed,
are a principle of movement; both live by themselves; both grasp
the same object by the same faculty, either by thinking the things
contained in heaven, or by considering the nature ("being") of each
being, ascending unto the first principle. Since our soul thinks
absolute essences either by the notions she finds within herself, or by
reminiscence, she evidently is prior to the body. Possessing knowledge
of eternal entities, she herself must be eternal. All that dissolves,
existing only by its compositeness, can naturally dissolve in the
same manner that it became composite. But the soul is a single, simple
actualization, whose essence is life; not in this manner therefore
can the soul perish. Neither could the soul perish by division into
a number of parts; for, as we have shown, the soul is neither a mass
nor a quantity. As little could the soul perish by alteration; for
when alteration destroys anything, it may remove its form, but leaves
its matter; alteration, therefore, is a characteristic of something
composite. Consequently as the soul cannot perish in any of these ways,
she is imperishable.
DESCENT INTO THE BODY NEED NOT CONFLICT WITH THE ETERNITY OF SOUL.
13. (18). If intelligible entities are separated from sense objects,
how does it happen that the soul descends into a body?[88] So long as
the soul is a pure and impassible intelligence, so long as she enjoys
a purely intellectual life like the other intelligible beings, she
dwells among them; for she has neither appetite nor desire. But that
part which is inferior to intelligence and which is capable of desires,
follows their impulsion, "proceeds" and withdraws from the intelligible
world. Wishing to ornament matter on the model of the Ideas she
contemplated in Intelligence, in haste to exhibit her fruitfulness,
and to manifest the germs she bears within her (as said Plato, in the
Banquet[89]), the soul applies herself to produce and create, and, as
result of this application, she is, as it were, orientated (or, in
"tension") towards sense-objects. With the universal Soul, the human
soul shares the administration of the whole world, without, however,
entering it; then, desiring to administer some portion of the world
on her own responsibility, she separates from the universal Soul, and
passes into a body. But even when she is present with the body, the
soul does not devote herself entirely to it, as some part of her
always remains outside of it; that is how her intelligence remains
impassible.[90]
THE SOUL AS THE ARTIST OF THE UNIVERSE.
The soul is present in the body at some times, and at other times,
is outside of it. When, indeed, following her own inclination, she
descends from first-rank entities (that is, intelligible entities) to
third-rank entities (that is, earthly entities), she "proceeds" by
virtue of the actualization of intelligence, which, remaining within
herself, embellishes everything by the ministration of the soul, and
which, itself being immortal, ordains everything with immortal power;
for intelligence exists continuously by a continuous actualization.[91]
ALL SOULS HAVE IMMORTALITY, EVEN IF SUNK INTO ANIMALS OR PLANTS.
14. (19). What about the souls of animals inferior to man? The
(rational) souls that have strayed so far as to descend into the bodies
of animals are nevertheless still immortal.[92] Souls of a kind other
(than rational souls), cannot proceed from anything else than the
living nature (of the universal Soul); and they necessarily are the
principles of life for all animals. The case is the same with the souls
that inhere in plants. Indeed, all souls have issued from the same
principle (the universal Soul), all have an individual life, and are
indivisible and incorporeal essences ("beings").
EVEN IF THE SOUL HAS DIFFERENT PARTS, THE ORIGINAL PARTS SURVIVE.
To the objection that the human soul must decompose because she
contains three parts, it may be answered that, when souls issue from
here below, those that are purified leave what had been added to them
in generation (the irrational soul,[93]) while the other non-purified
souls do free themselves therefrom with time. Besides, this lower
part of the soul does not itself perish, for it exists as long as
the principle from which it proceeds. Indeed, nothing that exists is
annihilated.
THE HISTORIC EVIDENCE FOR IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
15. (20). This, then, is our answer to those who seek a philosophical
demonstration. Those who are satisfied with the testimony of faith and
sense, may be referred to those extracts from history which furnish
numerous proofs thereof.[94] We may also refer to the oracles given by
the divinities who order an appeasement of the souls who were victims
of some injustice, and to honor the dead,[95] and to the rites observed
by all towards those who live no more;[96] which presupposes that their
souls are still conscious beyond. Even after leaving their bodies,
many souls who lived on the earth have continued to grant benefits to
men.[97] By revelation of the future;[98] and rendering other services,
they themselves prove that the other souls cannot have perished.
As the first book was evidently Platonic, the second seems
Numenian, reminding us of the latter's book on the Immortality
of the Soul, one of the arguments from which we find in 3 E.
THIRD ENNEAD, BOOK FIRST.
Concerning Fate.
POSSIBLE THEORIES ABOUT FATE.
1. The first possibility is that there is a cause both for the things
that become, and those that are; the cause of the former being their
becoming, and that of the latter, their existence. Again, neither of
them may have a cause. Or, in both cases, some may have a cause, and
some not. Further, those that become might have a cause, while, of
these that exist, some might partly have a cause. Contrariwise, all
things that exist may have a cause, while of those that become, parts
may have a cause, and part not. Last, none of the things that become
might have any cause.
EXCEPT THE FIRST, ALL THINGS ARE CAUSED.
Speaking of eternal things, the first cannot be derived from other
causes, just because they are first. Things dependent from the first,
however, may indeed thence derive their being. To each thing we should
also attribute the resultant action; for a thing's being is constituted
by its displayed energy.
STOIC AND EPICUREAN CAUSELESS ORIGIN REALLY THE UTMOST DETERMINISM.
Now among the things that become, or among those that although
perpetually existent do not always result in the same actions, it may
be boldly asserted that everything has a cause. We should not admit
(the Stoic contention[99]) that something happens without a cause,
nor accept the (Epicurean[100]) arbitrary convergence of the atoms,
nor believe that any body initiates a movement suddenly and without
determining reason, nor suppose (with Epicurus again[101]) that the
soul undertakes some action by a blind impulse, without any motive.
