Plotino - Tratado 27,13 (IV, 3, 13) — A descida da alma obedece a uma lei

13. La justicia y la necesidad descansan así en una naturaleza que impone a las almas, a tenor de su misma ordenación, que se dirijan hacia la imagen engendrada y arquetípica, pues todas las almas de la misma especie son vecinas de aquel objeto hacia el cual les inclina su propia disposición. De este modo, en un momento determinado no hay siquiera necesidad de que alguien las envíe o las conduzca para que entren en un cierto cuerpo, ya que, cuando el momento así lo exige, descienden por sí mismas y entran allí donde es preciso que lo hagan (16). Digamos que el momento es diferente para cada alma y que, una vez llegado éste, cada una desciende al cuerpo conveniente, cual si fuese llamada por un heraldo. Pudiera creerse que el alma es movida y dirigida por un poder mágico, que ejerce sobre ella una fuerte y vigorosa atracción. De igual modo se verifica en cada animal el gobierno del alma, porque, en el tiempo apropiado, el alma mueve y engendra cada una de las partes, y así produce el crecimiento de la barba o de los cuernos, o desarrolla nuevas tendencias y floraciones, no existentes con anterioridad. Y lo mismo acontece con los árboles: sus almas los gobiernan con arreglo a disposiciones prefijadas.

Las almas no vienen hasta aquí por su voluntad, ni tampoco son enviadas. Lo que en ellas se considera como voluntario no es en realidad una voluntad de elección, puesto que se mueven naturalmente y tienden al cuerpo de manera instintiva, cual ocurre con el deseo del matrimonio y, a veces, incluso, con algunas hermosas acciones, no cumplidas de modo racional. Tal es siempre el destino de este ser, unas veces el que ahora decimos y otras veces otro.

En cuanto a la inteligencia, que es anterior al mundo, tiene también su destino, el cual consiste en permanecer en el mundo inteligible, enviando desde él su luz y sus rayos de conformidad con una ley universal. Esta ley es absoluta para cada individuo y, para realizarse, no saca su fuerza de algo extraño, sino que se da a los individuos, que se sirven de ella y la transportan en sí mismos. Cuando el tiempo es llegado, su voluntad se cumple por las almas individuales que la retienen, hasta el punto de que son éstas las que realizan la ley, por llevarla precisamente consigo y disponer de su fuerza. La ley que se da en las almas es como una carga que pesa sobre ellas y que les infunde el deseo doloroso de dirigirse allí donde se les indica que vayan.

XIII. Ce qu’on appelle l’inévitable Nécessité et la Justice divine (85) consiste dans l’empire de la Nature qui fait passer chaque âme avec ordre dans l’image corporelle qui est devenue l’objet de son affection et de sa disposition principale. Aussi l’âme se rapproche-t-elle par sa forme tout entière de l’objet vers lequel la porte sa disposition intérieure : c’est ainsi qu’elle est conduite et introduite où elle doit aller ; non qu’elle soit forcée de descendre à tel moment dans tel corps, mais, à un instant fixé, elle descend comme d’elle-même (οἶον αὐτομάτως) et entre où il faut. Chacune a son heure : quand cette heure arrive, l’âme descend comme 292 si un héraut l’appelait, et pénètre dans le corps préparé pour la recevoir, comme si elle était subjuguée et mise en mouvement par les forces et les attractions puissantes dont la magie fait usage (86). C’est de la même manière que, dans un animal, la nature administre tous les organes, meut ou engendre chaque chose dans son temps, fait pousser la barbe ou les cornes, donne à l’être des penchants et des pouvoirs particuliers, lorsqu’ils deviennent nécessaires (87); c’est de la même manière enfin que, dans les plantes, elle produit les fleurs ou les fruits au moment convenable. La descente des âmes dans les corps n’est ni volontaire ni forcée : elle n’est pas volontaire, puisqu’elle n’est pas choisie et consentie par les âmes; elle n’est pas forcée, en ce sens que celles-ci n’obéissent qu’à une impulsion naturelle, comme on est porté soit au mariage, soit à l’accomplissement de certains actes honnêtes, plutôt par instinct que par raisonnement. Cependant, il y a toujours quelque chose de fatal pour chaque âme : celle-ci accomplit sa destinée à tel moment, celle-là à tel autre moment ; de même, l’Intelligence supérieure au monde a aussi quelque chose de fatal dans son existence, puisqu’elle a elle-même sa destinée, qui est de demeurer dans le monde intelligible et d’en faire rayonner sa lumière. C’est ainsi que les individus viennent ici-bas en vertu de la loi commune à laquelle ils sont soumis. Chacun en effet porte en lui-même cette loi commune, loi qui 293 ne tire point sa force du dehors, mais qui la trouve dans la nature de ceux qui lui sont soumis, parce qu’elle est innée en eux. Aussi, tous accomplissent d’eux-mêmes ses prescriptions au temps marqué parce que cette loi les pousse à leur but, parce que, puisant sa force en ceux-là mêmes auxquels elle commande, elle les presse, les stimule et leur inspire le désir de se rendre où les appelle intérieurement leur vocation.

HOW SOULS COME TO DESCEND.

