Plotino - Tratado 38,16 (VI, 7, 16) — Em que sentido o inteligível é uma imagem do Bem?

16. Es preciso que no permanezcamos en esta belleza múltiple; habrá que salir de este lugar, dar un salto de él y dejarle. Nuestra admiración nos llevará a preguntarnos: ¿quién engendró y cómo lo engendró, no este cielo sensible, sino el cielo inteligible? Cada una de las formas que sedan en él tiene su carácter propio y su sello especial; tiene algo común, que es como la forma del Bien que se impone a todas las formas. El ser es también común a todas las formas, que contienen asimismo a cada uno de los animales e incluso la vida común a todas ellas. Y posiblemente aún tendrán otras cosas comunes.

Mas fijémonos tan sólo en el carácter de buenas que se atribuye a estas formas; ¿por qué lo son?, podríamos preguntarnos. Para esta consideración quizá convenga comenzar por aquí: cuando la Inteligencia mira hacia el Bien, ¿piensa acaso el Uno como una multiplicidad y efectúa ella misma esa división por su propia incapacidad para pensarlo a la vez todo entero? Mas no podemos concebirla todavía como inteligencia cuando mira hacia el Bien, ni su visión tendrá igualmente carácter intelectual. Diremos mejor que no lo ve de ningún modo, sino que vive orientada hacia el Bien, suspendida y vuelta hacia El. El movimiento pleno de la Inteligencia la lleva hacia el Bien y la sacia de El; y este movimiento, entonces, ya no es sólo movimiento a secas, sino movimiento mejor saciado y pleno. Todo ha sido engendrado sucesivamente y ello lo conoce la inteligencia en un movimiento consciente de sí misma que la hace propiamente Inteligencia. Es inteligencia plena, justamente porque posee lo que ve; pues ve los seres con la luz del que da el ser y su sustento. De ahí que se diga que el Bien no sólo es la causa de la esencia, sino la causa por la que se ve la esencia 1 . Y al modo como el sol es la causa por la que son vistas y engendradas las cosas sensibles, sin que él sea por eso ni esta visión ni las cosas engendradas, así también el Bien es la causa de la esencia y de la inteligencia y es asimismo la luz que se corresponde con los objetos inteligibles y con la inteligencia que los ve. Pero no es por ello ni esos seres ni la inteligencia misma; es causa de esos seres y les procura el pensamiento por la luz que extiende hacia ellos y hacia la inteligencia. La inteligencia tiene su origen   en su plenitud, esto es, existe como inteligencia plena; juntamente con su plenitud se da su visión. El principio de la Inteligencia no es otro que el Bien, que ya existe antes de que ella alcance su plenitud. Ese principio difiere de la Inteligencia, y es como algo exterior y que la llena; de él recibe la Inteligencia, en su estado de plenitud, una especie de sello característico.

XVI. Au lieu de s’arrêter à cette beauté multiple, il faut la laisser pour s’élever au principe suprême [au Bien]. En raisonnant, non d’après la nature de notre monde, mais d’après celle de l’Intelligence universelle, on doit se demander avec étonnement quel est le principe qui l’a engendrée et comment il l’a engendrée (63). Chacune des essences contenues dans l’Intelligence est une forme particulière, et a en quelque sorte son type propre (ἴδιος οἷον τύπος ) . Leur caractère commun étant d’être conformes au Bien, il en résulte que l’Intelligence contient toutes les choses conformes au Bien. Elle possède donc l’être qui est dans toutes choses; elle contient tous les animaux, ainsi que la vie universelle qui se trouve en eux, et tout le reste. Pour quelle raison faut-il regarder ces choses comme des biens, quand on les considère sous ce point de vue? — La solution de cette question se déduit des réflexions suivantes. Quand l’Intelligence a regardé le Bien pour la première fois, n’a-t-elle pas rendu multiple son unité en la pensant? Quoiqu’elle fût elle-même un être un, n’a-t-elle pas divisé cette unité en la pensant par suite de l’impossibilité où elle était de l’embrasser tout entière? — Mais quand elle a regardé le Bien pour la première fois, elle n’était pas encore intelligence. — Est-ce donc qu’elle regardait le Bien sans intelligence? — Elle ne le voyait pas encore ; mais elle vivait près de lui, elle lui était suspendue, elle était tournée vers lui (64). Étant arrivé à sa plénitude, parce qu’il s’opérait là haut et qu’il se portait vers le Bien, le mouvement de l’Intelligence l’a conduite elle-même à sa plénitude; dès lors il a été, non plus un simple mouvement, mais un mouvement parfait et complet. Il est devenu toutes choses, et, en ayant conscience de lui-même, il a connu qu’il était en effet toutes choses. Il est devenu ainsi l’Intelligence, qui possède la plénitude afin de contenir ce qu’elle doit voir, et qui voit par la lumière qu’elle reçoit de Celui dont elle tient ce qu’elle voit. C’est pourquoi l’on dit que le Bien est non-seulement la cause de l’essence, mais encore la cause de l’intuition de l’essence. Comme le soleil est pour les choses sensibles la cause qui les fait exister et les rend visibles, comme il est aussi la cause de la vision, et qu’il n’est cependant ni la vision ni les choses visibles.; de même, le Bien est la cause de l’Essence et de l’Intelligence (65); il est une lumière en rapport avec les essences qui sont vues et avec l’Intelligence qui les voit; mais il n’est ni les essences ni l’Intelligence; il est seulement leur cause ; il produit la pensée en répandant sa lumière sur les essences et sur l’Intelligence. C’est ainsi que l’Intelligence est arrivée à la plénitude, et qu’arrivée à la plénitude elle est devenue parfaite et elle a vu. Son principe, c’est-ce qui a précédé sa plénitude. Mais elle a un autre principe [le Bien], lequel lui est extérieur en quelque sorte, c’est celui qui lui adonné sa plénitude, et qui, en la lui donnant, lui a imprimé sa forme.

