Guthrie-Plotinus: actualization

  

(10). The soul penetrates the whole body, while an entire body cannot penetrate another entire body. Further, if the soul is corporeal, and pervades the whole body, she will, with the body, form (as Alexander of Aphrodisia pointed out) a mixture, similar to the other bodies (that are constituted by a mixture of matter and quality, as the Stoics taught). Now as none of the bodies that enter into a mixture is in actualization the soul, instead of being in actualization in the bodies, would be in them only potentially; consequently, she would cease to be a soul, as the sweet ceases to be sweet when mingled with the bitter; we would, therefore, have no soul left. If, when one body forms a mixture with another body, total penetration occurs, so that each molecule contains equal parts of two bodies and that each body be distributed equally in the whole space occupied by the mass of the other, without any increase of volume, nothing that is not divided will remain. Indeed, mixture operates not only between the larger parts (which would be no more than a simple juxtaposition); but the two bodies must penetrate each other mutually, even if smaller — it would indeed be impossible for the smaller to equal the greater; still, when the smaller penetrates the larger it must divide it entirely. If the mixture operates in this manner in every part, and if no undivided part of the mass remain, the body must be divided into points, which is impossible. Indeed, were this division pushed to infinity, since every body is fully divisible, bodies will have to be infinite not only potentially, but also in actuality. It is therefore impossible for one entire body to penetrate another in its entirety. Now as the soul penetrates the entire body, the soul must be incorporeal (as thought Nemesius). [Ennead IV,7 (2) 8]

(11). (If, as Stoics claim, man first was a certain nature called habit, then a soul, and last an intelligence, the perfect would have arisen from the imperfect, which is impossible). To say that the first nature of the soul is to be a spirit, and that this spirit became soul only after having been exposed to cold, and as it were became soaked by its contact, because the cold subtilized it; this is an absurd hypothesis. Many animals are born in warm places, and do not have their soul exposed to action of cold. Under this hypothesis, the primary nature of the soul would have been made dependent on the concourse of exterior circumstances. The Stoics, therefore, posit as principle that which is less perfect (the soul), and trace it to a still less perfect earlier thing called habit (or form of inorganic things). Intelligence, therefore, is posited in the last rank since it is alleged to be born of the soul, while, on the contrary, the first rank should be assigned to intelligence, the second to the soul, the third to nature, and, following natural order, consider that which is less perfect as the posterior element. In this system the divinity, by the mere fact of his possessing intelligence, is posterior and begotten, possessing only an incidental intelligence. The result would, therefore, be that there was neither soul, nor intelligence, nor divinity; for never can that which is potential pass to the condition of actualization, without the prior existence of some actualized principle. If what is potential were to transform itself into actualization — which is absurd — its passage into actualization will have to involve at the very least a contemplation of something which is not merely potential, but actualized. Nevertheless, on the hypothesis that what is potential can permanently remain identical, it will of itself pass into actualization, and will be superior to the being which is potential only because it will be the object of the aspiration of such a being. We must, therefore, assign the first rank to the being that has a perfect and incorporeal nature, which is always in actualization. Thus intelligence and soul are prior to nature; the soul, therefore, is not a spirit, and consequently no body. Other reasons for the incorporeality of the soul have been advanced; but the above suffices (as thought Aristotle  ). [Ennead IV,7 (2) 8]

(16). What sensible man, after having thus considered the nature of the soul, could still doubt of the immortality of a principle which derives life from naught but itself, and which cannot lose it? How could the soul lose life, since she did not borrow it from elsewhere, and since she does not possess it as fire possesses heat? For, without being an accident of fire, the heat, nevertheless, is an accident of its matter; for fire can perish. But, in the soul, life is not an accident that comes to add itself to a material subject to constitute a soul. In fact, there is here an alternative: either life is a genuine “being,” which is alive by itself; in which case this “being” is the soul that we are seeking to discover, and immortality cannot be refused her; or the soul is a composite, and she must be decomposed until we arrive at something immortal which moves by itself; and such a principle could not be subject to death. Further, when (Stoics) say that life is only an accidental modification of matter, they are thereby forced to acknowledge that the principle that imparted this modification to matter is immortal, and incapable of admitting anything contrary to what it communicates (that is, life, as said Plato, in his Phaedo  ), but there is only a single nature that possesses life in actualization. [Ennead IV,7 (2) 11]

(17). (The Stoics), indeed, claim that every soul is perishable. In this case, everything should long since have been destroyed. Others might say that our soul were mortal, while the universal Soul were immortal. On them, however, is the burden of proof of a difference between the individual and universal souls. Both of them, indeed, are a principle of movement; both live by themselves; both grasp the same object by the same faculty, either by thinking the things contained in heaven, or by considering the nature (“being”) of each being, ascending unto the first principle. Since our soul thinks absolute essences either by the notions she finds within herself, or by reminiscence, she evidently is prior to the body. Possessing knowledge of eternal entities, she herself must be eternal. All that dissolves, existing only by its compositeness, can naturally dissolve in the same manner that it became composite. But the soul is a single, simple actualization, whose essence is life; not in this manner therefore can the soul perish. Neither could the soul perish by division into a number of parts; for, as we have shown, the soul is neither a mass nor a quantity. As little could the soul perish by alteration; for when alteration destroys anything, it may remove its form, but leaves its matter; alteration, therefore, is a characteristic of something composite. Consequently as the soul cannot perish in any of these ways, she is imperishable. [Ennead IV,7 (2) 12]

The soul is present in the body at some times, and at other times, is outside of it. When, indeed, following her own inclination, she descends from first-rank entities (that is, intelligible entities) to third-rank entities (that is, earthly entities), she “proceeds” by virtue of the actualization of intelligence, which, remaining within herself, embellishes everything by the ministration of the soul, and which, itself being immortal, ordains everything with immortal power; for intelligence exists continuously by a continuous actualization. [Ennead IV,7 (2) 13]

But how does he rise up thither? How does he have the power to do so? How does he learn to love? Here it is. The beauty seen in bodies is incidental; it consists in the shapes of which the bodies are the matter. Consequently the substance changes, and it is seen changing from beauty to ugliness. The body has only a borrowed beauty. Who imparted that beauty to the body? On the one hand, the presence of beauty; on the other, the actualization of the soul which fashioned the body, and which gave it the shape it possesses. But is the soul, by herself, absolute beauty? No, since some souls are wise and beautiful, while some others are foolish and ugly. It is therefore only by wisdom that the soul is beautiful. But from what is her wisdom derived? Necessarily from intelligence; not from the intelligence that is intelligent at some time, though not at others, but from the genuine Intelligence, which is beautiful on that very account. Shall we stop at Intelligence, as a first principle? Or shall we on the contrary still rise above it? Surely so, for Intelligence presents itself to us before the first Principle only because it is, so to speak, located in the antechamber of the Good. It bears all things within itself, and manifests them, so that it displays the image of the Good in manifoldness, while the Good itself remains in an absolute simple unity. [Ennead V,9 (5) 2]

Why should we not, on arriving at the Soul, stop there, and consider her the first principle? Because Intelligence is a power different from the Soul, and better than the Soul; and what is better must, by its very nature, precede (the worst). The Stoics are wrong in thinking that it is the Soul which, on reaching her perfection, begets Intelligence. How could that which is potential pass into actualization unless there were some principle that effected that transition? If this transition were due to chance, it could not have occurred at all. The first rank must therefore be assigned to that which is in actualization, which needs nothing, which is perfect, while imperfect things must be assigned to the second rank. These may be perfected by the principles that begat them, which, in respect to them, play a paternal part, perfecting what they had originally produced that was imperfect. What is thus produced is matter, as regards the creating principle, and then becomes perfect, on receiving its form from it. Besides, the Soul is (often) affected; and we need to discover some thing that is impassible, without which everything is dissolved by time; therefore there is need of some principle prior to the soul. Further, the Soul is in the world; now there must be something that resides outside of the world, and which consequently would be superior to the Soul; for since that which inheres in the world resides within the body, or matter, if nothing existed outside of the world, nothing would remain permanent. In this case, the (seminal) reason of man, and all the other reasons could be neither permanent nor eternal. The result of all these considerations, as well as of many others that we could add thereto, is the necessary assertion of the existence of Intelligence beyond the Soul. [Ennead V,9 (5) 4]

Taking it in its genuine sense, Intelligence is not only potential, arriving at being intelligent after having been unintelligent — for otherwise, we would be forced to seek out some still higher principle — but is in actualization, and is eternal. As it is intelligent by itself, it is by itself that it thinks what it thinks, and that it possesses what is possesses. Now since it thinks of itself and by itself, it itself is what it thinks. If we could distinguish between its existence and its thought, its “being” would be unintelligent; it would be potential, not in actualization. Thought, therefore, must not be separated from its object, although, from sense-objects, we have become accustomed to conceive of intelligible entities as distinct from each other. [Ennead V,9 (5) 5]

Which then is the principle that acts, that thinks, and what is the actualization and thought of Intelligence, necessary to justify the assertion that it is what it thinks? Evidently Intelligence, by its mere real existence, thinks beings, and makes them exist; it therefore is the beings. Indeed, the beings will either exist outside of it, or within it; and in the latter case they would have to be identical with it. That they should exist outside of Intelligence, is unthinkable; for where would they be located? They must therefore exist within it, and be identical with it. They could not be in sense-objects, as common people think, because sense-objects could not be the first in any genus. The form which inheres in their matter is only the representation of existence; now a form which exists in anything other than itself is put in it by a superior principle, and is its image. Further, if Intelligence must be the creative power of the universe, it could not, while creating the universe, think beings as existent in what does not yet exist. Intelligible entities, therefore, must exist before the world, and cannot be images of sense-objects, being on the contrary, their archetypes, and constituting the “being” of Intelligence. It might be objected that the (seminal) reasons might suffice. These reasons are, no doubt, eternal; and, if they be eternal and impassible, they must exist within the Intelligence whose characteristics we have described, the Intelligence which precedes the “habit,” nature, and the soul, because here these entities are potential. [Ennead V,9 (5) 5]

Thus Intelligence actually constitutes all beings; it contains them all, but not locally; it contains them as it possesses itself; it is identical with them. All entities are simultaneously contained within it, and in it remain distinct, as many kinds of knowledge may exist within the soul without their number causing any confusion; each of them appears when needed, without involving the others. If in the soul each thought be an actualization independent of other thoughts, so much the more must Intelligence be all things simultaneously, with this restriction, however, that each of them is a special power. Considered in its universality, Intelligence contains all entities as the genus contains all species, as the whole contains all parts. Even the seminal powers bear the impress of this universality. Each one, considered in its totality, is a centre which contains all the parts of the organism in an undivided condition; nevertheless in it the reason of the eyes differs from that of the hands, and this diversity is manifested by that of the organs begotten (therefrom). 129 Each of the powers of the seed, therefore, is the total unity of the seminal reason when this power is united to the others which are implied therein. What in the seed is corporeal contains matter, as, for instance, humidity; but the seminal reason is the entire form; it is identical with the generative power, a power which itself is the image of a superior power of the soul. This generative power contained in seeds is usually called “nature.” Proceeding from the superior powers as light radiates from the fire, it tames and fashions matter, imparting thereto the seminal reason without pushing it, or moving it as by levers. [Ennead V,9 (5) 6]

The scientific notions that the soul forms of sense-objects, by discursive reason, and which should rather be called opinions, are posterior to the objects (they deal with); and consequently, are no more than images of them. But true scientific notions received from intelligence by discursive reasons do not contain any sense-conceptions. So far as they are scientific notions, they are the very things of which they are the conceptions; they reveal the intimate union of intelligence and thought. Interior Intelligence, which consists of the primary (natures) possesses itself intimately, resides within itself since all eternity, and is an actualization. It does not direct its glances outside of itself, because it possesses everything within itself; it does not acquire, and does not reason to discover things that may not be present to them. Those are operations characteristic of the soul. Intelligence, remaining fixed within itself, is all things simultaneously. Nevertheless, it is not thought which makes each of them subsist; it is only because intelligence thought the divinity or movement, for instance, that the divinity or movement exists. When we say that thoughts are forms, we are mistaken if thereby we mean that the intelligible exists only because Intelligence thinks it. On the contrary, it is only because the intelligible exists, that Intelligence can think. Otherwise, how would Intelligence come to think the intelligible? It cannot meet the intelligible by chance, nor waste itself in fruitless efforts. [Ennead V,9 (5) 7]

Since the thought is something essentially one (?), the form, which is the object of thought, and the idea, are one and the same thing. Which is this thing? Intelligence and the intellectual “being,” for no idea is foreign to intelligence; each form is intelligence, and the whole intelligence is all the forms; every particular form is a particular intelligence. Likewise science, taken in its totality, is all the notions it embraces; every notion is a part of the total science; it is not separated from the science locally, and exists potentially in the whole science. Intelligence resides within itself, and by possessing itself calmly, is the eternal fulness of all things. If we conceived it as being prior to essence, we would have to say that it was the action and thought of Intelligence which produced and begat all beings. But as, on the contrary, it is certain that essence is prior to Intelligence, we should, within the thinking principle, first conceive the beings, then actualization and thought, just as (the nature) of fire is joined by the actualization of the fire, so that beings have innate intelligence as their actualization. Now essence is an actualization; therefore essence and intelligence are but a single actualization, or rather both of them fuse. Consequently, they form but a single nature, as beings, the actualization of essence, and intelligence. In this case the thought is the form, and the shape is the actualization of the being. When, however, in thought we separate essence from Intelligence, we must conceive one of these principles as prior to the other. The Intelligence which operates this separation is indeed different from the essence from which it separates; but the Intelligence which is inseparable from essence and which does not separate thought from essence is itself essence and all things. [Ennead V,9 (5) 8]

The qualities that are natural, quantities, numbers, magnitudes, states, actions and natural experiences, movements and recuperations, either general or particular, are among the contents of the intelligible world, where time is replaced by eternity, and space is replaced by the “telescoping” of intelligible entities (that are within each other). As all entities are together in the intelligible world, whatever entity you select (by itself) is intellectual and living “being,” identity and difference, movement and rest; it is what moves, and what is at rest; it is “being,” and quality; that is, it is all. There every essence is in actualization, instead of merely being in potentiality; consequently it is not separated from quality. [Ennead V,9 (5) 10]

On waking from the slumber of the body to return to myself, and on turning my attention from exterior things so as to concentrate it on myself, I often observe an alluring beauty, and I become conscious of an innate nobility. Then I live out a higher life, and I experience atonement with the divinity. Fortifying myself within it, I arrive at that actualization which raises me above the intelligible. But if, after this sojourn with the divinity, I descend once more from Intelligence to the exercise of my reasoning powers, I am wont to ask myself how I ever could actually again descend, and how my soul ever could have entered into a body, since, although she actually abides in the body, she still possesses within herself all the perfection I discover in her. [Ennead IV,8 (6) 1]

Consider now the human soul which undergoes numberless ills while in the body, eking out a miserable existence, a prey to griefs, desires, fears, sufferings of all kinds, for whom the body is a tomb, and the sense-world a “cave” or “grotto.” This difference of opinions about the condition of the universal Soul and the human soul is not contradictory, because these two souls do not have the same reasons for descent into a body. To begin with, the location of thought, that we call the intelligible world, contains not only the entire universal Intelligence, but also the intellectual powers, and the particular intelligences comprised within the universal Intelligence; since there is not only a single intelligence, but a simultaneously single and plural intelligence. Consequently, it must also have contained a single Soul, and a plurality of souls; and it was from the single Soul, that the multiple particular and different souls had to be born, as from one and the same genus are derived species that are both superior and inferior, and more or less intellectual. Indeed, in the intelligible world, there is, on one hand, the (universal) Intelligence which, like some great animal, potentially contains the other intelligences. On the other hand, are the individual intelligences, each of which possess in actualization what the former contains potentially. We may illustrate by a living city that would contain other living cities. The soul of the universal City would be more perfect and powerful; but nothing would hinder the souls of the other cities from being of the same kind. Similarly, in the universal Fire, there is on one hand a great fire, and on the other small fires, while the universal Being is the being of the universal Fire, or rather, is the source from which the being of the universal Fire proceeds. [Ennead IV,8 (6) 3]

Thus, although the soul have a divine nature (or “being”), though she originate in the intelligible world, she enters into a body. Being a lower divinity, she descends here below by a voluntary inclination, for the purpose of developing her power, and to adorn what is below her. If she flee promptly from here below, she does not need to regret having become acquainted with evil, and knowing the nature of vice, nor having had the opportunity of manifesting her faculties, and to manifest her activities and deeds. Indeed, the faculties of the soul would be useless if they slumbered continuously in incorporeal being without ever becoming actualized. The soul herself would ignore what she possesses if her faculties did not manifest by procession, for everywhere it is the actualization that manifests the potentiality. Otherwise, the latter would be completely hidden and obscured; or rather, it would not really exist, and would not possess any reality. It is the variety of sense-effects which illustrates the greatness of the intelligible principle, whose nature publishes itself by the beauty of its works. [Ennead IV,8 (6) 5]

Though I should set myself in opposition to popular views, I shall set down clearly what seems to me the true state of affairs. Not the whole soul enters into the body. By her higher part, she ever remains united to the intelligible world; as, by her lower part, she remains united to the sense-world. If this lower part dominates, or rather, if it be dominated (by sensation) and troubled, it hinders us from being conscious of what the higher part of the soul contemplates. Indeed that which is thought impinges on our consciousness only in case it descends to us, and is felt. In general, we are conscious of what goes on in every part of the soul only when it is felt by the entire soul. For instance, appetite, which is the actualization of lustful desire, is by us cognized only when we perceive it by the interior sense or by discursive reason, or by both simultaneously. Every soul has a lower part turned towards the body, and a higher part turned towards divine Intelligence. The universal Soul manages the universe by her lower part without any kind of trouble, because she governs her body not as we do by any reasoning, but by intelligence, and consequently in a manner entirely different from that adopted by art. The individual souls, each of whom administers a part of the universe, also have a part that rises above their body; but they are distracted from thought by sensation, and by a perception of a number of things which are contrary to nature, and which come to trouble them, and afflict them. Indeed, the body that they take care of constitutes but a part of the universe, is incomplete, and is surrounded by exterior objects. That is why it has so many needs, why it desires luxuriousness, and why it is deceived thereby. On the contrary, the higher part of the soul is insensible to the attraction of these transitory pleasures, and leads an undisturbed life. [Ennead IV,8 (6) 8]

But how is an actualization begotten from that self-limited (intelligible)? We shall have to draw a distinction between an actualization of being, and an actualization out of the being of each thing (actualized being, and actualization emanating from being). Actualized being cannot differ from being, for it is being itself. But the actualization emanating from being — and everything necessarily has an actualization of this kind — differs from what produces it. It is as if with fire: there is a difference between the heat which constitutes its being, and the heat which radiates exteriorly, while the fire interiorly realizes the actualization which constitutes its being, and which makes it preserve its nature. Here also, and far more so, the First remains in His proper state, and yet simultaneously, by His inherent perfection, by the actualization which resides in Him, has been begotten the actualization which, deriving its existence from so great a power, nay, from supreme Power, has arrived at, or achieved essence and being. As to the First, He was above being; for He was the potentiality of all things, already being all things. [Ennead V,4 (7) 2]

If this (actualization begotten by the First, this external actualization) be all things, then that (One) is above all things, and consequently above being. If then (this external actualization) be all things, and be before all things, it does not occupy the same rank as the remainder (of all other things); and must, in this respect also, be superior to being, and consequently also to intelligence; for there is Something superior to intelligence. Essence is not, as you might say, dead; it is not devoid of life or thought; for intelligence and essence are identical. Intelligible entities do not exist before the intelligence that thinks them, as sense-objects exist before the sensation which perceives them. Intelligence itself is the things that it thinks, since their forms are not introduced to them from without. From where indeed would intelligence receive these forms? Intelligence exists with the intelligible things; intelligence is identical with them, is one with them. Reciprocally, intelligible entities do not exist without their matter (that is, Intelligence). [Ennead V,4 (7) 2]

It may be objected that in science a part is not the total science. Doubtless, the notion which is actualized, and which is studied to the exclusion of others, because there is special need of it, is only partially an actualization. Nevertheless, in a latent manner it potentially comprises all the other notions it implies. Thus, all the notions are contained in each part of the science, and in this respect each part is the total science; for what is only partially actualized (potentially) comprises all the notions of science. Each notion that one wishes to render explicit is at one’s disposition; and this in every part of the science that is considered; but if it be compared with the whole science, it seems to be there only potentially. It must not, however, be thought that the particular notion does not contain anything of the other notions; in this case, there would be nothing systematic or scientific about it; it would be nothing more than a sterile conception. Being a really scientific notion, it potentially contains all the notions of the science; and the genuine scientist knows how to discover all its notions in a single one, and how to develop its consequences. The geometrical expert shows in his demonstrations how each theorem contains all the preceding ones, to which he harks back by analysis, and how each theorem leads to all the following ones, by deduction. [Ennead IV,9 (8) 5]

In this choric ballet, the soul sees the source of life, the source of intelligence, the principle of being, the cause of the good, and the root of love. All these entities are derived from the One without diminishing Him. He is indeed no corporeal mass; otherwise the things that are born of Him would be perishable. However, they are eternal, because their principle ever remains the same, because He does not divide Himself to produce them, but remains entire. They persist, just as the light persists so long as the sun remains. Nor are we separated from the One; we are not distant from Him, though corporeal nature, by approaching us, has attracted us to it (thus drawing us away from the One). But it is in the One that we breathe and have our being. He gave us life not merely at a given moment, only to leave us later; but His giving is perpetual, so long as He remains what He is, or rather, so long as we turn towards Him. There it is that we find happiness, while to withdraw from Him is to fall. It is in Him that our soul rests; it is by rising to that place free from all evil that she is delivered from evils; there she really thinks, there she is impassible, there she really lives. Our present life, in which we are not united with the divinity, is only a trace or adumbration of real life. Real life (which is presence with the divinity) is the actualization of intelligence. It is this actualization of intelligence which begets the divinities by a sort of silent intercourse with the One; thereby begetting beauty, justice and virtue. These are begotten by the soul that is filled with divinity. In Him is her principle and goal; her principle, because it is from there that she proceeds; her goal, because there is the good to which she aspires, so that by returning thither she again becomes what she was. Life here below, in the midst of sense-objects, is for the soul a degradation, an exile, a loss of her wings. [Ennead VI,9 (9) 9]

Since the nature of the Soul is so divine and precious, you may be assured of being able to reach the divinity through her; with her you can ascend to Him. You will not need to search for Him far from yourself; nor will there be several intermediaries between yourself and Him. To reach Him, take as guide the divinest and highest part of the Soul, the power from which she proceeds, and by which she impinges on the intelligible world. Indeed, in spite of the divinity which we have attributed to her, the Soul is no more than an image of Intelligence. As the exterior word (speech) is the image of the (interior) word (of thought?) of the soul, the Soul herself is the word and actualization of Intelligence. She is the life which escapes from Intelligence to form another hypostatic form of existence, just as the fire contains the latent heat which constitutes its essence (“being”), and also the heat that radiates from it outside. Nevertheless, the Soul does not entirely issue from within Intelligence; she does partly reside therein, but also forms (a nature) distinct therefrom. As the Soul proceeds from Intelligence, she is intelligible; and the manifestation of her intellectual power is discursive reason. From Intelligence the Soul derives her perfection, as well as her existence; only in comparison with Intelligence does the Soul seem imperfect. The Soul, therefore, is the hypostatic substance that proceeds from Intelligence, and when the Soul contemplates Intelligence the soul is reason actualized. Indeed, while the soul contemplates Intelligence, the Soul intimately possesses the things she thinks; from her own resources she draws the actualizations she produces; these intellectual and pure actualizations are indeed the Soul’s only characteristic activities. Those of an inferior nature really proceed from a foreign principle; they are passions. [Ennead V,1 (10) 3]