13. What is called inevitable necessity and divine justice consists in the sway of nature which causes each soul to proceed in an orderly manner into the bodily image which has become the object of her affection, and of her predominating disposition. Consequently the soul, by her form, entirely approaches the object towards which her interior disposition bears her. Thus she is led and introduced where she is to go; not that she is forced to descend at any particular moment into any particular body; but, at a fixed moment, she descends as it were spontaneously where she ought to enter. Each (soul) has her own hour. When this hour arrives, the soul descends as if a herald was calling her, and she penetrates into the body prepared to receive her, as if she had been mastered and set in motion by forces and powerful attractions exerted by magic. Similarly in an animal, nature administers all the organs, solves or beets everything in its own time, grows the beard or the horns, gives special inclinations and powers to the being, whenever they become necessary. Similarly, in plants, (nature) produces flowers or fruits at the proper season. The descent of souls into the bodies is neither voluntary nor forced; it is not voluntary, since it is not chosen or consented to by souls. It is not compulsory, in the sense that the latter obey only a natural impulsion, just as one might be led to marriage, or to the accomplishment of various honest actions, rather by instinct than by reasoning. Nevertheless, there is always something fatal for each soul. One accomplishes her destiny at some one moment; the other soul at some other moment. Likewise, the intelligence that is superior to the world also has something fatal in its existence, since itself has its own destiny, which is to dwell in the intelligible world, and to make its light radiate therefrom. Thus individuals come here below by virtue of the common law to which they are subjected. Each one, indeed, bears within himself this common law, a law which does not derive its power from outside, but which depends on the nature of those who are subject to it, because it is innate in them. Consequently all voluntarily carry out its decrees at the predestined time, because this law impels them to their goal; and because, deriving its force from those whom it commands, it presses and stimulates them and inspires them with the desire to go whither their interior vocation calls them.

XIII. For justice, which is said to be inevitable, subsists in such a manner in a ruling nature, that every thing proceeds in that order with reference to which it was generated an image of archetypal pre-election and disposition. And that whole form of the soul, is similar to that to which it has in itself a disposition, and which then sends and introduces it where it is proper for it to be situated; not that it may then descend into body, or into this particular body; but that when the prescribed period arrives, souls may as it were spontaneously descend, and enter into that receptacle in which it is necessary for them to reside. A different soul, also, has a different time of descent; which when it arrives, souls descend, as if called by a cryer, enter into an appropriate body, and are similarly affected with those who are moved and borne along by the powers and strong attractions of magicians. They, likewise, resemble the administration which takes place in one animal, which moves each in a certain time, and generates hair, the beard, and the nature of horns, and now impels them to, and causes them to be efflorescent in things of this kind, which they did not possess before. They are also similar to the administration in the growth of trees which vegetate in orderly pre-established periods of time. Souls, however, proceed neither voluntarily, nor from compulsion. For that which is voluntary in them [when they descend] is not as if it were deliberate choice, but resembles a physical leaping, or the natural tendencies to wedlock, or the impulses to certain beautiful actions, to which we are not excited by a reasoning process. A certain particular thing, however, is always accompanied with a certain destiny. And to this thing the present time, but to another the future pertains [as to the accomplishment of the decrees of fate]. The destiny, indeed, of the intellect which is prior to the world, is to remain in the intelligible region, and from thence to impart something [to the sensible universe]. And particulars, falling under the universal law, are from thence sent hither. For in each, that which is universal is inherent. This law, also, does not receive its perfective power externally, but is imparted so as to be in the natures that use it, and to be carried about with them. When the time, likewise, arrives [which the law decreed], then that is effected which it wished to be effected, by those who possess this law. Hence, they themselves accomplish the law which surrounds them, and becomes strong through being established in them; oppressing them as it were with its weight, and producing in them a promptitude and vehement desire of arriving at that place, to which the law within them announces they should come.

13. The Ineluctable, the Kosmic Law is, thus, rooted in a natural principle under which each several entity is overruled to go, duly and in order, towards that place and Kind to which it characteristically tends, that is towards the image of its primal choice and constitution.

In that archetypal world every form of soul is near to the image [the thing in the world of copy] to which its individual constitution inclines it; there is therefore no need of a sender or leader acting at the right moment to bring it at the right moment whether into body or into a definitely appropriate body: of its own motion it descends at the precisely true time and enters where it must. To every Soul its own hour; when that strikes it descends and enters the body suitable to it as at the cry of a herald; thus all is set stirring and advancing as by a magician’s power or by some mighty traction; it is much as, in any living thing, the soul itself effects the fulfillment of the natural career, stirring and bringing forth, in due season, every element - beard, horn, and all the successive stages of tendency and of output - or, as it leads a tree through its normal course within set periods.

The Souls go forth neither under compulsion nor of freewill; or, at least, freedom, here, is not to be regarded as action upon preference; it is more like such a leap of the nature as moves men to the instinctive desire of sexual union, or, in the case of some, to fine conduct; the motive lies elsewhere than in the reason: like is destined unfailingly to like, and each moves hither or thither at its fixed moment.

Even the Intellectual-Principle, which is before all the kosmos, has, it also, its destiny, that of abiding intact above, and of giving downwards: what it sends down is the particular whose existence is implied in the law of the universal; for the universal broods closely over the particular; it is not from without that the law derives the power by which it is executed; on the contrary the law is given in the entities upon whom it falls; these bear it about with them. Let but the moment arrive, and what it decrees will be brought to act by those beings in whom it resides; they fulfil it because they contain it; it prevails because it is within them; it becomes like a heavy burden, and sets up in them a painful longing to enter the realm to which they are bidden from within.