INTELLIGENCE CONTAINS ALL THINGS THAT ARE CONFORMED TO THE GOOD.

16. Instead of stopping at this multiple beauty, it must be abandoned to rise (to the Good), the supreme principle. By reasoning not according to the nature of our world, but according to that of the universal Intelligence, we should with astonishment ask ourselves which is the principle that has begotten it, and how it did so. Each one (of the essences contained in the Intelligence) is a (particular) form, and somehow has its own type. As their common characteristic is to be assimilated to the Good, the consequence is that Intelligence contains all the things conformable to the Good. It possesses therefore the essence which is in all things; it contains all the animals, as well as the universal Life within them, and all the rest.

THE GOOD IS NOT ONLY THE CAUSE OF BEING, BUT ITS INTUITION AS WELL.

Why must these things be considered as goods, when considered from this point of view? The solution of this problem may be arrived at from the following consideration. When for the first time Intelligence contemplated the Good, this its contemplation split the Good’s unity into multiplicity. Though itself were a single being, this its thought divided the unity because of its inability to grasp it in its entirety. To this it may be answered that Intelligence was not yet such the first time it contemplated the Good. Did it then contemplate the Good without intelligence? Intelligence did not yet see the Good; but Intelligence dwelt near it, was dependent on it, and was turned towards it. Having arrived at its fulness, because it was operating on high, and was trending towards the Good, the movement of Intelligence itself led it to its fulness; since then it was, no longer a single movement, but a movement perfect and complete. It became all things, and possessing self-consciousness, it recognized that itself was all things. It thus became intelligence, which possesses its fulness so as to contain what it should see, and which sees by the light that it receives from Him from whom it derives what it sees. That is why the Good is said to be not only the cause of “being,” but rather the cause of the vision of “being.” As for sense-objects, the sun is the cause that makes them exist, and renders them visible, as it is also the cause of vision, and as however the sun is neither the vision nor the visible objects, likewise the Good is the cause of being and of intelligence, it is a light in respect of the beings that are seen and the Intelligence that sees them; but it is neither the beings nor the Intelligence; it is only their cause; it produces thought by shedding its light on the beings and on Intelligence. It is thus that Intelligence has arrived to fulness, and that on arriving at fulness it has become perfect and has seen. That which preceded its fulness is its principle. But it has another principle (which is the Good), which is somewhat exterior to it, and which gave it its fulness, and while giving it this fulness impressed on it the form (of itself, the Good).

16. But even there we are not to remain always, in that beauty of the multiple; we must make haste yet higher, above this heaven of ours and even that; leaving all else aside we ask in awe "Who produced that realm and how?" Everything There is a single Idea in an individual impression and, informed by The Good, possesses the universal good transcendent over all. Each possessing that Being above, possesses also the total Living-Form in virtue of that transcendent life, possesses, no doubt, much else as well.

But what is the Nature of this Transcendent in view of which and by way of which the Ideas are good?

The best way of putting the question is to ask whether, when Intellectual-Principle looked towards The Good, it had Intellection of that unity as a multiplicity and, itself a unity, plied its Act by breaking into parts what it was too feeble to know as a whole.

No: that would not be Intellection looking upon the Good; it would be a looking void of Intellection. We must think of it not as looking but as living; dependent upon That, it kept itself turned Thither; all the tendance taking place There and upon That must be a movement teeming with life and must so fill the looking Principle; there is no longer bare Act, there is a filling to saturation. Forthwith Intellectual-Principle becomes all things, knows that fact in virtue of its self-knowing and at once becomes Intellectual-Principle, filled so as to hold within itself that object of its vision, seeing all by the light from the Giver and bearing that Giver with it.

In this way the Supreme may be understood to be the cause at once of essential reality and of the knowing of reality. The sun, cause of the existence of sense-things and of their being seen, is indirectly the cause of sight, without being either the faculty or the object: similarly this Principle, The Good, cause of Being and Intellectual-Principle, is a light appropriate to what is to be seen There and to their seer; neither the Beings nor the Intellectual-Principle, it is their source and by the light it sheds upon both makes them objects of Intellection. This filling procures the existence; after the filling, the being; the existence achieved, the seeing followed: the beginning is that state of not yet having been filled, though there is, also, the beginning which means that the Filling Principle was outside and by that act of filling gave shape to the filled.