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

4. Cuando el alma vive en el mundo inteligible ve el Bien por intermedio de la Inteligencia, pues el Bien no se oculta a tal punto que no llegue a difundirse hasta donde ella está. Ningún cuerpo hay entre el Bien y el alma que haga obstáculo a esta difusión; y, aunque lo hubiese, el Bien podría llegar desde los seres del primer rango hasta los seres del tercer rango. Si el alma se entrega a los seres inferiores, poseerá también lo que ella quiere en analogía con sus recuerdos y sus imágenes. De ahí que el recuerdo, aun siendo una de las cosas mejores, nunca será lo que hay de mejor.

Conviene tener en cuenta que el recuerdo no sólo existe con la percepción actual de lo que recordamos, sino que se da también con aquellos estados del alma que rememoran experiencias y conocimientos anteriores. Puede ocurrir que el alma posea tales disposiciones sin darse siquiera cuenta de ello, en cuyo caso cabe todavía que tengan más fuerza que si ella las conociese. Porque cuando el alma sabe que posee una disposición, se siente distinta a esa misma disposición; en cambio, si desconoce que la posee, se arriesga a ser eso mismo que ella posee, y son precisamente tales disposiciones las que, sobre todo, la hacen caer.

Al abandonar el mundo inteligible, el alma trae consigo sus recuerdos. Tenía recuerdos, en efecto, cuando se encontraba en este mundo, aunque sólo los tuviese en potencia. Su actividad intelectual los encubría, reduciéndolos, no al papel de improntas — cosa que lleva a consecuencias absurdas — , sino al de una potencia que habría de pasar luego al acto. Así, cuando el alma deja de actuar en el mundo inteligible, ve de nuevo lo que ya había visto, antes de penetrar en ese mundo.

IV. Dans le monde intelligible, l’âme voit le Bien par l’intelligence : car l’intelligence ne l’empêche pas de parvenir jusqu’au Bien. Entre l’âme et le Bien, l’intermédiaire n’est pas le corps, qui ne pourrait être qu’un obstacle : car si les corps peuvent jamais servir d’intermédiaires, ce n’est que lorsqu’il s’agit de descendre des premiers principes aux choses qui occupent le troisième rang (09). Quand l’âme s’occupe des objets inférieurs, elle possède conformément à sa mémoire et à son imagination ce qu’elle voulait posséder. Aussi la mémoire, s’appliquât-elle aux meilleures choses, n’est cependant pas ce qu’il y a de meilleur: car elle ne consiste pas seulement à sentir qu’on se souvient, mais encore à se trouver dans une disposition conforme aux affections, aux intuitions antérieures dont on se souvient. Or, il peut arriver que l’âme possède une chose sans en avoir conscience, qu’elle la possède même alors mieux que si elle en avait conscience: en effet, quand elle en a conscience, elle la possède comme une chose qui lui est étrangère, et dont elle se distingue ; quand au contraire elle n’en a pas conscience, elle est ce qu’elle possède, et c’est surtout cette dernière disposition qui la fait déchoir [en la rendant conforme aux choses sensibles, quand elle y applique son imagination].

Si l’âme, en quittant le monde intelligible, en emporte avec elle des souvenirs, c’est que dans ce monde elle possédait déjà la mémoire à certain degré ; mais cette puissance y était éclipsée par la pensée des choses intelligibles. Il serait absurde de prétendre que ces dernières se trouvaient dans l’âme à l’état de simples images; elles y constituaient au contraire une puissance [intellectuelle] qui a passé ensuite à l’état d’acte. Quand l’âme vient à cesser de s’appliquer à la contemplation des intelligibles, elle ne voit plus que ce qu’elle voyait auparavant [c’est-à-dire les choses sensibles].

MEMORY IS NOT AS HIGH AS UNREFLECTIVE IDENTIFICATION.

4. In the intelligible world, the soul sees the Good by intelligence; for intelligence does not hinder her from arriving to the Good. Between the soul and the Good, the intermediary is not the body, which could be no more than an obstacle; for if the bodies can ever serve as intermediaries, it would only be in the process of descending from the first principles to third rank entities. When the soul occupies herself with inferior objects, she possesses what she wished to possess conformably to her memory and imagination. Consequently memory, even should it apply itself to the very best things, is not the best thing possible; for it consists not only in feeling that one remembers, but also in finding oneself in a disposition conformable to the affections, to the earlier intuitions which are remembered. Now it may happen that a soul possesses something unconsciously, so that she possesses it better than if she were conscious thereof. In fact, when she is conscious thereof, she possesses it like something foreign to her, and from which she is keeping herself distinct; when, on the contrary, she is unconscious of it she becomes what she possesses; and it is especially this latter kind of memory which can most thoroughly effect her degradation (when she conforms herself to sense-objects, by applying her imagination thereto).

INTELLIGIBLE ENTITIES ARE NOT MERELY IMAGES, BUT POTENTIALITIES FOR MEMORY.

That the soul, on leaving the intelligible world, brings away with her memories thereof, implies that even in the (intelligible) world she to a certain degree already possessed memory; but this potentiality was eclipsed by the thought of the intelligible entities. It would be absurd to insist that the latter existed in the soul in the condition of simple images; on the contrary, they there constituted an (intellectual) potentiality which later passed into the condition of actualization. Whenever the soul happens to cease applying herself to the contemplation of intelligible entities she no longer sees what she formerly saw (that is, sense-objects).

4. In that realm it has also vision, through the Intellectual-Principle, of The Good which does not so hold to itself as not to reach the soul; what intervenes between them is not body and therefore is no hindrance - and, indeed, where bodily forms do intervene there is still access in many ways from the primal to the tertiaries.

If, on the contrary, the soul gives itself to the inferior, the same principle of penetration comes into play, and it possesses itself, by memory and imagination, of the thing it desired: and hence the memory, even dealing with the highest, is not the highest. Memory, of course, must be understood not merely of what might be called the sense of remembrance, but so as to include a condition induced by the past experience or vision. There is such a thing as possessing more powerfully without consciousness than in full knowledge; with full awareness the possession is of something quite distinct from the self; unconscious possession runs very close to identity, and any such approach to identification with the lower means the deeper fall of the soul.

If the soul, on abandoning its place in the Supreme, revives its memories of the lower, it must have in some form possessed them even there though the activity of the beings in that realm kept them in abeyance: they could not be in the nature of impressions permanently adopted - a notion which would entail absurdities - but were no more than a potentiality realized after return. When that energy of the Intellectual world ceases to tell upon the soul, it sees what it saw in the earlier state before it revisited the Supreme.