Thus to suppose that a thing does not belong to itself, that it could
be carried away by involuntary movements, and act without motive, would
be to subject it to the most crushing determinism. The will must be
excited, or the desire awakened by some interior or exterior stimulus.
No determination (is possible) without motive.
EVERY GOOD THING HAS SOME CAUSE; NATURE BEING THE ULTIMATE CAUSE.
If everything that happens has a cause, it is possible to discover
such fact's proximate causes, and to them refer this fact. People go
downtown, for example, to see a person, or collect a bill. In all cases
it is a matter of choice, followed by decision, and the determination
to carry it out. There are, indeed, certain facts usually derived
from the arts; as for instance the re-establishment of health may be
referred to medicine and the physician. Again, when a man has become
rich, this is due to his finding some treasure, or receiving some
donation, to working, or exercising some lucrative profession. The
birth of a child depends on its father, and the concourse of exterior
circumstances, which, by the concatenation of causes and effects,
favored his procreation; for example, right food, or even a still more
distant cause, the fertility of the mother, or, still more generally,
of nature (or, in general, it is usual to assign natural causes).
PROXIMATE CAUSES ARE UNSATISFACTORY; WE MUST SEEK THE ULTIMATE ONES.
2. To stop, on arriving at these causes, and to refuse further
analysis, is to exhibit superficiality. This is against the advice of
the sages, who advise ascending to the primary causes, to the supreme
principles. For example, why, during the full moon, should the one man
steal, and the other one not steal? Or, why, under the same influence
of the heavens, has the one, and not the other, been sick? Why, by use
of the same means, has the one become rich, and the other poor? The
difference of dispositions, characters, and fortunes force us to seek
ulterior causes, as indeed the sages have always done.
MATERIALISTS SUPPORT DETERMINISM.
Those sages who (like Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus) assumed
material principles such as the atoms, and who explain everything by
their motion, their shock and combinations, pretend that everything
existent and occurring is caused by the agency of these atoms, their
"actions and reactions." This includes, according to them, our
appetites and dispositions. The necessity residing in the nature of
these principles, and in their effects, is therefore, by these sages,
extended to everything that exists. As to the (Ionic Hylicists), who
assume other physical (ultimate) principles, referring everything to
them, they thus also subject all beings to necessity.
HERACLITUS, THOUGH MORE SPIRITUAL, IS ALSO DETERMINIST.
There are others (such as Heraclitus[102]), who, seeking the (supreme)
principle of the universe, refer everything to it; saying that this
principle penetrates, moves, and produces everything. This they
call Fate, and the Supreme Cause. From it they derive everything;
its motions are said to give rise not only to the things that are
occurring, but even our thought. That is how the members of an animal
do not move themselves, but receive the stimulus from the "governing
principle" within them.
THE ASTROLOGERS MAKE COSMIC DEDUCTIONS FROM PROGNOSTICATION.
Some (of the astrologers) explain everything by the circular motion of
the heavens, by the relative positions of the planets and stars, and by
their mutual aspects (or, relations). They base this (principle) on the
prevalent habit of deducing therefrom conjectures about futurity.
THE STOIC DETERMINISM IS BASED ON VARIOUS THEORIES.
Others (like the Stoic Chrysippus[103]) define Fate otherwise: it
is "the concatenation of causes" in "their connection towards the
infinite," by which every posterior fact is the consequence of an
anterior one. Thus the things that follow relate to the things that
precede, and, as their effects, necessarily depend thereupon. Amidst
these (Stoic) philosophers there are two conceptions of Fate: some
consider that everything depends from a single principle, while others
do not. These views we shall study later.
We shall first examine the system with which we began; later we shall
review the others.
THE PHYSICAL THEORIES ARE ABSURD.
3. To refer everything to physical causes, whether you call them
atoms or elements, and from their disordered motion to deduce order,
reason and the soul that directs (the body), is absurd and impossible;
nevertheless, to deduce everything from atoms, is, if possible, still
more impossible; and consequently many valid objections have been
raised against this theory.
THE STOIC POLEMIC AGAINST THE EPICUREANS.
To begin with, even if we do admit such atomic principles, their
existence does not in any way inevitably lead to either the necessity
of all things, or fatality. Let us, indeed, grant the existence of
atoms; now some will move downwards--that is, if there is an up
and down in the universe--others obliquely, by chance, in various
directions. As there will be no order, there will be nothing
determinate. Only what will be born of the atoms will be determinate.
It will therefore be impossible to guess or predict events, whether by
art--and indeed, how could there be any art in the midst of orderless
things?--or by enthusiasm, or divine inspiration; for prediction
implies that the future is determined. True, bodies will obey the
impulses necessarily communicated to them by the atoms; but how could
you explain the operations and affections of the soul by movements of
atoms? How could atomic shock, whether vertical or oblique, produce
in the soul these our reasonings, or appetites, whether necessarily,
or in any other way? What explanation could they give of the soul's
resistance to the impulsions of the body? By what concourse of atoms
will one man become a geometrician, another become a mathematician
and astronomer, and the other a philosopher? For, according to that
doctrine we no longer produce any act for which we are responsible, we
are even no longer living beings, since we undergo the impulsion of
bodies that affect us just as they do inanimate things.
APPLICATION OF THIS POLEMIC TO THE PHYSICISTS.
The same objections apply to the doctrine of the philosophers who
explain everything by other physical causes (such as "elements").
Principles of inferior nature might well warm us, cool us, or even make
us perish; but they could not beget any of the operations which the
soul produces; these have an entirely different cause.