Besides everything that is a mass or a magnitude could not occupy the first rank in nature; those gross objects which are by sensation considered beings must be ranked as inferior. In seeds, it is not the moist element that should be valued, but the invisible principle, number, and the (seminal) reason. Number and “pair” are only names for the reasons (ideas) and intelligence. The “pair” is indeterminate so far as it plays the part of substrate (in respect to unity). The number that is derived from the pair, and the one, constitute every kind of form, so that Intelligence has a shape which is determined by the ideas begotten within it. Its shape is derived in one respect from the one, and in another respect, from itself, just like actualized sight. Thought, indeed, is actualized sight, and both these entities (the faculty and the actualization) form but one. [Ennead V,1 (10) 5]

All that is moved must have a direction towards which it is moved; we must therefore conclude that that which has no direction towards which it is moved must be at a stand-still, and that anything born of this principle must be born without causing this principle to cease being turned towards itself. We must, however, remove from our mind the idea of a generation operated within time, for we are here treating of eternal things. When we apply to them the conception of generation, we mean only a relation of causality and effect. What is begotten by the One must be begotten by Him without any motion on the part of the One; if He were moved, that which was begotten from Him would, because of this movement, be ranked third, instead of second. Therefore, since the One is immovable, He produces the hypostatic (form of existence) which is ranked second, without volition, consent, or any kind of movement. What conception are we then to form of this generation of Intelligence by this immovable Cause? It is a radiation of light which escapes without disturbing its quietness, like the splendor which emanates perpetually from the sun, without affecting its quietness, which surrounds it without leaving it. Thus all things, in so far as they remain within existence, necessarily draw from their own essence (“being”) and produce externally a certain nature that depends on their power, and that is the image of the archetype from which it is derived. Thus does fire radiate heat; thus snow spreads cold. Perfumes also furnish a striking example of this process; so long as they last, they emit exhalations in which everything that surrounds them participates. Everything that has arrived to its point of perfection begets something. That which is eternally perfect begets eternally; and that which it begets is eternal though inferior to the generating principle. What then should we think of Him who is supremely perfect? Does He not beget? On the contrary, He begets that which, after Him, is the greatest. Now that which, after Him, is the most perfect, is the second rank principle, Intelligence. Intelligence contemplates Unity, and needs none but Him; but the Unity has no need of Intelligence. That which is begotten by the Principle superior to Intelligence can be nothing if not Intelligence; for it is the best after the One, since it is superior to all other beings. The Soul, indeed, is the word and actualization of Intelligence, just as Intelligence is word and actualization of the One. But the Soul is an obscure word. Being an image of Intelligence, she must contemplate Intelligence, just as the latter, to subsist, must contemplate the One. Intelligence contemplates the One, not because of any separation therefrom, but only because it is after the One. There is no intermediary between the One and Intelligence, any more than between Intelligence and the Soul. Every begotten being desires to unite with the principle that begets it, and loves it, especially when the begetter and the begotten are alone. Now when the begetter is supremely perfect, the begotten must be so intimately united to Him as to be separated from Him only in that it is distinct from Him. [Ennead V,1 (10) 6]

Just like the One, it was by effusion of its power that Intelligence begat something similar to itself. Thus from Intelligence emanated an image, just as Intelligence emanated from the One. The actualization that proceeds from Essence (and Intelligence) is the universal Soul. She is born of Intelligence, and determines herself without Intelligence issuing from itself, just as Intelligence itself proceeded from the One without the One ceasing from His repose. [Ennead V,2 (11) 1]

To this it may first be answered that the indeterminate should not be scorned everywhere, nor that which is conceived of as shapeless, even if this be the substrate of the higher and better entities; for we might call even the soul indeterminate, in respect to intelligence and reason, which give it a better shape and nature. Besides, when we say that intelligible things are composite (of matter and form), this is not in the sense in which the word is used of bodies. Even reasons would thus be called composite, and by their actualization form another alleged composite, nature, which aspires to form. If, in the intelligible world, the composite tend toward some other principle, or depend thereon, the difference between this composite and bodies is still better marked. Besides, the matter of begotten things ceaselessly changes form, while the matter of the intelligible entities ever remains identical. Further, matter here below is subject to other conditions (than in the intelligible world). Here below, indeed, matter is all things only partly, and is all things only successively; consequently, amidst these perpetual changes nothing is identical, nothing is permanent. Above, on the contrary, matter is all things simultaneously, and possessing all things, could not transform itself. Consequently, matter is never shapeless above; for it is not even shapeless here below. Only the one (intelligible matter) is situated differently from the other (sense-matter). Whether, however, (intelligible matter) be begotten, or be eternal, is a question that cannot be determined until we know what it is. [Ennead II,4 (12) 3]

(According to Aristotle), Empedocles   thinks matter consists of elements; but this opinion is refuted by the decay to which they are exposed. (According to Aristotle), Anaxagoras supposes that matter is a mixture and, instead of saying that this (mixture) is capable of becoming all things, he insists that it contains all things in actualization. Thus he annihilates the intelligence that he had introduced into the world; for, according to him, it is not intelligence that endows all the rest with shape and form; it is contemporaneous with matter, instead of preceding it. Now it is impossible for intelligence to be the contemporary of matter, for if mixture participate in essence, then must essence precede it; if, however, essence itself be the mixture, they will need some third principle. Therefore if the demiurgic creator necessarily precede, what need was there for the forms in miniature to exist in matter, for intelligence to unravel their inextricable confusion, when it is possible to predicate qualities of matter, because matter had none of its own, and thus to subject matter entirely to shape? Besides, how could (the demiurgic creator) then be in all? [Ennead II,4 (12) 7]

What then is our guardian? It is one of the powers of our soul. What is our divinity? It is also one of the powers of our soul. (Is it the power which acts principally in us as some people think?) For the power which acts in us seems to be that which leads us, since it is the principle which dominates in us. Is that the guardian to which we have been allotted during the course of our life? No: our guardian is the power immediately superior to the one that we exercise, for it presides over our life without itself being active. The power which is active in us is inferior to the one that presides over our life, and it is the one which essentially constitutes us. If then we live on the plane of the sense-life, our guardian is reason; if we live on the rational plane, our guardian will be the principal superior to reason (namely, intelligence); it will preside over our life, but it itself does not act, leaving that to the inferior power. Plato truly said that “we choose our guardian”; for, by the kind of life that we prefer, we choose the guardian that presides over our life. Why then does He direct us? He directs us during the course of our mortal life because he is given to us to help us to accomplish our (destiny); but he can no longer direct us when our destiny is accomplished, because the power over the exercise of which he presided allows another power to act in his place (which however is dead, since the life in which it acted is terminated). This other power wishes to act in its turn, and, after having established its preponderance, it exercises itself during the course of a new life, itself having another guardian. If then we should chance to degrade ourselves by letting an inferior power prevail in us, we are punished for it. Indeed, the evil man degenerates because the power which he has developed in his life makes him descend to the existence of the brute, by assimilating him to it by his morals. If we could follow the guardian who is superior to him, he himself would become superior by sharing his life. He would then take as guide a part of himself superior to the one that governs him, then another part, still more elevated until he had arrived at the highest. Indeed, the soul is several things, or rather, the soul is all things; she is things both inferior and superior; she contains all the degrees of life. Each of us, in a certain degree, is the intelligible world; by our inferior part we are related to the sense-world, and by our superior part, to the intelligible world; we remain there on high by what constitutes our intelligible essence; we are attached here below by the powers which occupy the lowest rank in the soul. Thus we cause an emanation, or rather an actualization which implies no loss to the intelligible, to pass from the intelligible into the sense-world. [Ennead III,4 (15) 3]

Is the power which is the act of the soul always united to a body? No; for when the soul turns towards the superior regions, she raises this power with her. Does the universal (Soul) also raise with herself to the intelligible world the inferior power which is her actualization (nature)? No: for she does not incline towards her low inferior portion, because she neither came nor descended into the world; but, while she remains in herself, the body of the world comes to unite with her, and to offer itself to receive her light’s radiation; besides, her body does not cause her any anxiety, because it is not exposed to any peril. Does not the world, then, possess any senses? “It has no sight” (says Plato) “for it has no eyes. Neither has it ears, nostrils, nor tongue.” Does it, then, as we, possess the consciousness of what is going on within it? As, within the world, all things go on uniformly according to nature, it is, in this respect, in a kind of repose; consequently, it does not feel any pleasure. The power of growth exists within it without being present therein; and so also with the sense-power. Besides, we shall return to a study of the question. For the present, we have said all that relates to the question in hand. [Ennead III,4 (15) 4]

The whiteness that I see in you is not a quality, but an actualization of the potentiality of whitening. In the intelligible world all the things that we call qualities are actualizations. They are called qualities because they are properties, because they differentiate the beings from each other, because in respect to themselves they bear a particular character. But since quality in the sense-world is also an actualization, in what does it differ from the intelligible quality? The sense-quality does not show the essential quality of every being, nor the difference or character of substances, but simply the thing that we properly call quality, and which is an actualization in the intelligible world. When the property of something is to be a being, this thing is not a quality. But when reason separates beings from their properties, when it removes nothing from them, when it limits itself to conceiving and begetting different from these beings, it begets quality, which it conceives of as the superficial part of being. In this case, nothing hinders the heat of the fire, so far as it is natural to it, from constituting a form, an actualization, and not a quality of the fire; it is a quality when it exists in a substance where it no longer constitutes the form of being, but only a trace, an adumbration, an image of being, because it finds itself separated from the being whose actualization it is. [Ennead II,6 (17) 3]

Qualities, therefore, are everything that, instead of being actualizations and forms of beings, are only its accidents, and only reveal its shapes. We will therefore call qualities the habituations and the dispositions which are not essential to substances. The archetypes (or models) of qualities are the actualizations of the beings, which are the principles of these qualities. It is impossible for the same thing at one time to be, and at another not to be a quality. What can be separated from being is quality; what remains united to being is being, form, and actualization. In fact, nothing can be the same in itself, and in some other condition where it has ceased to be form and an actualization. What, instead of being the form of a being, is always its accident, is purely and exclusively a quality. [Ennead II,6 (17) 3]

Now suppose a single sound or word; those who listen to it hear it and receive it, each in his own way; hearing passes into each of them in the condition of an actualization, and perceives what is acting on it. We thus became two men at once (the intelligible Man, and the sense-man who added himself to the former); we are no longer, as before, only one of the two; or rather, we are sometimes still only one of them, the man who added himself to the first. This occurs every time that the first Man slumbers in us, and is not present, in a certain sense (when we fail to reflect about the conceptions of intelligence). [Ennead VI,4 (22) 14]

This is how this participation takes place for the parts of this universe (that is, the bodies). Being situated as it were on the confines of the intelligible world, the soul often gives the body something of herself; for, by her power (or potentiality), she is the neighbor of the body; and finding herself close to it, she enters into dealings therewith by virtue of a law of her nature; but this intercourse is of evil, and to enfranchise herself from the body is good. Why? Because if the soul be not the (property or slave) of the body in this intercourse, she, nevertheless, unites herself to it, and though she were universal, she becomes individual; for her activity no longer is exclusively confined to the intelligible world, although (she still, by nature) belong thereto. It is as if someone, who was an expert in a whole science, confined himself to a single proposition thereof; whereas a person who possesses a whole science should naturally consider its entirety, and not a mere part of it. Likewise the soul, which belonged entirely to the intelligible world, and which partially blended her particular essence with the total Essence, withdrew out of the universal Essence, and became individual essence, because the body to which she confines her activities is only a part of this universe. It is as if the fire, endowed with the ability of burning everything, was reduced to burn out some small object, although it possessed power of universal scope. Indeed, when the particular soul is separated from the body, she is no longer particular (in actualization); on the contrary, when she has separated herself from the universal Soul, not by passing from one locality to another, but by applying her activity (to a part of this universe, to a body), she becomes particular (in actualization), though she remain universal in another manner (in potentiality); for when the soul presides over no body she is truly universal, and is particular only in potentiality. [Ennead VI,4 (22) 16]

Consequently, when we say that the soul is in hell (Hades), if we mean by “hades” an invisible place, that means that the soul is separated from the body; if, on the contrary, we understand hell to mean a lower locality, we may also offer a reasonable interpretation: for now our soul is with our body and is located with it. But what is meant by saying that the soul is in hell after the body no longer exists? If the soul be not separated from her image, why should she not be where her image is? If the soul were separated from her image by philosophy, this image will alone go to the lower locality, while the soul lives purely in the intelligible world, without any emanation. This is what we had to teach about the image born of some particular individual. As to the soul, if she concentrate in her breast the light that radiates around her, then, turned towards the intelligible world, she entirely re-enters into this world; she is no longer in actualization. But this does not cause her to perish (for when she is incarnated in a body, and is particular, she exists only potentially; while she attains to actualization when she becomes universal). So much for this point; now let us return to our subject. [Ennead VI,4 (22) 16]

Intelligible entities, indeed, though they form a manifold, nevertheless, form an unity. On the other hand, though they form an unity, yet by virtue of their infinite nature they also form a manifold. They are the multitude in unity, and unity in multitude; they all subsist together. They direct their actualization towards the whole, with the whole, and it is still with the whole, that they apply themselves to the part. The part receives within itself the first action, as if it were that of only a part; but, nevertheless, it is the whole that acts. It is as if a Man-in-himself, on descending into a certain man, became this man without, however, ceasing being the Man-in-himself. The material man, proceeding from the ideal Man, who is single, has produced a multitude of men, who are the same because one and the same thing has impressed its seal on a multitude. Thus the Man-in-himself, and every intelligible entity in itself, and then the whole entire universal Essence is not in the multitude, but the multitude is in the universal Essence, or rather, refers to it; for if whiteness be everywhere present in the body, it is not in the same manner as the soul of an individual is present and identical in all the organs. It is in this latter manner that the essence is present everywhere. [Ennead VI,5 (23) 6]

What is manifold needs to seek itself, and naturally desires to embrace itself, and to grasp itself by self-consciousness. But that which is absolutely One could not reflect on itself, and need self-consciousness. The absolutely identical principle is superior to consciousness and thought. Intelligence is not the first; it is not the first either by its essence, nor by the majestic value of its existence. It occupies only the second rank. It existed only when the Good already existed; and as soon as it existed, it turned towards the Good. In turning towards the Good, Intelligence cognized the latter; for thought consists of conversion towards the Good, and aspiration thereto. Aspiration towards the Good, therefore, produced thought, which identifies itself with the Good; for vision presupposes the desire to see. The Good, therefore, cannot think; for it has no good other than itself. Besides, when something other than the Good thinks the Good, it thinks the Good because it takes the form of the Good, and resembles the Good. It thinks, because itself becomes for itself a good and desirable object, and because it possesses an image of the Good. If this thing always remain in the same disposition, it will always retain this image of the Good. By thinking itself, Intelligence simultaneously thinks the Good; for it does not think itself as being actualized; yet every actualization has the Good as its goal. [Ennead V,6 (24) 5]

If the above arguments be worth while, the Good has no place for thought. What thinks must have its good outside of itself. The Good, therefore, is not active; for what need to actualize would actualization have? To say that actualization actualizes, is tautology. Even if we may be allowed to attribute something to actualizations which relate to some principle other than themselves, at least the first actualization to which all other actualizations refer, must be simply what it is. This actualization is not thought; it has nothing to think, as it is the First. Besides, that which thinks is not thought, but what possesses thought. Thus there is duality in what thinks; but there is no duality in the First. [Ennead V,6 (24) 6]

Shall we say that what thus exists potentially is potentiality in respect of what is to be; as, for instance, that the metal is the potentiality of a statue? Not so, if we refer to the producing potentiality; for the producing potentiality cannot be said to exist potentially. If, then, we identified existing potentially not only with existing actually, but also with actuality, then potentiality would coincide with potential existence. It would be better and clearer, therefore, to contrast potential existence with actual existence, and potentiality with actuality. The thing which thus exists potentially is the substance underlying the reactions, shapes and forms which it is naturally fitted to receive, to which it aspires for their betterment or deterioration, and for the destruction of those whose actualization constitutes differentiation. [Ennead V,5 (25) 1]

But when the soul contains some of those false opinions which are the principal cause of vice, must we not acknowledge that something positive occurs in her, and that one of her parts undergoes an alteration? Is not the disposition of the soul’s irascible part different according to its courage or cowardliness? And the soul’s appetitive-part, according to whether it be temperate or intemperate? We answer that a part of the soul is virtuous, when it acts in conformity with its “being,” or when it obeys reason; for reason commands all the parts of the soul, and herself is subjected to intelligence. Now to obey reason is to see; it is not to receive an impression, but to have an intuition, to carry out the act of vision. Sight is of the same (nature) when in potentiality, or in actualization; it is not altered in passing from potentiality to actualization, she only applies herself to do what it is her (nature) to do, to see and know, without being affected. Her rational part is in the same relation with intelligence; she has the intuition thereof. The nature of intelligence is not to receive an impression similar to that made by a seal, but in one sense to possess what it sees, and not to possess it in another; intelligence possesses it by cognizing it; but intelligence does not possess it in this sense that while seeing it intelligence does not receive from it a shape similar to that impressed on wax by a seal. Again, we must not forget that memory does not consist in keeping impressions, but is the soul’s faculty of recalling and representing to herself the things that are not present to her. Some objector might say that the soul is different before reawakening a memory, and after having reawakened it. She may indeed be different, but she is not altered, unless indeed, we call the passing from potentiality to actualization an alteration. In any case, nothing extraneous enters into her, she only acts according to her own nature. [Ennead III,6 (26) 2]

The affective part of the soul, therefore, is not corporeal; it is a form indeed, but a form engaged in matter, such as the appetite, the power of growth, both nutritive and generative, a power which is the root and principle of appetite, and the affective part of the soul. Now a form cannot undergo an affection or a passion, but must remain what it is. It is the matter (of a body) which is capable of being affected by a “passion” (an affection), when this affection is produced by the presence of the power which is its principle. Indeed it is neither the power of growth that grows, nor the nutritive power that is fed; in general, the principle that produces a motion is not itself moved by the movement it produces; in case it were moved in any way, its movement and action would be of an entirely different nature. Now the nature of a form is an actualization, by its mere presence producing (something), just as if the harmony alone could cause the vibration of the strings of a lyre. Thus the affective part (of the soul, without itself being affected) is the cause of the affections, whether the movement proceed from it, that is, from sense-imagination, or whether they occur without (distinct) imagination. [Ennead III,6 (26) 4]

Nor should we (apply to the soul) the word “part” in the sense that some single proposition is a part of the total science. In this case the total science does not remain any less the same (when it is divided), and its division is only as it were the production and actualization of each of its component parts. Here each proposition potentially contains the total science, and (in spite of its division), the total science remains whole. [Ennead IV,3 (27) 2]

This question may be answered as follows. The unitary Being (that is Intelligence), subsists in itself without descending into the bodies. From unitary Being proceed the universal Soul and the other souls, which, up to a certain point, exist all together, and form but a single soul so far as they do not belong to any particular individual (contained in the sense-world). If, however, by their superior extremities they attach themselves to Unity, if within it they coincide, they later diverge (by their actualization), just as on the earth light is divided between the various dwellings of men, nevertheless remaining one and indivisible. In this case, the universal Soul is ever elevated above the others because she is not capable of descending, of falling, of inclining towards the sense-world. Our souls, on the contrary, descend here below, because special place is assigned to them in this world, and they are obliged to occupy themselves with a body which demands sustained attention. By her lower part, the universal Soul resembles the vital principle which animates a great plant, and which there manages everything peaceably and noiselessly. By their lower part our souls are similar to those animalculae born of the decaying parts of plants. That is the image of the living body of the universe. The higher part of our soul, which is similar to the higher part of the universal Soul, might be compared to a farmer who, having noticed the worms by which the plant is being devoured, should apply himself to destroying them, and should solicitously care for the plant. So we might say that the man in good health, and surrounded by healthy people, is entirely devoted to his duties or studies; the sick man, on the contrary, is entirely devoted to his body, and becomes dependent thereon. [Ennead IV,3 (27) 4]

This difference between souls is caused principally by the constitution of the bodies they animate; also by the moral habits, the activities, the thoughts and behavior of these souls in earlier existence. According to Plato the choice of the souls’ condition depends on their anterior existence. On observing the nature of souls in general, we find that Plato recognizes differences between them by saying that some souls occupy the second or third ranks. Now we have said that all souls are (potentially) all things, that each is characterized by the faculty principally exercised thereby, that is, that some souls unite with the intelligible world by actualization, while others do so in thought or desire. Souls, thus contemplating different objects, are and become all that they contemplate. Fulness and perfection also belong to soul, but in this respect they are not all identical, because variety is the law that directs their co-ordination. Indeed, the universal reason is on the one hand manifold, and on the other varied, like a being that is animate, and which possesses manifold forms. In this case, there is co-ordination; beings are not entirely separated from each other, and there is no place for chance either in real beings, nor in bodies; consequently the number of beings is definite. To be individual, beings must first be stable, then they must remain identical, and last, they must numerically be one in order to achieve individuality. Bodies which by nature perpetually ooze away, because for them form is something incidental, never possess formal existence but by their participation in (and imitation of), genuine “Beings.” On the contrary, for the latter, that are not composite, existence consists in each of them being numerically single, in possessing this unity which dates from the beginning, which does not become what it was not, and which will never cease being what it is. If indeed they cannot exist without some producing principle, that principle will not derive them from matter. It will have to add to them something from its own being. But if intelligible entities thus have at times more, and at times less, perfection, they will change; which would contradict their (nature, or) “being,” which is to remain identical. Why indeed should they become such as they are now, and why should they not always have been such as they now are? Further, if they be at times more or less perfect, if they “become,” they are not eternal. But it is granted that the Soul (as an intelligible being) is eternal. [Ennead IV,3 (27) 8]

It (may be objected) that nothing hinders Intelligence from knowing the changes of other beings, such as, for instance, the periodical revolutions of the world, without itself undergoing any change. But then it would have to follow the changes of the moving object, as it would think first of one thing, and then of another. Besides, thought is something else than memory, and we must not apply to self-consciousness the name of memory. Indeed, intelligence does not busy itself with retaining its thoughts, and with hindering them from escaping; otherwise it might also fear lest it lose its own nature (“Being”). For the soul herself, remembering is not the same as recalling innate notions. When the soul has descended here below, she may possess these notions without thinking of them, especially if it be only recently that she entered into the body. The ancient philosophers seem to have applied the terms memory and reminiscence to the actualization by which the soul thinks of the entities she possesses; that (however) is a quite special kind of memory, entirely independent of time. [Ennead IV,3 (27) 25]

(To solve all these difficulties) it may be stated that nothing hinders the admission that the actualization of the sensation produces in memory an image, and that the imagination, which differs (from sensation), possesses the power of preserving and recalling these images. It is indeed imagination in which sensation culminates; and when sensation ceases, imagination preserves its representation. If then this power preserve the image of the absent object, it constitutes memory. According as the image remains for a longer or shorter time, memory is or is not faithful; and our memories last, or are effaced. Memory of sense-objects therefore belongs to the imagination. If this faculty of memory be possessed by different persons in unequal degrees, this difference depends either on the difference of forces, or on practice (or exercise), or on the absence or presence of certain bodily dispositions which may or may not influence memory, or disturb it. But elsewhere we shall study the question further. [Ennead IV,3 (27) 29]

