Plotino - Tratado 13,2 (III, 9, 2) — A alma humana deve se identificar a seu intelecto

2. Lo mismo que una ciencia única y total se divide en teoremas particulares sin que por ello se disperse ni sé fragmente en pequeñas partes -pues es sabido que cada teorema contiene en potencia la totalidad de la ciencia, en la que el principio y el fin son una misma cosa-, así también cada uno ele nosotros debe prepararse para que en él el comienzo sea el fin y, asimismo, todo el ser   y lo que éste contiene penetren en la facultad superior de su naturaleza; en esas condiciones, su verdadero lugar es el mundo inteligible, porque cuando se posee esa facultad superior se está en contacto con aquel mundo.

2. Comment l’âme   s’élève au monde intelligible (06).

II. La totalité d’une science se divise en propositions particulières, sans être cependant morcelée ni fragmentée : car chaque proposition contient en puissance toute la science, où le principe est identique à la fin (07). De même, il faut se mettre dans une disposition telle que chacune des facultés qu’on possède en soi devienne aussi une fin et un tout ; il faut enfin ramener toutes les choses qu’on a en soi à ce qu’on a de meilleur dans sa nature [c’est-à-dire à l’intelligence]. Quand on y est parvenu, on habite là-haut : car, lorsqu’on possède l’intelligible, on le touche par ce qu’on a de meilleur en soi (08).

HOW THE SOUL ASCENDS TO THE INTELLIGIBLE WORLD. THE INTELLIGIBLE IS POSSESSED BY TOUCHING IT WITH THE BEST PART OF ONESELF.

2. (As Nicholas of Damascus used to say) the totality of a science is divided into particular propositions, without, however, thereby being broken up into fragments, inasmuch as each proposition contains potentially the whole science, whose principle and goal coincide. Likewise, we should so manage ourselves that each of the faculties we possess within ourselves should also become a goal and a totality; and then so arrange all the faculties that they will be consummated in what is best in our nature (that is, intelligence). Success in this constitutes «dwelling on high» (living spiritually); for, when one possesses the intelligible, one touches it by what is best in oneself.

2.... For in any one science the reduction of the total of knowledge into its separate propositions does not shatter its unity, chipping it into unrelated fragments; in each distinct item is talent the entire body of the science, an integral thing in its highest Principle and its last detail: and similarly a man must so discipline himself that the first Principles of his Being are also his completions, are totals, that all be pointed towards the loftiest phase of the Nature: when a man has become this unity in the best, he is in that other realm; for it is by this highest within himself, made his own, that he holds to the Supreme.

At no point did the All-Soul come into Being: it never arrived, for it never knew place; what happens is that body, neighbouring with it, participates in it: hence Plato does not place Soul in body but body in Soul. The others, the secondary Souls, have a point of departure - they come from the All-Soul - and they have a Place into which to descend and in which to change to and fro, a place, therefore, from which to ascend: but this All-Soul is for ever Above, resting in that Being in which it holds its existence as Soul and followed, as next, by the Universe or, at least, by all beneath the sun  .

The partial Soul is illuminated by moving towards the Soul above it; for on that path it meets Authentic Existence. Movement towards the lower is towards non-Being: and this is the step it takes when it is set on self; for by willing towards itself it produces its lower, an image of itself - a non-Being - and so is wandering, as it were, into the void, stripping itself of its own determined form. And this image, this undetermined thing, is blank darkness, for it is utterly without reason, untouched by the Intellectual-Principle, far removed from Authentic Being.

As long as it remains at the mid-stage it is in its own peculiar region; but when, by a sort of inferior   orientation, it looks downward, it shapes that lower image and flings itself joyfully thither.