RESTATEMENT OF HERACLITUS'S POSITION.
4. But might (Heraclitus) suppose that a single Soul interpenetrating
the universe produces everything, and by supplying the universe with
motion supplies it simultaneously to all its constituent beings, so
that from this primary cause, would necessarily flow all secondary
causes, whose sequence and connection would constitute Fate? Similarly,
in a plant, for instance, the plant's fate might be constituted by the
("governing") principle which, from the root, administers its other
parts, and which organizes into a single system their "actions" and
"reactions."[104]
THIS WOULD INTERFERE WITH SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND RESPONSIBILITY.
To begin with, this Necessity and Fate would by their excess destroy
themselves, and render impossible the sequence and concatenation of
the causes. It is, indeed, absurd to insist that our members are moved
by Fate when they are set in motion, or innervated, by the "governing
principle." It is a mistake to suppose that there is a part which
imparts motion, and on the other hand, a part which receives it from
the former; it is the governing principle that moves the leg, as it
would any other part. Likewise, if in the universe exists but a single
principle which "acts and reacts," if things derive from each other
by a series of causes each of which refers to the preceding one, it
will no longer be possible to say truly that all things arise through
causes, for their totality will constitute but a single being. In that
case, we are no longer ourselves; actions are no longer ours; it is no
longer we who reason; it is a foreign principle which reasons, wills,
and acts in us, just as it is not our feet that walk, but we who walk
by the agency of our feet. On the contrary, common sense admits that
every person lives, thinks, and acts by his own individual, proper
life, thought and action; to each must be left the responsibility of
his actions, good or evil, and not attribute shameful deeds to the
universal cause.
RESTATEMENT OF THE ASTROLOGICAL THEORY OF FATE.
5. Others, again, insist that this is not the state of affairs. Their
disposition depends on the circular movement of the heaven which
governs everything, on the course of the stars, of their mutual
relative position at the time of their rising, of their setting, of
their zenith, or of their conjunction. Indeed, such are the signs
on which are founded prognostications and predictions of what is to
happen, not only to the universe, but also to each individual, both as
to his fortunes and his thought. It is noticed that the other animals
and vegetables increase or decrease according to the kind of sympathy
existing between them and the stars, that all other things experience
their influence, that various regions of the earth differ according to
their adjustment with the stars, and especially the sun; that from the
nature of these regions depend not only the character of the plants
and animals, but also human forms, size, color, affections, passions,
tastes, and customs. In this system, therefore, the course of the stars
is the absolute cause of everything.
REFUTATION OF THE ASTROLOGICAL SYSTEM.
To this we answer that our astrologer attributes indirectly to the
stars all our characteristics: will, passions, vices and appetites;
he allows us no rôle other than to turn like mills, instead of
responsibility, as befits men, producing actions that suit our nature.
On the contrary, we should be left in possession of what belongs to us
by the observation that the universe limits itself to exercising some
influence on what we possess already thanks to ourselves, and which
is really characteristic of us. Moreover, one should distinguish the
deeds in which we are "active," from those in which we are necessarily
"passive," and not deduce everything from the stars. Nobody, indeed,
doubts that the differences of place and climate exert an influence
over us, imparting to us, for instance, a cool or warm-hearted
disposition. Heredity also should be considered; for children usually
resemble their parents by their features, form, and some affections of
the irrational soul. Nevertheless, even though they resemble them by
their facial features, because they are born in the same place, they
may differ in habits and thoughts, because these things depend on an
entirely different principle. In addition, we can adduce to the support
of this truth the resistance which the soul offers to the temperament
and to the appetites. As to the claim that the stars are the causes of
everything, because one can predict what is to happen to each man from
a consideration of their positions, it would be just as reasonable to
assert that the birds and the other beings which the augurs consult as
omens produce the events of which they are the signs.
HOROSCOPES QUESTIONED; THEY DO NOT ACCOUNT FOR SIMULTANEOUS DIFFERENCES.
This leads us to consider, more in detail, what sort of facts may be
predicted according to the inspection of the positions occupied by the
stars presiding over the birth of a man. They who, from the assertion
that the stars indicate a man's future, draw the consequence that the
stars produce them, are in error. In some person's horoscope which
indicates birth from noble parents, on either maternal or paternal
side, this nobility of birth cannot be attributed to the stars, as
this nobility subsisted already in the parents before the stars had
taken the position according to which the horoscope is cast. Besides,
astrologers pretend they can discover the parent's fortune from the
birth of their children, and from the condition of the parents the
disposition and fate of the unborn offspring. From a child's horoscope,
they announce his brother's death; and from a woman's horoscope, the
fortunes of her husband, and conversely. It is unreasonable to refer to
the stars things which evidently are necessary consequences of parental
conditions. We then reach a dilemma: the cause lies either in these
antecedent conditions, or in the stars. The beauty and ugliness of
children, when they resemble their parents, must evidently be derived
from them, and not from the course of the stars. Moreover, it is
probable that at any one moment are born a crowd of human and animal
young; now, inasmuch as they are born under the same star, they all
ought to have the same nature. How does it then happen that, in the
same positions, stars produce men and other beings simultaneously (as
Cicero asks[105])?
HEREDITY MORE IMPORTANT THAN STAR-INFLUENCE; CONTINUATION.
6. Each being derives his character from his nature. One being is a
horse because he is born from a mare, while another is human, because
born from a human mother; and more: he is that particular horse, and
that particular man because he is born from such and such a horse, or
woman. Doubtless, the course of the stars may modify the result, but
the greatest part of the influence must be allowed to heredity.
STARS AFFECT THE PHYSICAL, NOT THE MENTAL BEING.