What about intellectual conceptions? Are they also preserved by imagination? If imagination accompany every thought, and if later it, as it were, preserves its image, we should thus have the memory of the known object; otherwise some other solution will have to be sought. Perhaps reason, whose actualization always accompanies thought, has the function of receiving it and transmitting it to imagination. Indeed, thought is indivisible, and so long as it is not evoked from the depths of intelligence, it remains as it were hidden within it. Reason develops it, and making it pass from the state of thought to that of image, spreads it out as it were in a mirror, for our imagination. That is why we grasp (the thought) only when the soul, which always desires rational thought, has achieved a thought. There is a difference between thought and the perception of thought. We are always thinking, but we do not always perceive our thought. That comes from the fact that the principle that perceives the thoughts also perceives the sensations, and occupies itself with both in turn. [Ennead IV,3 (27) 30]

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). [Ennead IV,4 (28) 4]

How would such a wisdom differ from so-called nature? (In the Soul) wisdom occupies the first rank, and nature the last. Nature is only the image of wisdom; now, if nature occupy no more than the last rank, she must also have only the last degree of the reason that enlightens the Soul. As illustration, take a piece of wax, on which the figure impressed on one side penetrates to the other; and whose well-marked traits on the upper face appear on the lower face only in a confused manner. Such is the condition of nature. She does not know, she only produces, blindly she transmits to matter the form she possesses, just as some warm object transmits to another, but in a lesser degree, the heat it itself possesses. Nature does not even imagine: for the act of imagining, inferior as it is to that of thinking, is nevertheless superior to that of impressing a form, as nature does it. Nature can neither grasp nor understand anything; while imagination seizes the adventitious object and permits the one who is imaging to know what he has experienced. As to nature, all it knows is to beget; it is the actualization of the active potentiality (of the universal Soul). Consequently, Intelligence possesses intelligible forms; the (universal) Soul has received them, and ceaselessly receives them from her; that is what her life consists of; the clearness which shines in her is the consciousness she has of her thought. The reflection which (the Soul herself projects on matter is nature, which terminates the series of essences, and occupies the last rank in the intelligible world; after her, there is nothing but imitations (of beings). Nature, while acting on matter is passive in respect (to the Soul). The (Soul), superior to nature, acts without suffering. Finally, the supreme (Intelligence) does not (itself) act on the bodies or on matter. [Ennead IV,4 (28) 13]

We still have to solve one question bearing on the above discussion. If eternity relate to Intelligence, and time to the Soul — for we have stated that the existence of time is related to the actualization of the Soul, and depends therefrom — how can time be divided, and have a past, without the Soul’s action itself being divided, without her reflection on the past constituting memory in her? Indeed, eternity implies identity, and time implies diversity; otherwise, if we suppose there is no change in the actualizations of the Soul, time will have nothing to distinguish it from eternity. Shall we say that our souls, being subject to change and imperfection, are in time, while the universal Soul begets time without herself being in it? [Ennead IV,4 (28) 15]

But how are they anterior to each other? It must be because here he who commands is identical with him who is commanded. Now in commanding he expresses one thing after another; for why are all things not together? (Not so). If the command and he who commands were separate entities, the things would have been produced in the same manner as they have been expressed (by speech); but as the commander is himself the first command, he does not express things (by speech), he only produces them one after the other. If he were (by speech) to express what he actually does, he would have to consider the order; consequently, he would have to be separate from it. Is it asked, how can the commander be identical with the command? He is not simultaneously form and matter, but form alone (that is, the totality of the reasons which are simultaneously present to him). Thus, the Soul is both the potentiality and the actualization which occupy the second rank after Intelligence. To have parts some of which are prior to others suits only such objects as cannot be everything simultaneously. [Ennead IV,4 (28) 16]

Let us now recall what has already been established. The universe is a single living being by virtue of its unity being sympathetic with itself. The course of its life is regulated by reason; it is entirely in agreement with itself; it has nothing fortuitous, it offers a single order, and a single harmony. Besides, all the (star) figures are each conformed to a reason and to a determinate number. The parts of the universal living beings which constitute this kind of a dance — we mean the figures produced in it, of the parts figured therein, as well as the things derived therefrom — are the very actualization of the universe. Thus the universe lives in the manner we have determined, and its powers contribute to this state according to the nature they have received from the reason that has produced them. The figures are, in some way, the reasons of the universal Living being, the intervals or contrasts (of the parts) of the Living being, the attitudes they take according to the laws of rhythm, and according to the reason of the universe. The beings which by their relative distances produce these figures are the divers members of this living being. The different powers of this living being act without deliberation, as its members, because deliberation is a process foreign to the nature of themselves or to this living being. Aspiration to a single aim is the characteristic of the single living being; but it includes manifold powers. All these different wills aspire to the same end as the single will of the organism, for each part desires some one of the different objects that it contains. Each wishes to possess something of the other’s possessions, and to obtain what it lacks; each experiences a feeling of anger against another, when it is excited against that other; each increases at the expense of another, and begets another. The universe produces all these actions in its parts, but at the same time it seeks the Good, or rather, it contemplates it. It is always the Good that is sought by the right will, which is above passions, and thus accords with the will of the universe. Similarly, servants ascribe many of their actions to the orders received from their master; but the desire of the Good carries them where their own master is carried. Consequently, the sun and the other stars exert what influence they do exert on things here below through contemplation of the intelligible world. [Ennead IV,4 (28) 35]

Could light exist without air, if the sun illuminated the surface of bodies, and if there were a void in the interval which is accidentally illuminated by virtue of its location (between the sun and the bodies)? It is certain that if the other things were affected because the air itself was affected, and if light were nothing more than an affection of the air, that is, its substance; then indeed this affection could not exist without the experiencing subject (the air). But (in our view) light is not essentially characteristic of air as such; for all fiery and brilliant bodies, among which are precious stones, possess a luminous color. Could that which passes from a brilliant body into some other body exist without that other body? If light be but a simple quality of an object, and as every quality implies a subject on which it depends, light will have to be sought in the body in which it resides. If, on the contrary, light be only an actualization produced by some other thing, and if there be no body contiguous to the luminous object, and it be entirely surrounded by a void, why could light not exist, and radiate upwards (as well as downwards, and in every direction)? Since light radiates, why should it not radiate without hindrance? If its nature be to fall, it will spontaneously descend; for neither the air nor any illuminated body will make it issue from the illuminating body, nor can force it to advance, since it is neither an accident that implies a subject, nor an affection that implies an affected object. Otherwise, the light would remain (in the illuminated body) when the object from which it emanates should happen to withdraw; but since the light withdraws with it, it radiates. In what direction does light radiate? (Its radiation) demands no more than the existence of sufficient space; otherwise the body of the sun would lose its actualization; that is, the light it radiates. In this case light would not be the quality of a subject, but the actualization that emanates from a subject, but which does not pass into any other subject (as a kind of undulation); but if another subject be present, it will suffer an affection. As life, which constitutes an actualization of the soul, affects the body if it be present, and does not any the less constitute an actualization if the body be absent, likewise light constitutes an actualization subject to the same conditions. It is not the obscurity of the air that begets light, nor obscurity mingled with the earth which produces an impure light; otherwise one might produce something sweet by mingling some thing with what is bitter. The statement that light is a modification of the air, is incomplete without the addition that the air must itself be modified by this modification, and that the obscurity of the air is no longer obscure after having undergone that change. The air itself, however, remains what it was, just as if it had not been affected. The affection belongs only to that which has been affected. Color therefore does not belong to the air, but subsists in itself; the air’s only function is its presence. But enough of this. [Ennead IV,5 (29) 6]

It might be asked whether the withdrawal of the object from which light emanates abandons the light to destruction, or does the light follow the source into withdrawal? This question is related to the former one; (and it may be said that) if the light inhere in the illuminated body in a manner such as to have become characteristic of it, the light perishes with it. The light is an immanent actualization, for otherwise it would surround the object from which it emanates, and remain within it, accumulating there. If this were so, the light could not vanish so long as the object from which it emanates itself continues to subsist. If this object pass from one place to another, light would pass thither also, not because it turns back on itself or changes locality, but because the actualization of the luminous object exists and is present as soon as nothing opposes it. If the distance from the sun to the earth were much more considerable than it really is, the light of the sun would nevertheless reach us, providing no obstacle were interposed. On the one hand, there is in the luminous body an actualization, a kind of superabundant life, a principle and source of activity; on the other hand, beyond the limits of the luminous body, exists a second actualization which is the image of the actualization characteristic of this body, and which never separates itself from the body. Every being has an actualization which is its image; so that, as soon as the being exists, its actualization exists also; and so long as the being subsists, its actualization radiates nearer or further. Actualizations (differ indeed); some are feeble and obscure, others are secret or hidden, others are powerful and radiate afar. When an actualization radiates at a distance it must be admitted to exist there where it acts, where it exercises and manifests its power. Consequently one can see light shine from the eyes of animals whose eyes are naturally brilliant; likewise when the animals that exert a concentrated interior fire happen to open their eyelids, they radiate rays of light into the darkness; while, when they close their eyes, no more light exists outside them. The light therefore does not perish; only, it is no longer produced exteriorly. It does not re-enter into the animal but merely ceases to exist exteriorly, for the visual fire does not pass outside, remaining inside. Is light itself then within? At least this light remains within; but (when the eye is closed) the eyelid forms an obstacle to its diffusion. [Ennead IV,5 (29) 7]

Thus the light that emanates from bodies is the actualization of the luminous body which is active exteriorly. The light in the bodies whose original nature is such, is the formal being of the originally luminous body. When such a body has been mingled with matter, it produces color. The actualization alone does not suffice to give color; it produces only the hue, because the actualization is the property of a subject, and depends on it, so that nothing can be withdrawn from the subject without simultaneously being withdrawn from its actualization. Light is entirely incorporeal, though it be the actualization of a body. It could not therefore properly be said of light that it withdraws or is present. The true state of affairs is entirely different; for the light, so far as it is the actualization of the luminous body, is its very being. The image produced in a mirror is therefore an actualization of the visible object, which acts on anything that is passive (that can suffer, or experience), without letting any of its substance escape by any wastage. If the object be present, the image appears in the mirror; it is as it were the image of the color that possesses some particular figure. When the object withdraws, the diaphanous body no longer possesses what it possessed while the visible object was acting on the mirror. A similar condition is that of the soul; her actualization dwells within the (world’s) body so long as this soul herself dwells within it. [Ennead IV,5 (29) 7]

(Curiosity might lead some one to ask about) a force that were not the actualization of the Soul, but which only proceeded from this actualization, such as the life which we say is proper to the body. Is the case of such a force similar to that of the light characteristic of bodies? We said that the light inheres in colored bodies, so far as that which produces the colors inheres in the bodies. As to the life proper to the bodies, we think that the body possesses it so far as the soul is present; for nothing can be inanimate. When the body perishes, and when it is no longer assisted by the soul which communicated life to it, nor by the actualization of this soul, how should life remain in the body? What! Has this life perished? No: this life itself has not perished, for it is only the image of an irradiation; it would not be correct to say more than that it is no more there. [Ennead IV,5 (29) 7]

(4). After having spoken of nature, and having explained how generation is a sort of contemplation, let us pass to the Soul that occupies a rank superior to nature. This is what we have to say about her. By her contemplative action, by her ardent desire to learn and to discover, by the fruitfulness of her knowledge, and her resulting need to produce, the Soul, her totality having become an object of contemplation, gave birth to some other object; just as science, on fructifying, by instruction begets a lesser science in the soul of the young disciple who possesses the images of all things, but only in the state of obscure theories, of feeble speculations, which are incapable of self-sufficiency. The higher and rational part of the Soul ever dwells in the higher region of the intelligible world, and is, by this intelligible world, ever illuminated and fructified; while the lower (“natural and generative power”) participates in what the superior part has received, by immediately participating in the intelligible; for life ever proceeds from life, and its actualization extends to everything, and is present everywhere. In her procession, the universal Soul allows her superior part to remain in the intelligible world; for, if she detached herself from this superior part, she would no longer be present everywhere; she would subsist only in her lower extremities. Besides, the part of the Soul that thus proceeds out of the intelligible world is inferior to what remains within it. Therefore, if the Soul must be present and must assert her sphere of activity everywhere, and if that which occupies the superior rank differs from that which occupies the inferior; if, besides, her activity proceeds either from contemplation or action, though indeed originally from contemplation — because contemplation precedes the action which could not exist without contemplation; in this state of affairs, though one actualization would be weaker than another, yet it would ever remain a contemplation, so that the action derived from contemplation seems to be no more than a weakened contemplation; for that which is begotten must always remain consubstantial with its generating principle, though weaker, since of lower rank. All things therefore silently proceed from the Soul, because they stand in no need of either contemplation or exterior visible action. Thus the Soul contemplates, and the contemplating part of the Soul, being somehow located outside of the superior part, and being different therefrom, produces what is below it; thus it is that contemplation begets contemplation. No more than its object is contemplation limited below; that is why it extends to everything. Where is it not? Every soul contains the same object of contemplation. This object, without being circumscribed as a magnitude, does not equally inhere in all beings; consequently, it is not present in the same way to all parts of the Soul. That is why Plato says that the charioteer of the soul communicates to his horses what he has seen. The latter receive something from him only because they desire to possess what he has seen; for they have not received the entire intelligible (world). Though they act because of a desire, they act only in view of what they desire; that is, in view of contemplation, and of its object. [Ennead III,8 (30) 5]

(5). The purpose of action is to contemplate, and to possess the contemplated object. The object or activity, therefore, is contemplation. It seeks to achieve indirectly what it is unable to accomplish directly. It is not otherwise when one has achieved the object of one’s desires. One’s real desire is not to possess the desired object without knowing it, but to know it more thoroughly, to present it to the sight of the soul, and to be able to contemplate it therein. Indeed, activity always has in view some good; one desires to posses it interiorly, to appropriate it, and to possess the result of one’s action. Now as Good can be possessed only by the soul, activity once more brings us back to contemplation. Since the soul is a “reason,” what she is capable of possessing could be no more than a silent “reason,” being so much the more silent as it is more a “reason,” for perfect “reason” seeks nothing farther; it rests in the manifestation of that with which it is filled; the completer the manifestation, the calmer is the contemplation, and the more does it unite the soul. Speaking seriously, there is identity between knowing subject and known object in the actualization of knowledge. If they were not identical, they would be different, being alien to each other, without any real bond, just as reasons (are foreign to the soul) when they slumber within her, without being perceived. The reason must therefore not remain alien to the learning soul, but become united thereto, and become characteristic of her. Therefore when the soul has appropriated a “reason,” and has familiarized herself therewith, the soul as it were draws it out of her (breast) to examine it. Thus she observes the thing that she (unconsciously) possessed, and by examining it, distinguishes herself therefrom, and by the conception she forms of it, considers it as something foreign to her; for though the soul herself be a “reason” and a kind of intelligence, nevertheless when she considers something, she considers it as something distinct from herself, because she does not possess the true fulness, and is defective in respect to her principle (which is intelligence). Besides, it is with calmness that she observes what she has drawn from within herself; for she does not draw from within herself anything of which she did not formerly have even a notion. But she only drew from within herself that of which her view was incomplete, and which she wished to know better. In her actualizations (such as sensation), she adapts the “reasons” she possesses to exterior objects. On one hand, as she possesses (the intelligible entities) better than does nature, she is also calmer and more contemplative; on the other hand, as she does not possess (the intelligible entities) perfectly, more (than intelligence) she desires to have direct experimental knowledge and contemplation of the object she contemplates. After having (temporarily) withdrawn from her own higher part, and having (by discursive reason) run through the series of differences, she returns to herself, and again gives herself up to contemplation by her higher part (intelligence) from which she had withdrawn (to observe the differences); for the higher part does not deal with differences, as it abides within herself. Consequently the wise mind is identical with reason, and in itself possesses what it manifests to others. It contemplates itself; it arrives at unity not only in respect to exterior objects, but also in respect to itself; it rests in this unity, and finds all things within itself. [Ennead III,8 (30) 6]

The begetting of animals is entirely due to the activity within them of seminal reasons. Generation is an actualization of contemplation; it results from the need of producing multiple forms, from objects of contemplation, of filling everything with reasons, of ceaseless contemplation; begetting is no more than producing a form, and to spread contemplation everywhere. All the faults met with in begotten or manufactured things are no more than faults of contemplation. The poor workman resembles the producer of bad form. Besides, lovers   must be counted among those who study forms, and who consequently give themselves up to contemplation. But enough of this. [Ennead III,8 (30) 7]

(9). This Principle then is the potentiality of all. Without it, nothing would exist, not even Intelligence, which is the primary and universal life. Indeed what is above life is the cause of life. The actualization of life, being all things, is not the first Principle; it flows from this Principle as (water) from a spring. [Ennead III,8 (30) 10]

(10). A further consideration. Since intelligence is a sort of intuition, namely, a seeing (or actualizing) intuition (or vision), it really consists of a potentiality that has passed into actualization. It will therefore contain two elements, which will play the parts of (intelligible) matter, and of form, just like actualized vision, for actualized vision also implies duality. Therefore intuition, before being actualized, was unity. Thus unity has become duality, and duality has become unity. (Sense-) vision receives from sense-objects its fulness, and its perfection, so to speak. As to intellectual vision, however, its fulness comes from a principle that is the Good. Now if intelligence were the Good itself, what would be the use of its intuition or its actualization? Other beings, indeed, aspire to the Good, as the goal of their activity; but the Good itself has need of nothing; and therefore possesses nothing but itself. After having named it, nothing should be added thereto by thought; for, to add something, is to suppose that He needs this attribute. Not even intelligence should be attributed to Him; that would be introducing therein something alien, distinguishing in Him two things, Intelligence and the Good. Intelligence needs the Good, but the Good has no need of Intelligence. On achieving the Good, Intelligence takes its form, for it derives its form from the Good; and it becomes perfect, because it assumes the nature (of the Good). The model (or, archetype) must be judged by the trace it leaves in Intelligence, conceiving of its true character according to the impression it leaves. Only by this impression does Intelligence behold and achieve the Good. That is why Intelligence aspires to the Good; and as Intelligence ever aspires to the Good, Intelligence ever achieves it. The Good itself, however, never aspires to anything; for what could He desire? Nor does He achieve anything, since He desires nothing. Therefore (the Supreme) is not Intelligence, which ever desires, and aspires to the form of Good. [Ennead III,8 (30) 11]

So great a King deserved to have dazzling beauty as the (ostentatious) van of his (royal) procession. In the course of rising towards Him are first met the things which by their inferior dignity are classed among the first ranks of the procession; later those that are greater and more beautiful; around the king stand those that are truly royal, while even those that follow Him are of value. Then, after all these things, suddenly breaks in upon our view the King himself; and we who have remained behind after the departure of those who were satisfied with a view of the preliminaries, fall down and worship. A profound difference distinguishes the great King from all that precedes Him. But it must not be supposed that He governs them as one man governs another. He possesses the most just and natural sovereignty. He possesses real royalty because He is the King of truth. He is the natural master of all these beings that He has begotten, and which compose His divine body-guard. He is the king of the king and of the kings, and is justly called Father of the divinities. Jupiter himself (who is the universal Soul), imitates Him in this respect that he does not stop at the contemplation of his father, (who is Intelligence), and he rises to the actualization of his grandfather, and he penetrates into the hypostatic substance of His being. [Ennead V,5 (32) 3]

When intelligence is in actualization it can see in two ways, as does the eye. First, the eye may see the form of the visible object; second, it may see the light by which this object is seen. This light itself is visible, but it is different from the form of the object; it reveals the form and is itself seen with this form, to which it is united. Consequently it itself is not seen distinctly, because the eye is entirely devoted to the illuminated object. When there is nothing but light, it is seen in an intuitive manner, though it be still united to some other object. For if it were isolated from every other thing, it could not be perceived. Thus the light of the sun would escape our eye if its seat were not a solid mass. My meaning will best appear by considering the whole sun as light. Then light will not reside in the form of any other visible object, and it will possess no property except that of being visible; for other visible objects are not pure light. Likewise in intellectual intuition (sight of the mind) intelligence sees intelligible objects by means of the light shed on them by the First; and the Intelligence, while seeing these objects, really sees intelligible light. But, as Intelligence directs its attention to the enlightened object, it does not clearly see the Principle that enlightens them. If, on the contrary, it forget the objects it sees, in the process of contemplating only the radiance that renders them visible, it sees both the light itself, and its Principle. But it is not outside of itself that that Intelligence contemplates intelligible light. It then resembles the eye which, without considering an exterior and foreign light, before even perceiving it, is suddenly struck by a radiance which is proper to it, or by a ray which radiates of itself, and which appears to it in the midst of obscurity. The case is still similar when the eye, in order to see no other objects, closes the eye-lids, so as to draw its light from itself; or when, pressed by the hand, it perceives the light which it possesses within itself. Then, without seeing anything exterior the eye sees, even more than at any other moment, for it sees the light. The other objects which the eye heretofore saw, though they were luminous, were not light itself. Likewise, when Intelligence, so to speak, closes its eye to the other objects, concentrating in itself, and seeing nothing, it sees not a foreign light that shines in foreign forms, but its own light which suddenly radiates interiorly, with a clear radiance. [Ennead V,5 (32) 7]

The Principle of all things, such as we have described it, is the most simple and elevated possible. The (Gnostics) are wrong in distinguishing within that (supreme Principle) potentiality from actualization; for it would be ridiculous to seek to apply to principles that are immaterial and are actualizations, that (Aristotelian) distinction, and thus to increase the number (of the divine hypostatic substances.) [Ennead II,9 (33) 1]

Neither could we, below the Supreme, distinguish two intelligences, one at rest, and the other in motion. We should have to define the resting of the First, and the movement or utterance of the second. The inaction of the one and the action of the other would be equally mysterious. By its being (or, nature), Intelligence is eternally and identically a permanent actualization. To rise to Intelligence and to move around it is the proper function of the soul. [Ennead II,9 (33) 1]

Nor should we admit the existence of several intelligences, merely because we distinguish a thinker from a consciousness of the thinker. Though there be a difference between thinking, and thinking that one thinks, these two nevertheless constitute a single intuitive consciousness of its actualizations. It would be ridiculous to deny such a consciousness to veritable Intelligence. It is therefore the same Intelligence that thinks, and that thinks that it thinks. Otherwise there would be two principles, of which the one would have thought, and the other consciousness of thought. The second would doubtless differ from the first, but would not be the real thinking principle. A mere logical distinction between thought and consciousness of thought would not establish the (actual) differences between two (hypostatic substances). Further, we shall have to consider whether it be possible to conceive of an Intelligence which would exclusively think, without any accompanying consciousness of its thought. If we ourselves who are entirely devoted to practical activity and discursive reason were in such a condition, we would, even if otherwise considered sensible, be insane. But as true Intelligence thinks itself in its thoughts, and as the intelligible, far from being outside of Intelligence, is Intelligence itself, Intelligence, by thinking, possesses itself, and necessarily sees itself. When Intelligence sees itself, it does not see itself as unintelligent, but as intelligent. Therefore in the first actualization of thought, Intelligence has the thought and consciousness of thought, two things that form but a single one; not even logically is this a duality. If Intelligence always thinks what it is, is there any reason to separate, even by a simple logical distinction, thought from the consciousness of thought? The absurdity of the doctrine we are controverting will be still more evident if we suppose that a third intelligence is conscious that the second intelligence is conscious of the thought of the first; we might thus go on to infinity. [Ennead II,9 (33) 1]

