Plotino - Tratado 28,3 (IV, 4, 3) — A memória em sua relação à união da alma e do corpo (3)

3. Cuando sale del mundo inteligible, el alma ya no puede mantener su unidad. Se aficiona demasiado a sí misma y quiere ser ya algo distinto, como si inclinase su cabeza hacia afuera. He aquí, según parece, que el alma adquiere el recuerdo de sí misma; pero tiene también el recuerdo de los inteligibles, que la impide caer, y el recuerdo de las cosas de la tierra, que la impulsa hacia abajo, o el de las cosas del cielo, que la mantiene en esa región. El alma es, y se vuelve, en general, aquello de lo que tiene recuerdo, y el recuerdo es, a su vez, o un pensamiento o una imagen. Pero, ciertamente, la imaginación no posee su objeto, sino que tiene la visión de él e incluso su misma disposición. Por ello, cuando ve las cosas sensibles, el alma toma la misma dimensión de aquello que ve. Esto es debido a que el alma posee todas las cosas; pero, como las posee en segundo lugar, no se vuelve perfectamente todas esas cosas. Es, realmente, algo que permanece intermedio entre lo sensible y lo inteligible, como mirando hacia una y otra región.

III. Quand l’âme s’éloigne du monde intelligible, quand, au lieu de continuer à ne faire qu’un avec lui, elle veut en devenir indépendante, s’en distinguer et s’appartenir, quand enfin elle incline vers les choses d’ici-bas, alors elle se souvient d’elle-même. Le souvenir des choses intelligibles l’empêche de tomber, celui des choses terrestres la fait descendre ici-bas, celui des choses célestes la fait demeurer dans le ciel. En général, l’âme est et devient les choses dont elle se souvient. En effet, se souvenir, c’est penser ou imaginer ; or imaginer, ce n’est pas posséder une chose, c’est la voir et lui devenir conforme. Si l’âme voit les choses sensibles, par cela même qu’elle les regarde, elle a en quelque sorte de l’étendue. Comme elle n’est qu’au second degré les choses autres qu’elle-même, elle n’est nulle d’elles parfaitement. Placée et établie aux confins du monde sensible et du monde intelligible, elle peut se porter également vers l’un ou vers l’autre.

THE SOUL BECOMES WHAT SHE REMEMBERS.

3. When the soul departs from the intelligible world; when instead of continuing to form a unity with it, she wishes to become independent, to become distinct, and to belong to herself; when she inclines towards the things here below, then she remembers herself. The memory of intelligible things hinders her from falling, that of terrestrial things makes her descend here below, and that of celestial things makes her dwell in heaven. In general, the soul is and becomes what she remembers. Indeed, to remember is to think or imagine; now, to imagine is not indeed to possess a thing, but to see it and to conform to it. If the soul see sense-things, by the very act of looking at them she somehow acquires some extension. As she is things other than herself only secondarily, she is none of them perfectly. Placed and established on the confines of the sense and intelligible worlds, she may equally move towards either.

3. But it leaves that conjunction; it cannot suffer that unity; it falls in love with its own powers and possessions, and desires to stand apart; it leans outward so to speak: then, it appears to acquire a memory of itself.

In this self-memory a distinction is to be made; the memory dealing with the Intellectual Realm upbears the soul, not to fall; the memory of things here bears it downwards to this universe; the intermediate memory dealing with the heavenly sphere holds it there too; and, in all its memory, the thing it has in mind it is and grows to; for this bearing-in-mind must be either intuition [i.e., knowledge with identity] or representation by image: and the imaging in the case of the is not a taking in of something but is vision and condition - so much so, that, in its very sense - sight, it is the lower in the degree in which it penetrates the object. Since its possession of the total of things is not primal but secondary, it does not become all things perfectly [in becoming identical with the All in the Intellectual]; it is of the boundary order, situated between two regions, and has tendency to both.