The stars act on the body only in a physical way, and thus impart
to them heat, cold, and the variety of temperament which results
therefrom. But how could they endow the man with habits, tastes, and
inclinations which do not seem to depend on the temperament, such as
the avocation of a surveyor, a grammarian, a gambler, or an inventor?
IRRATIONAL CLAIMS OF ASTROLOGERS.
Besides, nobody would admit that perversity could come from beings who
are divinities. How could one believe that they are the authors of the
evils attributed to them, and that they themselves become evil because
they set or pass under the earth, as if they could possibly be affected
by the fact that, in regard to us, they seem to set; as if they did not
continue to wander around the heavenly sphere, and remained in the same
relation to the earth? Besides it is incredible that because a star
is in such or such a position in respect of another star, it becomes
better or worse, and that it affects us with goodness when it is well
disposed, and evil in the contrary case.
STARS SERVE AS LETTERS IN WHICH TO READ NATURE.
We grant that by their movement the stars co-operate in the
conservation of the universe, and that they simultaneously play in it
another part. They serve as letters for those skilled in deciphering
this kind of writing; and who, by the observation of the figures formed
by the stars, read into them future events according to the laws of
analogy, as for instance, if one presaged high deeds from seeing a bird
fly high.
RESTATEMENT OF THE STOIC DOCTRINE, AND THE HERACLITIAN.
7. There remains to be considered the (Stoic) doctrine which,
concatenating and interrelating all things among each other,
establishes "a single cause which produces everything through seminal
reasons." This doctrine reattaches itself to (Heraclitus's) which
deduces from the action of the universal Soul the constitution and the
movements of the individuals as well as those of the universe.
ALEXANDER OF APHRODISIA'S POLEMIC AGAINST THE STOICS.
In this case, even if we possessed the power of doing something by
ourselves, we would not be any the less than the remainder of the
universe subjected to necessity, because Fate, containing the whole
series of causes, necessarily determines each event. Now since Fate
includes all causes, there is nothing which could hinder the occurrence
of that event, or alter it. If then everything obeys the impulsion of
a single principle, nothing is left to us but to follow it. Indeed,
in this case, the fancies of our imagination would result from
anterior facts, and would in turn determine our appetites; our liberty
would then have become a mere word; nor would we gain any advantage
from obeying our appetites, since our appetites themselves will be
determined by anterior facts. We would have no more liberty than the
other animals, than children, or the insane, who run hither and yon,
driven by blind appetites; for they also obey their appetites, as fire
would do, and as all the things which fatally follow the dispositions
of their nature. These objections will be decisive for those capable of
apprehending them; and in the search for other causes of our appetites
they will not content themselves with the principles which we have
examined.
THE HUMAN SOUL AS AN INDEPENDENT PRINCIPLE.
8. What other cause, besides the preceding, will we have to invoke
so as to let nothing occur without a cause, to maintain order and
interdependence of things in the world, and in order to preserve the
possibility of predictions and omens without destroying our personality?
We shall have to introduce among the number of beings another
principle, namely: the soul; and not only the World-soul, but even the
individual soul of every person. In the universal concatenation of
causes and effects, this soul is a principle of no little importance,
because, instead of, like all other things, being born of a "seminal
reason," it constitutes a "primary cause." Outside of a body, she
remains absolute mistress of herself, free and independent of the
cause which administers the world. As soon as she has descended into
a body, she is no longer so independent, for she then forms part of
the order to which all things are subjected. Now, inasmuch as the
accidents of fortune, that is to say, the surrounding circumstances,
determine many events, the soul alternately yields to the influence
of external circumstances, and then again she dominates them, and
does what she pleases. This she does more or less, according as she
is good or evil. When she yields to the corporeal temperament, she is
necessarily subjected to desire or anger, discouraged in poverty, or
proud in prosperity, as well as tyrannical in the exercise of power.
But she can resist all these evil tendencies if her disposition is
good; she modifies her surroundings more than she is affected by them;
some things she changes, others she tolerates without herself incurring
guilt.
THE SOUL IS FREE WHEN FOLLOWING REASON.
9. All things therefore, which result either from a choice by the soul,
or from exterior circumstances, are "necessary," or determined by a
cause. Could anything, indeed, be found outside of these causes? If we
gather into one glance all the causes we admit, we find the principles
that produce everything, provided we count, amidst external causes,
the influence exercised by the course of the stars. When a soul makes
a decision, and carries it out because she is impelled thereto by
external things, and yields to a blind impulse, we should not consider
her determination and action to be free. The soul is not free when,
perverting herself, she does not make decisions which direct her in the
straight path. On the contrary, when she follows her own guide, pure
and impassible reason, her determination is really voluntary, free and
independent, and the deed she performs is really her own work, and not
the consequence of an exterior impulse; she derives it from her inner
power, her pure being, from the primary and sovereign principle which
directs her, being deceived by no ignorance, nor vanquished by the
power of appetites; for when the appetites invade the soul, and subdue
her, they drag her with them by their violence, and she is rather
"passive" than "active" in what she does.
THE SOUL OBEYS FATE ONLY WHEN EVIL.
10. The conclusion of our discussion is that while everything is
indicated and produced by causes, these are of two kinds: First the
human soul, and then only exterior circumstances. When the soul acts
"conformably to right reason" she acts freely. Otherwise, she is
tangled up in her deeds, and she is rather "passive" than "active."
Therefore, whenever she lacks prudence, the exterior circumstances are
the causes of her actions; one then has good reason to say that she
obeys Fate, especially if Fate is here considered as an exterior cause.