Nor should the world be considered badly made, merely because we suffer so much therein. This idea results from entertaining unjustifiable expectations of its perfections, and from confusing it with the intelligible world of which it is an image. Could a more beautiful image, indeed, be imagined? After the celestial fire could we imagine a better fire than our own? After the intelligible earth, could we imagine a better earth than ours? After the actualization by which the intelligible world embraces itself, could we imagine a sphere more perfect, more wonderful, or better ordered in its movements? After the intelligible sun, how could we imagine any sun different from the one that we see? [Ennead II,9 (33) 4]

Intelligence, indeed, could not be (the last degree of existence). It was necessarily actualization of a double nature, both within itself, and for other beings. It was inevitable that it should be followed by other beings, for only the most impotent being would fail to produce something that should proceed from it, while (it is granted that) the intelligible possesses a wonderful power; wherefore, it could not help creating. [Ennead II,9 (33) 8]

The statement that in what is immaterial, knowledge and the known thing coincide, must not be understood to mean that it is the knowledge of the thing which is the thing itself, nor that the reason which contemplates an object is this object itself, but rather, conversely, that it is the thing which, existing without matter, is purely intelligible and intellection. I do not here mean the intellection which is neither a definition nor an intuition of a thing; but I say that the thing itself, such as it exists in the intelligible world, is exclusively intelligence and knowledge. It is not (the kind of) knowledge that applies itself to the intelligible, it is the (actual) thing itself which keeps that knowledge (thereof possessed by reason) from remaining different from it, just as the knowledge of a material object remains different from that object; but it is a veritable (kind of) knowledge, that is, a knowledge which is not merely a simple image of the known thing, but really is the thing itself. It is not therefore the thought of the movement which produced movement in itself, but the movement in itself which produced the thought, so that the thought thinks itself as movement, and as thought. On the one hand, intelligible movement is thought by the intelligible Essence; on the other hand, it is movement in itself because it is first — for there is no movement anterior thereto; it is real movement, because it is not the accident of a subject, but because it is the actualization of the essence which moves, and possesses actualized (existence); it is therefore “being,” though it be conceived as different from essence. Justice, for instance, is not the simple thought of justice; it is a certain disposition of Intelligence, or rather it is an actualization of a determinate nature. The face of Justice is more beautiful than the evening or morning stars, and than all visible beauty. Justice may be imagined as an intellectual statue which has issued from itself and which has manifested itself such as it is in itself; or rather, which subsists essentially in itself. [Ennead VI,6 (34) 6]

(To solve this problem) let us begin by setting aside sensation, and let us contemplate Intelligence by our intelligence exclusively. Above all, let us clearly understand that, as in us life and intelligence do not consist of a corporeal mass, but in a power without mass, likewise veritable “Being” is deprived of all corporeal extension, and constitutes a power founded on itself. It does not indeed consist in something without force, but in a power sovereignly vital and intellectual, which possesses life in the highest degree, intelligence, and being. Consequently, whatever touches this power participates in the same characteristics according to the manner of its touch; in a higher degree, if the touch be close; in a lower degree, if the touch be distant. If existence be desirable, the completest existence (or, essence) is more desirable still. Likewise, if intelligence deserve to be desired, perfect Intelligence deserves to be desired above everything; and the same state of affairs prevails in respect to life. If then we must grant that the Essence is the first, and if we must assign the first rank to Essence, the second to Intelligence, and the third to the Organism, as the latter seems already to contain all things, and Intelligence justly occupies the second rank, because it is the actualization of “Being” — then number could not enter into the Organism, for before the organism already existed one and two (“Being” and Intelligence). Nor could number exist in Intelligence, for before Intelligence was “Being,” which is both one and manifold. (Number therefore must exist, or originate, in the primary Being.) [Ennead VI,6 (34) 8]

The universal Number therefore existed before the essences (were created); consequently, Number was not the essences. Doubtless, Number was in Essence; but it was not yet the number of Essence; for Essence still was one. But the power of Number, hypostatically existing within it, divided it, and made it beget the manifold. Number is either the being or actualization (of Essence); the very Organism and Intelligence are number. Essence is therefore the unified number, while the essences are developed number; Intelligence is the number which moves itself, and the Organism is the number that contains. Since therefore Essence was born from Unity, Essence, as it existed within Unity, must be Number. That is why (the Pythagoreans) called the ideas unities and numbers. [Ennead VI,6 (34) 9]

In general, everything which is predicated of an object either comes to it from without, or is its actualization. Unless by nature it be inconstant, being present now, and absent then, if it be always present, it is a being when the object is a being. If it be denied that its nature were that of a being, it will surely be granted that it is a part of the essences, and that it is an essence. Now, if the object can be conceived without the thing which is its actualization, this thing nevertheless exists contemporaneously with it, even though in thought it be conceived posteriorily. If the object cannot be conceived without this thing, as man cannot be conceived of without one, in this case one is not posterior to man, but is simultaneous, or even anterior, since the man’s subsistence is entirely dependent thereon. As to us, we recognize that Unity and Number precede (Essence and the essences). [Ennead VI,6 (34) 10]

Indeed, it is not you who here below produce number when you by discursive reason range through things that exist by themselves, and which do not depend for their existence on your enumeration; for you add nothing to the being of a man by enumerating him with another. That is no unity, as in a “choric ballet.” When you say, ten men, “ten” exists only in you who are enumerating. We could not assert that “ten” exists in the ten men you are enumerating, because these men are not co-ordinated so as to form a unity; it is you yourself who produce ten by enumerating this group of ten, and by making up a quantity. But when you say, a “choric ballet,” an “army,” there is something which exists outside of these objects, and within yourself. How are we to understand that the number exists in you? The number which existed in you before you made the enumeration has another mode (of existence) (than the number that you produce by enumeration). As to the number which manifests itself in exterior objects and refers to the number within yourself, it constitutes an actualization of the essential numbers, or, is conformable to the essential Numbers; for, while enumerating you produce a number, and by this actualization you give hypostatic existence to quantity, as in walking you did to movement. [Ennead VI,6 (34) 16]

Contemplate therefore the Being that penetrates the intelligibles, and which communicates to them an immutable life; contemplate the Wisdom and Knowledge that resides within them, and you will not be able to keep from deriding this inferior nature to which the vulgar human beings attribute genuine “being.” It is in this supreme “Being” that dwell life and intelligence, and that the essences subsist in eternity. There, nothing issues (from Essence), nothing changes or agitates it; for there is nothing outside of it that could reach it; if a single thing existed outside of (“being”), (“being”) would be dependent on it. If anything opposed to (essence) existed, this thing would escape the action of (“being”); it would no longer owe its existence to (“being”), but would constitute a common principle anterior to it, and would be essence. Parmenides   therefore was right in saying that the Essence was one; that it was immutable, not because there was nothing else (that could modify it), but because it was essence. Alone, therefore, does Essence possess self-existence. How then could one, to Essence, refuse to attribute existence, or any of the things of which it is an actualization, and which it constitutes? So long as it exists, it gives them to itself; and since it exists always, these things therefore eternally subsist within it. [Ennead VI,6 (34) 18]

Does happiness increase with duration of time? No: for the feeling of happiness exists only in the present. The memory of past happiness could not add anything to happiness itself. Happiness is not a word, but a state of soul. But a state of soul is a present (experience), such as, for instance, the actualization of life. [Ennead I,5 (36) 1]

Another objection is that length of time would give opportunity for doing many beautiful deeds; while this opportunity is denied him who lives happily only a short period. This may be answered by denying happiness to a man on the grounds of having done many beautiful deeds. If several parts of time and several actions are to constitute happiness, then it would be constituted by things that are no more, that are past, and by present things; whereas our definition of happiness limits it exclusively to the present. Then we considered whether length of time add to happiness. There remains only to examine whether happiness of long duration be superior because of yielding opportunities of doing more beautiful deeds. To begin with, the man who is inactive may be just as happy, if not more happy than he who is active. Besides, it is not actions themselves which yield happiness; (the sources of happiness) are states of mind, which are the principles of beautiful actions. The wise man enjoys welfare while active, but not because of this activity; he derives (this welfare) not from contingent things, but from what he possesses in himself. For it might happen even to a vicious man to save his fatherland, or to feel pleasure in seeing it saved by some other. It is not then these activities which are the causes of the enjoyment of happiness. True beatitude and the joys it yields must be derived from the constant disposition of the soul. To predicate it of activity, would be to make it depend on things alien to virtue and the soul. The soul’s actualization consists in being wise, and in exercising her self-activity; this is true happiness. [Ennead I,5 (36) 10]

Indeed, if it be admitted that in the divinity no actualization is imperfect, if it be impossible to conceive in Him anything that is not total or universal, each one of the things that He contains comprises within Himself all things. Thus as, to the divinity, the future is already present, there could not be anything posterior to Him; but what is already present in Him becomes posterior in some other (being). Now if the future be already present in the divinity, it must be present in Him as if what will happen were already known; that is, it must be so disposed as to find itself sufficiently provided for, so as not to stand in need of anything. Therefore, as all things existed already within the divinity (when living beings were created), they had been there from all eternity; and that in a manner such that it would later be possible to say, “this occurred after that.” Indeed, when the things that are in the divinity later develop and reveal themselves, then one sees that the one is after the other; but, so far as they exist all together, they constitute the universal (Being), that is, the principle which includes its own cause. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 1]

Since all intelligible (entities) have a hypostatic consubstantial existence affording no room for chance; and as they are not separated from each other, things that are caused must bear these their causes within themselves, and each of them has some sort of a cause, though without really possessing one. If there be no cause for the existence of the intelligibles; and if, though isolated from all causes, they be self-sufficient; it can only be because they carry their cause along with them, when they are considered in themselves. As they contain nothing fortuitous, and as each of them is manifold, and as its cause is all that they contain, we might assign this cause to themselves. Thus in the intelligible world “being” is preceded, or rather accompanied by its cause, which is still more “being” than cause, or rather which becomes identified with it. What superfluousness, indeed, could there be in intelligence, unless its conceptions resemble imperfect productions? If its conceptions be perfect, one could neither discover what they lack, nor define their cause, and, since they possess everything, they also possess their cause. There, “being” and cause are united; the presence of both is recognized in each conception, in each actualization of intelligence. Let us, for instance, consider the intelligible Man; he seems complete, in his totality; all his attributes were his simultaneously from the beginning; he was always entirely complete. It is the characteristic of that which is generated not always to be what it ought to be, and to need to acquire something. The intelligible Man is eternal; he is therefore always complete; but that which becomes man must be generated (being). [Ennead VI,7 (38) 2]

Thus, a thing is fully explained by the clearing up of its cause. Why should there be eyebrows above the eye? That it may possess all that is implied in its being. Were these parts of the body given to man to protect him from dangers? That would be to establish within being a principle charged to watch over being. The things of which we speak are implied in the being that existed before them. Consequently, being contains within itself the cause which, if distinct from being, is nevertheless inseparable therefrom. All things are implied in each other; taken together, they form the total, perfect and universal Being; their perfection is bound up with, and is inherent in their cause; thus a (creature’s) “being,” its “characteristic” (to ti on einai), and its “cause” (why-ness) fall together. (Before asking an important question we must premiss that) in the intelligible world the cause that is complementary to a being is ultimately united to it. We must also premiss that, by virtue of its perfection, divine Intelligence contains the causes (as well as the beings), so that it is only “a posteriori” that we observe that things are well regulated. If then the possession of senses, and indeed of particular ones, be implied in the form of man by the eternal necessity and perfection of divine Intelligence, then the intelligible Man was by no means mere intelligence, receiving the senses when descending into generation. (If then having senses be implied in the form of man), does not Intelligence incline towards the things here below? In what do these senses (which are attributed to the intelligible Man) consist? Are these senses the potentiality of perceiving sense-objects? But it would be absurd that, on high, man should from all eternity possess the potentiality of feeling, yet feel only here below, and that this potentiality should pass to actualization only when the soul became less good (by its union to the body). [Ennead VI,7 (38) 3]

What then is the “being” of man? This really is asking for the “man-ness” of a man, something characteristic of him, and inseparable from him. Is the genuine definition of a man that “he is a reasonable animal”? Would not this rather be the definition of the composite man? What is the being that produces the reasonable animal? In the above definition of man, “reasonable animal” means “reasonable life”; consequently, man may be called the “reasonable life.” But can life exist without a soul? (No), for the soul will give the man reasonable life; and in this case, instead of being a substance, man will be only an actualization of the soul; or even, the man will be the soul herself. But if man be the reasonable soul, what objection will there be to his remaining man even when his soul should happen to pass into a different body (as that of a brute animal)? [Ennead VI,7 (38) 4]

Man must therefore have as “reason” (or, as essence), something else than the soul. Still, in this case, man might be something composite; that is, the soul would subsist in a particular “reason,” admitting that this “reason” was a certain actualization of the soul, though this actualization could not exist without its producing principle. Now such is the nature of the “seminal reasons.” They do not exist without the soul; for the generating reasons are not inanimate; and nevertheless they are not the soul purely and simply. There is therefore nothing surprising in the statement that these (human) beings are (“seminal) reasons.” [Ennead VI,7 (38) 5]

Of which soul are these reasons, which do not beget the man (though they do beget the animal), then the actualization? Not of the vegetative soul; they are the actualizations of the (reasonable) soul which begets the animal, which is a more powerful, and therefore a more living soul. Man is constituted by the soul disposed in some manner, when present to matter disposed in some particular fashion — since the soul is some particular thing, according as she is in some particular disposition — even in the body. In the bodies, she fashions a resembling form. So far as the nature of the body allows it, she thus produces an image of the man, as the painter himself makes an image of the body; she produces, I repeat, an inferior man (the sense-man, the animal), which possesses the form of man, his reasons, morals, dispositions, faculties, although in an imperfect manner, because he is not the first man (the intellectual man). He has sensations of another kind; sensations which, though they seem clear, are obscure, if they be compared to the superior sensations of which they are the images. The superior man (the reasonable man) is better, has a diviner soul, and clearer sensations. It is he doubtless to whom Plato refers (when he says, Man is the soul); in his definition he adds, “which makes use of the body,” because the diviner man dominates the soul which uses the body, and thus uses the body only in an indirect manner. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 5]

What is the relation of the sense-power within the superior Soul (or, in the rational soul)? Intelligible sensation perceives (intelligible) objects that, speaking strictly, are not sensible, and corresponds to the (intelligible) manner in which they are perceivable. Thus (by this intelligible sense-power) the Soul perceives the supersensual harmony and also the sensual, but in a manner such as the sense-man perceives it, relating it so far as possible to the superior harmony, just as he relates the earthly fire to the intelligible Fire, which is above, and which the superior Soul felt in a manner suitable to the nature of this fire. If the bodies which are here below were up there also, the superior Soul would feel them and perceive them. The man who exists on high is a Soul disposed in some particular manner, capable of perceiving these objects; hence the man of the last degree (the sense-man) being the image of the intelligible Man, has reasons (faculties) which are also images (faculties possessed by the superior Man). The man who exists in the divine Intelligence constitutes the Man superior to all men. He illuminates the second (the reasonable man), who in his turn illuminates the third (the sense-man). The man of this last degree somewhat possesses the two others; he is not produced by them, he is rather united to them. The man who constitutes us actualizes himself as the man of the last degree. The third receives something of the second; and the second is the actualization of the first. Each man’s nature depends on the “man” according to whom he acts (the man is intellectual, reasonable, or sensual according as he exercises intelligence, discursive reason, or sensibility). Each one of us possesses the three men in one sense (potentially); and does not possess them in another (in actualization; that is, he does not simultaneously exercise intellect, reason, or sense). [Ennead VI,7 (38) 6]

When the third life (the sense-power) which constitutes the third man, is separated from the body, if the life that precedes it (the discursive reason) accompany it without nevertheless being separated from the intelligible world, then one may say that the second is everywhere the third is. It might seem surprising that the latter, when passing into the body of a brute, should drag along that part which is the being of man. This being was all beings (potentially); only, at different times, it acts through different faculties. So far as it is pure, and is not yet depraved, it wishes to constitute a man, and it is indeed a man that it constitutes; for to form a man is better (than to form a brute), and it does what is best. It also forms guardians of the superior order, but such as are still conformable to the being constituent of manhood. The (intellectual) Man, who is anterior to this being, is of a nature still more like that of the guardians, or rather, he is already a divinity. The guardian attached to a divinity is an image of him, as the sense-man is the image of the intellectual man from whom he depends; for the principle to which man directly attaches himself must not be considered as his divinity. There is a difference here, similar to that existing between the souls, though they all belong to the same order. Besides, those guardians whom Plato simply calls “guardians” (demons), should be called guardian-like, or “demonic” beings. Last, when the superior Soul accompanies the inferior soul which has chosen the condition of a brute, the inferior soul which was bound to the superior soul-even when she constituted a man-develops the (“seminal) reason” of the animal (whose condition she has chosen); for she possesses that “reason” in herself; it is her inferior actualization. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 6]

(In reply, it might be asked) why are not all animals equally rational? And why are not all men also equally rational? Let us reflect: all these lives, which represent as many movements; all these intelligences, which form a plurality; could not be identical. Therefore they had to differ among each other, and their difference had to consist in manifesting more or less clearly life and intelligence; those that occupy the first rank are distinguished by primary differences; those that occupy the second rank, by secondary differences; and so forth. Thus, amidst intelligences, some constitute the divinities, others the beings placed in the second rank, and gifted with reason; further, other beings that we here call deprived of reason and intelligence really were reason and intelligence in the intelligible world. Indeed, he who thinks the intelligible Horse, for instance, is Intelligence, just as is the very thought of the horse. If nothing but thought existed, there would be nothing absurd in that this thought, while being intellectual, might, as object, have a being devoid of intelligence. But since thought and the object thought fuse, how could thought be intellectual unless the object thought were so likewise? To effect this, Intelligence would, so to speak, have to render itself unintelligent. But it is not so. The thing thought is a determinate intelligence, just as it is a determinate life. Now, just as no life, whatever it be, can be deprived of vitality, so no determinate intelligence can be deprived of intellectuality. The very intelligence which is proper to an animal, such as, for instance, man, does not cease being intelligence of all things; whichever of its parts you choose to consider, it is all things, only in a different manner; while it is a single thing in actualization, it is all things in potentiality. However, in any one particular thing, we grasp only what it is in actualization. Now what is in actualization (that is, a particular thing), occupies the last rank. Such, in Intelligence, for instance, is the idea of the Horse. In its procession, Intelligence continues towards a less perfect life, and at a certain degree constitutes a horse, and at some inferior degree, constitutes some animal still inferior; for the greater the development of the powers of Intelligence, the more imperfect these become. At each degree in their procession they lose something; and as it is a lower degree of essence that constitutes some particular animal, its inferiority is redeemed by something new. Thus, in the measure that life is less complete in the animal, appear nails, claws, or horns, or teeth. Everywhere that Intelligence diminishes on one side, it rises on another side by the fulness of its nature, and it finds in itself the resources by which to compensate for whatever it may lack. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 9]

Neither Intelligence, nor the Soul that proceeds therefrom, are simple; both contain the universality of things with their infinite variety, so far as these are simple, meaning that they are not composite, but that they are principles and actualizations; for, in the intelligible world, the actualization of what occupies the last rank is simple; the actualization of what occupies the first rank is universal. Intelligence, in its uniform movement, always trends towards similar and identical things; nevertheless, each of them is identical and single, without being a part; it is on the contrary universal, because what, in the intelligible world, is a part, is not a simple unit, but a unity that is infinitely divisible. In this movement, Intelligence starts from one object, and goes to another object which is its goal. But does all that is intermediary resemble a straight line, or to a uniform and homogeneous body? There would be nothing remarkable about that; for if Intelligence did not contain differences, if no diversity awoke it to life, it would not be an actualization; its state would not differ from inactivity. If its movement were determined in a single manner, it would possess but a single kind of (restricted) life, instead of possessing the universal Life. Now it should contain an universal and omnipresent Life; consequently, it must move, or rather have been moved towards all (beings). If it were to move in a simple and uniform manner, it would possess but a single thing, would be identical with it, and no longer proceed towards anything different. If however it should move towards something different, it would have to become something different, and be two things. If these two things were then to be identical, Intelligence would still remain one, and there would be no progress left; if, on the contrary, these two things were to be different, it would be proceeding with this difference, and it would, by virtue of this difference joined to its divinity, beget some third thing. By its origin, the latter is simultaneously identical and different; not of some particular difference, but of all kinds of difference, because the identity it contains is itself universal. Thus being universal difference as well as universal identity, this thing possesses all that is said to be different; for its nature is to be universal differentiation (to spread over everything, to become everything else). If all these differences preceded this (Intelligence), the latter would be modified by them. If this be not the case, Intelligence must have begotten all the differences, or rather, be their universality. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 13]

Essences (“beings”) therefore cannot exist without an actualization of Intelligence. By this actualization, after having produced some (“being”), Intelligence always produces some other one, somehow carrying out the career which it is natural for veritable Intelligence to carry out within itself; this career is that of the beings, of which each corresponds to one of its evolutions, (or, it roams around among beings, so that through its roaming around these beings unite and form.) Since Intelligence is everywhere identical, its evolutions imply permanence, and they make it move around the “field of truth” without ever issuing therefrom. It occupies this whole field, because Intelligence has made itself the locality where its evolutions operate, a locality which is identical with what it contains. This field is varied enough to offer a career to be fulfilled; if it were not universally and eternally varied, there would be a stopping-place where variety would cease; and, were Intelligence to stop, it would not think; and if it had never stopped, it would have existed without thought (or, it would not exist). This however, is not the case; therefore thought exists, and its universal movement produces the fulness of universal “Being.” Universal “Being,” however, is the thought that embraces universal Life, and which, after each thing, ever conceives some other; because, since that which within it is identical is all so different. It continually divides and ever finds something different from the others. In its march, Intelligence ever progresses from life to life, from animated (beings) to animated (beings); just as some traveller, advancing on the earth, finds all that he travels through to be earth, whatever variations thereof there may have been. In the intelligible world, the life whose field one traverses is always self-identical, but it is also always different. The result is that (this sphere of operations) does not seem the same to us, because in its evolution, which is identical, life experiences (or, traverses) things which are not the same. That however does not change this life, for it passes through different things in a uniform and identical manner. If this uniformity and identity of Intelligence were not applied to different things, Intelligence would remain idle; it would no longer exist in actualization, and no more be actualization. Now these different things constitute Intelligence itself. Intelligence is therefore universal, because this universality forms its very nature. Being thus universal, Intelligence is all things; there is nothing in it which does not contribute to its universality; and everything is different, so as to be able still to contribute to totality, by its very difference. If there were no difference, if everything in it were identical, the being of Intelligence would be diminished, inasmuch as its nature would no more co-operate towards its harmonic consummation. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 13]

