Guthrie-Plotinus: affinity

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. [Ennead I,6 (1) 6]

(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). 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. [Ennead IV,7 (2) 10]

As there are two kinds of being (or, existence), one of sensation, and the other intelligible, it is preferable for the soul to live in the intelligible world; nevertheless, as a result of her nature, it is necessary for her also to participate in sense-affairs. Since she occupies only an intermediate rank, she must not feel wronged at not being the best of beings. Though on one hand her condition be divine, on the other she is located on the limits of the intelligible world, because of her affinity for sense-nature. She causes this nature to participate in her powers, and she even receives something therefrom, when, instead of managing the body without compromising her own security, she permits herself to be carried away by her own inclination to penetrate profoundly within it, ceasing her complete union with the universal Soul. Besides, the soul can rise above the body after having learned to feel how happy one is to dwell on high, by the experience of things seen and suffered here below, and after having appreciated the true Good by the comparison of contraries. Indeed the knowledge of the good becomes clearer by the experience of evil, especially among souls which are not strong enough to know evil before having experienced it. [Ennead IV,8 (6) 7]

The Stoic theory raises numberless further objections; but we halt here lest we ourselves incur ridicule in combating so evident an absurdity. It suffices if we have demonstrated that these philosophers mistake non-essence for absolute essence; (putting the cart before the horse), they assign the First rank to what should occupy the last. The cause of their error is that they have chosen sensation as guide, and have consulted nothing else in determining both their principles, and consequences. Being persuaded that the bodies are genuine essences, and refusing to believe that they transform themselves into each other, they believed that what subsisted in them (in the midst of their changes) is the real essence, just as one might imagine that place, because it is indestructible, is more essential than (metabolic) bodies. Although in the system of the Stoics place remain unaltered, these philosophers should not have regarded as essence that which subsists in any manner soever; they should, first, have considered what are the characteristics necessarily possessed by essence, the presence of which (characteristics) makes it subsist without undergoing any alteration. Let us indeed suppose that a shadow would continuously subsist by following something which changes continuously; the shadow, however, would not be no more real than the object it follows. The sense-world, taken together with its multiple objects, is more of an essence than the things it contains, merely because it is their totality. Now if this subject, taken in its totality, be non-essence, how could it be a subject? The most surprising thing, however, is that the (Stoics), in all things following the testimony of sensation, should not also have affirmed that essence can be perceived by sensation; for, to matter, they do not attribute impenetrability, because it is a quality (and because, according to them, matter has no quality). If they insist that matter is perceived by intelligence, it could only be an irrational intelligence which would consider itself inferior to matter, and attribute to it, rather than to itself, the privilege of constituting genuine essence. Since in their system intelligence is non-essence, how could any credibility attach to that intelligence when it speaks of things superior to it, and with which it possesses no affinity? But we have said enough of the nature of these subjects, elsewhere. [Ennead VI,1 (42) 28]

Consequently, in speaking of (beings) other than (essence itself), as, for instance, of man, we say simply “man” (without adding to it the idea of unity); if however we say “a man,” it is to distinguish him from two; if however we use the word one in still another sense, it is by adding to it “some” (as, “someone”). Not so is it with essence; we say, “being one,” conceiving of “being” (“essence”) and one, as if forming a single whole, and in positing essence as one, we emphasize its narrow affinity with the Good. Thus conceived, essence becomes one; and in the one finds its origin and goal. Nevertheless it is not one as unity itself, but rather in a different manner, in this sense that the (unity of essence) admits priority and posteriority. What then is (the unity of essence)? Must it not then be considered similar in all the parts (of essence), as something common to all (and consequently, as forming a genus)? But in the first place, the point is also something common to all the lines, and nevertheless it is not a genus; in the numbers, unity is something common to all, and is not any more of a genus. Indeed, the unity which is found in the monad, in the dyad (or pair), and in other numbers, cannot be confused with unity in itself. Then, nothing hinders there being in essence some anterior, and other posterior parts, both simple and compound ones (which would be impossible for the One in itself). Even if the unity found everywhere in all the parts of essence were everywhere identical, by the mere fact that it would offer no difference, it could not give rise to species, and consequently, it could not be a genus. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 11]

The real cause of love is fourfold: the desire of beauty; our soul’s innate notion of beauty; our soul’s affinity with beauty, and our soul’s instinctive sentiment of this affinity. (Therefore as beauty lies at the root of love, so) ugliness is contrary to nature and divinity. In fact, when Nature wants to create, she contemplates what is beautiful, determinate, and comprehended within the (Pythagorean) “sphere” of the Good. On the contrary, the (Pythagorean) “indeterminate” is ugly, and belongs to the other system. Besides, Nature herself owes her origin to the Good, and, therefore, also to the Beautiful. Now, as soon as one is attracted by an object, because one is united to it by a secret affinity, he experiences for the images of this object a sentiment of sympathy. We could not explain its origin, or assign its cause on any other hypothesis, even were we to limit ourselves to the consideration of physical love. Even this kind of love is a desire to procreate beauty, for it would be absurd to insist that that Nature, which aspires to create beautiful things, should aspire to procreate that which is ugly. [Ennead III,5 (50) 1]

They who join to this passion as much of a desire for immortality as our mortal nature admits, seek beauty in the perpetuity of the procreation which renders man imperishable. They determine to procreate and produce beauty according to nature; procreating because their object is perpetuity; and procreating beautifully because they possess affinity with it. In fact, perpetuity does bear affinity to beauty; perpetual nature is beauty itself; and such also are all its derivatives. [Ennead III,5 (50) 1]