On the contrary, virtuous actions are derived from ourselves; for, when
we are independent, it is natural for us to produce them. Virtuous
men act, and do good freely. Others do good only in breathing-spells
left them in between by their passions. If, during these intervals,
they practice the precepts of wisdom, it is not because they receive
them from some other being, it is merely because their passions do not
hinder them from listening to the voice of reason.
As the first book seemed Platonic, and the second Numenian, so
this third one seems called forth by the practical opposition
of astrologers or Gnostics. Later in life, his thirty-third
book, ii. 9, was to take up again this polemic in more extended
form. This chronologic arrangement of Plotinos's first three
books reveals his three chief sources of interest--devotion to
Plato, reliance on Numenius, and opposition to the Gnostics and
astrologers.
FOURTH ENNEAD, BOOK FIRST.
Of the Being of the Soul.
It is in the intelligible world that dwells veritable being.
Intelligence is the best that there is on high; but there are also
souls; for it is thence that they descended thither. Only, souls have
no bodies, while here below they inhabit bodies and are divided there.
On high, all the intelligences exist together, without separation or
division; all the souls exist equally together in that world which
is one, and there is no local distance between them. Intelligence
therefore ever remains inseparable and indivisible; but the soul,
inseparable so long as she resides on high, nevertheless possesses a
divisible nature. For her "dividing herself" consists in departing
from the intelligible world, and uniting herself to bodies; it might
therefore be reasonably said that she becomes divisible in passing
into bodies, since she thus separates from the intelligible world,
and divides herself somewhat. In what way is she also indivisible?
In that she does not separate herself entirely from the intelligible
world, ever residing there by her highest part, whose nature it is to
be indivisible. To say then that the soul is composed of indivisible
(essence) and of (essence) divisible in bodies means then no more
than that the soul has an (essence) which dwells partly in the
intelligible world, and partly descends into the sense-world, which
is suspended from the first and extends downwards to the second, as
the ray goes from the centre to the circumference. When the soul
descended here below, it is by her superior part that she contemplates
the intelligible world, as it is thereby that she preserves the nature
of the all (of the universal Soul). For here below she is not only
divisible, but also indivisible; her divisible part is divided in a
somewhat indivisible manner; she is indeed entirely present in the
whole body in an indivisible manner, and nevertheless she is said to
divide herself because she spreads out entirely in the whole body.
FIFTH ENNEAD, BOOK NINE.
Of Intelligence, Ideas and Essence.
THE SENSUAL MAN, THE MORAL, AND THE SPIRITUAL.
1. From their birth, men exercise their senses, earlier than their
intelligence,[106] and they are by necessity forced to direct their
attention to sense-objects. Some stop there, and spend their life
without progressing further. They consider suffering as evil, and
pleasure as the good, judging it to be their business to avoid the one
and encompass the other. That is the content of wisdom for those of
them that pride themselves on being reasonable; like those 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 objects
because their soul, endowed with a better nature, withdraws from
pleasures to seek something higher;[107] but as they are not capable
of arriving at contemplation of the intelligible, and as, after having
left our lower region here, they do not know where to lodge, they
return to a conception of morality which considers virtue to consist
in these common-place actions and occupations whose narrow sphere they
had at first attempted to leave behind. Finally a third kind is that
of those divine men who are endowed with a piercing vision, and whose
penetrating glance contemplates the splendor of the intelligible world,
and rise unto it, taking their flight above the clouds and darkness of
this world. Then, full of scorn for terrestrial things, they remain up
there, and reside in their true fatherland with the unspeakable bliss
of the man who, after long journeys, is at last repatriated.
THE HIGHER REGION REACHED ONLY BY THOSE WHO ARE BORN PHILOSOPHERS.
2. Which is this higher region? What must be done to reach it? One must
be naturally disposed to love, and be really a born philosopher.[108]
In the presence of beauty, the lover feels something similar to the
pains of childbirth; but far from halting at bodily beauty, he rises
to that aroused in the soul by virtue, duties, science and laws. Then
he follows them up to the cause of their beauty, and in this ascending
progress stops only when he has reached the Principle that occupies
the first rank, that which is beautiful in itself.[109] Then only does
he cease being driven by this torment that we compare to the pains of
childbirth.
LOVE IS TRANSFORMED INTO PROGRESSIVELY HIGHER STAGES.
But how does he rise up thither? How does he have the power to do
so? How does he learn to love? Here it is. The beauty seen in bodies
is incidental; it consists in the shapes of which the bodies are
the matter.[110] Consequently the substance changes, and it is seen
changing from beauty to ugliness. The body has only a borrowed beauty.
Who imparted that beauty to the body? On the one hand, the presence of
beauty; on the other, the actualization of the soul which fashioned the
body, and which gave it the shape it possesses. But is the soul, by
herself, absolute beauty? No, since some souls are wise and beautiful,
while some others are foolish and ugly. It is therefore only by wisdom
that the soul is beautiful. But from what is her wisdom derived?
Necessarily from intelligence; not from the intelligence that is
intelligent at some time, though not at others, but from the genuine
Intelligence, which is beautiful on that very account.[111] Shall we
stop at Intelligence, as a first principle? Or shall we on the contrary
still rise above it? Surely so, for Intelligence presents itself to us
before the first Principle only because it is, so to speak, located in
the antechamber of the Good.[112] It bears all things within itself,
and manifests them, so that it displays the image of the Good in
manifoldness, while the Good itself remains in an absolute simple unity.
PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE AND NATURE OF INTELLIGENCE.
3. Let us now consider the Intelligence which reason tells us is
absolute essence and genuine "being," and whose existence we have
already established in a different manner. It would seem ridiculous
to inquire whether Intelligence form part of the scale of beings; but
there are men who doubt it, or who at least are disposed to ask for a
demonstration that Intelligence possesses the nature we predicate of
it, that it is separated (from matter), that it is identical with the
essences, and that it contains the ideas. This is our task.