How can (these beings) exist within Intelligence, and constitute it, if they were neither in that which has given, nor in that which has received this fulness, since, before receiving its fulness from the Good, Intelligence had not yet received (these beings)? It is not necessary that a principle should itself possess what it gives; in intelligible things, it suffices to consider the giver superior, and the receiver inferior; that (giving and receiving) is the content of generation in the order of veritable beings. What occupies the front rank must be in actualization; posterior things must be in potentiality of what precedes them. What occupies the front rank is superior to what occupies the second rank; the giver, likewise is superior to the gift, because it is better. If then there be a Principle anterior to actualization, it must be superior both to actualization and to life; and because it gave life to Intelligence it is more beautiful, still more venerable than Life. Thus Intelligence received life, without necessity for the principle from which it received life having had to contain any variety. Life is the impress of Him who gave it, but it is not his life. When Intelligence glanced towards Him, it was indeterminate; as soon as it fixed its glance on Him, it was determined by Him, although He himself had no determination. As soon indeed as Intelligence contemplated the One, Intelligence was determined by Him, and from Him it received its determination, limit and form. The form exists in the receiver; the giver has none of it. This determination has not been imposed from without on Intelligence as is the case for the limit imposed on some magnitude; it is the determination characteristic of that Life, which is universal, multiple and infinite, because it has radiated from the supreme Nature. That Life was not yet the life of any particular principle; otherwise, it would have been determined as an individual life. Nevertheless it has been determined, and by virtue of that determination it is the life of a multiple unity. Each one of the things that constitute its multiplicity has likewise been determined. Indeed, life has been determined as multiplicity (of beings) because of its own multiplicity; as unity, because of the very determination it has received. What has been determined as unity? Intelligence, because it is the determined life. What was determined as multiplicity? The multiplicity of intelligences. Everything therefore is intelligence; only, the Intelligence that is one is universal; while the intelligences which form multiplicity are individual. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 17]

In what respects do the (entities) which are contained by Intelligence seem to bear the form of the Good? Is it because each of them is a form, or because each is beautiful, or perhaps for some other reason? All that proceeds from the Good bears its characteristics or impressions, or at least bears something derived from it, just as that which is derived from the fire bears a trace of the fire, and as that which is derived from sweetness somehow betrays it. Now that, which, in Intelligence, is derived from the Good is life, for life is born from the actualization of the Good, and from Him again is derived the beauty of forms. Therefore all these things, life, intelligence, and idea will bear the form of Good. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 18]

But what element is common to them? It does not suffice for them to proceed from the Good to have something identical; they must also have some common characteristic; for a same principle may give rise to different things; or again, one and the same thing may become different while passing from the giving principle into the receivers; for there is a difference between that which constitutes the first actualization, and that which is given thereby. Thus, that which is in the things of which we speak is already different. Nothing hinders the characteristic of all these things (in life, intelligence and idea) from being the form of Good, but this form exists at different degrees in each of them. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 18]

Is it by a mere play on words that life, intelligence and ideas are called good? Does the good constitute their being, or is each good taken in its totality? Good could not constitute the being of each of them. Are they then parts of the Good? The Good, however, is indivisible. The things that are beneath it are good for different reasons. The primary actualization (that proceeds from the Good) is good; likewise, the determination it receives is good, and the totality of both things is good. The actualization is good because it proceeds from the Good; the determination, because it is a perfection that has emanated from the Good; and the combination of actualization and determination because it is their totality. All these things thus are derived from one and the same principle, but nevertheless they are different. Thus (in a choric ballet) the voice and the step proceed from one and the same person, in that they are all perfectly regulated. Now they are well regulated because they contain order and rhythm. What then is the content in the above-mentioned things that would make them good? But perhaps it may be objected that if the voice and step are well regulated, each one of them entirely owes it to some external principle, since the order is here applied to the things that differ from each other. On the contrary, the things of which we speak are each of them good in itself. And why are they good? It does not suffice to say that they are good because they proceed from the Good. Doubtless we shall have to grant that they are precious from the moment that they proceed from the Good, but reason demands that we shall determine that of which their goodness consists. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 18]

What then is the one and only cause to whose presence is due the goodness (of life, intelligence and idea)? Let us not hesitate to say: Intelligence and primary Life bear the form of Good; it is on this account alone that they are desirable; they bear the form of Good in this respect, that the primary Life is the actualization of the Good, or rather the actualization that proceeds from the Good, and that intelligence is determination of this actualization. (Intelligence and primary Life) are fascinating, and the soul seeks them because they proceed from the Good; nevertheless the soul aspires to them (only) because they fit her, and not because they are good in themselves. On the other hand, the soul could not disdain them because they bear the form of good; though we can disdain something even though it be suitable to us, if it be not a good besides. It is true that we permit ourselves to be allured by distant and inferior objects, and may even feel for them a passionate love; but that occurs only when they have something more than their natural condition, and when some perfection descends on them from on high. Just as the bodies, while containing a light mingled with their (substance), nevertheless need illumination by some other light to bring out their colors, so the intelligible entities, in spite of the light that they contain, need to receive some other more powerful light, so as to become visible, both for themselves, and for others. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 21]

The good must then be desirable; but it is good not because it is desirable, but it is desirable because it is good. Thus in the order of beings, rising from the last to the First, it will be found that the good of each of them is in the one immediately preceding, so long as this ascending scale remain proportionate and increasing. Then we will stop at Him who occupies the supreme rank, beyond which there is nothing more to seek. That is the First, the veritable, the sovereign Good, the author of all goodness in other beings. The good of matter is form; for if matter became capable of sensation it would receive it with pleasure. The good of the body is the soul; for without her it could neither exist nor last. The good of the soul is virtue; and then higher (waits), Intelligence. Last, the good of Intelligence is the principle called the Primary nature. Each of these goods produces something within the object whose good it is. It confers order and beauty (as form does on matter); or life (as the soul does on the body); or wisdom and happiness (as intelligence does on soul). Last, the Good communicates to Intelligence its influx, and actualization emanating from the Good, and shedding on Intelligence what has been called the light of the Good. The nature of this we shall study later. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 25]

Since all things have been embellished by Him who is above them, and have received their light from Him; since Intelligence derives from Him the splendor of its intellectual actualization; by which splendor it illuminates nature; since from Him also the soul derives her vital power, because she finds in Him an abundant source of life; consequently, Intelligence has risen to Him, and has remained attached to Him, satisfied in the bliss of His presence; consequently also the soul, to the utmost of her ability, turned towards Him, for, as soon as she has known Him and seen Him, she was, by her contemplation, filled with bliss; and, so far as she could see Him, she was overwhelmed with reverence. She could not see Him without being impressed with the feeling that she had within herself something of Him; it was this disposition of hers that led her to desire to see Him, as the image of some lovable object makes one wish to be able to contemplate it oneself. Here below, lovers try to resemble the beloved object, to render their body more gracious, to conform their soul to their model, by temperance and the other virtues to remain as little inferior as possible to Him whom they love, for fear of being scorned by Him; and thus they succeed in enjoying intimacy with Him. Likewise, the soul loves the Good, because, from the very beginning she is provoked to love Him. When she is ready to love, she does not wait for the beauties here below to give her the reminiscence of the Good; full of love, even when she does not know what she possesses, she is ever seeking; and inflamed with the desire to rise to the Good, she scorns the things here below. Considering the beauties presented by our universe, she suspects that they are deceptive, because she sees them clothed upon with flesh, and united to our bodies, soiled by the matter where they reside, divided by extension, and she does not recognize them as real beauties, for she cannot believe that the latter could plunge into the mire of these bodies, soiling and obscuring themselves. Last, when the soul observes that the beauties here below are in a perpetual flux, she clearly recognizes that they derive this splendor with which they shine, from elsewhere. Then she rises to the intelligible world; being capable of discovering what she loves, she does not stop before having found it, unless she be made to lose her love. Having arrived there, she contemplates all the true beauties, the true realities; she refreshes herself by filling herself up with the life proper to essence. She herself becomes genuine essence. She fuses with the Intelligible which she really possesses, and in its presence she has the feeling (of having found) what she was seeking so long. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 31]

They who attributed thought to the First Principle have at least not attributed to Him the thought of things that are inferior to Him, or which proceed from Him. Nevertheless some of them claimed that it was absurd to believe that the divinity ignored other things. As to the former, finding nothing greater than the Good, they attributed to (the divinity) the thought of Himself, as if this could add to His majesty, as if even for Him, thinking were more than being what He is, and it were not the Good Himself which communicates His sublimity to intelligence. But from whom then will the Good derive His greatness? Would it come from thought, or from Himself? If He derive it from thought, He is not great by himself; or at least, He is no more sovereignly great. If it be from Himself that He derives His greatness, He is perfectly anterior to thought, and it is not thought that renders Him perfect. Is He forced to think because He is actualization, and not merely potentiality? If He is a being that ever thinks, and if this be the meaning of actualization, we would be attributing to the Good two things simultaneously: “being” and thought; instead of conceiving of Him as a simple Principle, something foreign is added to Him, as to eyes is added the actualization of sight, even admitting that they see continually. (The divinity) is in actualization, in the sense that He is both actualization and thought, is He not? No, for being thought itself, He must not be thinking, as movement itself does not move. But do not you yourselves say that (the divinity) is both being and actualization? We think that being and actualization are multiple and different things, whilst the First is simple. To the principle that proceeds from the First alone belongs thought, a certain seeking out of its being, of itself, and of its origin. It deserves the name of intelligence only by turning towards (the First) in contemplation, and in knowing Him. As to the unbegotten Principle, who has nothing above Him, who is eternally what He is, what reason might He have to think? [Ennead VI,7 (38) 37]

Consequently, the Good does not think itself either as good, nor as anything else; for it possesses nothing different from itself. It only has “a simple perception of itself in respect to itself”; but as there is no distance or difference in this perception it has of itself, what could this perception be but itself? That is why it perceives a difference where being and intelligence appear. In order to think, intelligence must admit identity and difference simultaneously. On the one hand, without the relation between the Intelligible and itself, the (mind) will not distinguish itself from (the intelligible); and on the other, without the arising of an “otherness” which would enable it to be everything, it would not contemplate all (earthly) entities. (Without this difference), intelligence would not even be a “pair.” Then, since intelligence thinks, if it think really, it will not think itself alone, for why should it not think all things? (Would it not do so) because it was impotent to do so? In short, the principle which thinks itself ceases to be simple, because in thinking itself it must think itself as something different, which is the necessary condition of thinking itself. We have already said that intelligence cannot think itself without contemplating itself as something different. Now in thinking, intelligence becomes manifold (that is, fourfold): intelligible object (thing thought) and intelligent subject (thinker); movement (or, moved), and everything else that belongs to intelligence. Besides, it must be noticed, as we have pointed out elsewhere, that, to be thought, any thought, must offer variety; but (in the divinity) this movement is so simple and identical that it may be compared to some sort of touch, and partakes in nothing of intellectual actualization (therefore, thought cannot be attributed to the divinity). What? Will (the divinity) know neither others nor Himself, and will He remain immovable in His majesty? (Surely). All things are posterior to Him; He was what He is before them. The thought of these things is adventitious, changeable, and does not apply to permanent objects. Even if it did apply to permanent objects, it would still be multiple, for we could not grant that in inferior beings thought was joined to being, while the thoughts of intelligence would be empty notions. The existence of Providence is sufficiently accounted for by its being that from which proceed all (beings). How then (in regard to all the beings that refer to Him) could (the divinity) think them, since He does not even think Himself, but remains immovable in His majesty? That is why Plato, speaking of “being,” says that it doubtless thinks, but that it does not remain immovable in its majesty. By that he means that, no doubt, “being” thinks, but that that which does not think remains immovable in its majesty; using this expression for lack of a better one. Thus Plato considers the Principle which is superior to thought as possessing more majesty, nay, sovereign majesty. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 39]

That thought is incompatible with the first Principle is something well known by all those who have (in ecstasy) risen to Him. To what we have already said, we shall however add several arguments, if indeed we succeed in expressing thought comprehensibly; for conviction should be fortified by demonstration. In the first place, observe that all thought exists within a subject, and proceeds from some object. Thought that is connected with the object from which it is derived, has the being to which it belongs, as subject. It inheres in him because it is his actualization, and completes his potentiality, without, itself, producing anything; for it belongs exclusively to the subject whose complement it is. Thought that is hypostatically united with “being,” and which underlies its existence, could not inhere in the object from which it proceeds; for, had it remained in him, it would not have produced anything. Now, having the potentiality of producing, it produced within itself; its actualization was “being,” and it was united thereto. Thus thought is not something different from “being”; so far as this nature thinks itself, it does not think itself as being something different; for the only multiplicity therein is that which results from the logical distinction of intelligent subject (thinker) and intelligible object (the being thought), as we have often pointed out. That is the first actualization which produced a hypostasis (or, form of existence), while constituting “being”; and this actualization is the image of a Principle so great that itself has become “being.” If thought belonged to the Good, instead of proceeding therefrom, it would be no more than an attribute; it would not, in itself, be a hypostatic form of existence. Being the first actualization and the first thought, this thought has neither actualization nor thought above it. Therefore, by rising above this “being” and this thought, neither further “being” nor thought will be met with; we would arrive to the Principle superior to “being,” and thought, an admirable principle, which contains neither thought nor being, which in solitary guise dwells within itself, and which has no need of the things which proceed from Him. He did not first act, and then produce an actualization (he did not begin by thinking in order later to produce thought); otherwise, he would have thought before thought was born. In short, thought, being the thought of good, is beneath Him, and consequently does not belong to Him. I say: “does not belong to Him,” not denying that the Good can be thought (for this, I admit); but because thought could not exist in the Good; otherwise, the Good and that which is beneath it — namely, the thought of Good — would fuse. Now, if the good be something inferior, it will simultaneously be thought and being; if, on the contrary, good be superior to thought, it must likewise belong to the Intelligible. [Ennead VI,7 (38) 40]

Since therefore thought does not exist in the Good, and since, on the contrary, it is inferior to the Good, and since it must thus worship its majesty, (thought) must constitute a different principle, and leaves the Good pure and disengaged from it, as well as from other things. Independent of thought, the Good is what it is without admixture. The presence of the Good does not hinder it from being pure and single. If we were to suppose that Good is both thinking subject and thought object (thinker and thought) or “being,” and thought connected with “being,” if thus we make it think itself, it will need something else, and thus things will be above it. As actualization and thought are the complement or the consubstantial hypostasis (or, form of existence) of another subject, thought implies above it another nature to which it owes the power of thinking; for thought cannot think anything without something above it. When thought knows itself, it knows what it received by the contemplation of this other nature. As to Him who has nothing above Him, who derives nothing from any other principle, what could He think, and how could He think himself? What would He seek, and what would He desire? Would He desire to know the greatness of His power? But by the mere fact of His thinking it, it would have become external to Him; I call it exterior, if the cognizing power within Him differed from that which would be known; if on the contrary they fuse, what would He seek? [Ennead VI,7 (38) 40]

Do the divinities themselves possess free will, or is this limited to human beings, because of their many weaknesses and uncertainties? (For we assume that) the divinities possess omnipotence, so that it would seem likely that their actions were free and absolutely without petty restrictions. Or must we hold that the (supreme) One alone possesses omnipotence, and unhampered free will, while in other beings (free will and opportunity) either ignore each other, or conflict? We shall therefore have to determine the nature of free will in first rank beings (the divinities) and also the supreme Principle (the One), although we acknowledge that both of them are omnipotent. Besides, in respect to this omnipotence, we shall have to distinguish possibility from actualization, present or future. [Ennead VI,8 (39) 1]

But when a principle has a simple nature, when it is a single actualization, when it is not other in potentiality than it is in actualization, how would it not be free? It cannot be said to be acting conformably to its nature, because its actualization is not different from its being, and because, within it, essence and action coincide. It surely is free, if it act neither for another, nor in dependence on another. If the word “independent” be not suitable here, if it be too weak, we must at least understand that this Principle does not depend on any other, does not recognize it as the ruler of its actions, any more than of its being, since it itself is principle. [Ennead VI,8 (39) 4]

Nor is it any more accurate to insist that the Good exists by chance. Chance occurs only in the lower and multiple things. We on the contrary insist that the First does not exist by chance, and that one cannot say that He is not master of His birth, since He was not born. It is not any less absurd to assert that He is not free because He acts according to His nature; for such an assertion would seem to imply that freedom consists in actions contrary to one’s nature. Last, His solitariness (or, unity) does not deprive Him of liberty, because this unity does not result from His being hindered by anybody else (from having anything else), but from His being what He is, from His satisfying (or, pleasing) Himself, as He could not be any better; otherwise, it would be implied that one would lose one’s liberty on attaining the Good. If such an assertion be absurd, is it not the summit of absurdity to refuse to predicate autocratic liberty of the Good because of His being good, because He remains within Himself and because since all beings aspire towards Him, He Himself aspires to nothing else than Himself, and has no need of anything? As His higher hypostatic existence is simultaneously His higher actualization — for in Him these two aspects fuse into one, since they do so even in Intelligence — His essence is no more conformed to His actualization, than His actualization to His essence. He cannot be said to actualize according to His nature, nor that His actualization and His higher life are traced up into His higher being (so to speak). But as His higher being and His higher (actualization) are intimately united, and coexist since all eternity, the result is that these two entities constitute a single Principle, which depends on itself, and nothing else. [Ennead VI,8 (39) 8]

As to Him who made “being” (equivalent to) freedom, whose nature it is to make free beings, and who (therefore) might be called the “author of liberty” — excuse the expression — to what could He be enslaved? It is His being (or, nature) to be free; or rather, it is from Him that being derives its freedom; for (we must not forget that) “being” is posterior to Him, who Himself (being beyond it), “has” none. If then there be any actualization in Him, if we were to consider that He was constituted by an actualization, He would nevertheless contain no difference, He will be master of His own self that produces the actualization, because He Himself and the actualization fuse (and are identical). But if we acknowledge no actualization whatever (in the Divinity), if we predicate actualization only of the things that tend towards Him, and from Him derive their hypostatic existence, we should still less recognize in Him any element that is master, or that masters. We should not even say that He was master of Himself, nor that He had a master, but because we have already predicated of “being” what is meant by being master of oneself. We therefore classify (the Divinity) in a rank higher still. [Ennead VI,8 (39) 12]

But how can there be a principle higher than the one that is master of Himself? In the Principle which is master of Himself, as being and actualization are two (separate) entities, it is actualization that furnishes the notion of being master of oneself. As however we saw that actualization was identical with “being,” in order to be called master of itself, actualization must have differentiated itself from being. Therefore (the Divinity), which is not constituted by two things fused into unity, but by absolute Unity, being either only actualization, or not even mere actualization, could not be called “master of Himself.” [Ennead VI,8 (39) 12]

Now supposing the existence of actualizations in the divinity, and that these actualizations depend on His will — for he could not actualize involuntarily — and that simultaneously they constitute His being; in this case, His will and His being will be identical (that is, will fuse). Such as He wished to be, He is. That He wills and actualizes in conformity to His nature, will not be said in preference to this, that His being conforms to His will and His actualization. He is absolutely master of Himself, because His very essence depends on Himself. [Ennead VI,8 (39) 13]

When we assert that (the Divinity) Himself receives nothing, and is received by no other being, we thereby in another way prove that He is what He is, not by chance. This is the case because He isolates Himself, and preserves Himself uninfected from all things. Besides, we sometimes see that our nature possesses something similar, when it finds itself disengaged from all that is attached to us, and subjects us to the sway of fortune and fatality — for all the things that we call ours are dependent, and undergo the law of fortune, happening to us fortuitously. Only in this manner is one master of himself, possessing free will, by virtue of an actualization of the light which has the form of the Good, of an actualization of the Good, which is superior to intelligence; of an actualization which is not adventitious, and which is above all thought. When we shall have risen thither, when we shall have become that alone, leaving all the rest, shall we not say that we are then above even liberty and free will? Who then could subject us to chance, to fortune, to contingency, since we shall have become the genuine life, or rather, since we shall be in Him who derives nothing from any other being, who is solely himself? When other beings are isolated, they do not suffice themselves; but He is what He is, even when isolated. [Ennead VI,8 (39) 15]

As we assert, and as it seems evident that (the Divinity) is everywhere and nowhere, it is necessary thoroughly to grasp and understand this conception, as it applies to the subject of our studies. Since (the Divinity) is nowhere, He is nowhere fortuitously; since He is everywhere, He is everywhere what He is. He himself is therefore what is named omnipresence, and universality. He is not contained within omnipresence, but is omnipresence itself, and He imparts essence to all the other beings because they are all contained within Him who is everywhere. Possessing the supreme rank, or rather Himself being supreme, He holds all things in obedience to Himself. For them He is not contingent; it is they that are contingent to Him, or rather, that connect with Him; for it is not He who contemplates them, but they who look at Him. On His part, He, as it were, moves towards the most intimate depths within Himself, loving Himself, loving the pure radiance of which He is formed, Himself being what He loves, that is, giving Himself a hypostatic form of existence, because He is an immanent actualization, and what is most lovable in Him constitutes the higher Intelligence. This Intelligence being an operation, He himself is an operation; but as He is not the operation of any other principle, He is the operation of Himself; He therefore is not what chance makes of Him, but what He actualizes. He is the author of Himself, inasmuch as He exists particularly because He is His own foundation, because He contemplates Himself, because, so to speak, He passes His existence in contemplating Himself. He therefore is, not what He fortuitously found Himself to be, but what He himself wishes to be, and as His will contains nothing fortuitous, He is even in this respect independent of contingency. For, since His will is the will of the Best that is in the universe, it could not be fortuitous. If one were to imagine an opposite movement, one will easily recognize that His inclination towards Himself, which is His actualization, and His immanence in Himself make of Him what He is. Indeed, should (the divinity) incline towards what is outside of Himself, He would cease being what He is. His actualization, in respect to Himself, is to be what He is; for He and that actualization coincide. He therefore gives Himself a hypostatic form of existence, because the actualization that He produces is inseparable from Himself. If then the actualization of (the divinity) did not merely commence, but if, on the contrary, it dated from all eternity; if it consist in an exciting action, identical to Him who is excited; and if, besides this exciting action, He be ever — being super-intellection, then (the divinity) is what He makes himself by His exciting action. The latter is superior to “Being,” to Intelligence, and to the Life of Wisdom; it is Himself. He therefore is an actualization superior to Life, Intelligence and Wisdom; these proceed from Him, and from Him alone. He therefore derives essence from Himself, and by Himself; consequently, He is, not what He fortuitously found Himself to be, but what He willed to be. [Ennead VI,8 (39) 16]

(As illustration), consider the radiance shed afar by some luminous source that remains within itself; the radiation would represent the image, while the source from which it issues would be the genuine light. Nevertheless, the radiation, which represents the intelligence, is not an image that has a form foreign (to its principle), for it does not exist by chance, being reason and cause in each of its parts. Unity then is the cause of the cause; He is, in the truest sense, supreme causality, simultaneously containing all the intellectual causes He is to produce; this, His offspring, is begotten not as a result of chance, but according to His own volition. His volition, however, was not irrational, fortuitous, nor accidental; and as nothing is fortuitous in Him, His will was exactly suitable. Therefore Plato called it the “suitable,” and the “timely,” to express as clearly as possible that the (Divinity) is foreign to all chance, and that He is that which is exactly suitable. Now if He be exactly suitable, He is so not irrationally. If He be timely, He must (by a Greek pun), also be “supremely sovereign” over the (beings) beneath Him. So much the more will He be timely for Himself. Not by chance therefore is He what He is, for He willed to be what He is; He wills suitable things, and in Him that which is suitable, and the actualization thereof, coincide. He is the suitable, not as a subject, but as primary actualization manifesting Him such as it was suitable for Him to be. That is the best description we can give of Him, in our impotence to express ourselves about Him as we should like. [Ennead VI,8 (39) 18]

