Plotino - Tratado 38,10 (VI, 7, 10) — No inteligível toda coisa compreende sua "razão"

10. Pero, ¿pueden darse deficiencias en el mundo inteligible? ¿Sirven allí los cuernos para que el animal se defienda? No, sirven para que el animal se complete y se perfeccione. Porque es indudable que conviene que sea perfecto, ya como animal, ya como inteligencia, ya como vida; de este modo, si carece de una cosa, otra vendrá a sustituirla. Las diferencias provienen precisamente de estas sustituciones, sin que ello obste a que la totalidad forme un animal perfecto, una inteligencia perfecta y una vida perfecta, ya que cada animal es perfecto en su género.

Si la inteligencia está compuesta de muchas cosas, no por esto ha de dejar de ser una; no se hablará, sin embargo, de cosas múltiples, si todas ellas son las mismas; entonces lo que se da es la unidad absoluta, Conviene, pues, que todas estas cosas sean siempre diferentes en cuanto a la especie, como acontece en todo ser compuesto; y no obstante, quedará a salvo su individualidad. Esto es lo que comprobamos con las formas y las razones. ¡Cuántas cosas comprende en realidad la forma del hombre, a pesar de la unidad que está sobre ellas! Vemos en él cosas mejores y peores, así el ojo y el dedo, que se encuadran en una unidad; pero como lo peor hace referencia al todo, la inferioridad se convierte por eso mismo en superioridad. La razón seminal es un animal con algo más, no ídentificable con el animal. La virtud, igualmente, contiene lo común a todas las virtudes pero, a la vez, lo propio de cada una; y el conjunto es bello porque el carácter común no presenta diferencia alguna.

X. Mais comment peut-il y avoir quelque chose d’imparfait dans le monde intelligible? Pourquoi l’animal intelligible a-t-il des cornes? Est-ce pour sa défense (45)? — C’est pour être complet et parfait. Il doit être parfait comme animal, parfait comme intelligence, parfait comme vie, de telle sorte que, s’il manque d’une qualité, il en ait une autre à la place. La cause des différences, c’est que ce qui appartient à une essence se trouve remplacé dans une autre essence par quelque autre chose, en sorte que l’ensemble [des essences] constitue l’Animal le plus parfait, la Vie la plus parfaite, l’Intelligence la plus parfaite, tandis que toutes les essences particulières qui se trouvent ainsi dans l’être intelligible sont parfaites en tant que particulières.

L’Être doit être à la fois un et multiple; or il ne peut être multiple si toutes les choses qui se trouvent en lui sont égales; il serait alors l’Un absolu. Il faut donc, puisqu’il forme un tout composé, qu’il soit constitué par des choses qui aient entre elles des différences spécifiques, de telle sorte que son unité laisse subsister les choses particulières, telles que les formes et les raisons [essences]. Les formes, comme celle de l’homme, doivent renfermer toutes les différences qui leur sont essentielles. Quoiqu’il y ait unité dans toutes ces formes, il s’y trouve cependant des choses plus ou moins relevées les unes que les autres, l’œil et le doigt par exemple : tous ces organes sont impliqués dans l’unité de l’animal, et ils ne sont inférieurs que relativement à l’ensemble. Il valait mieux qu’il en lut ainsi. La raison [l’essence de l’animal] est animal et de plus quelque chose de différent de l’animal. La vertu a aussi un caractère général et un caractère individuel. L’ensemble [du monde intelligible] est beau, parce que ce qui est commun [à toutes les essences] n’offre pas de différence.

APPARENT IMPERFECTIONS ARE ONLY LOWER FORMS OF PERFECTION.

10. But how can there be anything imperfect in the intelligible world? Why does the intelligible Animal have horns? Is it for its defense? To be perfect and complete. It is to be perfect as an animal, perfect as intelligence, and perfect as life; so that, if it lack one quality, it may have a substitute. The cause of the differences, is that what belongs to one being finds itself replaced in another being by something else; so that the totality (of the beings) may result in the most perfect Life, and Intelligence, while all the particular beings which are thus found in the intelligible essence are perfect so far as they are particular.

CO-EXISTENCE OF UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY DEMANDS ORGANIZATION IN SYSTEM.

The essence must be simultaneously one and manifold. Now it cannot be manifold if all the things that exist within it be equal; it would then be an absolute unity. Since therefore (essence) forms a composite unity, it must be constituted by things which bear to each other specific differences, such that its unity shall allow the existence of particular things, such as forms and reasons (beings). The forms, such as those of man, must contain all the differences that are essential to them. Though there be a unity in all these forms, there are also things more or less delicate (or highly organized), such as the eye or the finger. All these organs, however, are implied in the unity of the animal, and they are inferior only relatively to the totality. It was better that things should be such. Reason (the essence of the animal) is animal, and besides, is something different from the animal. Virtue also bears a general character, and an individual one. The totality (of the intelligible world) is beautiful, because what is common (to all beings), does not offer any differences.

10. But failure There? What can defensive horns serve to There? To sufficiency as living form, to completeness. That principle must be complete as living form, complete as Intellect, complete as life, so that if it is not to be one thing it may be another. Its characteristic difference is in this power of being now this, now that, so that, summing all, it may be the completest life-form, Intelligence complete, life in greatest fulness with each of the particulars complete in its degree while yet, over all that multiplicity, unity reigns.

If all were one identity, the total could not contain this variety of forms; there would be nothing but a self-sufficing unity. Like every compound it must consist of things progressively differing in form and safeguarded in that form. This is in the very nature of shape and Reason-Principle; a shape, that of man let us suppose, must include a certain number of differences of part but all dominated by a unity; there will be the noble and the inferior, eye and finger, but all within a unity; the part will be inferior in comparison with the total but best in its place. The Reason-Principle, too, is at once the living form and something else, something distinct from the being of that form. It is so with virtue also; it contains at once the universal and the particular; and the total is good because the universal is not differentiated.