IN THE HUMAN WORLD EVERYTHING IS A COMPOSITE OF FORM AND MATTER.
All things that we consider to be essences are composites; nothing
is simple or single, either in works of art, or in the products of
nature.[113] Works of art, indeed, contain metal, wood, stone, and are
derived from these substances only by the labor of the artist, who, by
giving matter its form makes of it a statue, or bed, or house. Among
the products of nature, those that are compounds or mixtures may be
analyzed into the form impressed on the elements of the compound; so,
for instance, we may in a man, distinguish a soul and body, and in the
body four elements. Since the very matter of the elements, taken in
itself, has no form, every object seems composed of matter and of some
principle that supplies it with form.[114] So we are led to ask whence
matter derives its form, and to seek whether the soul is simple, or
whether it contains two parts, one of which plays the parts of matter,
and the other of form,[115] so that the first part would be similar
to the form received by the metal of a statue, and the latter to the
principle which produces the form itself.
THE WORLD-SOUL ALSO IS A COMPOUND OF FORM AND MATTER.
Applying this conception to the universe, we rise to Intelligence,
recognizing therein the demiurgic creator of the world. It was
in receiving from it its shapes by the intermediation of another
principle, the universal Soul, that the (material) substances became
water, air, earth and fire. On the one hand, the Soul shapes the
four elements of the world;[116] on the other, she receives from
Intelligence the (seminal) reasons,[117] as the souls of the artists
themselves receive from the arts the reasons which they work out.[118]
In Intelligence, therefore, there is a part which is the form of the
soul; it is intelligence considered, as shape. There is another which
imparts shape, like the sculptor who gives the metal the shape of
the statue, and which in itself possesses all it gives.[119] Now the
(shapes) which the Intelligence imparts to the soul connect with the
truth as closely as possible, while those which the soul imparts to the
body are only images and appearances.[120]
WHY OUR ASCENT CANNOT STOP WITH THE SOUL.
4. Why should we not, on arriving at the Soul, stop there, and consider
her the first principle? Because Intelligence is a power different
from the Soul, and better than the Soul; and what is better must, by
its very nature, precede (the worst). The Stoics[121] are wrong in
thinking that it is the Soul which, on reaching her perfection, begets
Intelligence. How could that which is potential pass into actualization
unless there were some principle that effected that transition? If
this transition were due to chance, it could not have occurred at
all. The first rank must therefore be assigned to that which is in
actualization, which needs nothing, which is perfect, while imperfect
things must be assigned to the second rank. These may be perfected
by the principles that begat them, which, in respect to them, play a
paternal part, perfecting what they had originally produced that was
imperfect. What is thus produced is matter, as regards the creating
principle, and then becomes perfect, on receiving its form from it.
Besides, the Soul is (often) affected; and we need to discover some
thing that is impassible, without which everything is dissolved by
time; therefore there is need of some principle prior to the soul.
Further, the Soul is in the world; now there must be something that
resides outside of the world, and which consequently would be superior
to the Soul; for since that which inheres in the world resides within
the body, or matter, if nothing existed outside of the world, nothing
would remain permanent. In this case, the (seminal) reason of man,
and all the other reasons could be neither permanent nor eternal. The
result of all these considerations, as well as of many others that
we could add thereto, is the necessary assertion of the existence of
Intelligence beyond the Soul.
INTELLIGENCE IS IN ACTUALIZATION BECAUSE ITS THOUGHT IS IDENTICAL WITH
ITS ESSENCE OR EXISTENCE.
5. Taking it in its genuine sense, Intelligence is not only
potential, arriving at being intelligent after having been
unintelligent--for otherwise, we would be forced to seek out some
still higher principle--but is in actualization, and is eternal. As
it is intelligent by itself, it is by itself that it thinks what it
thinks, and that it possesses what is possesses. Now since it thinks
of itself and by itself, it itself is what it thinks. If we could
distinguish between its existence and its thought, its "being" would be
unintelligent; it would be potential, not in actualization. Thought,
therefore, must not be separated from its object, although, from
sense-objects, we have become accustomed to conceive of intelligible
entities as distinct from each other.
REASONS, AS ARCHETYPES, MUST HAVE EXISTED BEFORE STOIC "HABIT," NATURE
OR SOUL.
Which then is the principle that acts, that thinks, and what is the
actualization and thought of Intelligence, necessary to justify the
assertion that it is what it thinks? Evidently Intelligence, by its
mere real existence, thinks beings, and makes them exist; it therefore
is the beings. Indeed, the beings will either exist outside of it, or
within it; and in the latter case they would have to be identical with
it. That they should exist outside of Intelligence, is unthinkable;
for where would they be located? They must therefore exist within
it, and be identical with it. They could not be in sense-objects, as
common people think, because sense-objects could not be the first
in any genus. The form which inheres in their matter is only the
representation of existence; now a form which exists in anything
other than itself is put in it by a superior principle, and is its
image. Further, if Intelligence must be the creative power of the
universe, it could not, while creating the universe, think beings as
existent in what does not yet exist. Intelligible entities, therefore,
must exist before the world, and cannot be images of sense-objects,
being on the contrary, their archetypes, and constituting the "being"
of Intelligence. It might be objected that the (seminal) reasons
might suffice. These reasons are, no doubt, eternal; and, if they be
eternal and impassible, they must exist within the Intelligence whose
characteristics we have described, the Intelligence which precedes
the "habit,"[122] nature,[123] and the soul,[124] because here these
entities are potential.[125]
INTELLIGENCE IS POSTULATED BY THE GENERAL NECESSITIES OF THE WORLD.