It will be objected that the above implies the existence (of the Divinity) before He existed; for, if He made Himself, on the one hand, He did not yet exist, if it was Himself that He made; and on the other, so far as it was He who made, He already existed before Himself, since what has been made was Himself. However, (the Divinity) should be considered not so much as “being made” but as “making,” and we should realize that the actualization by which He created Himself is absolute; for His actualization does not result in the production of any other “being.” He produces nothing but Himself, He is entirely Himself; we are not dealing here with two things, but with a single entity. Neither need we hesitate to admit that the primary actualization has no “being”; but that actualization should be considered as constituting His hypostatic form of existence. If within Him these two were to be distinguished, the superlatively perfect Principle would be incomplete and imperfect. To add actualization to Him would be to destroy His unity. Thus, since the actualization is more perfect than His being, and since that which is primary is the most perfect, that which is primary must necessarily be actualization. He is what He is as soon as He actualizes. He cannot be said to have existed before He made Himself; for before He made Himself He did not exist; but (from the first actualization) He already existed in entirety. He therefore is an actualization which does not depend on being, (an actualization) that is clearly free; and thus He (originates) from Himself. If, as to His essence, He were preserved by some other principle, He himself would not be the first proceeding from Himself. He is said to contain Himself because He produces (and parades) Himself; since it is from the very beginning that He caused the existence of what He naturally contains. Strictly, we might indeed say, that He made Himself, if there existed a time when He himself began to exist. But since He was what He is before all times, the statement that He made Himself means merely that “having made” and “himself” are inseparable; for His essence coincides with His creative act, and, if I may be permitted to speak thus, with his “eternal generation.” [Ennead VI,8 (39) 20]

Could (the divinity) have made Himself different from what He made Himself? (If he could not, He would not have been omnipotent). If you remove from Him the power of doing evil, you thereby also remove the power of doing good. (In the divinity), power does not consist in the ability to make contraries; it is a constant and immutable power whose perfection consisted precisely in not departing from unity; for the power to make contraries is a characteristic of a being incapable of continuously persisting in the best. Self-creation (the actualization by which the divinity created Himself) exists once for all, for it is perfect. Who indeed could change an actualization produced by the will of the Divinity, an actualization that constitutes His very will? But how then was this actualization produced by the volition (of the divinity) which did not yet exist? [Ennead VI,8 (39) 21]

Treating of memory, we must begin by attributing to the soul a power which, though surprising, is perhaps really neither strange nor incredible. The soul, without receiving anything, nevertheless perceives the things she does not have. The (secret of this) is that by nature the soul is the reason of all things, the last reason of intelligible entities, and the first reason of sense-objects. Consequently the soul is in relation with both (spheres); by the intelligible things the soul is improved and vivified; but she is deceived by the resemblance which sense-objects bear to intelligible entities, and the soul descends here below as if drawn by her alluring charm. Because she occupies a position intermediary between intelligible entities and sense-objects, the soul occupies a position intermediary between them. She is said to think intelligible entities when, by applying herself to them, she recalls them. She cognizes them because, in a certain manner, she actually constitutes these entities; she cognizes them, not because she posits them within herself, but because she somehow possesses them, and has an intuition of them; because, obscurely constituting these things, she awakes, passing from obscurity to clearness, and from potentiality to actualization. For sense-objects she acts in the same way. By relating them to what she possesses within herself, she makes them luminous, and has an intuition of them, possessing as she does a potentiality suitable to (a perception of) them; and, so to speak, to begetting them. When the soul has applied the whole force of her attention to one of the objects that offer themselves to her, she, for a long while, thereby remains affected as if this object were present; and the more attentively she considers it, the longer she sees it. That is why children have a stronger memory; they do not quickly abandon an object, but lingeringly fix their gaze upon it; instead of allowing themselves to be distracted by a crowd of objects, they direct their attention exclusively to some one of them. On the contrary, those whose thought and faculties are absorbed by a variety of objects, do not rest with any one, and do no more than look them over. [Ennead IV,6 (41) 3]

Let us now consider relation. Let us see whether, in relative matters, there be something common that constitutes a kind, or which is a point of union in any other manner. Let us, before everything else, examine whether relation (as, for example, left and right, double and half, and so forth) be a kind of “hypostasis,” or substantial act, or an habituation; or, whether it be a kind of hypostatic existence in certain things, while in others it is not so; or whether it be this under no circumstances. What is there indeed that is particular in relations such as double and half; surpasser and surpassed; in possession, and in disposition; lying down, standing, sitting; in the relation of father and son; of master and slave; in the like and different; the equal and unequal; the active and passive; measurer and measured; sensation and knowledge? Knowledge, for instance, relates to the object which can be known, and sensation to sense-object; for the relation of knowledge to the object which can be known has a kind of hypostatic existence in the actualization relative to the form of the object which can be known; likewise with the relation of sensation to the sense-object. The same may be said about the relation of the “active” to the “passive,” which results in a single actualization, as well as about the relation between the measure and the measured object, from which results mensuration. But what results from the relation of the similar to the similar? If in this relation there be nothing begotten, one can at least discover there something which is its foundation, namely, the identity of quality; nevertheless, neither of these two terms would then have anything beside their proper quality. The same may be said of equal things, because the identity of quantity precedes the manner of being of both things; this manner of being has no foundation other than our judgment, when we say, This one or that one are of the same size; this one has begotten that one, this one surpasses that one. What are standing and sitting outside of him who stands or sits? As to the possession, if it apply to him who possesses, it rather signifies the fact of possession; if it apply to what is possessed, it is a quality. As much can be said of disposition. What then exists outside of the two relative terms, but the comparison established by our judgment? In the relation of the thing which surpasses the thing which is surpassed, the first is some one size, and the second is some other size; those are two independent things, while as to the comparison, it does not exist in them, except in our judgment. The relation of left to right and that of the former to the latter consist in the different positions. It is we who have imagined the distinction of right to left; there is nothing in the objects themselves that answers thereto. The former and the latter are two relations of time, but it is we who have established that distinction. [Ennead VI,1 (42) 6]

The above digression gives us the opportunity of investigating why there should be a difference between these relations, and those of which we spoke above. However, we should be glad to have the Aristotelians first state what community of existence obtains in this correlation. It would be impossible to claim that this community was anything corporeal. If then it be corporeal, it must exist either within the very subjects, or without them. If such a habituation be identical among all, it is a synonym. If it be a habituation which differs according to the subjects in which it exists, it is a homonym; for the mere name of “habituation” (in different things) does not always correspond to the existence of any genuine similarity. Should we then divide the habituations into two classes, recognizing that certain objects have an inert and inactive habituation, implying simultaneity of existence, and that other objects have a habituation always implying “potentiality” and “actualization,” so that before “actualizing” the “potentiality” be already ready to exert itself, and to pass from “potentiality” to “actualization” in the approximation of relative conditions? Must we assert that in general certain things actualize, while others limit themselves to existing? Must we also assert that that which limits itself to existence only gives its correlative a name, while that which actualizes gives it existence? Of this latter kind of things are the father and son, the “active” and “passive,” for such things exert a kind of life and action. Must we then divide habituation in several kinds, not as possessing something similar and common in the differences, but as having a nature different in each member of the division, and thus constituting a “homonym” (or, mere verbal label)? In this case, we would apply to the active habituation the names of “doing” and “suffering,” because both imply an identical action. Further, we will have to posit another “habituation” which, without itself actualizing, implies something which acts in two relative terms. For example, there is equality; which equates two objects; for it is equality which renders things equal, just as identity makes them identical; just as the names “great” and “small” are derived one from the presence of greatness, and the other from that of smallness. But if we should consider greatness and smallness in the individuals which participate therein, it must be acknowledged that such individual is greater by the act of greatness which manifests in him, and that another is smaller because of the inherent act of littleness. [Ennead VI,1 (42) 8]

It must therefore be granted that in the things of which we first spoke, such as knowing and doing (active being), there is an actualization, an habituation, and an actualizing reason; while in the other things there is a participation in form and reason. For indeed, if the bodies were the only essences, the relative habituations would bear no reality. If, on the contrary, we assign the first rank in existence to incorporeal things, and to the reasons, and if we define the habituations as reasons that participate in the forms, we should say that what is double has the double for its cause, and what is half, has the half as its cause; and that other things are what they are named because of the presence of the same, or of the contrary form. Now either two things simultaneously receive one the double, and the other the half, and one greatness, and the other smallness; or contraries such as resemblance and dissimilarity are to be found in each thing, as well as identity and difference; and everything finds itself simultaneously similar and dissimilar, identical and different. It might be objected that if one object were ugly, and another uglier still, they are such because they participate in a form. Not so; for if these two objects be equally ugly, they are equal in the absence of the form. If they be unequally ugly, the least ugly is such because it participates in a form which does not sufficiently subdue matter, and the uglier is such because it participates in a form which does so still less. They could, besides, be judged from the standpoint of deprivation, comparing them to each other as if they contained some form. The sensation is a form that results from two things (of that which feels, and that which is felt); so also with knowledge. In respect to the thing possessed, possession is an act which contains, which has a kind of efficacy. As to mensuration, which is an actualization of measure, in respect of the measured object, it consists in a reason. [Ennead VI,1 (42) 9]

What part do the powers (or, potentialities) play here? The man who is naturally capable of boxing owes it to a certain disposition. It is so also with somebody who is unskilful in something. In general, quality consists in a non-essential characteristic; what seems to contribute to the being, or to add to it, as color, whiteness, and color in general, contributes to the beings as far as it constitutes something distinct therefrom, and is its actualization; but it occupies a rank inferior to being; and though derived therefrom, it adds itself thereto as something foreign, as an image and adumbration. [Ennead VI,1 (42) 10]

The Aristotelians hold that number and quantity, and other things referring to being should be subordinated to being; thus they classify quantity as in a genus different from being. Quality also refers to being, it also is erected into a separate genus. Consequently, as action also refers to being, it is also considered a separate genus. Must then “acting,” or rather “action,” from which “acting” is derived, be considered a separate genus, as we consider that quality, from which qualification is derived, is a separate genus? (As to these derivations), it might be asked whether there were no distinction between “action,” “to act,” and “active,” or between “to act,” and “action?” “To act” expresses the idea of “active,” while “action” does not express it. “To act” means “to be in some action;” or rather, “in actualization.” Consequently, “actualization” expresses a category rather than “action;” since actualization is predicated of being, like quality, as was said above; and actualization, like movement, also relates to being; but movement necessarily constitutes a class of essence. How indeed could we admit that quantity, quality and relation each form a genus, in respect to being, and yet refuse to movement, which equally refers to being, the privilege of also forming a genus of being? [Ennead VI,1 (42) 15]

It may be objected that movement is an imperfect actualization. In that case actualization should be given the first rank; and under that genus would follow the species of movement, with the quality of imperfection, by saying that movement is an actualization, and adding (the specific difference) that it is imperfect. To say that movement is an imperfect actualization does not deprive it of being an actualization, but implies that though it be actualization, there is in it succession, not to arrive at being actualization, (which it is already), but to accomplish something from which it is yet entirely distinct. Then (when that goal is reached), it is not the movement that becomes perfect, but the thing which was the goal. For instance, walking is walking from the very first step; but if there be a mile to go, and the mile be not yet finished, what is lacking of the mile is not lacking to the walking or to movement (taken absolutely), but to that particular walk. For the walk was walking and movement from the very first step; consequently, he who is moving has already moved, and he who cuts has already cut. Just as actualization, movement has no need of time; it needs time only to become such an action. If then actualization be outside of time, movement, taken absolutely, must also be outside of time. The objection that movement is in time because it implies continuity (proves too much; for in that case) intuition itself, if prolonged, would also imply continuity, and therefore would be in time. Reasoning by induction, it may be seen, 1, that one can always distinguish parts in any kind of movement; 2, that it would be impossible to determine when and since when the movement began, or to assign the definite point of departure; 3, that it is always possible to divide movement by following it up to its origin, so that in this manner movement that has just begun would find itself to have begun since infinite time, and, 4, that movement would be infinite in regard to its beginning. The fact is that the Aristotelians distinguish movement from actualization; they affirm that actualization is outside of time, but that time is necessary to movement; not indeed to some particular movement, but to movement in itself, because, according to their views, it is a quantity. Nevertheless, they themselves acknowledge that movement is a quantity only by accident, as, for instance, when it is a daily movement, or when it has some particular duration. Just as actualization is outside of time, nothing hinders movement from having begun outside of time, and time from being connected with movement only because the movement has a certain duration. Indeed, it is generally granted that changes occur outside of time, for it is usual to say, The changes occur either suddenly or successively. Now if change can occur outside of time, why should it not be so also with movement? We here speak of change, and not of “having changed;” for change does not necessarily have to be accomplished (while “having changed” signifies an accomplished fact, and consequently implies the notion of time). [Ennead VI,1 (42) 16]

It may be objected that actualization and movement do not, by themselves, form a genus, but belong to the genus of relation, because actualization exists through the power of something active, and movement exists by the power of some motor, as such. We might answer that relative conceptions are produced by habituation (the manner of being) even of things, and not only through the relation established between them by the mind. As the habituation is a mode of “hypostatic” existence, although it be the “thing of something else,” or although it refer to something else, it nevertheless possesses its nature before being a relation. Now this actualization, this movement, this habituation, which is the “thing of some other thing” nevertheless possesses the property of existing and of being conceived by itself before being a relation; otherwise, all things would be relative conceptions; for there is nothing, not excluding the soul herself, which does not bear some relation to something else. Moreover, why are “action” and “acting” not relatives? For they necessarily are either a movement or an actualization. If the Aristotelians consider “action” a relative, and make a genus of “acting,” why then do they not also place “movement” among the relatives, and make a genus of “moving?” They might, indeed, have subsumed under the genus “movement” the two species “action” and “reaction” (or, “suffering”); but they have no right to make two distinct genera of “acting” and “reacting,” as they generally do. [Ennead VI,1 (42) 17]

We must further examine if the Aristotelians have the right to say that acting contains both actualizations and movements, the actualizations producing themselves instantaneously, and the movements successively; as, for instance, dividing implies time. Or will they say that all actualizations are movements, or, at least, are accompanied by movements? Will they trace all actions to “experiencing” (or, reactions), or will they acknowledge absolute actions, like walking or speaking? Or will they distinguish all actions that relate to “experiencing” as movements, and all absolute actions as actualizations? Or will they place actions of both kinds among movements, and among actualizations? They would no doubt classify walking, which is an absolute thing, as movement; and thinking, which is a verb without passive voice, as an actualization. Otherwise the Aristotelians will be obliged to insist that there is nothing active in walking or thinking. But if walking and thinking do not belong to the category of acting, it will be necessary to explain to what they do belong. Will it be said that thinking relates to the thinkable (the intelligible), as intellection does, because sensation relates to the sense-object? If sensation be related to the sense-object, why do they not equally relate “sensing” (feeling) to the sense-object? Sensation, relating to something else, has a relation with that thing; but, besides that relation, it has the property of being an “action” or an “experience” (or, reaction). If therefore reaction (or, suffering), besides belonging to something else, or depending on something else, has the property of itself being something, like actualization, then walking, besides belonging to something else (to the feet), and depending on something else (on the motive power), nevertheless by itself possesses the property of being movement. In this case, it will have to be recognized that intellection, besides being a relation, by itself also is a movement or an actualization. [Ennead VI,1 (42) 18]

Let us now examine if certain actualizations seem to be imperfect when they are not joined to time, thus identifying themselves with movements, as life identifies itself with living. For (according to the Aristotelians) the life of each (being) is accomplished in a perfect time, and happiness is an actualization; not an individual one, indeed, but a sort of movement. Consequently we will have to call life and happiness movements, and movement will have to be made a genus, though recognizing that movement forms a genus very different from quantity and quality; and, like them, relates to being. This genus could be divided into two species, movements of body and movements of soul, or movements spontaneous and communicated; or again, movements proceeding from the beings themselves, or movements proceeding from others. In this case, the movements proceeding from the beings themselves are actions, whether they communicate to others, or remain absolute in themselves (and not communicating to others, like speaking and walking); and the movements proceeding from others are “reactions” though the communicated movements seem to be identical with the movements proceeding from others. For example, division is one and the same thing, whether it be considered within him who divides, or in that which is divided; nevertheless dividing is something different from being divided. Or again, division is not one and the same thing according as it proceeds from him who divides, or as it is received by him who is divided; to divide means to cause in the divided thing another movement, which is the result of the dividing action or movement. Perhaps, indeed, the difference does not lie in the very fact of being divided, but in the movement which results from the division, as for instance, in suffering; for this is what constitutes reaction (or “passion”). [Ennead VI,1 (42) 19]

What are we to say if there be no suffering? We might answer that the actualization of him who acts is simply present in such a thing (without correlative reaction). There are thus two manners of acting; to act within oneself, and to act outside of oneself. No more will it then be said that the first mode is proper acting, and the second reacting, but that there are two ways of acting outside of oneself, acting and reacting. For instance, writing is an operation in which one acts on something else without a correlative reaction, because in writing one produces nothing but the very actualization of writing, and not something else, like experiencing; for the quality of writing that has been produced is nothing that reacts (or, experiences). As to walking, though the earth be stepped on by the feet, it does not react (or, experience) as a consequence. On the contrary, if it be the body of an animal that is trod under feet, it may be conceived that there is reaction, because one then thinks of the suffering endured by the animal thus trod on, and not of the walking; otherwise, this reaction would have been conceived before (the notion of this reaction would have been implied in the very notion of walking). [Ennead VI,1 (42) 19]

Thus, in everything, acting forms but a single genus along with reacting, which (by the Aristotelians) is considered its opposite. Reacting is what follows acting, without being its contrary; to be burnt, for instance, follows burning, but is not its contrary. In this case, the reaction is what results in the object itself from the fact of burning, or of being burnt, which form but one (process), whether the result be suffering, or something else, as, for instance, depreciation. It might be objected, When one (being) makes another suffer, is it not true that the one acts, and the other reacts? Here from a single actualization result two facts, an action, and a reaction. Besides, it is not necessary to include in the action the will to cause suffering; it has only produced something else as a result of which it causes suffering, something which occurring in the being that suffers, and being one single (occurrence), that causes suffering. What then is this one identical thing which is anterior to the suffering? When there is no suffering, is there not nevertheless a reaction in him in whom is the modification? For instance, in him who hears? No: to hear is not to react, and sensation is not really a reaction; but to suffer is to experience a reaction, and the reaction is not the contrary of the action (in the sense we have explained). [Ennead VI,1 (42) 19]

How may we define the fact of “reaction”? We do not approve of the definition that it is the passing of the actualization from one being into another, if its receiver appropriate it. Shall we say that a (being) reacts when there is no actualization, but only an effective experience? But is it not possible that the being that reacts becomes better; while, on the contrary, the one who acts, loses? A (being) may also act in an evil manner, and exercise on another a harmful influence; and the actualization may be shameful, and the affective experience be honorable. What distinction shall we then establish (between action and reaction)? Shall we say that an action is to cause (an actualization) to pass from self into others, and that reaction is to receive in oneself (an action) from someone else? But then what about the (actualizations) produced in oneself which do not pass into others, such as thought and opinion? One can even excite oneself by a reflection or opinion of emotive value, without this emotion having been aroused by anybody else. We shall therefore define an action as a spontaneous movement, whether this movement remain in the being who produces it, or whether it pass into somebody else. [Ennead VI,1 (42) 21]

What is most shocking in the Stoic doctrine, is that they assign the first rank to what is only a potentiality, matter, instead of placing actualization before potentiality. It is impossible for the potential to pass to actualization if the potential occupy the first rank among beings. Indeed, the potential could never improve itself; and it implies the necessary anteriority of actualization; in which case potentiality is no longer a principle. Or, if it be insisted that actualization and potentiality must be simultaneous, both principles will be found depending on chance. Besides, even if actualization be contemporaneous with potentiality, why should not the first rank be assigned to actualization? Why should this (matter) be an essence, rather than those (forms)? Whoever asserts that form is posterior bears the burden of proof; for matter does not beget form, and quality could not arise from what has no quality; nor actualization from what is potential; otherwise, actualization would have existed anteriorly, even in the system of the Stoics. According to them, even God is no longer simple: He is posterior to matter; for He is a body constituted by form and matter. Whence then does He derive His form? If the divinity exist without matter, He is incorporeal, by virtue of His being principle and reason, and the active principle would thus be incorporeal. If, even without having matter, the divinity be composite in essence, by virtue of His body, the Stoics will have to postulate some other kind of matter which may better suit the divinity. [Ennead VI,1 (42) 26]

Admitting therefore the existence of certain genera, which are simultaneously principles, we must still consider whether they should be conceived so that these genera, along with the things contained by each of them, commingle, fuse, and form the whole by their blending. If so, the genera would exist potentially, but not in actualization; none would have anything characteristic. Further, granting the distinctness of the genera, can we grant that the individuals blend? But what then would become of the genera themselves? Will they subsist by themselves, and will they remain pure, without mutual destruction of the mingled individuals? Later we shall indicate how such things could take place. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 2]

The first consideration that meets us is that each body, whether of animals or plants, is multiple, by virtue of its colors, forms, dimensions, the kinds of parts, and diversity of their position; and that nevertheless all things derive from unity, whether from the absolutely simple Unity, or from the habituation of the universal Unity, or from some principle having more unity — and consequently more essence — than the things it produces; because, the further the distance from unity, the less the essence. The principle which forms the bodies must therefore be one, without either being absolutely one, nor identical with the One; otherwise, it would not produce a plurality that was distant from unity; consequently, it must be a plural-unity. Now this principle is the soul; therefore she must be a plural unity. This plurality, however, consists of the (“seminal) reasons” which proceed from the soul. The reasons, indeed, are not other than the soul; for the soul herself is reason, being the principle of the reasons; the reasons are the actualization of the soul which acts according to her being; and this being is potentiality of the reasons. The soul is therefore plurality simultaneously with unity; which is clearly demonstrated by the action she exerts on other things. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 5]

What and how much can be seen in the soul? Since we have found in the soul both being and life, and as both being and life are what is common in every soul, and as life resides in intelligence, recognizing that there is (besides the soul and her being) intelligence and its life, we shall posit as a genus what is common in all life; namely, movement; consequently, being and movement, which constitute primary life, will be our first two categories. Although (in reality) they fuse, they are distinguished by thought, which is incapable of approaching unity exclusively; and whose exercise compels this distinction. Besides, it is possible, you can, in other objects, clearly see essence, as distinct from movement or life, although their essence be not real, and only shadowy or figurative. Just as the image of a man lacks several things, and, among others, the most important, life; likewise, the essence of sense-objects is only an adumbration of the veritable essence, lacking as it does the highest degree of essence, namely, vitality, which appears in its archetype. So you see it is quite easy to distinguish, on one hand, essence from life, and, on the other, life from essence. Essence is a genus, and contains several species; now movement must not be subsumed under essence, nor be posited within essence, but should be equated with essence. When we locate movement within essence, it is not that we consider life is the subject of movement, but because movement is life’s actualization; only in thought can either exist separately. These two natures, therefore, form but a single one; for essence exists not in potentiality, but in actualization; and if we conceive of these two genera as separated from each other it will still be seen that movement is within essence, and essence within movement. In the unity of essence, the two elements, when considered separately, imply each other reciprocally; but thought affirms their duality, and shows that each of the two series is a double unity. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 7]

In many ways it can be shown that stability must be kept apart from essence. In the first place, if stability were identical with essence, why should it be so, rather than movement, which is life, the actualization of being, and of essence itself? Since we have distinguished between movement and essence, and since we have said that it is both identical therewith, and still at the same time different from it; and because essence and movement are different from each other from one viewpoint, but from another, are identical; we must also (in thought) distinguish stability from essence without separating it (in existence); and by separating it in thought, we shall be making a distinct genus of it. Indeed, if stability and essence were to be confused together in a perfect union, if we were to acknowledge no difference between them, we would still be obliged to identify stability with movement by the intermediation of essence; in this way stability and movement would together form but one and the same thing. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 7]