Intelligence, therefore, essentially constitutes all beings; and when
Intelligence thinks them, they are not outside of Intelligence, and
neither precede nor follow it. Intelligence is the first legislator,
or rather, it is the very law of existence. Parmenides[126] therefore
was right in saying, "Thought is identical with existence." The
knowledge of immaterial things is therefore identical with those things
themselves. That is why I recognize myself as a being, and why I have
reminiscences of intelligible entities. Indeed, none of those beings is
outside of Intelligence, nor is contained in any location; all of them
subsist in themselves as immutable and indestructible. That is why they
really are beings. If they were born, or perished, they would possess
existence only in an incidental manner, they would no longer be beings;
it would be the existence they possessed which would be essence. It
is only by participation that sense-things are what they are said to
be; the nature that constitutes their substance derives its shape from
elsewhere, as the metal receives its shape from the sculptor, and wood
from the carpenter; while the image of art penetrates into the matter,
the art itself remains in its identity, and within itself possesses
the genuine existence of the statue or of the bed. That is how the
bodies' general necessity of participating in images shows that they
are different from the beings; for they change, while the entities are
immutable, possess within themselves their own foundation, and have
no need of existing in any location, since they have no extension,
and since they subsist in an intellectual and absolute existence.
Again,[127] the existence of the bodies needs to be guarded[128] by
some other principle, while intelligence, which furnishes the existence
for objects in themselves perishable, has need of nothing to make
itself subsist.
INTELLIGENCE CONTAINS ALL BEINGS GENERATIVELY.
6. Thus Intelligence actually constitutes all beings; it contains them
all, but not locally; it contains them as it possesses itself; it is
identical with them. All entities are simultaneously contained within
it, and in it remain distinct, as many kinds of knowledge may exist
within the soul without their number causing any confusion; each of
them appears when needed, without involving the others. If in the soul
each thought be an actualization independent of other thoughts, so much
the more must Intelligence be all things simultaneously, with this
restriction, however, that each of them is a special power. Considered
in its universality, Intelligence contains all entities as the genus
contains all species, as the whole contains all parts. Even the seminal
powers bear the impress of this universality. Each one, considered in
its totality, is a centre which contains all the parts of the organism
in an undivided condition; nevertheless in it the reason of the eyes
differs from that of the hands, and this diversity is manifested by
that of the organs begotten (therefrom).[129] Each of the powers of
the seed, therefore, is the total unity of the seminal reason when this
power is united to the others which are implied therein. What in the
seed is corporeal contains matter, as, for instance, humidity; but the
seminal reason is the entire form; it is identical with the generative
power, a power which itself is the image of a superior power of the
soul. This generative power contained in seeds is[130] usually called
"nature." Proceeding from the superior powers as light radiates from
the fire, it tames and fashions matter, imparting thereto the seminal
reason[131] without pushing it, or moving it as by levers.
THERE ARE SCIENTIFIC NOTIONS THAT ARE POSTERIOR, BUT SOME THAT ARE
PRIOR.
7. The scientific notions that the soul forms of sense-objects, by
discursive reason, and which should rather be called opinions,[132]
are posterior to the objects (they deal with); and consequently,
are no more than images of them. But true scientific notions
received from intelligence by discursive reasons do not contain any
sense-conceptions. So far as they are scientific notions, they are
the very things of which they are the conceptions; they reveal the
intimate union of intelligence and thought. Interior Intelligence,
which consists of the primary (natures) possesses itself intimately,
resides within itself since all eternity, and is an actualization. It
does not direct its glances outside of itself, because it possesses
everything within itself; it does not acquire, and does not reason to
discover things that may not be present to them. Those are operations
characteristic of the soul. Intelligence, remaining fixed within
itself, is all things simultaneously. Nevertheless, it is not thought
which makes each of them subsist; it is only because intelligence
thought the divinity or movement, for instance, that the divinity
or movement exists.[133] When we say that thoughts are forms, we
are mistaken if thereby we mean that the intelligible exists only
because Intelligence thinks it. On the contrary, it is only because
the intelligible exists, that Intelligence can think. Otherwise, how
would Intelligence come to think the intelligible? It cannot meet the
intelligible by chance, nor waste itself in fruitless efforts.
THOUGHT IS THE FORM, SHAPE THE ACTUALIZATION OF THE BEING.
8. Since the thought is something essentially one (?), the form, which
is the object of thought, and the idea[134, 134a] are one and the same
thing. Which is this thing? Intelligence and the intellectual "being,"
for no idea is foreign to intelligence; each form is intelligence, and
the whole intelligence is all the forms; every particular form is a
particular intelligence. Likewise science, taken in its totality,
is all the notions it embraces; every notion is a part of the total
science; it is not separated from the science locally, and exists
potentially in the whole science.[135] Intelligence resides within
itself, and by possessing itself calmly, is the eternal fulness of
all things. If we conceived it as being prior to essence, we would
have to say that it was the action and thought of Intelligence which
produced and begat all beings. But as, on the contrary, it is certain
that essence is prior to Intelligence, we should, within the thinking
principle, first conceive the beings, then actualization and thought,
just as (the nature) of fire is joined by the actualization of the
fire, so that beings have innate intelligence (?[148]) as their
actualization. Now essence is an actualization; therefore essence and
intelligence are but a single actualization, or rather both of them
fuse.[136] Consequently, they form but a single nature, as beings,
the actualization of essence, and intelligence. In this case the
thought is the form, and the shape is the actualization of the being.
When, however, in thought we separate essence from Intelligence, we
must conceive one of these principles as prior to the other. The
Intelligence which operates this separation is indeed different from
the essence from which it separates;[137] but the Intelligence which
is inseparable from essence and which does not separate thought from
essence is itself essence and all things.
INTELLIGENCE CONTAINS THE UNIVERSAL ARCHETYPE.
9. What then are the things contained within the unity of Intelligence
which we separate in thinking of them? They must be expressed without
disturbing their rest, and we must contemplate the contents of
Intelligence by a science that somehow remains within unity. Since
this sense-world is an animal which embraces all animals, since it
derives both its general and special existence from a principle
different from itself,[138] a principle which, in turn, is derived
from intelligence, therefore intelligence must itself contain the
universal archetype, and must be that intelligible world of which
Plato[139] (well) says; "Intelligence sees the ideas contained within
the existing animal."[140] Since an animal, whose (seminal) reason
exists with the matter fit to receive it, must of course be begotten,
so the mere existence of a nature that is intellectual, all-powerful,
and unhindered by any obstacle--since nothing can interpose between it
and the (substance) capable of receiving the form--must necessarily be
adorned (or, created) by intelligence, but only in a divided condition
does it reveal the form it receives, so that, for instance, it shows
us on one hand a man, and on the other the sun, while intelligence
possesses everything in unity.
IN THE SENSE-WORLD ONLY THOSE THINGS THAT ARE FORMS PROCEED FROM
INTELLIGENCE.
10. Therefore, in the sense-world, all the things that are forms
proceed from intelligence; those which are not forms do not proceed
therefrom. That is, in the intelligible world 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. Thus the seminal reason
does not contain the defects, such as limping would be in a body.
Congenital lameness is due to the reason's failure to dominate matter,
while accidental lameness is due to deterioration of the form (idea?).
NATURAL CHARACTERISTICS ARE DERIVED FROM THE CATEGORIES IN THE
INTELLIGIBLE.
The qualities that are natural, quantities, numbers, magnitudes,
states, actions and natural experiences, movements and recuperations,
either general or particular, are among the contents of the
intelligible world, where time is replaced by eternity,[141] and space
is replaced by the "telescoping" of intelligible entities (that are
within each other). As all entities are together in the intelligible
world, whatever entity you select (by itself) is intellectual and
living "being," identity and difference, movement and rest;[142] it is
what moves, and what is at rest; it is "being," and quality; that is,
it is all. There every essence is in actualization, instead of merely
being in potentiality; consequently it is not separated from quality.
THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD FAILS TO CONTAIN EARTHLY IMPERFECTIONS.
Does the intelligible world contain only what is found in the
sense-world, or does it contain anything additional?... Let us consider
the arts, in this respect. To begin with, the intelligible world
does not contain any imperfection. Evils here below come from lack,
privation, omission; it is a state of matter, or of anything similar to
matter, which failed to be completely assimilated.[143]
SOME ARTS ARE PURELY EARTHLY; OTHERS, LIKE MUSIC, INTELLIGIBLE.
11. Let us therefore consider the arts and their products. Unless as
represented within human reason, we cannot refer to the intelligible
world arts of imitation such as painting, sculpture, dancing, or
acting, because they are born here below, take sense-objects as models,
representing their forms, motions, and visible proportions.[144] If,
however, we possess a faculty which, by studying the beauties offered
by the symmetry of animals, considers the general characteristics of
this symmetry, it must form part of the intellectual power which, on
high, contemplates universal symmetry. Music, however, which studies
rhythm and harmony, is, so far as it studies what is intelligible in
these things, the image of the music that deals with intelligible
rhythm.
THERE ARE MANY AUXILIARY ARTS WHICH HELP THE PROGRESS OF NATURE.
The arts which produce sense-objects, such as architecture and
carpentry, have their principles in the intelligible world, and
participate in wisdom, so far as they make use of certain proportions.
But as they apply these proportions to sense-objects, they cannot
wholly be referred to 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; medicine, which
increases health, and (gymnastics) which supplies the body with
strength as well as vigor,[145] for on high there is another Power,
another Health, from which all living organisms derive their needed
vigor.
OTHER ARTS ARE INTELLIGIBLE WHEN APPLIED TO THE INTELLIGIBLE.
Last, whenever rhetoric, strategy, private and public finance and
politics weave beauty in their deeds, and they glance above, they
(discover) that they have added to their science a contribution from
the intelligible science.
The science of geometry, however, which deals (wholly) with
intelligible entities, must be referred to the intelligible world. So
also with philosophy, which occupies the first rank among sciences
because it studies essence. This is all we have to say about arts and
their products.
THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD CONTAINS ONLY UNIVERSAL IDEAS; PARTICULARITIES
ARE DERIVED FROM MATTER.
12. If the intelligible world contains the idea of Man, it must also
contain that of the reasonable man, and of the artist; and consequently
the idea of the arts that are begotten by Intelligence. We must
therefore insist that the intelligible world contains the ideas of the
universals, the idea of Man as such, and not, for instance, that of
Socrates. Still we shall have to decide whether the intelligible world
does not also contain the idea of the individual man, that is, of the
man considered with the things that differ in each individual; for one
may have a Roman nose and the other a pug nose. These differences are
indeed implied within the idea of man, just as there are differences
within the idea of animal. But the differences between a Roman or a
snub nose are derived from matter. Likewise, amidst the varieties of
colors, some are contained within the seminal reason, while others are
derived from matter and space.
BESIDES IDEAS OF INDIVIDUAL SOULS AND INTELLIGENCE, THE INTELLIGIBLE
WORLD CONTAINS THE SOUL ITSELF AND INTELLIGENCE ITSELF.
13. It remains for us to study whether the intelligible world contains
only what is in the sense-world, or whether we should distinguish from
the individu
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