We must posit these three genera (essence, movement, and stability) because intelligence thinks each of them separately. By thinking them simultaneously, Intelligence posits them; and, as soon as Intelligence thinks them, they are (in existence). The things whose existence (“essence”) implies matter do not exist in Intelligence; for otherwise they would be immaterial. On the contrary, immaterial things come into existence by merely being thought. So then contemplate pure Intelligence, instead of seeking it with your bodily eyes, fix on it your interior gaze. Then will you see the hearth of “Being,” where shines an unsleeping light; you will see therein how essences subsist as simultaneously divided and united; you will see in it an abiding life, the thought which applies not to the future, but to the present; which possesses it already, and possesses it for ever; which thinks what is intimate to it, and not what is foreign. Intelligence thinks: and you have actualization and movement. Intelligence thinks what is in itself: and you have “being” and essence; for, by merely existing, Intelligence thinks: Intelligence thinks itself as existing, and the object to which Intelligence applies its thought exists also. The actualization of Intelligence on itself is not “being”; but the object to which it refers, the Principle from which it derives, is essence. Essence, indeed, is the object of intuition, but not intuition itself; the latter exists (has “essence”) only because it starts from, and returns thereto. Now as essence is an actualization, and not a potentiality, it unites both terms (existence and intuition, object and subject), and, without separating them, it makes of intuition essence, and of essence intuition. Essence is the unshakable foundation of all things, and support of their existence; it derives its possessions from no foreign source, holding them from itself, and within itself. It is simultaneously the goal of thought, because it is stability that never needed a beginning, and the principle from which thought was born, because it is unborn stability; for movement can neither originate from, nor tend towards movement. The idea also belongs to the genus of stability, because it is the goal (or limit) of intelligence; but the intellectual actualization by which it is thought constitutes movement. Thus all these things form but one thing; and movement, stability, and the things which exist in all essences constitute genera (or classifications). Moreover, every essence posterior to these genera is, in its turn, also definite essence, definite stability, and definite movement. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 8]

Now why should we not posit quantity among the primary genera? And why not also quality? Quantity is not one of the primary genera like those we have posited, because the primary genera coexist with essence (which is not the case with quantity). Indeed, movement is inseparable from essence; being its actualization and life. Stability is implied in being; while identity and difference are still more inseparable from essence; so that all these (categories) appear to us simultaneously. As to number (which is discrete quantity), it is something posterior. As to (mathematical) numbers, far more are they posterior both to these genera, and themselves; for the numbers follow each other; the second depends on the first, and so forth; the last are contained within the first. Number, therefore, cannot be posited among the primary genera. Indeed, it is permissible to doubt whether quantity may be posited as any kind of a genus. More even than number, extension (which is continuous quantity), shows the characteristics of compositeness, and of posteriority. Along with number, the line enters into the idea of extension. This would make two elements. Then comes surface, which makes three. If then it be from number that continuous dimension derives its quantitativeness, how could this dimension be a genus, when number is not? On the other hand, anteriority and posteriority exist in dimension as well as in numbers. But if both kinds of quantities have in common this, that they are quantities, it will be necessary to discover the nature of quantity. When this will have been found, we shall be able to make of it a secondary genus; but it could not rank with the primary genera. If, then, quantity be a genus without being a primary one, it will still remain for us to discover to which higher genus, whether primary or secondary, it should be subsumed. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 13]

Besides, we have elsewhere pointed out that what is a complement of being is called a quality figuratively only; and that what is genuinely quality comes from the exterior, posteriorly to being. What properly belongs to being is its actualization; and what follows it is an experience (or, negative modification). We now add that what refers to some being, cannot in any respect be the complement of being. There is no need of any addition of “being” (existence) to man, so far as he is a man, to make of him a (human) being. Being exists already in a superior region before descending to specific difference; thus the animal exists (as being) before one descends to the property of being reasonable, when one says: “Man is a reasonable animal.” [Ennead VI,2 (43) 14]

However, how do four of these genera complete being, without nevertheless constituting the suchness (or, quality) of being? for they do not form a “certain being.” The primary Essence has already been mentioned; and it has been shown that neither movement, difference, nor identity are anything else. Movement, evidently, does not introduce any quality in essence; nevertheless it will be wise to study the question a little more definitely. If movement be the actualization of being, if essence, and in general all that is in the front rank be essentially an actualization, movement cannot be considered as an accident. As it is, however, the actualization of the essence which is in actualization, it can no longer be called a simple complement of “being,” for it is “being” itself. Neither must it be ranked amidst things posterior to “being,” nor amidst the qualities; it is contemporaneous with “being,” for you must not suppose that essence existed first, and then moved itself (these being contemporaneous events). It is likewise with stability; for one cannot say that essence existed first, and then later became stable. Neither are identity or difference any more posterior to essence; essence was not first unitary, and then later manifold; but by its essence it is one manifold. So far as it is manifold, it implies difference; while so far as it is a manifold unity, it implies identity. These categories, therefore, suffice to constitute “being.” When one descends from the intelligible world to inferior things, he meets other elements which indeed no longer constitute absolute “being,” but only a “certain being,” that possesses some particular quantity or quality; these are indeed genera, but genera inferior to the primary genera. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 15]

But if by Good we here mean the unity which lies in Essence, we would not hesitate to acknowledge that the actualization by which Essence aspires to Unity is its true good, and that that is the means by which it receives the form of Good. Then the good of Essence is the actualization by which it aspires to the Good; that act constitutes its life; now this actualization is a movement, and we have already ranked movement among the primary genera. (It is therefore useless to make a new genus of “Good conceived as unity”). [Ennead VI,2 (43) 17]

As to the beautiful, if that be taken to mean the primary and supreme Beauty, we would answer as about the Good, or at least, we would make an analogous answer. If however we mean only the splendor with which the Idea shines, it may be answered that that splendor is not the same everywhere; and that, besides, it is something posterior. If the beautiful be considered as absolute Being, it is then already comprised with the “Being” already considered (and consequently does not form a separate genus). If it be considered in respect to us human beings, who are spectators, and if it be explained as producing in us a certain emotion, such an actualization is a movement; but if, on the contrary, it be explained as that tendency which draws us to the beautiful, this still is a movement. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 18]

Knowledge is pre-eminently movement; for it is the intuition of essence; it is an actualization, and not a simple habit. It should, therefore, also be reduced to movement. It may also be reduced to stability (if considered as a durable actualization); or rather, it belongs to both genera. But if it belong to two different genera, it is something of a blend; but anything blended is necessarily posterior (to the elements which enter into the blend, and it cannot therefore either be a primary genus). [Ennead VI,2 (43) 18]

Let us, therefore, suppose that Intelligence was in a state in which it did not yet attach itself to anything in particular, so that it had not yet become an individual intelligence. Let us conceive it similar to knowledge considered by itself before the notions of the particular species, or to the knowledge of a species taken before the notions of the contained parts. Universal Knowledge, without (in actualization) being any particular notion, potentially lies within all notions, and reciprocally, each particular notion is one single thing in actualization, but all things in potentiality; likewise with universal Knowledge. The notions which thus refer to a species exist potentially in universal Knowledge, because, while applying itself to a species, they potentially are also universal Knowledge. Universal Knowledge is predicated of each particular notion, without the particular notion being predicated of universal Knowledge; but universal Knowledge must none the less subsist in itself without blending (with anything else). [Ennead VI,2 (43) 20]

The case is similar with Intelligence. There is a kind of existence of universal Intelligence, which is located above the particular actualized intelligences, and is different from that of the particular intelligences. These are filled with universal notions: universal Intelligence furnishes to the particular intelligences the notions they possess. It is the potentiality of these intelligences all of which it contains in its universality; on their side, these, in their particularity, contain universal Intelligence just as a particular science implies universal science. The great Intelligence exists in itself, and the particular intelligences also exist in themselves; they are implied in universal Intelligence, just as this one is implied in the particular intelligences. Each one of the particular intelligences exists simultaneously in itself, and in something else (in the universal Intelligence), just as universal Intelligence exists simultaneously in itself and in all the others. In universal Intelligence, which exists in itself, all particular intelligences exist potentially, because it actually is all the intelligences, and potentially each of them separately. On the contrary, these are actualizations of the particular intelligences, and potentially universal Intelligence. Indeed, so far as they are what is predicated of them, they are actualizations of what is predicated; so far as they exist in the genus that contains them, they are this genus potentially. Genus, as such, is potentially all the species it embraces; it is none of them in actuality; but all are implied therein. So far as genus is in actualization what exists before the species, it is the actualization of the things which are not particular. As occurs in the species, these particular things achieve such actualization only by the actualization which emanates from the genus, and which, with regard to them, acts as cause. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 20]

(Of the essences it contains) it possesses the number, as it is both one and many. It is many, that is, (it is) many potentialities, which are admirable powers, full of force and greatness, because they are pure; powers that are vigorous and veritable because they have no goal at which they are forced to stop; consequently being infinite, that is, supreme Infinity, and Greatness. If then we were to scrutinize this greatness and beauty of being, if by the splendor and light which surround it, we were to distinguish what Intelligence contains, then would we see the efflorescing of quality. With the continuity of actualization we would behold greatness, in quiescent condition. As we have seen one (number), two (quality), and three (greatness), greatness, as the third thing, presents itself with universal quantity. Now, as soon as quality and quantity show themselves to us, they unite, blend into one and the same figure (outward appearance). Then comes difference, which divides quality and quantity, whence arise different qualities, and differences of figure. The presence of identity produces equality, and that of difference, inequality, both in quantity, number, and dimension; hence the circle, the quadrilateral, and the figures composed of unequal things; hence numbers that are similar, and different, even and uneven. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 21]

Thus intellectual Life, which is the perfect actualization, embraces all the things that our mind now conceives, and all intellectual operations. In its potentiality it contains all things as essences, in the same manner as Intelligence does. Now Intelligence possesses them by thought, a thought which is not discursive (but intuitive). The intellectual life therefore possesses all the things of which there are “reasons” (that is, ideas); itself is a single Reason, great, perfect, which contains all reasons, which examines them in an orderly fashion, beginning with the first, or rather, which has ever examined them, so that one could never really tell that it was examining them. For all things that we grasp by ratiocination, in whatever part soever of the universe they may be located, are found as intuitively possessed by Intelligence. It would seem as if it was Essence itself which, (being identical with Intelligence), had made Intelligence reason thus (by producing its conceptions), as appears to happen in the (“seminal) reasons” which produce the animals. In the (ideas, that is in the “seminal) reasons” which are anterior to ratiocination, all things are found to possess a constitution such that the most penetrating intelligence would have considered best, by reasoning. We should therefore expect (great and wonderful things) of these Ideas, superior and anterior to Nature and (“seminal) reasons.” There Intelligence fuses with “Being;” neither in essence nor intelligence is there anything adventitious. There everything is smoothly perfect, since everything there is conformable to intelligence. All Essence is what Intelligence demands; it is consequently veritable primary Essence; for if it proceeded from some other (source), this also would be Intelligence. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 21]

Intelligence therefore embraces what comes after it, the Soul; so that the Soul, till the last of her powers, is contained by a number; as to the last power (matter), it is entirely infinite Considered in this condition (where, turning towards what is below it, it begets the Soul), Intelligence is a part (because it applies itself to something particular), though it possess all things, and though, in itself, it be universal; the intelligences which compose it are each a part (each constituting a particular intelligence by virtue of the actualization of Intelligence which exists (and thus exists in itself). As to the Soul, she is the part of a part (that is, a part of the Intelligence which itself is a part, as has just been said), but exists by virtue of the actualization of the Intelligence which acts outside of itself. Indeed, when Intelligence acts in itself, the actualizations it produces are the other intelligences; when it acts outside of itself, it produces the Soul. When in her turn, the Soul acts as genus or species, she begets the other souls which are her species. These souls themselves have two actualizations; the one, directed towards what is above them, constitutes their intelligence; the other, directed towards what is below them, gives birth to the other rational powers, and even to a last power which is in contact with matter, and which fashions it. The inferior part of the soul does not hinder the whole remainder from remaining in the superior region. Besides, this inferior part is only the very image of the soul; it is not separated from her, but it resembles the image reflected by a mirror, an image which persists only so long as the model remains before the mirror. What should be our conception of the model placed before the mirror? Down through what is immediately above the image (that is, down through the soul herself), we have the intelligible world, composed of all the intelligible entities, where everything is perfect. The sense-world is no more than the imitation thereof, and it imitates that intelligible world so far as it can, in that it itself is a living organism which is the image of the perfect living Organism. The sense-world imitates it as the portrait that is painted, or reflected by the surface of water reproduces the person situated before the painter, or above the water. This portrait obtained by the painting, or reflected by the surface of the water is not the image of the composite which constitutes the man (the soul and body), but of one or two parts only, the body which was fashioned by the soul. Likewise, therefore, the sense-world, which was made to resemble the intelligible world, offers us images, not of its creator, but of the (essences) contained within its creator, among which is man, along with all other animals. Now, in common with its creator, each living organism possesses life, though each possess it differently; both, besides, equally form part of the intelligible world. [Ennead VI,2 (43) 22]

Let us now grant that symmetrical analysis by individual objects is impossible. Might we not, as a means of classification, then employ analogy? In this case the (intelligible, higher) “being” would here be represented by matter; and movement above, by form here, which would thus quicken and perfect matter. The inertia of matter would correspond to rest above, while the (intelligible) identity and difference would correspond to our earthly manifold resemblance and differences. (Such an analogic method would misrepresent the state of affairs in this world). To begin with, matter does not receive form as its life or actualization, but (form) approaches and informs (matter) as something foreign (form deriving from being, while matter is only a deception; so that there is no kinship between them). Then in the (intelligible world) form is an actualization and motion, while here below movement is different, being accidental; we might far rather call form the halting or rest of matter, for form defines that which in itself is indefinite (unlimited). There (in the intelligible world) identity and difference refer to a single essence, which is both identical and different. Here below, essence differs only relatively, by participation (in the difference) for it is something identical and different, not by consequence, as above, but here below, by nature. As to stability, how could it be attributed to matter, which assumes all dimensions, which receives all its forms from without, without itself ever being able to beget anything by means of these forms? Such a division, therefore, will have to be given up. [Ennead VI,3 (44) 2]

What then is movement? While belonging to a subject, it is something by itself before belonging to a subject, as are quality, quantity, and being. To begin with, nothing is predicated before it, and of it, as a genus. Is change anterior to movement? Here change is identical with movement, or if change is to be considered a genus, it will form a genus to be added to those already recognized. Besides, it is evident that, on this hypothesis, movement will become a species, and to it will be opposed, as another species, “generation,” as, for instance, “generation” is a change, but not a movement. Why then should generation not be a movement? Is it because what is generated does not yet exist, and because movement could not exist in non-being? Consequently, neither will generation be a change. Or is this so because generation is an alteration and increase, and because it presupposes that certain things are altered, and increase? To speak thus is to busy ourselves with things that precede generation. Generation presupposes production of some other form; for generation does not consist in an alteration passively undergone, such as being warmed, or being whitened; such effects could be produced before realization of the generation. What then occurs in generation? There is alteration. Generation consists in the production of an animal or plant, in the reception of a form. Change is much more reasonably to be considered a species, than movement; because the word change means that one thing takes the place of another, while movement signifies the actualization by which a being passes from what is proper to it, to what is not, as in the translation from one place to another. If that be not admitted (to define movement), it will at least have to be acknowledged that the action of studying it, as that of playing the lyre, and in general, all the movements that modify a habit, would be subsumed within our definition. Alteration therefore could not be anything else but a species of movement; since it is a movement which produces passage from one state to another. [Ennead VI,3 (44) 21]

Granting that alteration is the same thing as movement, so far as the result of movement is to render something other than it was, (we still have to ask) what then is movement? To indulge in a figurative expression, it is the passage of potentiality to the actualization of which it is the potentiality. [Ennead VI,3 (44) 22]

Let us, indeed, suppose, that something which formerly was a potentiality succeeds in assuming a form, as “potentiality that becomes a statue,” or that passes to actualization, as a man’s walk. In the case where the metal becomes a statue, this passage is a movement; in the case of the walking, the walk itself is a movement, like the dance, with one who is capable of it. In the movement of the first kind, where the metal passes into the condition of being a statue, there is the production of another form which is realized by the movement. The movement of the second kind, the dance, is a simple form of the potentiality, and, when it has ceased, leaves nothing that subsists after it. [Ennead VI,3 (44) 22]

But what common element is there in alteration, growth and generation, and their contraries? What is there in common between these movements, and the displacement in space, when you consider the four movements, as such? The common element is that the moved thing, after the movement, is no longer in the former state; that it no more remains quiet, and does not rest so long as the movement lasts. It ceaselessly passes to another state, alters, and does not remain what it was; for the movement would be vain if it did not make one thing other than it was. Consequently “otherness” does not consist in one thing becoming other than it was, and then persisting in this other state, but in ceaseless alteration. Thus, time is always different from what it was because it is produced by movement; for it is movement measured in its march and not in its limit of motion, or stopping point; it follows, carried away in its course. Further, one characteristic common to all kinds of movement is that it is the march (or process) by which potentiality and possibility pass into actualization; for every object in movement, whatever be the nature of this movement, succeeds in moving only because it formerly possessed the power of producing an action, or of experiencing the passion of some particular nature. [Ennead VI,3 (44) 22]

For sense-objects, which receive their impulse from without, movement is a stimulus which agitates them, excites them, presses them, prevents them from slumbering in inertia, from remaining the same, and makes them present an image of life by their agitation and continual mutations. Besides, one must not confuse the things that move with movement; walking is not the feet, but an actualization of the power connected with the feet. Now as this power is invisible, we perceive only the agitation of the feet; we see that their present state is quite different from that in which they would have been, had they remained in place, and that they have some addition, which however, is invisible. Thus, being united to objects other than itself, the power is perceived only accidentally, because one notices that the feet change place, and do not rest. Likewise, alteration in the altered object, is recognized only by failure to discover in it the same quality as before. [Ennead VI,3 (44) 23]

What is the seat of a movement acting on an object by passing from internal power to actualization? Is it in the motor? How will that which is moved and which suffers be able to receive it? Is it in the movable element? Why does it not remain in the mover? Movement must therefore be considered as inseparable from the mover, although not exclusively; it must pass from the mover into the mobile (element) without ceasing to be connected with the mover, and it must pass from the mover to the moved like a breath (or influx). When the motive power produces locomotion, it gives us an impulse and makes us change place ceaselessly; when it is calorific, it heats; when, meeting matter, it imparts thereto its natural organization, and produces increase; when it removes something from an object, this object decreases because it is capable thereof; last, when it is the generative power which enters into action, generation occurs; but if this generative power be weaker than the destructive power, there occurs destruction, not of what is already produced, but of what was in the process of production. Likewise, convalescence takes place as soon as the force capable of producing health acts and dominates; and sickness occurs, when the opposite power produces a contrary effect. Consequently, movement must be studied not only in the things in which it is produced, but also in those that produce it or transmit it. The property of movement consists therefore in being a movement endowed with some particular quality, or being something definite in a particular thing. [Ennead VI,3 (44) 23]

That this is the state of affairs appears when, on applying one’s intelligence to the contemplation of some of the intelligible Entities, it becomes possible to assert, or rather, to see that it is absolutely incapable of ever having undergone any change; otherwise, it would not always exist; or rather, it would not always exist entirely. Is it thus perpetual? Doubtless; its nature is such that one may recognize that it is always such as it is, and that it could never be different in the future; so that, should one later on again contemplate it, it will be found similar to itself (unchanged). Therefore, if we should never cease from contemplation, if we should ever remain united thereto while admiring its nature, and if in that actualization we should show ourselves indefatigable, we would succeed in raising ourselves to eternity; but, to be as eternal as existence, we must not allow ourselves to be in anyway distracted from contemplating eternity, and eternal nature in the eternal itself. If that which exists thus be eternal, and exists ever, evidently that which never lowers itself to an inferior nature; which possesses life in its fulness, without ever having received, receiving, or being about to receive anything; this nature would be “aidion,” or perpetual. Perpetuity is the property constitutive of such a substrate; being of it, and in it. Eternity is the substrate in which this property manifests. Consequently reason dictates that eternity is something venerable, identical with the divinity. We might even assert that the age (“aion,” or eternity) is a divinity that manifests within itself, and outside of itself in its immutable and identical existence, in the permanence of its life. Besides, there is nothing to surprise any one if in spite of that we assert a manifoldness in the divinity. Every intelligible entity is manifoldness because infinite in power, infinite in the sense that it lacks nothing; it exercises this privilege peculiarly because it is not subject to losing anything. [Ennead III,7 (45) 5]

As this nature that is eternal and radiant with beauty refers to the One, issues from Him, and returns to Him, as it never swerves from Him, ever dwelling around Him and in Him, and lives according to Him, Plato was quite right in saying not casually, but with great profundity of thought, that “eternity is immutable in unity.” Thereby Plato not only reduces the eternity to the unity that it is in itself, but also relates the life of existence to the One itself. This life is what we seek; its permanence is eternity. Indeed that which remains in that manner, and which remains the same thing, that is, the actualization of that life which remains turned towards, and united with the One, that whose existence and life are not deceptive, that truly is eternity. (For intelligible or) true existence is to have no time when it does not exist, no time when it exists in a different manner; it is therefore to exist in an immutable manner without any diversity, without being first in one, and then in another state. To conceive of (existence), therefore, we must neither imagine intervals in its existence, nor suppose that it develops or acquires, nor believe that it contains any succession; consequently we could neither distinguish within it, or assert within it either before or after. If it contain neither “before” nor “after,” if the truest thing that can be affirmed of it be that it is, if it exist as “being” and life, here again is eternity revealed. When we say that existence exists always, and that there is not one time in which it is, and another in which it is not, we speak thus only for the sake of greater clearness; for when we use the word “always,” we do not take it in an absolute sense; but if we use it to show that existence is incorruptible, it might well mislead the mind in leading it to issue out from the unity (characteristic of eternity) to make it run through the manifold (which is foreign to eternity). “Always” further indicates that existence is never defective. It might perhaps be better to say simply “existence.” But though the word “existence” suffices to designate “being,” as several philosophers have confused “being” with generation, it was necessary to clear up the meaning of existence by adding the term “always.” Indeed, though we are referring only to one and the same thing by “existence” and “existing always,” just as when we say “philosopher,” and “the true philosopher,” nevertheless, as there are false philosophers, it has been necessary to add to the term “philosophers” the adjective “true.” Likewise, it has been necessary to add the term “always” to that of “existing,” and that of “existing” to that of “always;” that is the derivation of the expression “existing always,” and consequently (by contraction), “aion,” or, eternity. Therefore the idea “always” must be united to that of “existing,” so as to designate the “real being.” [Ennead III,7 (45) 6]

Thus, the extension of the life of the soul produces time, and the perpetual progression of her life produces the perpetuity of time, and her former life constitutes the past. We may therefore properly define time as the life of the soul considered in the movement by which she passes from one actualization to another. [Ennead III,7 (45) 11]

We have already decided that eternity is life characterized by rest, identity, immutability and infinity (in intelligence). It is, further, (admitted that) this our world is the image of the superior World (of intelligence). We have also come to the conclusion that time is the image of eternity. Consequently, corresponding to the Life characteristic of Intelligence, this world must contain another life which bears the same name, and which belongs to that power of the universal Soul. Instead of the movement of Intelligence, we will have the movement characteristic of a part of the soul (as the universal Soul ceaselessly passes from one thought to another). Corresponding to the permanence, identity, and immutability (of Intelligence), we will have the mobility of a principle which ceaselessly passes from one actualization to another. Corresponding to the unity and the absence of all extension, we will have a mere image of unity, an image which exists only by virtue of continuity. Corresponding to an infinity already entirely present, we will have a progression towards infinity which perpetually tends towards what follows. Corresponding to what exists entirely at the same time, we will have what exists by parts, and what will never exist entire at the same time. The soul’s existence will have to be ceaseless acquiring of existence; if it is to reveal an image of the complete, universal and infinite existence of the soul; that is the reason its existence is able to represent the intelligible existence. [Ennead III,7 (45) 11]

The theory that time is the priority and posteriority of this (earthly) movement, and of this inferior life, is ridiculous in that it would imply on one hand that (the priority and posteriority of this sense-life) are something; and on the other, refusing to recognize as something real a truer movement, which includes both priority and posteriority. It would, indeed, amount to attributing to an inanimate movement the privilege of containing within itself priority with posteriority, that is, time; while refusing it to the movement (of the Soul), whose movement of the universal Sphere is no more than an image. Still it is from the movement (of the Soul) that originally emanated priority and posteriority, because this movement is efficient by itself. By producing all its actualizations it begets succession, and, at the same time that it begets succession, it produces the passing from one actualization to another. [Ennead III,7 (45) 13]

(Some objector might ask) why we reduce the movement of the universe to the movement of the containing Soul, and admit that she is within time, while we exclude from time the (universal) Soul’s movement, which subsists within her, and perpetually passes from one actualization to another? The reason is that above the activity of the Soul there exists nothing but eternity, which shares neither her movement nor her extension. Thus the primary movement (of Intelligence) finds its goal in time, begets it, and by its activity informs its duration. [Ennead III,7 (45) 13]

The Good would thus be reduced to no more than sensation, or the actualization of the sense-life. In this case, to possess it, it is sufficient to perceive irrespective of the content of that perception. Other persons might assert that goodness results from the union of these two things: of the state of the soul, and of the knowledge the soul has of it. If then the Good consist in the perception of some particular state, we shall have to ask how elements which, by themselves, are indifferent could, by their union, constitute the good. Other theories are that the Good consists in some particular state, or in possession of some particular disposition, and conscious enjoyment of the presence of the Good. These would, however, still have to answer the question whether, for good living, it be sufficient that the being knows he possesses this state; or must he know not only that this state is pleasant, but also that it is the Good? If then it be necessary to realize that it is the Good, the matter is one no longer of the function of sensation, but of a faculty higher than the senses. To live well, in this case, it will no longer be sufficient to possess pleasure, but we shall have to know that pleasure is the Good. The cause of happiness will not be the presence of pleasure itself, but the power of judging that pleasure is a good. Now judgment is superior to affection; it is reason or intelligence, while pleasure is only an affection, and what is irrational could not be superior to reason. How would reason forget itself to recognize as superior what is posited in a genus opposed to it? These men who deny happiness to plants, who explain it as some form of sensation, seems to us, in spite of themselves, to be really seeking happiness of a higher nature, and to consider it as this better thing which is found only in a completer life. [Ennead I,4 (46) 2]

Once more it may be objected that it is essential to wisdom to be self-conscious, for happiness resides only in actualized wisdom. This objection would hold if reason and wisdom were incidentals. But if the hypostatic substance of wisdom consist in an essence (being), or rather, in being itself, and if this being do not perish during sleep, nor during unconsciousness, if consequently the activity of being continue to subsist in him; if by its very nature this (being) ceaselessly watch, then the virtuous man must even in this state (of sleep or unconsciousness), continue to exercise his activity. Besides, this activity is ignored only by one part of himself, and not by himself entirely. Thus during the operation of the actualization of growth, the perception of its activity is not by his sensibility transmitted to the rest of the man. If our personality were constituted by this actualization of growth, we would act simultaneously with it; but we are not this actualization, but that of the intellectual principle, and that is why we are active simultaneously with this (divine intellectual activity). [Ennead I,4 (46) 9]

The reason that intelligence remains hidden is just because it is not felt; only by the means of this feeling can this activity be felt; but why should intelligence cease to act (merely because it was not felt)? On the other hand, why could the soul not have turned her activity towards intelligence before having felt or perceived it? Since (for intelligence) thinking and existence are identical, perception must have been preceded by some actualization. It seems impossible for perception to arise except when thought reflects upon itself, and when the principle whose activity constitutes the life of the soul, so to speak, turns backwards, and reflects, as the image of an object placed before a brilliant polished mirror reflects itself therein. Likewise, if the mirror be placed opposite the object, there is no more image; and if the mirror be withdrawn or badly adjusted, there is no more image, though the luminous object continue to act. Likewise, when that faculty of the soul which represents to us the images of discursive reason and of intelligence is in a suitable condition of calm, we get an intuition — that is, a somewhat sensual perception thereof — with the prior knowledge of the activity of the intelligence, and of discursive reason. When, however, this image is troubled by an agitation in the mutual harmony of the organs, the discursive reason, and the intelligence continue to act without any image, and the thought does not reflect in the imagination. Therefore we shall have to insist that thought is accompanied by an image without, nevertheless, being one itself. While we are awake, it often happens to us to perform praiseworthy things, to meditate and to act, without being conscious of these operations at the moment that we produce them. When for instance we read something, we are not necessarily self-conscious that we are reading, especially if our attention be fully centered on what we read. Neither is a brave man who is performing a courageous deed, self-conscious of his bravery. There are many other such cases. It would therefore seem that the consciousness of any deed weakens its energy, and that when the action is alone (without that consciousness) it is in a purer, livelier and more vital condition. When virtuous men are in that condition (of absence of self-consciousness), their life is more intense because it concentrates in itself instead of mingling with feeling. [Ennead I,4 (46) 10]

Man, and specially the virtuous man, is constituted not by the composite of soul and body, as is proved by the soul’s power to separate herself from the body, and to scorn what usually are called “goods.” It would be ridiculous to relate happiness to the animal part of man, since happiness consists in living well, and living well, being an actualization, belongs to the soul, exclusively. Not even does it extend to the entire soul, for happiness does not extend to that part of the soul concerned with growth, having nothing in common with the body, neither as to its size, nor its possible good condition. Nor does it depend on the perfection of the senses, because their development, as well as that of the organs, weights man down, and makes him earthy. Doing good will be made easier by establishing a sort of counter-weight, weakening the body, and taming its motions, so as to show how much the real man differs from the foreign things that (to speak as do the Stoics), surround him. However much the (earthy) common man enjoy beauty, greatness, wealth, command over other men, and earthly luxuries, he should not be envied for the deceptive pleasure he takes in all these advantages. To begin with, the wise man will probably not possess them; but if he do possess them, he will voluntarily diminish them, if he take due care of himself. By voluntary negligence he will weaken and disfigure the advantages of his body. He will abdicate from dignities. While preserving the health of his body, he will not desire to be entirely exempt from disease and sufferings. If he never experienced these evils, he will wish to make a trial of them during his youth. But when he has arrived at old age, he will no longer wish to be troubled either by pains, or pleasures, or anything sad or agreeable that relates to the body; so as not to be forced to give it his attention. He will oppose the sufferings he will have to undergo with a firmness that will never forsake him. He will not believe that his happiness is increased by pleasures, health or rest, nor destroyed nor diminished by their contraries. As the former advantages do not augment his felicity, how could their loss diminish it? [Ennead I,4 (46) 14]

Let us, therefore, more clearly define the Reason (of the universe), and let us demonstrate that it should be what it is. To reach our conclusion more quickly, let us grant the existence of this Reason. This Reason (of the universe) is not pure, absolute Intelligence. Neither is it the pure Soul, but it depends therefrom. It is a ray of light that springs both from Intelligence and from the Soul united to Intelligence. These two principles beget Reason, that is, a rational quiet life. Now all life is an actualization, even that which occupies the lowest rank. But the actualization (which constitutes the life of Reason) is not similar to the actualization of fire. The actualization of the life (peculiar to Reason), even without feeling, is not a blind movement. All things that enjoy the presence of Reason, and which participate therein in any manner soever, immediately receive a rational disposition, that is, a form; for the actualization which constitutes the life (of the Reason) can impart its forms, and for that actualization motion is to form beings. Its movement, like that of a dancer, is, therefore, full of art. A dancer, indeed, gives us the image of that life full of art; it is the art that moves it, because the art itself is its life. All this is said to explain the nature of life, whatever it be. [Ennead III,2 (47) 16]

Does pure Intelligence know itself by contemplating one of its parts by means of another part? Then one part will be the subject, and another part will be the object of contemplation; intelligence will not know itself. It may be objected that if intelligence be a whole composed of absolutely similar parts, so that the subject and the object of contemplation will not differ from each other; then, by the virtue of this similitude, on seeing one of its parts with which it is identical, intelligence will see itself; for, in this case, the subject does not differ from the object. To begin with, it is absurd to suppose that intelligence is divided into several parts. How, indeed, would such a division be carried out? Not by chance, surely. Who will carry it out? Will it be the subject or object? Then, how would the subject know itself if, in contemplation, it located itself in the object, since contemplation does not belong to that which is the object? Will it know itself as object rather than as subject? In that case it will not know itself completely and in its totality (as subject and object); for what it sees is the object, and not the subject of contemplation; it sees not itself, but another. In order to attain complete knowledge of itself it will, besides, have to see itself as subject; now, if it see itself as subject, it will, at the same time, have to see the contemplated things. But is it the (Stoic) “types” (or impressions) of things, or the things themselves, that are contained in the actualization of contemplation? If it be these impressions, we do not possess the things themselves. If we do possess these things, it is not because we separate ourselves (into subject and object). Before dividing ourselves in this way, we already saw and possessed these things. Consequently, contemplation must be identical with that which is contemplated, and intelligence must be identical with the intelligible. Without this identity, we will never possess the truth. Instead of possessing realities, we will never possess any more than their impressions, which will differ from the realities; consequently, this will not be the truth. Truth, therefore, must not differ from its object; it must be what it asserts. [Ennead V,3 (49) 5]

On one hand, therefore, intelligence, and on the other the intelligible and existence form but one and the same thing, namely, the primary existence and primary Intelligence, which possesses realities, or rather, which is identical with them. But if the thought-object and the thought together form but a single entity, how will the thinking object thus be able to think itself? Evidently thought will embrace the intelligible, or will be identical therewith; but we still do not see how intelligence is to think itself. Here we are: thought and the intelligible fuse into one because the intelligible is an actualization and not a simple power; because life is neither alien nor incidental to it; because thought is not an accident for it, as it would be for a brute body, as for instance, for a stone; and, finally, because the intelligible is primary “being.” Now, if the intelligible be an actualization, it is the primary actualization, the most perfect thought, or, “substantial thought.” Now, as this thought is supremely true, as it is primary Thought, as it possesses existence in the highest degree, it is primary Intelligence. It is not, therefore, mere potential intelligence; there is no need to distinguish within it the potentiality from the actualization of thought; otherwise, its substantiality would be merely potential. Now since intelligence is an actualization, and as its “being” also is an actualization, it must fuse with its actualization. But existence and the intelligible also fuse with their actualization. Therefore intelligence, the intelligible, and thought will form but one and the same entity. Since the thought of the intelligible is the intelligible, and as the intelligible is intelligence, intelligence will thus think itself. Intelligence will think, by the actualization of the thought to which it is identical, the intelligible to which it also is identical. It will think itself, so far as it is thought; and in so far as it is the intelligible which it thinks by the thought to which it is identical. [Ennead V,3 (49) 5]

Reason, therefore, demonstrates that there is a principle which must essentially know itself. But this self-consciousness is more perfect in intelligence than in the soul. The soul knows herself in so far as she knows that she depends on another power; while intelligence, by merely turning towards itself, naturally cognizes its existence and “being.” By contemplating realities, it contemplates itself; this contemplation is an actualization, and this actualization is intelligence; for intelligence and thought form but a single entity. The entire intelligence sees itself entire, instead of seeing one of its parts by another of its parts. Is it in the nature of intelligence, such as reason conceives of it, to produce within us a simple conviction? No. Intelligence necessarily implies (certitude), and not mere persuasion; for necessity is characteristic of intelligence, while persuasion is characteristic of the soul. Here below, it is true, we rather seek to be persuaded, than to see truth by pure Intelligence. When we were in the superior region, satisfied with intelligence, we used to think, and to contemplate the intelligible, reducing everything to unity. It was Intelligence which thought and spoke about itself; the soul rested, and allowed Intelligence free scope to act. But since we have descended here below, we seek to produce persuasion in the soul, because we wish to contemplate the model in its image. [Ennead V,3 (49) 6]

It may be objected that the Intelligence contemplates the divinity. If, however, it be granted, that the Intelligence knows the divinity, one is thereby forced to admit that it also knows itself; for it will know what it derives from the divinity, what it has received from Him, and what it still may hope to receive from Him. By knowing this, it will know itself, since it is one of the entities given by the divinity; or rather, since it is all that is given by the divinity. If then, it know the divinity, it knows also the powers of the divinity, it knows that itself proceeds from the divinity, and that itself derives its powers from the divinity. If Intelligence cannot have a clear intuition of the divinity, because the subject and object of an intuition must be the same, this will turn out to be a reason why Intelligence will know itself, and will see itself, since seeing is being what is seen. What else indeed could we attribute to Intelligence? Rest, for instance? For Intelligence, rest does not consist in being removed from itself, but rather to act without being disturbed by anything that is alien. The things that are not troubled by anything alien need only to produce their own actualization, especially when they are in actualization, and not merely potential. That which is in actualization, and which cannot be in actualization for anything foreign, must be in actualization for itself. When thinking itself, Intelligence remains turned towards itself, referring its actualization to itself. If anything proceed from it, it is precisely because it remains turned towards itself that it remains in itself. It had, indeed, to apply itself to itself, before applying itself to anything else, or producing something else that resembled it; thus fire must first be fire in itself, and be fire in actualization, in order later to impart some traces of its nature to other things. Intelligence, in itself, therefore, is an actualization. The soul, on turning herself towards Intelligence, remains within herself; on issuing from Intelligence, the soul turns towards external things. On turning towards Intelligence, she becomes similar to the power from which she proceeds; on issuing from Intelligence, she becomes different from herself. Nevertheless, she still preserves some resemblance to Intelligence, both in her activity and productiveness. When active, the soul still contemplates Intelligence; when productive, the soul produces forms, which resemble distant thoughts, and are traces of thought and Intelligence, traces that conform to their archetype; and which reveal a faithful imitation thereof, or which, at least, still preserve a weakened image thereof, even if they do occupy only the last rank of beings. [Ennead V,3 (49) 7]

What qualities does Intelligence display in the intelligible world? What qualities does it discover in itself by contemplation? To begin with, we must not form of Intelligence a conception showing a figure, or colors, like bodies. Intelligence existed before bodies. The “seminal reasons” which produce figure and color are not identical with them; for “seminal reasons” are invisible. So much the more are intelligible entities invisible; their nature is identical with that of the principles in which they reside, just as “seminal reasons” are identical with the soul that contains them. But the soul does not see the entities she contains, because she has not begotten them; even she herself, just like the “reasons,” is no more than an image (of Intelligence). The principle from which she comes possesses an evident existence, that is genuine, and primary; consequently, that principle exists of and in itself. But this image (which is in the soul) is not even permanent unless it belong to something else, and reside therein. Indeed, the characteristic of an image is that it resides in something else, since it belongs to something else, unless it remain attached to its principle. Consequently, this image does not contemplate, because it does not possess a light that is sufficient; and even if it should contemplate, as it finds its perfection in something else, it would be contemplating something else, instead of contemplating itself. The same case does not obtain in Intelligence; there the contemplated entity and contemplation co-exist, and are identical. Who is it, therefore, that declares the nature of the intelligible? The power that contemplates it, namely, Intelligence itself. Here below our eyes see the light because our vision itself is light, or rather because it is united to light; for it is the colors that our vision beholds. On the contrary, Intelligence does not see through something else, but through itself, because what it sees is not outside of itself. It sees a light with another light, and not by another light; it, is therefore, a light that sees another; and, consequently, it sees itself. This light, on shining in the soul, illuminates her; that is, intellectualizes her; assimilates her to the superior light (namely, in Intelligence). If, by the ray with which this light enlightens the soul, we judge of the nature of this light and conceive of it as still greater, more beautiful, and more brilliant, we will indeed be approaching Intelligence and the intelligible world; for, by enlightening the soul, Intelligence imparts to her a clearer life. This life is not generative, because Intelligence converts the soul towards Intelligence; and, instead of allowing the soul to divide, causes the soul to love the splendor with which she is shining. Neither is this life one of the senses, for though the senses apply themselves to what is exterior, they do not, on that account, learn anything beyond (themselves). He who sees that superior light of the verities sees much better things that are visible, though in a different manner. It remains, therefore, that the Intelligence imparts to the soul the intellectual life, which is a trace of her own life; for Intelligence possesses the realities. It is in the life and the actualization which are characteristic of Intelligence that here consists the primary Light, which from the beginning, illumines itself, which reflects on itself, because it is simultaneously enlightener and enlightened; it is also the true intelligible entity, because it is also at the same time thinker and thought. It sees itself by itself, without having need of anything else; it sees itself in an absolute manner, because, within it, the known is identical with the knower. It is not otherwise in us; it is by Intelligence that we know intelligence. Otherwise, how could we speak of it? How could we say that it was capable of clearly grasping itself, and that, by it, we understand ourselves? How could we, by these reasonings, to Intelligence reduce our soul which recognizes that it is the image of Intelligence, which considers its life a faithful imitation of the life of Intelligence, which thinks that, when it thinks, it assumes an intellectual and divine form? Should one wish to know which is this Intelligence that is perfect, universal and primary, which knows itself essentially, the soul has to be reduced to Intelligence; or, at least, the soul has to recognize that the actualization by which the soul conceives the entities of which the soul has the reminiscence is derived from Intelligence. Only by placing herself in that condition, does the soul become able to demonstrate that inasmuch as she is the image of Intelligence she, the soul, can by herself, see it; that is, by those of her powers which most exactly resemble Intelligence (namely, by pure thought); which resembles Intelligence in the degree that a part of the soul can be assimilated to it. [Ennead V,3 (49) 8]

If one should find himself unable to rise immediately to pure thought, which is the highest, or first, part of the soul, he may begin by opinion, and from it rise to Intelligence. If even opinion be out of the reach of his ability, he may begin with sensation, which already represents general forms; for sensation which contains the forms potentially may possess them even in actualization. If, on the contrary, the best he can do is to descend, let him descend to the generative power, and to the things it produces; then, from the last forms, one may rise again to the higher forms, and so on to the primary forms. [Ennead V,3 (49) 9]

It may be objected, that nothing would hinder the existence of manifoldness in the actualization of the First, so long as the “being,” or nature, remain unitary. That principle would not be rendered composite by any number of actualizations. This is not the case for two reasons. Either these actualizations are distinct from its nature (“being”), and the First would pass from potentiality to actuality; in which case, without doubt, the First is not manifold, but His nature would not become perfect without actualization. Or the nature (“being”) is, within Him identical to His actualization; in which case, as the actualization is manifold, the nature would be such also. Now we do indeed grant that Intelligence is manifold, since it thinks itself; but we could not grant that the Principle of all things should also be manifold. Unity must exist before the manifold, the reason of whose existence is found in unity; for unity precedes all number. It may be objected that this is true enough for numbers which follow unity, because they are composite; but what is the need of a unitary principle from which manifoldness should proceed when referring (not to numerals, but) to beings? This need is that, without the One, all things would be in a dispersed condition, and their combinations would be no more than a chaos. [Ennead V,3 (49) 12]

Another objection is, that from an intelligence that is simple, manifold actualizations can surely proceed. This then admits the existence of something simple before the actualizations. Later, as these actualizations become permanent, they form hypostatic forms of existence. Being such, they will have to differ from the Principle from which they proceed, since the Principle remains simple, and that which is born of it must in itself be manifold, and be dependent thereon. Even if these actualizations exist only because the Principle acted a single time, this already constitutes manifoldness. Though these actualizations be the first ones, if they constitute second-rank (nature), the first rank will belong to the Principle that precedes these actualizations; this Principle abides in itself, while these actualizations constitute that which is of second rank, and is composed of actualizations. The First differs from the actualizations He begets, because He begets them without activity; otherwise, Intelligence would not be the first actualization. Nor should we think that the One first desired to beget Intelligence, and later begat it, so that this desire was an intermediary between the generating principle and the generated entity. The One could not have desired anything; for if He had desired anything, He would have been imperfect, since He would not yet have possessed what He desired. Nor could we suppose that the One lacked anything; for there was nothing towards which He could have moved. Therefore, the hypostatic form of existence which is beneath Him received existence from Him, without ceasing to persist in its own condition. Therefore, if there is to be a hypostatic form of existence beneath Him He must have remained within Himself in perfect tranquility; otherwise, He would have initiated movement; and we would have to conceive of a movement before the first movement, a thought before the first thought, and its first actualization would be imperfect, consisting in no more than a mere tendency. But towards what can the first actualization of the One tend, and attain, if, according to the dictates of reason, we conceive of that actualization originating from Him as light emanates from the sun? This actualization, therefore, will have to be considered as a light that embraces the whole intelligible world; at the summit of which we shall have to posit, and over whose throne we shall have to conceive the rule of the immovable One, without separating Him from the Light that radiates from Him. Otherwise, above this Light we would have to posit another one, which, while remaining immovable, should enlighten the intelligible. Indeed the actualization that emanates from the One, without being separated from Him, nevertheless, differs from Him. Neither is its nature non-essential, or blind; it, therefore, contemplates itself, and knows itself; it is, consequently, the first knowing principle. As the One is above Intelligence, it is also above consciousness; as it needs nothing, neither has it any need of knowing anything. Cognition (or, consciousness), therefore, belongs only to the second-rank nature. Consciousness is only an individual unity, while the One is absolute unity; indeed individual unity is not absolute Unity, because the absolute is (or, “in and for itself”), precedes the (“somehow determined,” or) individual. [Ennead V,3 (49) 12]

We have seen that existence is “all these things;” now, what are they? All those of which the One is the principle. But how can the One be the principle of all things? Because the One preserves their existence while effecting the individuality of each of them. Is it also because He gives them existence? And if so, does He do so by possessing them? In this case, the One would be manifold. No, it is by containing them without any distinction yet having arisen among them. On the contrary, in the second principle they are distinguished by reason; that is, they are logically distinguished, because this second principle is an actualization, while the first Principle is the power-potentiality of all things; not in the sense in which we say that matter is potential in that it receives, or suffers, but in the opposite sense that the One produces. How then can the One produce what it does not possess, since unity produces that neither by chance nor by reflection? We have already said that what proceeds from unity must differ from it; and, consequently, cannot be absolutely one; that it must be duality, and, consequently, multitude, since it will contain (the categories, such as) identity, and difference, quality, and so forth. We have demonstrated that that which is born of the One is not absolutely one. It now remains for us to inquire whether it will be manifold, such as it is seen to be in what proceeds from the One. We shall also have to consider why it necessarily proceeds from the One. [Ennead V,3 (49) 15]

The power which participates in Intelligence (the universal Soul) does not participate in it in a manner such as to be equal to it, but only in the measure of her ability to participate therein. She is the first actualization of Intelligence, the first being that Intelligence, though remaining within itself, begets. She directs her whole activity towards supreme Intelligence, and lives exclusively thereby. Moving from outside Intelligence, and around it, according to the laws of harmony, the universal Soul fixes her glance upon it. By contemplation penetrating into its inmost depths, through Intelligence she sees the divinity Himself. Such is the nature of the serene and blissful existence of the divinities, a life where evil has no place. [Ennead I,8 (51) 2]